As much as I admire H.G. Wells, I still always find myself struggling to finish utopian novels. What I love about good science fiction is that upon a few basic “what if” presumptions, which we must take on faith, a whole world of logically consistent and ultimately very human stories can be built. Despite his interesting ideas and the honorific of “classic” and “canonical”, I’m afraid that I fell into the same complaints with A Modern Utopia as with many others: it is dry, overly-reliant on description instead of humanity, and prone to far more hastily-accepted assumptions than the bulk of the rest of the genre.

Wells does, to be fair, answer the question that is skirted in most utopias, but central to my distaste for them: If we live in a utopia, for what shall we strive?

Worth a read for the clarity of thought and excellent writing, and for its own sake as a member of canonical collection of classical science fiction. I probably will not read it again or refer back to it, however.



View all my reviews

JIMMY JUMPS SUNNY SIDE UP is short on plot but more than makes up for it in character work. Writer Chris Goss plays Jimmy, a “freelance IT consultant” whose character absolutely nails the quintessential mid-twenties professional computer nerd: asocial, intelligent, awkward, arrogant, jaded, creative, and often a complete asshole. He is, of course, still living at home, as is the girl-next-door from his youth, Sunny; Deana Barone plays the gorgeous, sweet, promiscuous, eternally well-meaning airhead who just doesn’t quite… get it. Or him.  She has just been fired from her waitressing job for attitude and faces the prospect of begging for it back in the morning.

The play opens late at night (or perhaps in the wee hours of the morning) and Sunny has stumbled in through Jimmy’s front door, left wide open, apparently drunk. Jimmy is startled out of his computer repair project on which he is working. What follows is a highly emotionally-true dialog that reveals the struggle for identity and self-worth in a sea of days that seem to bring nothing special. And while being profound, it’s really funny. Funny because it’s true; I could swear I’ve met exactly these two characters in my life (or amalgamations thereof). I’ve just never had an opportunity to see them interact.

Barone artfully walks the fine line between reminding us of every airheaded party girl we’ve met,  but not letting the cliches cover up a real person in Sunny that shines through. Keeping a character of this nature honest and genuine beneath all the fronting is a real challenge, and Barone delivers.

I was very impressed with Goss, both in his acting and writing.  I think his character really struck a chord with me; I’ve shared that sense of nerdy isolation before, and certainly as an engineer I have met more than my fair share of socially awkward, sarcastic technogeeks, lashing out to cover internal insecurities.

Director Darryl Johnson shows a keen sense of timing in the careful placement of silence… moments that become horribly awkward, funny, and deep at the same time.  Engaging, thought-provoking, and often hilarious. JIMMY JUMPS SUNNY SIDE UP is definitely one I would recommend seeing.

The Road Theatre Company’s THE KITCHEN PLAYS runs January 7 through the 29 at the Lankershim Arts Center. Check out www.roadtheatre.org for info and tickets. The Road Theatre Company accepts the KCRW fringe benefits card for 2-for-1 admission.

The Lankershim’s 99-seat space was a nice blend of the intimate theatre feel, yet allowing for a more sizable set than most small theaters. Though the physical set, a slice of the downstairs area of a house (dominated by, of course, the kitchen) stayed the same between one-acts, the designers were careful with the accouterments. Between plays, small but noticeable elements changed, including the photographs on the wall and the items around the kitchen and on the tables. Lighting and sound design also highlighted the changes in time and place between plays, effectively creating very individual settings from the same set.

THE PETOSKEY STONES, by Elizabeth Sampson, was a slow starter. The play opens with a scenelet of Gramma watching expressively out of the window towards the fourth wall. We discover shortly that this is the direction of the large lake by which the house sits, as various women begin entering and adding information. We learn that these are Gramma’s four granddaughters, varying in age from what I gathered was late twenties through perhaps early fifties, and that she has called them together to distribute some of her most treasured jewlery. The jewelry is not only monetarily valuable (the dialog describes gold, platinum, sapphires, and diamonds), but carry with them sentimental value in the form of stories involving two people missing from the table. Both Gramma’s husband and daughter (the grandfather and mother of the other women present), have recently died. After Gramma describes the jewelry, she exits on a desire to rest and leaves the granddaughters to decide between themselves which ring shall go to whom.

