A Grinch by the Inch

Who’s Holiday

3Below Theaters

December 7, 2018

If you think the latest Grinch cartoon was entirely unnecessary, and what you’d really like to see is the whole enterprise blown up in a raunchy, comic explosion, then Who’s Holiday is your ticket. Matthew Lombardo’s script, written in perfect Seussian couplets, visits Cindy Lou Who in middle age, trying to get any of her Whoville friends to come to her holiday party but beset by a checkered past that has made her a bit of an outcast. All the better, since we get to have her to ourselves.

The Avenue Q-ness of the play is evident right away, as Cindy Lou recounts that fateful night: “…but I caught him green-handed as he was stealing our shit!” Her tale proceeds to her 18^th birthday, when she discovers something else that grew three sizes that day (“If you think black guys are hung, try going jade”).

Our hostess is Shannon Guggenheim, who is 3Below’s Miss Everything (including librettist of their awesome Meshuga Nutcracker musical). She dispenses quickly with the fourth wall, and third wall, and a little of the second, throwing in regular asides and a running commentary on the challenges of stagework. Much of the fun is in the rhyming. When she rhymes “Christmas” with “isthmus,” she takes an educational timeout to provide a detailed geographical definition. Later, when she flubs a rhyme, she says, “Hey! This shit is hard.” And then she has to deal with an audience volunteer who seemed to think he was at an old-school hip-hip rhymeoff (he was good, but he was making us nervous).

To say Guggenheim is delightful doesn’t really say enough. She is an absolute natural onstage, and her Cindy Lou is sexy, funny, and ingratiating. She even makes us a little sad, singing “Blue Christmas” for her estranged green-skinned daughter (who’s off touring as Elphaba in “Wicked”). In short, she’s exactly the kind of woman you’d like to hang out with at a party. And to hell with those sanctimonious Who’s!

_{December 7 - 22, 2018.  Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm. , 3Below Theaters & Lounge, 288 So. Second Street, San Jose,  $36 - $45. www.3Belowtheaters.com or 408.404.7711.}

_{Michael J. Vaughn is the author of 21 novels and two plays, Café Phryque and Darcy Lamont, available at amazon.com.}

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Leoncavallo Meets Hitchcock

Cooper Nolan as Canio. All photos by Pat Kirk.

Opera San Jose’s Pagliacci

November 17, 2018

Stage director Chuck Hudson and a strongly theatrical cast have come up with a Pagliacci for the ages, downright Hitchcockian in its ability to deliver the layers of tension in Leoncavallo’s work. It’s a stunning, suspenseful night at the opera.

To deliver strong effects, of course, you need strong weapons, and this is evident from the start with baritone Anthony Clark Evans’ Prologue. This Prologue is a peculiar piece in opera, a musical highlight, often performed at recitals, that arrives before the “real” story has even begun. Evans alternates between affable and ominous in his monodrama of actors and their hidden identities, and his intense presence plays well into the sometimes-overlooked subplot of Tonio, the hunchback whose spurning at the hands of Nedda turns him into an Iago-like schemer.

The more direct threat, of course, is Canio, the clown (Paglioccio) of the troupe. Tenor Cooper Nolan succeeds in conveying a delicious darkness. He reminds me of that acquaintance who turns out to be a bad drunk, cracking jokes one second, seemingly ready to punch you the next. This first appears in “Un tal gioco,” Canio’s explicit announcement of how he will deal with anyone who makes a play for Nedda, his beautiful wife. Nolan delivers these threats with a forceful lirico spinto, and engages in bit of spousal arm-twisting that almost hurts to watch.

Anthony Clark Evans as Tonio, Maria Natale as Nedda.

Maria Natale’s soprano is a bit large for the tight spaces of Nedda’s Bird Song – a piece of playful bel canto mimicry – but the payoff comes with everything that follows. Natale’s great power creates a Nedda with Carmen-like qualities. Hudson’s undercurrent of physical aggression continues as Nedda drives off Tonio’s menacing advances with a whip, and then engages in a number of carnal embraces with her lover Silvio (Emmett O’Hanlon, whose well-tempered baritone offers a bit of calm before the storm). What emerges from this duet, as Nedda bounces between Silvio’s promises and the echoes of Canio’s threats, is Natale’s excellent use of dynamics, including a fortissimo lament rife with anguish.

