Mark Twain is Hell for the Company

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The secret of getting ahead is getting started... MARK TWAIN IS HELL FOR THE COMPANY opens this Fall -

The time to get busy with everything you always wanted to do, is now.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ is brilliantly acted by Tony Wade February 25, 2016 VALLEJO My absolute favorite way to experience a play is to go in knowing... nothing about the show. That way I just absorb what is being presented and I am free from any conscious or sub-conscious expectations that could influence my opinion. In the case of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the latest production by Bay Area Stage Productions, I got my wish. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is the story of an older couple, George and Martha, whose crumbling marriage is laid bare in a drunken evening with a younger couple, Nick and Honey. The play won the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1966 film adaptation, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, won five Academy Awards. Director Jeff Lowe got the most out of the four superb actors that brought the show to life. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has rich, dense, gritty and laser-sharp dialogue. It takes special actors to not only remember all those words, but also infuse them with the spectrum of emotions the show requires. I love that Bay Area Stage continues to do plays that are probably not going to be crowd-pleasers. In the past they have done such challenging shows as True West, Buried Child and Kiss of the Spider Woman that require actors to dig deep and their appreciative, though sometimes small, audiences to hold onto their hats. When done well, such shows, delving as they do into the darker side of the human experience, almost make you feel like you are eavesdropping. Jonathan Spencer gave a tour-de-force performance as George who seemingly had a black belt in passive-aggression. His character was calm and calculatedly collected at times and yet could explode as well. Convincingly conveying that jumble of emotions while delivering a boatload of exquisitely written dialogue made it that much more impressive of a performance. Beth Chastain as Martha was mesmerizing as she accurately portrayed a woman with the complex mixture of unbridled sensuality, control issues, pent-up anger and aggression with an undercurrent of pitiable neediness always present and yet only bubbling to the surface in the climax of the show. She was positively magnetic. Ian McDavid was the only actor I had ever seen before in the aforementioned BAS show True West in 2011 and The Lion in Winter in 2012. Just as in past productions, he brought the goods in a realistic and very natural way to a complicated role. Caitlin Joy Shantz as Honey was wonderfully flighty and frail and yet could erupt into anger as well. The show has some genuinely comic moments in it, albeit of the darker variety which is probably harder, in some respects, to pull off. I must mention the Mad Men-era set pieces, like a vintage TV and hi-fi stereo, were nice touches and helped create the mood. Bottom line,Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a very demanding play and the fact that it seemed effortless means by definition a lot of effort was required. I now have seen Bay Area Stage shows at the defunct Fetterly Playhouse for the Arts, Mira Theatre, Missouri Street Theatre and at the location they have done a few shows including the current one, the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum. I am looking forward to soon experiencing many more theatrical adventures with the company in their very own place, the Bay Area Stage Theatre on Broadway (Street) in Vallejo. Reach Fairfield writer Tony Wade at [email protected]. ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum, 734 Marin St. 649-1053, www.bayareastage.org three and a half stars out of four

it was Cain's misfortune to live in a dark age that knew not the beneficent Insanity Plea.

Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.- "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"

The approach of Christmas brings harrassment and dread to many excellent people. They have to buy a cart-load of presents, and they never know what to buy to hit the various tastes; they put in three weeks of hard and anxious work, and when Christmas morning comes they are so dissatisfied with the result, and so disappointed that they want to sit down and cry. Then they give thanks that Christmas comes but once a year. - Mark Twain

"In all the ages, three-fourths of the support of the great charities has been conscience money." ~Mark Twain / Please feel guilty - ;-) Only 15 days to go to reach the goal! You can even get a T-shirt!