Lamb’s Players fine production of West Side Story raises a question. The musical based Tony and Maria on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But where did the Bard’s star-crossed lovers come from? And were they real? …
June 25, 2015
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Stories by Jeff Smith
In search of Romeo and Juliet
Four-alarm blazer
Musicals have iconic images: a Huey helicopter? Miss Saigon; white semi-mask? Phantom; Julie Andrews’ 360 on a green hill, dressed like a risqué Puritan? Sound of Music, the movie. How about a chain-link fence and …
June 22, 2015
Those damn beehives!
Back in 1888, Hattie “Ada” Dougherty had a ranch between Japatul and Sacatera, southeast of Alpine. She wanted to clear some land for ploughing but couldn’t. Her neighbor, an old, unnamed man had some of …
June 18, 2015
Fleeting utopia
When’s the last time a musical began not with a Carillion-style fanfare of intent, but with the crisp, insistent pounding of a hand drum? Then a fiddle slashes in and things go Celtic — tight, …
June 17, 2015
Miles away from the legend
Were she still alive, Billie Holiday would have turned 100 last April. That would have surprised the hell out of “Lady Day,” since she lived an epic life and died July 17, 1959, of complications …
June 15, 2015
Memory also betrays
Harold Pinter denies he based his 1978 drama on a seven-year affair he had with a married woman. And that her husband, a friend of his, had affairs all the while — and knew about …
June 11, 2015
The Press War
Clara Foltz must have lived at least nine lives. A descendant of Daniel Boone, she was a wife, until her husband abandoned her and their four children. She was the first woman to practice law …
June 10, 2015
Wide open to interpretation
“Goin’ where the sun keeps shining/Thru the pouring rain/Goin’ where the weather suits my clothes…” To those who recall when Midnight Cowboy came out, the lyrics conjure up Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight scuffling down …
June 8, 2015
My acting bucket list: Eddie Yaroch
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices …
June 4, 2015
Rich Girl finds little purchase at the Old Globe’s theater in the round
The only time it happened was at the old Old Town Theatre. I was watching a production of The Heiress, where a complete and total jerk courts rich, innocent, young Catherine. He was so obviously …
June 3, 2015
Above the bar, below the legend
Aw come on, you mean the movie where Gene Kelly — with a glow-ree-us feelin' — kick-splashes puddles, spins that black umbrella, glides with gymnastic grace, and joy-hangs from the side of a lamp-post didn’t …
May 28, 2015
Point of no return
Lights come up, dimly, on a dingy brown old couch with a deep sag in the middle. Close by: a laptop, a TV-tray-like table with rollers, a low slung reading lamp, and a small bookcase …
May 26, 2015
To the Nationals!
I still don’t believe this story! The New Group West’s first-ever show will represent California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii in a national competition! American Association of Community Theatre has 12 regions. San Diego is in …
May 22, 2015
The Famous Shavian “BOO!”
Like Socrates and Ben Franklin, it’s hard to imagine George Bernard Shaw ever being young — in part because he didn’t become a successful playwright until age 40. When Arms and the Man opened at …
May 21, 2015
George Bernard Shaw pays a rare visit to the Old Globe
Arms and the Man succeeds despite an antsy itch to entertain.
May 20, 2015
Early San Diegans couldn’t celebrate without lots of noise
1.) This photograph, taken in the late 1880s, was rare for its time. No male cradles a wide-brimmed hat in his arm. No one stares up, or dreamily off, as if posing as the person …
May 14, 2015
Last Call: Unnecessary Farce at North Coast Rep
The North Coast Rep’s silly, lunkhead, hilarious Unnecessary Farce must close this Sunday. One of the oddest things about farce: it must as precise as it is frantic. Actors scream “eek,” slam doors, and sprint …
May 11, 2015
Just a few more before retirement
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices …
May 7, 2015
Familiar sitcom feeling
Tatiana Suarez-Pico’s new play is either a drama sabotaged by comedy, or vice versa. When the play builds to an emotional moment, a joke undercuts it. And when a scene starts out funny, things take …
May 4, 2015
San Diego Rep explores the Uncanny Valley between you and your replicant
Robots became so human-like that thoughts of playing God plagued their creators.