Nolan delivers the iconic “Vesti la giubba” in a strikingly subdued fashion, aided by the chiaroscuro effects of Kent Dorsey’s lighting (a single overhead spot). The result is an invitation to feel sorry for Canio, a man who has painted himself into a corner and can’t seem to find a peaceful way out. Nolan finishes the piece quaking with emotion, giving the finish a suitably edgy quality.

I have never before noticed just how beautifully Act 2 is set up. Having given each player full knowledge of the situation (except for the identity of Nedda’s lover) and forcing them into the necessity of giving a performance, Leoncavallo sets up a thick tension, each player going through stage prep like they’re walking through a minefield.

Maria Natale as Nedda, Mason Gates as Beppe.

Into this malestrom comes – almost unexpectedly – some excellent commedia dell’arte. Evans and Natale demonstrate playful bits of physical comedy, followed by Mason Gates entering on a fake horse to take over the show and offer a serenade (a gifted lyric tenor who performs backflips and handstands, Gates was born to play Beppe). The well-worn performance, naturally, mirrors the drama of the players’ backstage intrigues (thank you, Hamlet), until Canio starts veering off-script in a way that makes both on- and off-stage audiences feel a little queasy. The sadness of “Vesti la giubba” is gone as Nolan goes into monster mode, his voice growing and growing with each demand for the name of Nedda’s lover. The final blowup is bracingly physical. Canio gives Nedda a knockdown slap that sends mothers and children dashing from the square. Canio kills his wife with a Psycho-style overhead stabbing, then turns to pierce Silvio in mid-air. Finally, Canio is killed by a constabulary’s gunshot and falls roughly to the floor. (This may be the only opera cast that needs its own personal trainer.) It’s all very riveting, in the way that Pagliacci truly can be, and leads to the best final line in opera, Tonio announcing, “The comedy is over.”

Maria Natale as Nedda, Emmett O'Hanlon as Silvio.

Cathleen Edwards’ costumes are lovely, especially the gem-like colored triangles of Nedda, Beppe and Beppe’s “horse.” The village scenes carried a pleasant boisterousness, thanks in part to the Ragazzi and Vivace youth choruses. Christian Reif and orchestra played with power and elegance; I particularly enjoyed the intermezzo, especially the passage featuring harpist Karen Thielen as Tonio contemplates Nedda’s handkerchief. The upper terrace of Andrea Bechert’s village square set allowed for artful backlighting, notably as Tonio and Canio spy on the illicit lovers.

Through Dec. 2, California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. 408/437-4450, www.operasj.org.

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of 21 novels, including Gabriella’s Voice and The Girl in the Flaming Dress.

Kendra and Stephen: A Wedding Intro

My niece Kendra began this whole thing last year at my nephew's wedding. At the reception, she asked if I would serve as the officiant at her wedding the following September. It took me a half hour to even understand what she was asking. After all, I'm a pretty public atheist - a job usually performed by clergy doesn't necessarily come to mind. After I thought about it, though, the skill set all added up: I'm used to being onstage, I'm good with a mic, and obviously I can help write the ceremony. All I had to do was come up with an interesting intro, and the ideas came to me in that first week. Primarily, I had to work in Kendra's favorite song, "Yellow," and go from there. The wedding, September 8 in Malibu, was amazing. And here's what I said:

Friends and family! Welcome. We are gathered here today to initiate and celebrate the marriage of Kendra Brit Breunling and Stephen Jacob Cornelius. My name is Michael Vaughn. I am also known as Uncle Mike. (Sung) Your skin Oh yeah your skin and bones turn into something beautiful You know, you know I love you so You know I love you so

Those lines are from Kendra's favorite song, Yellow, by Coldplay. For years now, I’ve used it as a kind of Bat Signal. If I heard it in a coffeehouse, or if someone sang it at karaoke, I would immediately send Kendra a text: Hey, how you doin?

