Figaro Wraps Up Berkeley Rep’s 40th Season With Fireworks

Classic stays current in ever-changing times, but its effect can be ambivalent. Spectators either flood theatre floor craving the familiar, or flee fearing boredom. My posse of theatre lovers admittedly did not expect anything extraordinary from “The Miser,” presented by Berkeley Rep and Theatre de la Jeune Lune two years ago, but later regarded the production as “the best, the most memorable, the funniest ever seen.” Go figure. This time, Steven Epp (The Miser, now Old Figaro) and Dominique Serrand (Old Count Almaviva) adapted Beaumarchais’ classic play and Mozart’s classic opera for their own audacious “Figaro,” rich with contemporary references and presented in laconic yet expressive multimedia. The cast includes amazing opera singers who know their drama, like Bradley Greenwald (Young Count) and Momoko Tanno (Susanna). The core of the story, though, is delivered by twin gems—Christina Baldwin (Cherubino) and Jennifer Baldwin-Peden (Countess). The Countess, a victim of her possessive cheater of a husband, surrenders to temptation and, a lifetime later, remembers her Cherubino—the only straightforward character in the play, who openly demands love and goes for it. The couple shines in the most moving and profoundly poetic mourning scene. “We are not twins,” said Baldwin-Peden after the show, “although our parents treated us like twins while we were growing up with six brothers,” (and what could be more strengthening to a female character). As Cherubino, delicate Baldwin looks taller, stronger, moves and acts with skilled precision in her challenging role, and the chemistry between the two characters exceeds sisterly love in their superb acting and marvelous singing. A big part of the show’s success is live music from the Seventh Avenue String Quartet, not to mention the sets and projections designed by Serrand, and costumes, created by Sonya Berlovitz. 20 special events were programmed by Berkeley Rep for this production, which runs through June 8. Berkeley Rep’s book club at 6:30 PM on May 9. Please read The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert before attending, and RSVP at 510.647.2916 or mailto:bookclub@berkeleyrep.org.Page to Stage on May 19 at 7:00 PM. David Gockley of the San Francisco Opera interviews Epp and Serrand for this free event. Donors at the Supporter level and above will have an exclusive reception with the artists.
Free 30-minute docent presentations about the show every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:00 PM Post-play discussions moderated by theatre professionals follow the 8:00 PM shows on May 15, May 27, and May 30. Berkeley Rep has also launched a new series of at 7:00 PM May 2: wines from Raymond Vineyards; May 3: champagne from Domaine Carneros; May 10: confections from Charles Chocolates; May 16: Hefeweizen from Pyramid Breweries;
May 17: organic produce from the Berkeley Farmers’ Market; May 23: small-batch spirits from Craft Distillers; May 24: organic produce from the Berkeley Farmers’ Market; May 31: organic produce from the Berkeley Farmers’ Market. The Roda Theatre is located at 2015 Addison Street. The box office is at 2025 Addison Street. For tickets or information, call 510.647.2949 or toll-free at 888-4-BRT-Tix – or berkeleyrep.org.

A.C.T.'s The Government Inspector Closes to Full House

While leaving the Geary Theater at the end of a successful run of Gogol’s timeless masterpiece, one could overhear some viewers’ remarks like, “It could have been a serious play, should they consider those poor peasants and the police brutality…” Tz-tz-tz, one would think at that. As always, a uniquely Russian genius has been misunderstood. Dear enlightened theatergoers, I have a revelation to make: there were too many serious writers trying to approach the abyss of moral and physical abuse pertinent to the very existence of Mother Russia. Do you read their tomes, can you sit through their endless monologues? What happened to all of them, those who tried to shed some light on the darkest collective soul in the world? Most went through jails, madhouses, exile. Some were killed, some killed themselves. Some still live in CliffsNotes, some are gone and forgotten. Nikolai Gogol, on the other hand, spent most of his short life running away from his Motherland, and pursuing happiness elsewhere, yet he managed to write “an encyclopedia of Russian life”—“Dead Souls.” Almost two centuries later, it is still the funniest, the cleverest, the wittiest read of the day. (Don’t take my word for it, go get the full text in your local library and see for yourself). You are still filling the audience and laugh to tears to his “Revizor” (The Government Inspector), and therefore you care. The genius of Gogol was in that he realized that too much suffering makes humans numb, and the absurdity of stupid, torturous, unfair, painful life could only be addressed through satire. He delivered the message by his own unique means, and the message still resounds. (Not that the messenger ended up a happy camper, no… But that’s another story). The best thing about the A.C.T.’s production is casting, with Gregory Wallace—funny, nuanced, and genuine in the role of Khlestakov, and Graham Beckel (The Mayor) hapless, headless, yet amusingly authoritative by pure means of power mongering. Translated and adapted by Alistair Beaton, the show has been directed by the A.C.T.’s Artistic Director, Carey Perloff. Coming up at A.C.T.: “Curse of the Starving Class" by Sam Shepard, directed by Peter DuBios, April 25-May 25. Box office is located at 405 Geary St., SF. 415-749-2228.

