Rock 'n' Roll - Passion
and Protest Classics at
El Teatro Campesino
by Paul Myrvold

Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll
San Jose Stage Company

Often times I have heard the invitation to “sit back, relax and enjoy the show.” Who hasn’t? It always conjures up the image of a large person in a La-Z-Boy recliner with a drink in one hand and a snack in the other. That’s not the attitude an audience needs for a Tom Stoppard play. “Sit up and pay attention” is more like it. For many of us, our first introduction to the wit and language of Stoppard was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a ground breaking play that turned Hamlet upside down and told the story from the point of view Shakespeare’s most disposable characters. The show was fast, clever and challenging for both players and audience alike.

I don’t want to scare anyone off, but San Jose Stage Company’s excellent-in-all-ways production of Rock ‘n’ Roll needs an audience who can keep up with the twists and turns of a story that spans 22 years, three generations of characters and two cities – Cambridge, England and Prague, Czechoslovakia. The show begins just after the Warsaw Pact invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia in response to the relatively liberal reforms of the famous Prague Spring under Alexander Dubček in 1968. Cambridge student Jan (Jonathan Rhys Williams), a protégé of dedicated Marxist professor Max (Julian López-Morillas), returns to his native Prague after the Soviet invasion and, along with his friends and lovers, gets caught up in the repressive machinery of the reinstalled, hard line communist dictatorship of President Gustáv Husák.

Ironically, it was the love of rock ‘n’ roll music that brought so many of the younger generation into conflict with the state. One group in particular, the Plastic People of the Universe, proved to be a flashpoint of resistance to the regime. Always claiming they just wanted to be left alone to play their music, members of the band and their audience were constantly hounded by the secret police, beaten, imprisoned and put on trial over and over again until the Velvet Revolution that ushered in the presidency of writer and dissident Václav Havel in 1989. Communism fell and the implosion of the Soviet Union followed shortly thereafter. Was it rock ‘n’ roll that brought down communism? No. Let’s just say it provided the score.

The play follows the lives of Jan and Max as they struggle with love and betrayal, hopes and the dashing of hope. The charismatic Jonathan Rhys Williams ably carries the show on his shoulders. Mr. López-Morillas, a highly regarded actor in the Bay Area and elsewhere, brings a suitable gravitas to his Cambridge don.

Ayla Yarkut is splendid in her dual roles. She is brittle and touching as Max’s cancer stricken wife Eleanor in the first act. An academic, a specialist in the poetry of Sappho, she is a living refutation of the soulless philosophy of her husband. In the second act, she takes on the role of Eleanor’s daughter Esme, perfectly embodying the bright, underachieving former flower child creeping up on middle age.

Maggie Mason flip-flops roles too, appearing as Esme in the first act – ripe with the passion of an 18-year old ready to burst out into her own summer of love. In the second act she shows up as Esme’s daughter, Alice, a smart over-achieving 16-year old with a vibrant moral sense. A lovely performance.

Alexandra Creighton scores as the smoldering Lenka, first as a Cambridge student and then as professor, both times curiously attracted to Max. Johnny Moreno marshals his considerable integrity in the creation of Ferdinand, a working class hero of the resistance and friend to Jan.

The physical production is terrific. Richard C. Ortenblad’s sets are flexible and quickly changed and the use of projections adds enormously to the experience. Steve Schoenbeck’s sound design is marvelous, especially in the use and timing of the rock ‘n’ roll music as the sound moves seamlessly from a small, cheap record player to the auditorium speakers. Michelle Wynne once again assembles costumes that perfectly evoke times and periods that span decades.

There are heaps of politics and philosophy in Rock ‘n’ Roll. So what? It also crackles with witty, often scathing dialogue, searing passion, cruelty, despair and hope. It is deeply human and its concerns are those of the heart, of feeling and of consciousness. Sit up. Pay Attention. Rock ‘n’ Roll is worth it.

Rock ‘n’ Roll runs though March 7 at San Jose Stage Company in Downtown San Jose.