But let’s think about those words: “Your skin and bones turn into something beautiful.”  That line touches on a marvelous truth about humans. We’re really just parts and pieces - sinew, muscle, blood, organs – put together in an extraordinary way. And the pinnacle of this machine is the human brain, which developed the amazing ability to recognize its own existence, and to recognize the powerful bonding force that we call love.

A few years ago, a study concluded that the people you spend the most time with have an actual, physical effect on the wiring in your brain. This is why your parents are always so concerned with who you’re hanging out with. I suppose, then, that a wedding is a way of saying, I like the effect that you have on my brain. Or, put another way, I like who I am when I’m with you. And I’d like to keep that going for the rest of our lives.

 

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of 21 novels, most recently The Girl in the Flaming Dress.

Alviso: A Prose Poem

Alviso

The Chicanos from the tidelands had no school so they were bused to ours. Like children everywhere, we latched onto their differences like hungry leeches.

The shirts buttoned to the collar. The boxy work pants, the constant black T’s, a strange affection for gothic lettering and vintage cars.

We stood in the quad in our bell bottoms, puka shells and disco shirts and asked, What could they be thinking?

We learned the appropriate slurs, which now seem pathetic: greasers (because they used product in their hair), Spics (because they spoke Spanish), beaners (because they ate beans?).

One day, my little brother’s gang – let’s call them The Squirrely Bunch – were performing their best Cheeches and Chongs, tossing around words like cholo, wetback, low-rider, puta in those odd Mexican rhythms, the words falling like dominos to the obligatory eh? (unintentionally paying tribute to the things they professed to hate). My mom finally had enough.

“That’s it! You boys get in the car right now. We’re going for a ride.”

I can only imagine them, huddled in the back seat, muttering. Omigod, Vaughn, your mom finally snapped. She’s gonna kill us and leave our bodies in the swamp.

My mother, one of the more navigationally challenged of women, puzzled her way through unfamiliar back roads until she arrived in Alviso, a former railroad town and fishing port where Mexican families found shelter.

I don’t have direct quotes, but I’m guessing she said, These are real boys with real homes and friends and families who love them, and they are not to be made into cartoons by you. Also, look how far they have to travel to go to a white school where mean boys make fun of them.

I imagine, too, the faces of the locals as a blonde, blue-eyed housewife cruised through town in a station wagon, boys peering out the window like caged animals. It must have looked like the world’s most pathetic tour bus.

Decades later, I sit at a fire pit in Malibu, hearing this story for the second time. My brother has never forgotten that trip, has lived his life accordingly, and keeps this story in his back pocket as a reminder of his mother’s huge, loving and slightly lunatic heart.

As a story always brings more stories, I flash on the day when I turned from my middle-school locker to be punched in the face by a lean, ferocious-looking Chicano.

More shocked than hurt, I stumbled down the hall, holding my nose and shouting, “Why did you do that!?” He and his friends continued to follow me, and I was afraid they were looking for more. They scattered, finally, as I made my way to the nurse’s office.

(Where were the adults? Nowhere. Adults in the seventies were useless.)

As the year went on, I tried to hate those Spics, those beaners, those goddamn greasers. After all, I had reason. But my attempts were always cut off by my mother’s voice, a permanent installation in my head. Now Michael. Think of how that other person feels. (I sometimes envy people who freely hate. Their worldview must be much less complicated.)

Eventually, I managed to place myself in that kid’s shoes, and the equation came clear. He was the alpha male, his friends the Alviso equivalent of The Squirrely Bunch, and it was his job to find the biggest, whitest kid in the place and take him down.

Because that’s what you do on your first day in prison.

 

 

 

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of 21 novels, most recently The Girl in the Flaming Dress.

 

 

A Tasty Abduction

Michael Dailey as Pedrillo, Ashraf Sewailam as Osmin. All photos by Pat Kirk.

Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio

Opera San Jose
September 15, 2018

This is not one of those productions that you would call earth-shattering or revolutionary. But Opera San Jose has put together a performance of Mozart’s 1782 singspiel full of sage, finally balanced touches, allowing the finer points of a lesser-known work to come through.