Back from China

Photos by Yuri Krasov. Grand Canal in Suzhou. Shanghai skyline.

The Biggest Chinatown on Earth

So, you like big cities. Arriving Beijing… They don’t come any bigger than this. Feeling lucky, punk? It takes three hours to cross the five circular roads of the city, and its residents can never fully explore their own town. The new airport terminal—all steel, glass and lights—built just days ago, extends beyond the horizon, and probably ends somewhere in a different city. Crawling through a six-story-high hotel entrance, trotting across the football-field lobby, you are suddenly in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movie, or, better yet, in an ant farm, among your tourist peers from California, all dragging our ant luggage (you carry your own, no bell boys). Chairman Mao’s gaze follows you across the largest in the world Tian An Men Square. Following the millennia-old imperial tradition, making people feel like ants proven time and again useful for the state. Communists did not invent “your life is but a tiny speck of dust in our country’s grandiose construction” model, they just learned how to use it fast. From a hotel window on a 36th floor you see an after-theatre crowd pulsating on Bong Chang An Avenue downstairs. The same crowd is still whirling there in an hour, in two, in three. Gradually, it dawns on you that there is no theatre there—it’s just the hourly reality of never ever receding crowd. “We stay glued to each other,” warned our lovely tour guide, Anna. “You unglue, and you are lost, maybe, forever.” Of course, we unglued. Were we sorry for that! Once unglued, there is no way you can look around and see your tour group anywhere ahead or behind. All you see is a crowd of strangers. Some in semi-chaotic movement around you, some in well-organized groups of Chinese tourists—all in red or orange caps, all shouting angry “cheese” (or something like it) in front of their cameramen, all looking at you with restrained curiosity. “Big nose, blue eyes, that’s how you are being called here,” explained our Shanghai guide, Michelle, who admittedly picked up her name from a dictionary just for our group. She shared insider jokes, street smarts, and bits of reality with us, like strange facts that people from Shanghai (all 16 mil. of them) dislike out-of-towners (just 4 mil. of those), consider Beijing residents floozies, and enjoy a 10-minute grace period at the start of each workday just to use an elevator. (You better believe it. Office buildings are huge, dozens of speedy elevators in each of them are not enough to carry up loads of disciplined workers all at the same time). Shanghai is so big, it has its own Chinatown. Construction is everywhere. Welding sparkles way into the wee hours. Shanghai skyline is beautiful beyond belief with new, newer, newest, and still in progress skyscrapers, bridges, and multi-layered highway overpasses. You are in Fifth Element now! Far below, at the base of the ant farm, garbage piles, weeds, and dirt surround gray tenements, spiked with laundry, over-crawling with tiny gray people. Tap water is not safe to drink. Not in a restaurant, not in a posh hotel. Future wars will be for water, not oil. Street food looks tempting, but you don’t dare, and tourist food is mixed with something as dark, harsh and ill effective as machine oil, so you mostly eat and run, run, run, or get nauseated and don’t eat at all. Next to imperial palaces with their red, blue, and golden tiles, next to poetic pagodas, half-concealed by weeping willows and blossoming peach trees, next to serene Buddhist temples and miraculous gardens, there are overcrowded unsanitary public restrooms, crazy star-shaped traffic jams, disabled panhandlers, and “hello people:” hello, hello, Gucci bags, Rolex watch! You wake at six, you engage on a jaw-dropping journey through China’s endless wonders, you fall asleep late at night for a couple of hours to dream of dungeons and dragons, and to wake up with a stomach flu, and you know that there will be winners and there will be losers in this human race. And that’s the way the fortune cookie crumbles. Photo by Yuri Krasov. Forbidden City is not that forbidden any more.