El Teatro Campesino reaches deep into their canon to pluck out two one acts of seriously hilarious, seriously satiric social satire, Los Olivos Pits and Los Vendidos. Los Olivos Pits derives from Lope de Rueda’s paso Las Aceitunas (The Olives), which was originally adapted 1964 by Peter Berg and Peter Cohan (Coyote) of the radical San Francisco Mime Troupe and turned into commedia dell arte street theatre. It was further adapted in 1972 by R. G. Davis who directed it with a cast of El Teatro Campesino performers. Mr. Davis has returned to ETC with an updated version steeped in Chicano/Mexican culture.

Using stock commedia characters, the simple story tells how a poor foolish family is gulled out of their money by a slickster who dangles the idea of gaining an easily fortune with little effort. Sound familiar? The lottery? House flipping? No money down? Adrian Torres plays Scaramouche, the classic manipulator, a sort of Bugs Bunny on steroids. Eduardo Robledo (in a commedia mask) and Rosa Apodaca, who were in the 1972 production, take on the roles of the foolish, complaining Pantalone and his sharp tongued wife Aguada. Christy Sandoval is their spoiled daughter Menciguela and Mauricio Zamano plays the drunkard Borracho. Los Olivos Pits could not be more relevant. Pretty good for a 450 year old play.

Playwright Luis Valdez takes on stereotypes and skewers establishment politics Los Vendidos. An anglicized political hack, Ms. Jimenez – with a hard J – (Christy Sandoval), comes to Honest Sancho’s Used Mexicans looking for just the right combination of skin color and ethnicity to serve as window dressing for a political event. She is shown three models – “The Farmworker” (Mauricio Zamano) shows amazing energy, an obsequious deference,but lacks English, The Revolucionario (a picture perfect Zapata-esque Jesus Huerta) who is strong, hyper masculine and sexy but isn’t American, and “Johnny Pachuco” (Victor Aguilera) who speaks English and is American but is a bit too quick with his switchblade. Finally she settles on a robotic, well-spoken “Mexican-American” (Norberto F. Escobar) in a suit and a tie who gushes meaningless platitudes.

No one does extreme over-the-top physical and verbal comedy better than Adrian Torres. His Honest Sancho is a whirling dervish of unctuous deceit and groveling obsequiousness. The sharp satire of Los Vendidos stands the test of time. It is classic.

Taking Flight

Putting out a monthly magazine often means that the shows I write about come and go before anyone has a chance to read about them. It has been a frustration these last ten years. Sometimes I can get a review up on our website, but I have no idea if anyone reads it. So I hope lots of you got up to Teatro Vision last month to see Adriana Sevahn Nichols in her remarkable one-woman show Taking Flight. Standing ovations have gotten so cheap and common these days I think some audience members think it is de rigueur. Not so. I rarely stand. It happens only when my heart and my emotions will not let me sit. A standing ovation should be a spontaneous reaction. When Ms. Nichols appeared after her eighty-minute performance, I leapt to my feet with joyous applause. I have no idea if anyone joined me since I sat in the third row and there was no one between me and the stage. Critics aren’t supposed to do that I have been told. Too bad. I am more an actor than a critic and I loved what I saw.

In her show, Ms. Nichols takes on multiple characters, flawlessly impersonating men, women and ethnicities while expressing situations of hilarity and of tragedy moving in and out of emotions from giddy joy to despair with the instantaneous sureness of a film edit, a complete, full change with nothing left hanging from the previous incarnation.

The story takes the destruction of the twin towers as its ignition point, but the play is not about the events of September 11. Rather it is about love and friendship, about how the past informs the future and more importantly affirming that the present is all we have, the only time in which we deal with effects of the past and can lay the ground for the future.

Gracias, Teatro Visión, for bringing this marvelous performer and brilliant play to her Out & About country.

Playwright Luis Alfaro breathes life into Sophocles’ ancient text with a crackling adaptation called Oedipus el Rey. Set it in the Chicano gang culture of East LA and the California prison system, Pasadena’s Boston Court Theatre has mounted a fiercely authentic production with a superb troupe of perfectly cast actors. The electrifyingly powerful Justin Huen as Oedipus, just released from prison, all pent up rage and sexual longing, kills gang leader Laius (Leandro Cano) on his way home to the barrio where he meets up with his prison pal Creon (Daniel Chacón, a Watsonville native and El Teatro Campesino veterano) and Creon’s older sister Jocasta, Laius’ bitter, grieving widow.

