Friday, January 28, 2011
Last Night at the ACT
Barbara Damashek - my dear, valued old and gifted Quilters friend - took me as her date to see the Opening Night of Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park last night at the American Conservatory Theatre down on Geary Street. It was a good night in the theatre, and one that revived my sagging spirits and my slightly jaded soul, as far as live theater is concerned: I've been concentrating so hard on getting the writing thing going, I'd forgotten the nourishment I get from superbly produced and well acted live theater performances. I guess I've been in "the Biz" too long, and my point of view has needed some time off. San Francisco and its gloriously nature-based physical glories have helped a lot to freshen my view, and so I was able to give the superbly-acted production last night all I had to give: I was ready to be taken away, transported and transformed, as only - and I do mean only - live theater can do.
I was not disappointed : it was absolutely wonderful! Sitting in that venerable old ACT Theatre - one I've studied for years in school , founded by the infamous Bill Ball , who I once met at a party in NYC , an American institution of regional theater where so many famous actors got their start, and writers and designers learned their crafts...I mean, ACT: an important part of this country's theater history...not as old as Barter Theatre (an infant , in comparison, since it was only founded in 1965), it nonetheless came smashing onto the American scene, as a vital part of the regional theater movement, and with the flamboyant, creative style of that marvelous Bill Ball to help put it in focus, i recall that ACT had an actual core acting company long before I had heard of other theaters having one ...it seemed determined and proud to be a real , American, trained and dedicated theater with its own acting company to draw from, and I remember this being inspirational to me when I was in college.
It was born at the same time my college career was, so we are both of a particular time in this country's theater identity: we are flower children, the ACT and I. I remember that Bill Ball used to be famous for many things, but one fashion quirk of his was a powder blue hat he was known for always wearing: it was his symbol, his panache. I saw him in it the few times our paths crossed. A baby blue bolero hat, with a wide brim....he was a unique character. Impossible to even think of the ACT and not think of Bill Ball. Even though Cary Perloff has put her stamp on it for the past 20-something years or so. It's still Bill Ball's ACT. At least in my mind.
Bruce Norris, British writer of several interesting plays, wrote this marvelous two-acter, Clybourne Park, about what happens after the curtain comes down on the famous American play A Raisin In The Sun, by Lorraine Hansbury, a Black playwright who died shortly after writing her signal success, Raisin, which is a deeply powerful play about race and prejudice. The family in Raisin is going to move into a white neighborhood , in a Chicago suburb called Clybourne Park, and that play is about the many conflicts in the black family at the prospect of moving into a white enclave. It's a wrenching drama, famous for the brave voice Lorraine Hansbury gave to what Black Americans were thinking at that explosive time in our history. I remember reading it and it moving me to tears. It was the first play by a Black female to be produced on Broadway, and the first play directed by a Black director (Lloyd Richards) to be done there as well. A milestone play, for sure.
Bruce Norris' Act One is in the family home of the white people whose house the black family are about to move into. It's written in the style of a 1950's family sit-com, but secrets, painful revelations and moments of high rage and sorrow develop , amidst many many enormously funny moments: it's one of those wonderful plays where the audience is moved to tears in the middle of large laughter....my idea of what good theatre can do for an audience.
Act Two is moved forward to present day, same house, but by then, Clybourne Park has become a Black enclave and white people want to move into this house and the other side of prejudice and overwrought political correctness laid bare for us to be delighted by at the same time we're being horrified by it: again, laughter then tears, then copious amounts of more laughter. By the time those characters explode off the stage (same actors playing genealogical descendants of the 1st Act characters), we are exhausted with laughter - of course we see our selves in those blundering , well-meaning but selfishly misguided 2nd act people - and we are left with a memory scene, a flashback, eerily lit, of a moment in time before tragedy transforms the house and sets it on its jangling journey through real estate purgatory. Gloriousy lit, that final scene is a killer.
Alexander V. Nichols, Lighting Designer: Bravo. Truly great work. I love it when lighting becomes another character in the play, helping to tell the story like nothing else can.
