Nero gets a makeover, Putnam County's 25th Annual Spelling Be delivers and The Wedding Singer gets a Charlie J. "Zinger"!!

Three shows were under the magnifying glass this week, two of which definitely deserve your consideration but the third was a bit of a disappointment. The Berkeley Repertory Theatre is currently producing Amy Freed’s comic spoof of life under a despotic emperor, in “You, Nero”. At the southern end of the Bay Area, the San Jose Repertory Theatre brought their audience smartly to their feet, with a standing ovation at the end of an outrageously funny production of the Tony Award-Winning comedy, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” Meanwhile, in Concord, “The Wedding Singer”, a musical production in the Willows Theatre in Concord, just plain felt amateurish, with absolutely no lyrics that were the least bit memorable, at least not for my taste. Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned but this re-hash of the Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymoore 1998 comedy movie by the same name, just couldn’t get my heart-rate above a barely audible thump thump!

The Wedding Singer doesn't win me over!

“The Wedding Singer” is just plain silly, but is a fun-filled, feel-good musical with a simple and highly predictable plot. The people who are about to get married don’t realize it yet, but their dream partners turn out to be a nightmare, until a little twist of fate re-aligns the stars and they find happiness and true love forever.

Robbie Hart (Ryan Drummond) is the lead singer for a small rock combo who is staying alive financially by providing the music for weddings, when he and his band are not bringing in sufficient money and success from their other gigs. Robbie runs into Julia Sullivan (Sarah Ali), a very vivacious and warmhearted employee of the wedding caterer, while Robbie sings sweet love songs to a charming couple during the wedding reception. Julia is so taken with this really charming and romantic young singer that she pleads with him to sing at her wedding, if and when she becomes engaged. She has high hopes that her self-centered, high-flying, big-bucks junk-bond dealing boyfriend, Glen (Noel Anthony), will pop the question soon, very soon!

As Robbie expresses his excitement for the wedding couple’s future bliss, he shares with the guests that he too is about to get married, in fact, on the very next day. He is absolutely thrilled at the prospect of getting married. Robbie is a really romantic guy, a man who loves the idea of being married. Unfortunately, as the audience discovers in very short order, he has asked the wrong girl to tie the knot with him, as she is a no-show at the nuptials. Robbie is crushed and his whole attitude about marriage crashes. The next wedding gig is a complete disaster as Robbie, now a chump with a chip on his shoulder, becomes a maudlin master of ceremonies as well as a bad attitude balladeer. Before this wedding is over, the wedding singer is dumped in the nearest dumpster.

Julia, now engaged, witnesses the fiasco, but still supports Robbie and tries to pull him up and get him right back on positive track. Julia’s boyfriend is a real turkey and Robbie can sense it. It doesn’t take long for the stars and planets to start their re-alignment process, leading to the appropriate ending.

The Willows production brought in several really excellent and highly talented actors, with the main two principal performers, Sarah Ali and Ryan Drummond, truly excellent choices! In fact, there were several others who were very good as well, but for some bizarre reason, the bulk of the cast just didn’t thrill me at all. When one of the band members, George (the keyboard/guitar player- Brady Woolery), tried to catch the bride’s bouquet that was being thrown to the unmarried ladies, I was thrown for a loop. While he appeared to be emulating in attire and look, the once famous “Boy George” of an earlier punk rock era, his actions in that scene didn’t seem to make any sense to me. Why would a guy try to catch the bouquet? Grandma Rosie (Linnea vonAhn) just didn’t look old enough to be the grandmother to the lead singer, as she was much too youthful looking to portray a “grandma”. Where was the makeup expert?

It wasn’t that the overall acting was bad, but some of the acting seemed amateurish and a bit strained (apart from the lead actors). The strange costumes and an uninspiring set (primarily because of a really weird bed set up), just didn’t grab me at all. I don’t know why, but nothing about the show got me the least bit excited. Maybe it was just a bad night at the Willows for Karen ( my lovely wife) and me, but neither of us could get into it. The evening started off badly with a fifteen minute delay due to technical problems, plus the six-foot wookie (think Chewbacca from “Star Wars”) who was sitting in front of me had such a massive head of hair that I had to get up and move to a vacant seat elsewhere in the theater in order to see the stage at all.