Sophocles does not dramatize this crucial encounter between a volatile young man and woman old enough to be his mother and all scenes of violence are kept off the stage. Alfaro is not bound by such 2500 year-old Athenian conventions. Jocasta (Marlene Forte) seethes sexuality and her inner fire ignites Oedipus’ youthful volatility in a thrilling scene of passion the likes of which I have never seen on any stage, anywhere. The ensuing poignancy and tenderness between them makes the culminating revelations and tragic resolutions all the more wrenching.

The playwright retains the traditional chorus, a quintet of prisoners who step out between the prison bars of John H. Brinkley’s ideal, spartan set to take principal speaking roles. The chorus also comments on the action of the play, often in richly comedic ways, a blessing in a tragedy. Mike Uribes (well known to Out & About audiences for his six month run as El Pachuco in Luis’ Valdez’ Zoot Suit) brings down the house with a smartly ribald remark after the fateful sexual encounter.

Luis Alfaro keeps faith with Sophocles save for the onstage violence and passion and renders the old story relevant to a modern audience.

It’s always a good laugh at Pintello Comedy Theatre, but last month’s There Goes the Bride tickled me something fierce. In this sitcom par excellence, a wedding day turns into shambles when a somewhat scatterbrained, over worked British ad executive and father of the bride (Kevin Heath) gets bonked on the head and starts seeing a 1920s era flapper girl (Tina Elder in a deliciously “born yesterday” performance). No one else can see her, of course, the situation that puts the “com” in sitcom. At the close of the first act, Mr. Heath’s character suffers another concussive blow which transports him, in his imagination, back to the 1920s where he assumes the character of a song and dance man who, along with his flapper, has dreams of becoming the next Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. With his half lidded eyes and droll delivery, Heath delightfully channels Hugh Grant to deliver a performance that, quite frankly, cracked me up.

The zaniness was ably abetted by a fine cast of veteran, local performers. Angela Doss as the put upon bride reminded me of an over-the-top Fran Drescher. Stephanie Pintello as the mother-of-the-bride anchored the comedy as the closest to “normal” character. Bill Tindall was a giddy delight as the not-as-goofy-as-he-seems grandpa and April Ouelette was suitably rigid and self-righteous as the grandmother. As the sputtering, red-faced father of the groom, Dale Haluza dominated the stage with his pitch perfect Georgia accent. And Dave Leon as Mr. Heath’s partner brought his own brand deadpan comedy to the fray.

The Pintellos do it again.

Sunsets and Margaritas: A Comedy that Swings for the Fences
at TheatreWorks

It has all the elements for a pretty good sitcom pilot – unique characters, giddy moments of outright buffoonery, a touch of “magical realism,” a dash of heartwarming sincerity, all fueled by an engaging script. José Cruz González’ Sunsets and Margaritas under the breathless direction of Amy Gonzalez hit a responsive chord with an opening night audience who provided a steady laugh track throughout the performance.

Set in the Serrano family’s restaurant, an overstressed Gregorio (Tommy A. Gomez) and his Cuban born wife Luz (Roxane Carrasco) prepare to celebrate the 78th birthday of patriarch Candelario (Daniel Valdez, an iconic Chicano actor/musician and a founding member of El Teatro Campesino), a bullheaded blusterer with knee jerk, old school machismo. Gregorio knows his dad should go into a “home” but he lacks the fortitude to tell him.

The show gets off to a literal bang when an out of control Papa Candelario bursts into the restaurant in a spectacular entrance almost worth the price of admission. As the depth of the “Papa” problem becomes clear, the rest of the family gets added to the mix. JoJo (Miles Gaston Villanueva), son to Gregorio and Luz, is a cheerful, wheelchair-bound gangster wannabe with big dreams. His sister Gabby (a riotous Dena Martinez) is a lesbian and self-proclaimed Latina Republican with a newborn baby who struggles with her negative self-image.

When, in moments of stress, Gregorio hyperventilates he sees several successive apparitions, each offering advice and all enthusiastically played by Lucinda Serrano. First, La Virgen de Guadalupe appears as a raucous standup comic hipster, then La Soldadera, with crossed bandoleras, pistola and a take-no-prisoners attitude, and finally La Llarona, the legendary weeping mother who forlornly searches for her drowned children.

