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- Written by: Mendocino College
NORTH COAST, Calif. — The Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department will present the 18th annual Festival of New Plays on from Thursday, May 15, to Friday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the College’s Little Theatre on the Ukiah campus.
The festival is a beloved Ukiah theatre tradition. This year's festival features eight new plays by local playwrights. Each play is approximately 10 minutes long and will be presented at each performance.
The plays were selected from an impressive collection of 86 scripts submitted by writers from throughout Mendocino and other nearby counties.
The play directors are students in the Mendocino College theatrical directing class taught by Professor Reid Edelman.
Professor and professional writer Jody German is the festival dramaturge, working with playwrights to develop their scripts.
Gehrman and Edelman launched the festival over 18 years ago, and with Edelman’s upcoming retirement after 25 years at Mendocino College, this year’s festival will be particularly special.
Festival actors include students in the college’s conservatory cohort group, as well as other local students and community members. The short plays cover a wide range of topics and performance styles.
The festival features original scenery, props, costumes and lighting under the direction of college professor of Technical Theatre Steve Decker and Theatre Technician David Wolf.
“This annual festival is one of the college theatre program’s most exciting projects, and we are delighted to provide this creative forum for our community,” said Edelman.
This year’s festival opens with Erin Gardiner’s "Full Moon-New Moon.”
In this play, a young college student walks in to discover her grandmother in the process of writing her eulogy.
The conversation that follows is full of honesty, tenderness and humor. The special bond between the two allows them to gently navigate the topic of death and acceptance of inevitable loss.
The cast, directed by Phaedra Swearengin, features Virginia Hanley, Heidi Peterman and Kristin Hills.
Next, “Upcycle” by Bethany Keech and directed by Heidi Peterman, is a memory-like play which touches on the true but dark reality of emotionally abusive relationships.
In this play, we follow a young woman named Chloe, played by Megan Regan, as she heals, and discovers that what is meant for her will find her in the end. The play also features Aria Silveira, Sesilia Rios, Eli Fowler and Lalo Torres.
In Joni McLeod’s adorably funny “If She Wanted To, She Would,” three politely intrusive baristas at "Espresso Yourself" Cafe help Lyra, a patron wanting only to read her books in silence, realize the truth of her current "relationship."
Directed by Aria Eva Silveira, and performed by local actors Kayla Harrison, Joe Swearengin, Skyler Ito-Lutz, Elizabeth Leach, and Eduardo (Lalo) Torres.
Next, “Mother Daughter” by Kyle Whiterock, is a poignant coming of age love story between a proud Mother, who is seeing her baby girl go off to college, and her trepidatious Daughter, who is not so sure she is ready to spread her wings and fly just yet.
The all-Native America ensemble, under the direction of TinaMarie Spagnolo, includes Kelly Alvarez and Sesilia Rios.
Stan Kaplan’s play “Cocktail Hour in Transylvania,” directed by Percival Knutson, explores the complexities of our current health care system. The cast features Eli Fowler, Joe Swearengin, Aria Eva Silveira and Elizabeth Leach.
Kaplan’s title reflects the grim recognition that without medical insurance, those needing to go to the hospital may face the choice of losing everything or facing death. For the most vulnerable, debt collectors may appear as bloodsucking vampires.
Next, John Pegan is directing Bill Stafford’s play “Explicit Language,” which explores the questions of friendship, loss, grief, and what it means to move on — or not. Two friends, Dennis — played by Jim Williams and Bob — played by Rick Williams, try to adjust to life and find answers, after the death of their spouses.
In her comedy “Post Toast,” playwright Audrey Wells bakes up a world of laughter with her director Tom Simons. Postman Bob, played by Eduardo “Lalo” Torres, goes on a wild ride after receiving a questionable “Special Delivery” from the colorful senior Mrs. L’Aura, played by Sharon Gorman.
Finally, the evening concludes with “Two Feet! Two Feet!” This humorous yet disturbingly timely play by Michael Riedell imagines a world in which one’s personal choices and opinions are strictly controlled, in which thinking for oneself could be against the law. Directed by Maria Monti, the cast includes Jasmine Norris, Kayla Harrison, Kristin Hills, Esteban Orozco, and Virginia Hanley.
Tickets are available in Ukiah at the Mendocino Book Co. and online at www.ArtsMendocino.org and at the door as available. This production is recommended for ages 13 and up. Admission is $10.
