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Jeanne Weiser as Aunt Dot and Marvin Gonzalez as Dan Crisp.
Building on Sand I’ve been writing about local theater for the RN&R for years. So it’s a bit embarrassing to admit by that, although I knew that the Goodluck Jessica Santina Macbeth Theatre Company got new digs in Midtown over a year ago, I only just made my first visit to the new space last weekend, for opening night of Building on Sand. GLM tends to be innovative and ambitious, and tries things few others have. To illustrate, this season features movie sing-along events (complete with props), quirky life-drawing events, and this latest Building on Sand: A production, a British farce by Claire Booker British Farce by the Sea is at Goodluck which is making its U.S. debut on the GLM Macbeth, 713 S. stage. And if you haven’t been to GLM’s Virginia St., Reno, new space either, I think it’s time you went. through oct. 19. For In the manner of Molière—or, dare I tickets or more inforsay it, a Benny Hill sketch—this seaside mation, visit www. goodluckmacbeth.org, farce involves lots of contrived situations, calling 322-3716. misunderstandings, naughty behavior and characters that are adorably weird.
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The play opens as five people arrive for a holiday by the sea in Sussex, England. They are Richard and Julliette Jenkins (Ian Sorensen and Amanda McHenry); Richard’s best friend, Dan Crisp (Marvin Gonzalez), a playboy who can’t seem to get enough tail; Dan’s latest conquest, a ditzy French girl named Berenice Dupont (Jessica Johnson); and Julliette’s Aunt Dot (Jeanne Weiser), a batty old woman who’s terrified of water and arrives at Sussex in a scuba mask, a snorkel and pink wellies. Social worker Julliette’s plan is to convince her aunt to give up her delusion that the ocean will flood England and get over her fear of the water, while everyone else gets to enjoy a little romp at the beach. Dot convinces herself that building the sand castle she dreamed of, with its four turrets and a portcullis, will prevent England from flooding, so the group builds one for her right away in the hope that she’ll chill out. With Dot squared away, Richard, an ineffectual lump of a man who carries hand sanitizer around in his ever-present fanny pack, can focus on other matters, such as
his insecurity about having a wife who’s too good for him (not to mention having a best friend as charismatic as Dan). He’s not convinced of her devotion, so he enlists Dan to administer a test of her loyalty: Turn that charm up to 11 and see if Julliette’s capable of adultery. And while Dan struts around in his mustache and running shorts trying to get Julliette to drop trow, Berenice tends to the increasingly emboldened Dot while masterminding her own happy ending. The play is seriously funny—I know this despite having missed several lines due to audience laughter. And I loved that even though the characters could have become
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caricatures, they weren’t, thanks to talented actors. For instance, Gonzalez (GLM’s playwright in residence this season) avoided making Dan Crisp a smarmy jerk, and instead made him oddly appealing—you kind of want boring old Julliette to fool around with him (a stark contrast from the wishy washy role Gonzalez played in this summer’s production of Art at Brüka). Weiser’s Aunt Dot is spacy and wonderfully weird. You just want to take whatever she’s on. And as Richard, Sorensen’s subtle facial expressions and awkward movements are so authentically dorky, it’s clear that physical comedy is his strong suit. There was slight awkwardness created by everyone’s fake accents, as well as what looked like first night jitters, just actors settling into their roles. Nonetheless, everyone watching laughed a lot, including myself, so I’m looking forward to seeing more at Goodluck Macbeth. I won’t take this much time away again. Ω
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Hot Club of San Francisco presents Cinema Vivant Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013 | 7:30 p.m. | Nightingale Concert Hall Imagine yourself in the idyllic French countryside of the 1930s, where a gypsy caravan sets up camp in a field outside of town, inviting locals out for an evening’s fun. The wanderers travel with a film projector, pointing it at the side of a barn. As the silent images flicker to life beneath the stars, gypsy musicians play their guitars and fiddles, matching every movement on the screen with passion, humor and virtuosity. Reviving this lost art of entertainment is Cinema Vivant, an evening of delightful classic silent films by pioneering filmmakers Ladislaw Starewicz and Charley Bowers, accompanied by the hottest live gypsy swing band on the planet, Hot Club of San Francisco. Viva la jazz manouche!
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Tickets: Adult $24/ Senior $20/ Student and youth $12
(775) 784-4ART | Buy tickets online at www.unr.edu/pas OPINION
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