THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS AIRDATE: February 18, 2005
Some people know their destiny, almost from birth. And they
feel compelled to fulfill it. There’s passion in the pursuit – whether it’s
cooking or playing guitar, seeking revenge or establishing a homeland. That
passion is palpable in three very different plays – one fiction, one fable, one
factual.
The truth-tinged invention is “I Just Stopped By to See the
Man,” by Stephen Jeffreys. It concerns an aging blues-man who’s retreated to a
shack in the Mississippi Delta, letting people think he died in a car crash
with his wife long ago. He’s buried himself in the Bible, and in a church that
considers blues ‘the devil’s music.’ But his whole peaceful world, and that of
his activist, on-the-lam daughter, is shaken when he’s found by an intrepid
English rock-star who’s made millions from the old man’s music. He convinces
Jesse to pick up his guitar again. Who’s helping or taking advantage of whom
here? And who’s losing out when an artistic gift goes unused, a destiny
thwarted? Director Seret Scott has created a beautiful, moving production at
the Globe, lovingly designed, outstandingly performed. Each of the excellent
actors – Henry Afro-Bradley, Manoel Felciano and Tracey Leigh -- takes a
heart-wrenching turn at the blues. And that’s the soul of The Man and the play.
At Sledgehammer Theatre, we see another creative talent
submerged. In “When the World Was Green, A Cook’s Fable,” theater
groundbreakers Sam Shepard and Joe Chaikin introduce us to a former chef, who’s
in prison for murder. Turns out it was the wrong man, not the one he spent his
life pursuing in a 200 year-old family feud. He’s visited by a young reporter,
who wants his story. Searching for the father she never knew, hers could also
be a tale of revenge. But in their joint journeys of the mind, she coaxes him
back to his delight in the look, smell, feel and preparation of food. Kirsten
Brandt’s precise direction of this enigmatic, elegiac play highlights the lush,
poetic imagery. As a broken man and a lost woman, Jim Chovick and Laura Lee
Juliano jointly find redemption. The recaptured cooking is the catalyst.
No one could keep the indomitable Golda Meir from fulfilling
her destiny. Once she latched onto her Zionistic zeal, she was an unstoppable
force of nature. A Russian immigrant with only an 8th grade
Milwaukee education, her fervor and charisma catapulted her to the prime ministry
of Israel. Last fall, “Golda’s Balcony” became the longest-running one-woman
show in Broadway history. Tovah Feldshuh’s brilliant, soul-stirring performance
reveals the genius of the woman, the actor, the Irish-Catholic playwright,
William Gibson, and theater itself.
It’s my destiny to pass along the passion of theater. It’s your good fortune to see it.
©2005 Patté Productions Inc.