Theater Review: "Homeland"

"Holy smokes, it's the story of my life," I thought during the first act of Homeland, Jay Kuo's terrific new musical, which has been workshopped at the New Conservatory Theatre and arrived as a semi-staged production at the Magic Theatre over the weekend.

A followup to his successful romantic comedy, Insignificant Others, Homeland finds Kuo again mining the local landscape and coming up with a gem of a bittersweet tale about love blooming in the rarefied world of San Francisco.

It's a curious thing that happens quite often in the Bay Area -- a place where I'm startled if I run into a bona fide, born-and-bred local. No matter where we're from though, somehow we all wind up discovering "families" for ourselves. You know the family I mean -- the one with your crazy left wing activist friend, the struggling artist you met in a coffee shop, your wild and crazy, newly-freed-from-the-closet pal, and various interesting and probably left-leaning others. Kuo has built Homeland around just such an extended family, in this case, a loosely-banded guerilla street theater group. As a love story and a tale of the divisive politics of this current generation, it will no doubt connect to audiences at many levels, but for the Bay Area crowd, it will be doubly poignant, because it tells the stories of the people that you and I know -- maybe even the stories of our own lives. And as with all the best musicals, the circumstances in which our heroes find themselves might be farcical, even far-fetched, but it doesn't matter at all, because the characters ring true.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

Theater Review : "The Forest War"

When art speaks truth, it hurts, and it never hurts so much as in Mark Jackson's stylish new play The Forest War, which runs through January 14 at the Shotgun Players' Ashby Stage in Berkeley.

Written and directed with imaginative flair, The Forest War comes in the form of Japanese Kabuki theater, from the choreographed stylized stage movements and tableaux, to Valera Coble's beautifully-textured elaborate costumes, to Jackson's formalized, rhythmic dialogue. It's a classic jidai geki, or Japanese period drama, addressing themes that are timeless and in this case, all too familiar.

The Forest War of the title has been prosecuted by the aging Grand Lord Karug, played by Drew Anderson, and after a decade, the long battles have decimated the country and demoralized its citizens. In theory, the war has been won, and Karug decides to pass the leadership to the peaceable Lord Kulan (Cassidy Brown) instead of his belligerent son, Lord Kain (Kevin Clarke). Thus the stage is set for your classic father/son power struggle. Read into it what you will.

Read more on KQED.org's Art & Culture site.

SFB: Giddy spinning at the Nutcracker

San Francisco Ballet
“Nutcracker”
War Memorial Opera House

There was giddy spinning going on outside of the War Memorial Opera House on Thursday night, even before a single dancer had stepped onto the stage for San Francisco Ballet’s holiday treat, Helgi Tomasson’s “Nutcracker.”

Little ones in elegant dresses and suits enacted their own sort of party scene as they clutched the teddy bears that ushers handed out at the door and practically vibrated with excitement in the lobby, which was decked out in silver and green for the holidays.

Inside, as the overture got underway, under the sprightly baton of Martin West, the kids kept up a low buzz of impatience, which settled in as the curtain went up on Michael Yeargan’s elegant San Francisco-inspired Victorian sets and Martin Pakledinaz’s frothy costumes.

Tomasson’s lovely “Nutcracker” – the fifth version San Francisco Ballet has staged since they started the Christmastime tradition back in 1944 – eschews the heavy psychological tack of some modern versions, although it is not just the simple bon-bon of most traditional “Nutcrackers” either. Tomasson’s young Clara is very much a “‘tween” -- not quite ready to give up her dolls, but old enough to be dancing formal dances with the adults, and her dreams emphasize the fantastical elements of childhood along with the wonder of growing up.

Hannah Foster made a charming Clara -- scrappy in the battle scene and visibly entranced when swept up in the arms of her transformed Nutcracker, Tiit Helimets. A natural prince, Helimets’ refined classicism made for a patrician, though somewhat bemused demeanor and his eerily soundless landings from prodigious jumps were impressive. As the King and Queen of the Snow, though, it was Joan Boada and Kristin Long who fully captured the exhilaration of the gorgeous Tchaikovsky music, filling out the shimmering snow flurries with eddying turns, punctuated by elegant poses that reached to the end of their fingertips.

If there was a lackluster moment in the ballet, it came only at the end with Yuan Yuan Tan as the transformed and newly tutu-ed Clara. Tan is a hugely talented dancer, but her lackadaisical attack and eccentric musicality on this occasion betrayed a peculiar lack of effort only thinly disguised by those hyper-mobile arabesques. Her uneven performance stood in contrast to that of Vanessa Zahorian, whose onstage glow warmed the stage as she led the bouquet of waltzing flowers with fast light turns as the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Happily, the rest of the company looked as if they relished the fun of bringing an old standard to vibrant life. If these dancers have done a hundred “Nutcrackers,” you’d never know it from gusto with which they attacked their roles. From the fuzzy-legged Kirill Zaretsky as the Mouse King, to the zesty Spanish spiced up by Rory Hohenstein, Hansuke Yamamoto, Jaime Garcia Castilla, Dores Andre and Frances Chung, to the Arabian with Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun tastefully twining around the brawny duo of Moises Martin and Brett Bauer -- everyone onstage tackled each of their characters with enthusiasm.

Brooke Moore, Mariellen Olson and Jennifer Stahl handled the candy-striped, be-ribboned French variation with decided aplomb, while Pascal Molat made it look as though the stage wasn’t large enough to contain his outsize leaps in the Chinese divertissement. As always, the rousing Russian trepak -- choreographed by Anatole Vilzak and danced with bouncing, bounding humor by James Sofranko, Garrett Anderson and new company member Benjamin Stewart -- brought a delighted roar from a crowd thoroughly enchanted.

This review originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.