SVCT Scores With a Classic
by Paul Myrvold

You Can’t Take It with You
South Valley Civic Theater

It is always a satisfying delight when a community theatre takes on a topnotch script and gets it just right as South Valley Civic Theatre has done with the Kaufman and Hart comedy You Can’t Take It with You. Good to excellent casting (including a little unusual color blind choices), good, well-paced direction, a wonderful set and accurate period costumes combined with some sterling performances give a very pleasant evening of laughs based on character and situation.

Set in the Depression-era Upper West Side of New York City, Grandpa Martin Vanderhof (Billy Tindall), a man who walked out on his job twenty-five years previously, heads a family of very odd balls. His daughter Penny (Lisa Quijano) left off painting and took up playwriting when a typewriter got delivered to the house by mistake. Her husband Paul (Tom Hepner) makes fireworks in the basement with Mr. De Pinna (Tom Engebretson), an iceman who made a delivery and just stayed. Paul and Penny’s daughter Essie (Alika Spencer) makes candy and flitters about practicing ballet under the tutelage of Russian émigré Boris Kolenkov (an exuberant Scott Lynch) while her husband Ed (Scott Valkenaar) plays the xylophone when he is not setting type and printing whatever comes to his mind. The maid, Rheba and her boyfriend Donald (written black but humorously well played by Christine McElroy and Rob “I” who are not black but retain the dialect as written) keep the whole operation running.

The “normal” daughter Alice (Jennifer Ellington) who has a job and is love with her boss’s son Tony Kirby (Jonathan Bass) comes into conflict when she invites the well-to-do Kirby family for dinner. Hilarity ensues.

A delightfully zany, childlike Alika Spencer sets the tone of the show at first curtain rise with jetes, pliés and entrechats, all a bit shaky. She hilariously ends every xylophone-accompanied number with a fluttering dying swan.

Jon Reed as Tony Kirby’s father makes an ideal uptight Wall Street tycoon, the perfect antithesis to Grandpa Vanderhof, and Julie Masterson as his wife reveals her own set of demons as the dinner party devolves into chaos.

With understated ease Billy Tindall as Grandpa Vanderhof anchors the show, the calm eye of swirling storm of activity. One of his most impressive feats was casually flipping a dart into the bull’s eye as he happened to pass a target not once, but twice.

As various government types Kel Whisner, Jon Szczepaniak and Mauricio Quijano were suitably fedoraed and stern and Robin Harris collapses on the couch in an alcoholic stupor as a tippling actress.

You Can’t Take It with You runs through April 4 at the Morgan Hill Community Playhouse.

Inside La Mancha

As I write this PacRep’s Man of La Mancha is two weeks from opening night. The cast is off book and now in the process of refining the movements and moments that will bring out the pure gold of the text and score. Lydia Lyons is becoming a superb Aldonza/Dulcinea. With stunning good looks and a powerhouse of a voice that easily handles her rangy, passionate songs, she has the acting chops to reveal Don Quixote’s ideal woman, Dulcinea, that pulses beneath the rough exterior of the ill-used Aldonza. Mike Baker brings  warmth to the role of Quixote’s simple sidekick Sancho Panza, a character of humor and devotion.

Shoehorning the expansive musical into the confines of a hundred seat theatre in the round is no small task and Ken Kelleher, one the keenest and most observant directors I have worked with, solves the many problems with his great insight into the play and his knowledge and experience in the space. I look forward to a successful run. Man of La Mancha opens at Pacific Repertory Theatre’s Circle Theatre in Carmel with previews April 2nd and 3rd and a press opening on the April 4 with a run continuing through April 26.

A Taste of Teatro

“A Taste of Teatro,” a fundraising event benefiting El Teatro Campesino’s “A Season of All Seasons 2009” lights up the Playhouse in San Juan Bautista Saturday, April 4. The doors will open at 6:00pm with no host bar available. The reception and silent auction starts at 6:30, the “Welcome” is at 8:00 and the “Sneak Preview” of the 2009 season begins at 8:30 with excerpts from Sam Burguesa and the Pixie Chicks, Corridos Remix, Dia de los Muertos Celebration and La Pastorela. Tickets are $44 per person without a table or a table for 4 at $200. Come support El Teatro Campesino, one of America’s great theatre companies.

Ascención Cantata
Gavilan College Theater

Ascención, a dramatic ethno-historical cantata, honors the life and spirit of Ascención Solórsano de Cervantes (1854-1930), the last of the California Amah-Mutsun (San Juan) tribal band to retain complete linguistic and cultural fluency of her people. Ascención is divided into 14 scenes with one intermission. This two-hour multi-media work incorporates pre-recorded sound effects/music (recordings of bells and choir), projected images, light effects, spatial sound effects and live solo performances with Helene Joseph-Weil, mezzo-soprano and Hatem Nadim, piano.

The cantata seeks to translate artistically examples of Ascención Solórsano’s singular knowledge of Amah-Mutsun cultural history, including the enslavement and genocide of her people under Spanish, Mexican and American governments, as well as pre-contact tribal creation stories, daily life, basketry and menus of indigenous foods. The project intends to bring the revered California Indian woman, known as The Saint of Gilroy for her care of the sick and dying, to wider public attention through an original, artistic reinterpretation.

The performance is Saturday, April 4 at 7:00pm in the Gavilan College Theater. General Admission $15; Students & Seniors $10; Students with Gavilan ASB $7. Tickets will be sold at the door and the Gavilan Bookstore.

Noted Openings and Continuing Shows…

Opera San José revives the ever popular, ever passionate Carmen by Georges Bizet April 1 – 13 at the California Theatre in Downtown San Jose…San Benito Stage Company presents Aladdin, Jr., a youth version of that old tale from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights at the Granada Theatre in Hollister May 1 – 10…San Jose Stage Company offers up a tribute to a legendary country singer with Always…Patsy Cline April 1 – 26…The World Theater at CSU Monterey Bay will host a performance by Lula Washington Dance Theatre on Thursday, April 9 at 7:30pm…Lastly, check out the many delights presented at Carmel’s beautiful Sunset Center at www.sunsetcenter.org.

As always, check OnStage for more information on show and auditions.

	~Paul Myrvold has been a member of actors equity since 1972. He is currently performing in My Fair Lady at the Western Stage in Salinas. Send your theatre information to Paul at outabout@garlic.com