The cast, abetted by the director, swings for the fences with an over the top enthusiasm that works, mostly. Perhaps as the show settles in, the overplaying will ratchet down a bit. Every comedy needs a “normal” one as a contrast to the zanies and Erika Yanin Pérez-Hernández was perfectly cast as the outside help, Bianca, whose strong moral sense was intense yet quietly modulated.

Scenic Designer Frank Sarmiento and the technical wizards of the TheatreWorks scene shop created an evocative, authentic set with bright colors and numerous icons of Mexican American culture including a giant replica of the classic Jesús Helguera mural “Grandeza Azteca,” a shrine to La Virgen de Guadalupe, tin lampshades and many photos. There are wonderful moments of theatre magic, not the least of which is Papa Candy’s spectacular entrance. JoJo’s customized electric wheelchair is another technical marvel with lights, spinner wheels and low rider hydraulics.

Sunsets and Margaritas runs through April 4 at the Lucie Stern theatre in Palo Alto.

Opening in March

El Teatro Campesino continues its 2010 season with two special performances in March. The Folk Connection, a three-part harmony folk group based in Southern California, will give a concert in ETC’s San Juan Bautista Playhouse March 20 at 7:30 pm. According to ETC’s publicist Stephanie Woehrmann, “The Folk Collection could just as well be named ‘Your Favorite Songs of the 60s Folk Era’ group. The Folk Collection is reminiscent of such groups as The Kingston Trio, The Limeliters, The New Christy Minstrels, and The Brothers Four. 
Their show is centered around folk music and good clean jokes. They are family friendly and their audiences are multi-generational.”

“Sisters, Spirit and Songs” is a three-day musical arts celebration featuring Las Mujeres de El Teatro Campesino. The collaborative performance piece is called “Even Though They Are Women” and is directed by Stephanie Woehrmann and Christy Sandoval. The show is scheduled for March 26, and 27 at 8pm and March 28 at 2pm.

South Valley Symphony and Gavilan College present the always popular, always sold out Bach to BluesMarch 6, 7:30pm. It’s an eclectic mix of styles and genres and it’s wildly entertaining. Don’t miss it. And don’t miss South Valley Symphony’s concert “Music for the Young at Heart” March 13 at 4pm, also in the Gavilan College Theatre. It will feature Curtis Chan winner of the 2nd Al Navaroli Young Musicians Competition.

Pintello Comedy Theatre continues its run of There Goes the Bride featuring the talents of veteran Pintello actors Kevin Heath, Stephanie Pintello, Tina Elder, Bill Tindall, Dave Leon and Dale Haluza, along with two busy local actresses, April Ouellette and Angela Doss, who are new to the PCT stage. There Goes the Bride continues through March 20.

And Don’t Forget…

San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts will host Ballet San José’s production of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet through Mar 7 and Broadway San Jose brings in the Broadway hit Legally Blonde through March 16-21…Julie James and her Jewel Theatre Company offers the emotional thriller Doubt, a Parable March 11 – 20 at the Broadway Playhouse in Santa Cruz…Included in the cast of Lyric Theatre’s Kismet are local favorites Ruth E. Stein and Larry Tom March 20 – 28 at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose…San Benito Stage Company continues its run of Ax of Murder through March 7 at the Granada Theatre in Hollister…Finally, TheatreWorks presents west coast premiere of a Sunsets and Margaritas by José Cruz González. Billed as “a comic confección,” the show headlines Daniel Valdez (a personal favorite of mine) and Roxanne Carrasco and runs March 10 – April 4 at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto.

For more information about these shows and more turn to OnStage.

See you at intermission.

Paul Myrvold has been a member of Actors' Equity since 1973 and has been writing and reviewing theatre and cinema for twenty years.  His most recent acting credits include narrating and playing Ebenezer Scrooge in a radio drama version of A Christmas Carol in the World Theatre at CSU Monterey Bay, taking the role of aging radical writer/director Tommy Macklin in Jeff Carter's La Honda and his eighth production as Quixote/Cervantes in Man of La Mancha, both at Pacific Repertory Theatre .Email him at editor@outandaboutmagazine.com