The performance on Thursday, May 15, is a ”pay what you wish” preview. Audience members are encouraged to purchase tickets early.
For more information, call Reid Edelman at 707-468-3172.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
‘THE ACCOUNTANT 2’ RATED R
“The Accountant 2” is nearly a decade removed from its origin story. Understanding Ben Affleck’s titular role of Christian Wolff requires knowing about his original position of a CPA working out of an Illinois strip mall with a side job befitting an assassin.
In the public realm, Wolff exhibited a tense, rigid behavior, possessed of an inability for normal social interactions, but nevertheless demonstrated a brilliance in mathematics and solving complex puzzles.
The other side of Wolff’s skills, despite his autism or Rain Man-like demeanor, was being wired as a hardnosed killing machine due to childhood training from his militaristic father.
Years later in this sequel, Wolff maintains his low-key demeanor and acts about as socially awkward as Tony Shalhoub’s detective Adrian Monk, albeit prone to violent conduct, while still acting as an accountant for unsavory characters.
The action swiftly kicks in when J.K. Simmons’ Ray King, now a private eye retired from the Treasury Department, is encountered by a blonde female assassin (Daniella Pineda) at a low-rent nightclub.
Gun-toting thugs show up and chaos ensues. Even though taking out some of the bad guys, Ray does not get far. His former assistant, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), discovers that Ray has scrawled “Find the accountant” on his arm.
Ray had been working on a case of a disappearing immigrant family, and Marybeth is tasked to pick up the trail. Having a past with the accountant, she’s not too thrilled having to connect again with the erratic and lethal Wolff.
Even if emotionally stunted, Wolff delivers some humor with his inability to read social cues or to interact in a way that is not clumsy, an amusing example of that is how ineptly he deals with a parade of single women at a speed dating seminar.
Drawn into the investigation of Ray’s death, Wolff must engage his estranged brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal), also an assassin for hire, to leave Berlin and come to the squalid underbelly of Los Angeles.
Apart from the last nine years, the brothers reconnect by sharing beers and conversation on top of Wolff’s Airstream trailer and at a honky-tonk dive bar where Wolff loosens up after unexpectedly joining a country line dance with an attractive cowgirl.
Leading up to the violent, climactic showdown south of the border, Wolff and Braxton take on a righteous mission to hunt down sex traffickers who had a nefarious plan involving a busload of young children, resulting in all hell breaking loose in a blaze of gunfire.
The plot often feels scattershot but the real joy of “The Accountant 2” is the relationship between Wolff and Braxton, which at times is fraught with tension because they are opposites, but otherwise their odd buddy chemistry carries the day.
“The Accountant 2” delivers a good action thriller with the dynamic partnership of siblings prone to violence, who turn out to be the good guys dispatching truly horrible villains.
THE LAST WORD ON THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL
This column submits to a fact-check in relation to what was previously reported about the Marx Brothers. Groucho, Chico, and Harpo are most familiar as the siblings that appeared in all their films.
The youngest of the five brothers were Gummo and Zeppo, with the latter the only one born in the 20th century. This column erroneously reported that only Zeppo never appeared in any of the films, when it was Gummo who performed only in the vaudeville acts and none of the movies.
“Animal Crackers,” which Groucho described as his favorite, was a pre-Code comedy from 1930 that had to be cut for re-release in 1936. The original was thought to be lost, and decades later, a print was found in the British Film Institute and finally screened in 2016.
It was a treat then for the TCM festival to screen “Animal Crackers,” which can only be described as typical Marx Brothers mayhem when a priceless painting vanished during a party honoring Groucho’s explorer Captain Spaulding.
“Animal Crackers” is also one of the five films in which Zeppo Marx played the straight man, while everyone else gleefully embraced the Marx Brothers’ brand of anarchic humor.
Two partners in the film business best known for unusual biopics, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, introduced the film, with Larry calling it the “Holy Grail for Marx Brothers addicts.”
Scott relayed a humorous story of his childhood admiration for Groucho, and how during the Seventies a special screening of “Animal Crackers” occurred in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood, home of UCLA.
Students from the nearby campus showed up in droves to get a glimpse of Groucho, causing mayhem when they tossed boxes of Animal Crackers in the air. Meanwhile, Scott said that he and his father managed by subterfuge to get into the screening and sat behind the film’s director.