The danger of going too broadly with Mozart’s comedies is that they’re cluttered up with all this brilliant music (damn, you, Amadeus!). Stage director Michael Shell has done an excellent job of picking his spots for tomfoolery, and the production further protects its musical assets by sticking to German for the singing, with spoken dialogues in English. The combination creates an interesting effect, a certain sense of relief when the dialogues begin and one can take a rest from the supertitles. The English also allows a bit of improvisation with the libretto. The Pasha psyches himself up for a meeting with his new British wife by quoting SNL’s classic Stuart Smalley skit (“…and by Allah, people like me!”). Later, a confusing discussion of the escape route turns into a Gilbert & Sullivan patter.

Matthew Grills as Belmonte, Rebecca Davis as Konstanze.

The 1930s update doesn’t really change much, but it does allow Ulises Alcala to dive into that wonderful period of fashion (notably Konstanze’s gorgeous Act I blue sparkledress) and to deploy one divine Middle Eastern fabric after another. Steven C. Kemp had some serious fun, too, covering his minarets and castle walls with amazing regional patterns. His Act II garden, festooned with topiary, tulips and ivy, received its own ovation, and his spinning scaffolding earned some applause as well. Pamila Z. Gray toned down her lighting whenever a character went internal, which created an intriguing psychological effect.

At this point, the singers in my audience may be asking, “Hey! What about us?” To which your average lighting designer or stage manager (Darlene Miyakawa) would say, “Ha! Now, you know how it feels.”

In a sense, Shell’s primary comic weapon is Michael Dailey, an OSJ veteran who acts as a sparkplug whenever he’s onstage. Playing Pedrillo, an expatriate gardener in love with the British captive Blonde, Dailey gives an upbeat and antic performance, serving as a kind of Figaro as he manipulates the proceedings.

Bass Ashraf Sewailam provided an excellent villain/oaf as the caretaker Osmin, particularly as the booze and sleeping potion had its way with him in Act Two. The simplest little hip-twitch or eye-roll had the operistas all atwitter. It was also thrilling to listen as he went down the impressive bass-clef elevators provided by Wolfgang. Tenor Matthew Grills created an affably insecure Belmonte (sort of a Matthew Broderick vibe), and deployed a supremely well-balanced tone, particularly the warm sustenatos of his opening aria, “Hier soll ich dich denn sehen.”

Katrina Galka is an out-and-out delight as Blonde. In the well-known battle aria with Osmin, “Durch Zärtlichkeit und Schmeicheln,” her soprano flew freely, her coloratura climbing so high I wished I had a pitch-pipe handy to gauge what I was hearing.

Michael Dailey as Pedrillo, Katrina Galka as Blonde.

The most anticipated singer was Rebecca Davis, a resident artist at OSJ in 2008. She portrayed Konstanze with a statuesque presence and lovely swelling phrases. But what really brought out her talent was “Marten aller Arten,” Konstanze’s passionate rejoinder to the Pasha’s odd combination of threats and wooing. The scene demands ferocity, a bit of lightning in the voice, and Davis delivered in spades.

As Pasha Selim, Nathan Stark gave us the expected arrogance and force, but also a surprising warmth. The most touching moment of the evening is when he admits that a woman has never quite had this effect on him. Shell uses Stark’s good looks to imply that Konstanze might, despite her devotion to Belmonte, have a bit of a thing for the Pasha, and also uses his Orson Welles laugh for great comic effect.

Through September 30, California Theater, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $55-$155. 408/437-4450, www.operasj.org.

Michael J. Vaughn is a novelist and painter, author of Operaville and Gabriella’s Voice.

 

Seven

Seven

This choice to sit is an
unusual move, a seed of
discontent in the soil of inaction

But how it grows.

Those at home,
asleep in the murmur of
behemoths grappling for
their amusement, find their
pre-game cluttered up

Give us our easy patriotism,
our singing contest losers,
our military flyover

Not this kneeling irritant

But the quarterback has his
own clutter: bodies on asphalt,
dangerous uniforms, the ease of
firing a bullet into dark skin

Our history is too
ugly for us to acknowledge.
We have built a nation on the
dark backs and now we
hate them for their scars

The target is obvious,
the number seven on a
bright red jersey,
The broad back of a
kneeling millionaire

How dare you demand your rights.
How dare you not stand.
Men died for this country,
this country that hates your skin

If you doubt our passion,
we will set fire to our shoes.