So, last night at ACT....today spent in the glorious Headlands, drinking in views of San Francisco that made my head spin they were so stunningly gorgeous......i saw the sun on the stretch of the Bay melting into the Pacific Ocean - that place in where the waters merge called the Golden Gate, and understood why it's called that: the sun makes the water look like molten gold....this entire day has been a visual blessing. Almost Heaven, San Francisco! My Home Sweet Home!
I was not disappointed : it was absolutely wonderful! Sitting in that venerable old ACT Theatre - one I've studied for years in school , founded by the infamous Bill Ball , who I once met at a party in NYC , an American institution of regional theater where so many famous actors got their start, and writers and designers learned their crafts...I mean, ACT: an important part of this country's theater history...not as old as Barter Theatre (an infant , in comparison, since it was only founded in 1965), it nonetheless came smashing onto the American scene, as a vital part of the regional theater movement, and with the flamboyant, creative style of that marvelous Bill Ball to help put it in focus, i recall that ACT had an actual core acting company long before I had heard of other theaters having one ...it seemed determined and proud to be a real , American, trained and dedicated theater with its own acting company to draw from, and I remember this being inspirational to me when I was in college.
It was born at the same time my college career was, so we are both of a particular time in this country's theater identity: we are flower children, the ACT and I. I remember that Bill Ball used to be famous for many things, but one fashion quirk of his was a powder blue hat he was known for always wearing: it was his symbol, his panache. I saw him in it the few times our paths crossed. A baby blue bolero hat, with a wide brim....he was a unique character. Impossible to even think of the ACT and not think of Bill Ball. Even though Cary Perloff has put her stamp on it for the past 20-something years or so. It's still Bill Ball's ACT. At least in my mind.
Bruce Norris, British writer of several interesting plays, wrote this marvelous two-acter, Clybourne Park, about what happens after the curtain comes down on the famous American play A Raisin In The Sun, by Lorraine Hansbury, a Black playwright who died shortly after writing her signal success, Raisin, which is a deeply powerful play about race and prejudice. The family in Raisin is going to move into a white neighborhood , in a Chicago suburb called Clybourne Park, and that play is about the many conflicts in the black family at the prospect of moving into a white enclave. It's a wrenching drama, famous for the brave voice Lorraine Hansbury gave to what Black Americans were thinking at that explosive time in our history. I remember reading it and it moving me to tears. It was the first play by a Black female to be produced on Broadway, and the first play directed by a Black director (Lloyd Richards) to be done there as well. A milestone play, for sure.
Bruce Norris' Act One is in the family home of the white people whose house the black family are about to move into. It's written in the style of a 1950's family sit-com, but secrets, painful revelations and moments of high rage and sorrow develop , amidst many many enormously funny moments: it's one of those wonderful plays where the audience is moved to tears in the middle of large laughter....my idea of what good theatre can do for an audience.
Act Two is moved forward to present day, same house, but by then, Clybourne Park has become a Black enclave and white people want to move into this house and the other side of prejudice and overwrought political correctness laid bare for us to be delighted by at the same time we're being horrified by it: again, laughter then tears, then copious amounts of more laughter. By the time those characters explode off the stage (same actors playing genealogical descendants of the 1st Act characters), we are exhausted with laughter - of course we see our selves in those blundering , well-meaning but selfishly misguided 2nd act people - and we are left with a memory scene, a flashback, eerily lit, of a moment in time before tragedy transforms the house and sets it on its jangling journey through real estate purgatory. Gloriousy lit, that final scene is a killer.
Alexander V. Nichols, Lighting Designer: Bravo. Truly great work. I love it when lighting becomes another character in the play, helping to tell the story like nothing else can.
So, last night at ACT....today spent in the glorious Headlands, drinking in views of San Francisco that made my head spin they were so stunningly gorgeous......i saw the sun on the stretch of the Bay melting into the Pacific Ocean - that place in where the waters merge called the Golden Gate, and understood why it's called that: the sun makes the water look like molten gold....this entire day has been a visual blessing. Almost Heaven, San Francisco! My Home Sweet Home!
Labels: SF arts and theatre
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