A lesson learned from the TCM festival is the need to catch up on all Marx Brothers films. So far, “Room Service” and “Duck Soup” are personal favorites.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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- Written by: Debra Fredrickson
LAKEPORT, Calif. — Debonaire spies, superheroes, dinosaurs and witches from the Kingdom of Oz — they are all part of the musical program planned for the Lake County Symphony’s Mother’s Day Pop Concert at the Soper Reese Theatre.
John Parkinson, conductor and musical director for the Lake County Symphony, has chosen music from several memorable movies for this year’s concert on May 11.
The concert starts with the 2006 film, “Superman Returns” as Superman, who is back on Earth after an absence of five years, discovers that his love interest, Lois Lane, has moved on from him while his archenemy, Lex Luthor, is planning to kill him and reshape North America. John Ottman was the editor and film score composer for this sequel and used John Williams’ music from the first Superman movie made in 1978. Ottman greatly respected Williams and later told interviewers that the prolific movie composer had influenced his decision to become a musician.
The second piece in the Mother’s Day Concert features a medley of tunes from several James Bond movies: “Goldfinger,” “Live and Let Die,” “For Your Eyes Only,” and “The Spy Who Loved Me.”
“Nobody Does it Better” (sung by Carly Simon) was the theme song for “The Spy Who Loved Me.” It was written by Carole Bayer Sager and composed by Marvin Hamlisch.
“For Your Eyes Only" is the theme to the 12th James Bond movie of the same name, written by Bill Conti and Mick Leeson, and performed by Scottish singer Sheena Easton for the accompanying soundtrack album. “Live and Let Die” is the soundtrack to the eighth James Bond film of the same name, scored by George Martin. The title song was written by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by Paul McCartney and Wings.
Energetic and dramatic music from “The Magnificent Seven” is the next selection. The 1960 classic Western was directed by John Sturges; stars of the film include Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Charles Bronson as a group of gunfighters hired to protect a small village in Mexico from a group of marauding bandits led by Eli Wallach. Elmer Bernstein’s Academy Award-nominated score includes one of the most recognizable pieces of film music, the "Magnificent Seven Theme."
Then comes a change of pace, with music from “Pinball Wizard” by Peter Townshend. It was first performed by The Who, and was featured on their 1969 album, “Tommy,” and in the rock opera of the same name. Elton John performed the song in the theatrical adaptation of “Tommy.” Ken Russell wrote and directed the 1975 film, described as a “psychedelic musical fantasy drama.”
The next selection is music from “Children of Sanchez,” a 1978 Mexican American drama starring Anthony Quinn based on the book by Oscar Lewis. The movie’s well-known soundtrack was created by jazz musician Chuck Mangione. Its opening song won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for that year.
Next the symphony plays music from “The Sea Hawk” a 1940 American adventure film starring Errol Flynn as an English privateer fighting the Spanish Armada. Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed the rousing movie score, which some have said sounds more like a symphony than a soundtrack. In this arrangement, several of the themes from the movie are featured.
“Wicked” is the next selection for the symphony. The original production premiered on Broadway in 2003. It won three Tonys, and the original soundtrack album received a Grammy. Stephen Schwartz, the American musical theatre composer and lyricist, wrote both the music and lyrics for “Wicked.”
Music from “Jurassic Park,” the 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg features music by John Williams, a frequent composer of Spielberg's films. Williams felt his music for “Jurassic Park” needed to convey the sense of awe and fascination that one would have upon seeing live dinosaurs, while more suspenseful scenes involving Tyrannosaurus attacks required frightening themes.
“Apollo 13” is a 1995 American docudrama directed by Ron Howard. James Horner composed and conducted the score, which was a critical success, garnering Horner an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score.
The final piece of the concert is a tribute to John Williams, an American composer and conductor with a career that has spanned seven decades. Music from Star Wars, Jaws, Superman, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and E.T. are featured in this arrangement by Paul Lavender, with music from the Kennedy Center Honors.
Williams’ film music is some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed in movie history and is known for its distinct sound, described as “a mixture of romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration.”
Williams is best known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Among his numerous accolades are 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards and four Golden Globes. Williams is the second-most nominated person, after Walt Disney, and, at age 93, is the oldest Oscar nominee in any category.
Tickets for the regular 2 p.m. Mother’s Day Concert are $25 for general seating or $30 for premium seating in the balcony. Tickets may be purchased from the Soper Reese website, https://www.soperreesetheatre.com, and are also available at the Soper Reese box office at 275 S. Main St. on the day of the concert.
Please arrive 30 minutes early when buying tickets at the door-especially when attending the 11 a.m. dress rehearsal concert.