The opening was a little meandering. It felt as if the the expository material was trying too hard to replicate real conversation, which usually tends to fall flat in theatre. I had trouble getting engaged with a central storyline, a task which was made more difficult by the fact that there were several characters being introduced in a relatively short time, with no clear protagonist on whom to focus attention. This is, of course, what real life is like, and it gets dry very quickly on the stage. After Gramma’s exit, the granddaughters begin discussing the rings. Previously hidden personal tidbits surface, and we discover from these sisters that many of the issues surrounding their mother’s death were left unresolved between each other.

This was the catalyst moment I had been waiting for; and indeed, by the time it happened I was starting to wonder if it would happen at all. Once there was conflict and emotional investment in the lines, the play rapidly took off. The dialog moved away from trying to replicate life, at which theatre as a medium is quite mediocre, and more toward trying to make us think about life, which theatre does extraordinarily well. The result of the switch was a suddenly intriguing, interweaving set of personal stories about these sisters, and how their lives and relationship to each other had evolved over time. The struggle to incorporate their mother’s death into their shared experience became the central action of the play, enhanced by the individual issues each were facing in their lives right now.

June Sanders as Gramma displayed a clear grounding in crisp acting; it was a pleasure to watch her facial and physical expressions, present and true to the moment at all times. Nicole Farmer brought a very pleasing set of layers to the eldest sister, Ellen; the weight of her character’s modern worries is clear, but it only sometimes represses the bounding, energetic, curious, and intelligent young girl within, the part of her forever delighted by the wonder of the universe.

Stephanie Michels delivers an assured portrayal of Stacianne, the second sister; however, I felt that the moments of depth in her dialog were somewhat disjoint with the rest of her character. I actually blame this more on the writing than her acting; I believe her most beautiful lines, while eloquent, profound, and delivered well, are inconsistent with her character as exposed in the early parts of the play. If the intent was to provide a glimpse into an unexpected depth beneath Stacianne’s otherwise nonplussed attitude, then this should have been emphasized more clearly. The alternative recommendation would be to incorporate more elements of this depth earlier in the play. As it is, the character as written feels, in this specific sense only, half done.

Avery Clyde displayed fantastic control of her physical movement and expression when playing the third sister, Pamela. Her character ranged in emotion from barely contained excitement to heartbroken disappointment. This emotion came across to me only partially through vocal delivery; her expressive physical delivery could have covered the task completely if necessary.

Paris Perrault played the youngest sister, Julianne, well enough. Her acting delivered what it needed to deliver and did not distract from any other characters or the writing. For a young actress still building her experience, this is actually a positive comment; so many young actors find themselves in over their head, and when this is noticeable, it detracts from enjoyment of the rest. Perrault held her own and did not seem out of place with this cast, but delivered nothing exceptional. My major suggestion for improvement would be that her emotional changes were too rapid and surface-level; a more careful attention to the inner process of emotional transition would serve her well in my opnion.

Scott Allen Smith as director shows a nicely integrated feel for motion and physical space, which is in keeping with the style of acting brought out in some of my favorite character moments as described above. The visual that sticks in my memory is that of the four sisters, after a poignant moment of emotional explosion, diffused to the four points of the kitchen like a diamond, and each in their own characterization of frustration.

Overall, an enjoyable first act to the evening. I do intend to investigate more productions by this theatre company, as well as the NoHo area in general.

The Road Theatre Company’s THE KITCHEN PLAYS runs January 7 through the 29 at the Lankershim Arts Center.Check out www.roadtheatre.org for info and tickets. The Road Theatre Company accepts the KCRW fringe benefits card for 2-for-1 admission.

Stay tuned for Review 2/2: JIMMY JUMPS SUNNY SIDE UP.