April 29, 2015
Right kind of mindless
Clarice Starling: “Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.” Hannibal Lecter: “I didn’t.” Clarice: “No. You ate yours.” Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs can be funny, in a ghoulish sort …
April 28, 2015
Good, whacko, slamming-doors sense
The North Coast Rep’s current show is a farce! But in the good, whacko, slamming-doors sense. Paul Slade Smith’s two-act script has absolutely no redeeming social value, and he goes for silliness where most comic …
April 23, 2015
Ion goes all-out
The idea could cause vertigo: on Saturday, April 25, Ion Theatre will stage-read four new plays starting at 11:00 a.m. Each script has already been work-shopped with readings and feedback from preview audiences. And it’s …
April 23, 2015
Last call: The White Snake and My Fair Lady
Two beautifully performed shows must end their runs this Sunday. The White Snake, Old Globe Theatre. Mary Zimmerman does theatrical adaptations of literary works, among them The Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, and The Notebooks of …
April 20, 2015
Mark Christopher Lawrence’s acting bucket list
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers – even choices …
April 16, 2015
Babs for a day
Alex Moore, struggling actor, not only works at Disneyland, he’s the “Mayor of Toontown.” He hates it so much he calls the “happiest place” on earth “Mousechwitz.” The drive from his Los Feliz studio apartment, …
April 15, 2015
An evening at Villa Montezuma; Coda
(The second in a two-part series. Part one was published March 18.) It’s after midnight, February 15, 1888. The last of the guests are finally leaving Jesse Shepard’s musicale at the Villa Montezuma. One- and …
April 15, 2015
Next generation of excellence
Now in its second year, the Ben Vereen Awards “celebrates excellence in high school musical theater.” On April 26, 20 nominees from the local high schools compete to be in the Top Ten representing San …
April 13, 2015
Amanda Sitton’s acting bucket list
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers – even choices …
April 9, 2015
Off-beat rainbow
Open stage. Rear wall: five vertical stripes — green, yellow, red, blue, orange — an off-beat rainbow. Six performers walk eight steps forward, turn, and walk eight steps back on invisible aisles for 45 minutes. …
April 7, 2015
Leave Tiger alone!
The “story” at this week’s Masters is Tiger Woods. Can he make the cut? Can he win? Vegas now says 40-1. In the age of “right this minute” media mania, golf pundits question his “chipping …
April 7, 2015
The White Snake slithers into the Old Globe
"Sir, you are married to a snake!” the holy man Fa Hai tells bewildered Xu Xian at the Golden Monastery. “You are coiled in the snares of a snake demon.” His wife and her sidekick …
April 1, 2015
Brian Mackey’s acting bucket list
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices …
March 30, 2015
Last call: Oedipus El Rey, You Can't Take It with You, Baby with the Bathwater
Oedipus El Rey, San Diego Rep. This isn’t Sophocles’ Oedipus, its playwright Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus Gomez. He rises from prison to become a Scarface-like, L.A. drug lord who has faith only in himself (“God’s ego’s …
March 26, 2015
Infectious exuberance
“I could’ve donced all night, I could’ve donced all night” — at least half the audience at intermission, it seemed, bounced up the aisles at Cygnet Theatre singing this song, including the accent! And when …
March 24, 2015
Divided, disconnected
Anna didn’t get her wish. She wanted to write her doctoral dissertation on punctuation in Emily Dickenson’s poems but couldn’t. So she wrote on how John Keats punctuated his. Bathsheba Doran’s Kin begins with Anna’s …
March 23, 2015
Not for all their wealth
I found this in the San Diego Union, July 8, 1887, a reprint from the New York Mail and Daily Express. The best dressed character in the show spoke only ten lines. “Her costume was …
March 20, 2015
An evening at Villa Montezuma
Between 1887 and 1889, Jesse Shepard gave musicales at his Villa Montezuma. He had an international reputation as a singer/pianist. Others called him a charlatan. To bring instant culture to the pioneer town, San Diegans …
March 18, 2015
Unfolding fatality
A young man and an older woman, both naked, make tender love in silk sheets amid a roseate aura. They haven’t known each other long, but found common goals and dreams. A blazing sense they …
March 17, 2015
Harsh and tender
Artistic director Calvin Manson opens the Ira Aldridge Repertory Players 31st season with its 199th production, a choreo-poem, based on his poetry, that begins in innocence and concludes in tragedy — and hope. Ntozsake Shange …
March 16, 2015
Jacque Wilke's acting bucket list
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices …
March 12, 2015
Life’s kind of beautiful
Mr. De Pinna delivered ice to the Vanderhof home eight years ago, and stayed. When Mr. De Pinna isn’t modeling for one of Penny Sycamore’s paintings, he and her husband Paul experiment with explosives in …
March 11, 2015
Genuine horror
White bassinet, spot-lit center stage. Surrounding darkness makes it seem whiter, even more innocent. John and Helen, the parents howling over the child, couldn’t be more menacing if they sucked on crack-pipes and wielded chainsaws. …
March 10, 2015
Lasting impermanence
The set, Full Circle Tattoo at 2312 30th Street in South Park, couldn’t be more authentic. Maybe 100 pictorial choices are framed on the walls, along with rows of knickknacks suggesting other possible “skin illustrations.” …
March 9, 2015
Fred Harlow's acting bucket list
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices …
March 5, 2015
The Old Globe stages The Twenty-Seventh Man
Their crime: they compose in Yiddish, “from right to left on the page.”
March 4, 2015
It has been considered a poor week for killing
ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT. John Phoenix, San Diego Herald: “Very little news will be found in the San Diego Herald this week. The fact is there never is much news in it …
March 1, 2015
Lift-off achieved
On the difficulty of making a musical, Brooks Atkinson wrote: “No one would undertake the intricate, painful, gargantuan, hysterical task… unless he had more enthusiasm than most people have about anything.” Imagine a musical conceived …
February 27, 2015
Samantha Ginn’s acting bucket list
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices …
February 26, 2015
Richard Baird’s acting bucket list
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers – even choices …
February 19, 2015