The rehearsal concert is still a bargain, although the price has increased to $10 for adults. There is no charge for those who are 18 and under.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
Just like last year, the concluded four-day celebration of film at the TCM Classic Film Festival offered much more than promised with its theme of “Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film.
The theme worked well for the opening night gala presentation of “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” No one should question that George Lucas created an enchanted world of fantasy in outer space.
Producing events at TCM’s festival, Bruce Goldstein is a fountain of information and insight on pre-Code films, and fortunately he was the presenter for 1932’s “Me and My Gal,” a comic crime tale starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett.
When the Hayes Code, which set a variety of standards to rid films of such things as profanity and sexual perversion, became enforceable in 1934 “Me and My Gal” was kept out of circulation for decades because it could no longer be released.
Spencer Tracy’s Danny Dolan, a wisecracking street cop in pursuit of escaped mobster Duke Castenega (George Walsh), initiates an erratic romance with perky waterfront waitress Helen Riley (Joan Bennett).
Over a cup of coffee at Helen’s hash house, Danny proposes to Helen, saying “Will you marry me so I can get some sleep?” After the screening, Goldstein noted this line was deemed ribald enough to get censored in some jurisdictions even before the Hayes Code kicked in.
While “Me and My Gal” was delightfully funny, Goldstein regaled the audience by quoting film reviews of the era that savaged the film for being smutty. Flopping at the box office, the film got pulled from theaters after a week.
The Los Angeles Examiner noted the film was “real entertainment with the highbrow stuff left out.” One could look at this review as a sort of backhanded accolade, if only because so many other reviews were so brutally negative.
With some irony, Goldstein noted the film also got confused with “For Me and My Gal,” a musical released a decade later and starring hoofers Gene Kelly and George Murphy.
Considering the brilliant wit of Noel Coward, notable for being a playwright, director and actor among other talents, the chance to see the 1945 film adaptation of “Blithe Spirit” proved irresistible.
Coward’s bantering dialogue is evident throughout the film, with Rex Harrison’s Charles informing his second wife Ruth (Constance Cummings) in one exchange, “If you wish to make an inventory of my sex life, I think it only fair to tell you that you’ve left out several episodes.”
Echoing the film’s title, Charles’ flighty deceased first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond) is conjured up during a séance and appears visible only to him, proceeding to hilariously haunt him and induce jealousy from Ruth.
In the role of presenter to the screening, Christine Ebersole, who starred as Elvira on the Broadway stage in “Blithe Spirit,” noted that in the film role Kay Hammond had to be painted a light shade of ethereal green.
The paint job provided the necessary “ghostly quality” needed for a spirit from the beyond, and Ebersole expressed hope that the green coating “didn’t shortened her life” due to the chemicals. Hammond apparently passed at age 71 from undisclosed causes.
“To Be or Not To Be,” a comedy about the Nazi occupation of Poland released in 1942, generated a share of controversy and divided reviews, which are interesting due to the director Ernst Lubitsch coming from a Jewish family and born in Germany.
Jack Benny as Joseph Tura and his wife Maria (Carole Lombard in her last movie role) lead a troupe of Polish actors who turn the tables on Hitler’s lunkheads who have taken control of Warsaw.
Maria copes with her egotistical husband’s comical attempts to play Hamlet on stage and fends off the advances of a lovestruck Polish air force lieutenant (Robert Stack) in her dressing room.
The film turns insanely funny for its sharp dialogue and the clever deceptions against the Third Reich goons by impersonating Nazi officers to save the resistance fighters.
“Jeopardy” host Ken Jennings, who vaulted to celebrity by his record-breaking 74-game winning streak on the quiz show, noted that “To Be or Not To Be” personified the “Lubitsch touch,” which is a sophisticated, cosmopolitan style with an urbane quality.
Jennings observed that the movie raised the question of whether it was in bad taste. At the time, there only two types of films involving Nazis. They were either an “existential threat” or “clowns and buffoons,” and this film straddled the line between these two categories.
A real delight was the 50th anniversary screening of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” an irreverent, anarchic take on the Arthurian legends, with Graham Chapman as King Arthur and the Python members playing multiple roles.
Presenter Patton Oswalt showed up for the morning screening wearing pajamas and a bathroom, telling the audience that comedians don’t get dressed before noon. As such, Oswalt captured the spirit of what he called the “wellspring of pure absurdity” that came with “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