I have vague memories of the animated movie; fleeting images come to mind that seem mostly centered on being frightened at the crazed look in Mr. Toad’s eyes as he wildly careens down the road reveling in his addiction, the speed of his motor-car. Yet when I came across The Wind in the Willows while browsing the Barnes and Noble Classics series on my Nook, it occurred to me with a start that I had never actually read this classic set of bedtime stories, written by Kenneth Grahame for his son. I expected a quick read that would do little more than check an as-of-yet-overlooked box.

Perhaps I simply did not understand the many-layered beauty of the story as a child, or maybe I was too frightened of Mr. Toad at whatever age it was that I saw the movie to remember anything else, or maybe the film was not really up to the task of conveying what I now find exquisite about this work of children’s literature. I suspect a combination of all three. What I can say is, that I have emerged from reading this book straight through as one wakes from a pleasant dream.

Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn [108].

Grahame uses evocative and flowing language, always centered on the natural world and the importance of its connection and rhythms. The animals’ intuitive closeness with their surroundings form the backdrop of a series of adventures by the protagonist Mole and his friends, Water Rat, Badger, and Toad. As improbable and silly as the plot turns often were, I found myself willingly suspending disbelief in exchange for the privilege of absorbing more of the beautiful expressions as fast as I could:

Their old haunts greeted them again in other raiment, as if they had slipped away and put on this pure new apparel and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if they would be recognized again under it [105].

Interspersed with the lovely, poetic dialog of nature and animals are insightful remarks on human society and behavior. These run not only along the lines of commentary on mankind’s impermanence upon the backdrop of the world – “ ‘Who can tell?,’ said the Badger. ‘People come – they stay for a while, they flourish, they build – and they go. It is their way. But we remain.’” [73] – but also in caricature of very human types.

Mole’s naïve, wide-eyed view of the world; Water Rat’s moody, poetic musings and sharp cunning; the earthy, country simplicity of Badger’s generosity and strength; Toad’s outrageously inflated conceitedness, masking affable charm and landed refinement – in these portraits we easily find parts of ourselves, shades of others we know, and perhaps a bit of who we aspire to be. I have, I admit, perhaps a bit more of Toad in me than I’d like; but I still connected most eagerly with the Rats – both the major character of Water Rat, as well as in the following urging by a lesser character, the Sea Rat:

Take the Adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! ‘Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of the old life and into the new! Then some day, some day long hence, jog home here if you will, when the cup has been drained and the play has been played, and sit down by your quiet river with a store of goodly memories for company [135].

There is even a gem for actors, composed as succinctly as Boleslavsky might have done in admonishing his Creature to strive for “[…:] that happy grace which is the last thing the skilled actor shall capture – the natural grace which goes with perfect unconsciousness of observation” [77].

If you did read this book as a child, I must say I envy you a bit; I would love to know how I would have perceived it had I read it without whatever present perspective I have. If you have not, please do yourself a favor and track down a copy. Even if you did read it as a child, read it again, for the sake of what insights you may have missed in your younger years.

Having now read this book and written this review all in one sitting, I am tempted to either read or write again immediately. But I think shall instead yield to Mole’s ways in this instance, pause to simply reflect on life: “[…:] and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them” [18].

What a marvelous book. Maybe I just read it in a good mood or read way too much into it, but I make no hesitation in giving it a full five-star rating.

View all my reviews >>

By far, the most engaging part of this novel was the depiction of the hardship and fear present in daily life under the Stalinist state machine; the transformation of the protagonist from one wholly loyal to this system into one profoundly disgusted with its human implications is interesting to observe. The final showdown (and any thriller worth anything must have a final showdown) makes an attempt at exploring deeper issues; but while it checks all the boxes for what constitutes a final showdown, I found it to be ultimately rather anti-climatic.

This novel is an fairly entertaining, mildly suspenseful, predictable, but worthwhile distraction for a couple late nights in the library… and not much more.

As an addendum, this novel does carry the distinction of being the first I purchased and read on my new B&N Nook ebook reader… review of that device coming soon.

View all my reviews on GoodReads >>