I would love to have you hear the great voices and experience the talent of the lead actors, which was very good, but I started off with a bad attitude that unfortunately carried over into my experience. You will probably see the show and tell me off, saying that I was not being fair, and you will probably be absolutely right. Go ahead and see the show and let me know how you perceived it, thumbs up or thumbs down!

“The Wedding Singer” plays Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., with matinees on Wednesdays at 3:30, on Saturdays at 2 p.m., and on Sundays at 3 p.m., now through June, 14th. You may call (925) 798-1300 for reservations or visit the companies website at http://www.willowstheatre.org/ to purchase your tickets. The Willows Theatre mainstage is situated at 1975 Diamond Boulevard in Concord, next to the REI sporting goods store in the Willows Shopping Center. Tickets range between $30 and $40 each with discounts for seniors, students and groups.

When it comes to a publicity makeover, Nero doesn't fiddle around!

The Berkeley Repertory Theatre has just opened their production of “You, Nero” to the complete delight of the audience. If you have ever seen Mel Brooks’ version of “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum”, transpose that fun-filled experience to the times and trials of Nero and you will begin to get an idea of what this show is about.

Author Amy Freed has taken the life and times of a tyrant and transposed it into a silly story about a misunderstood despot doing his best to do an image make-over! Nero didn’t exactly emerge into public life with the best of parentage or publicity going for him. His mother, Agrippina, was the sister of the notorious Caligula and was officially adopted by Emperor Claudius at age 13. At age 15, Nero married his stepsister, Claudia Octavia. His adopted father was purportedly poisoned by Agrippina, establishing Nero as emperor at age 16. His early political prowess was fostered by his mother and two principal advisors, Seneca and Burrus. As Nero became more spoiled and pampered, he became more ruthless and cynical. Within four years, he was sexually involved with a friend’s wife, Poppaea, who became his mistress. Within the next four years he executed his mother (supposedly because she was now plotting his demise), before he was 21 years of age, followed by the execution of his wife, Octavia, so that he could marry his mistress. A few years later, around 64 AD, historians theorize that he kicked Poppaea to death after she complained about him coming home late from the chariot races. - - - And you think today’s reality shows are a downer, as you can see, life in Rome was a bit rocky in the early AD’s.

Needless to say, there wasn’t much media to manage at that time in history, but author Amy Freed has put a modern spin on the Nero chronicles by having Nero employ a well-known playwright, Scribonius of Carthage (Jeff McCarthy), to re-write Nero’s history (for current audiences). Scribonius is asked to create a play to dress up the tragedies in Nero’s life, to make the patricians and plebeians more sympathetic of his excesses and murderous intrigues. Jeff McCarthy is understated brilliance in action. He is funny, endearing, and articulate and a terrific actor. Scribonius reveals the emotional layers of a playwright working to please the emperor and yet trying to convince him that the glamorized and sanitized character he is creating on paper, could be the real Nero, if he can just get Nero to see his own potential. Scribonius tries to re-create Nero as a hero, a force of positive change, a man of the people, for the people, for the republic. For a while, Nero actually likes the fictitious Nero and for a brief time, is even drawn toward emulating his alter ego, his media-enhanced self.

Nero (played outrageously by Danny Scheie) is characterized brilliantly as a many faceted spoiled character, which he probably was, and yet, is portrayed in a grossly over-exaggerated comedic style. Danny Scheie is a very, very funny man, creating the character of a coy, caustic, and courageously bombastic emperor.

The entire cast is superbly over-exaggerated. Lori Larson plays well Nero’s conniving mother, Aggripina, and Susannah Schulman is sexy, seductive and likeable as Nero’s mistress, Poppaea. Mike McShane, Kasey Mahaffy and Richard Doyle play well a plethora of prestigious, pompous and pathetic characters. Donnell Hill, Maggie Mason and Sarah Moser add immeasurably to the “eye-candy”, raising the temperature in the audience with their cool and beautiful bodies and teasing, tantalizing appearances.

“You, Nero” makes bad politics seem more tolerable and is wonderfully silly, a great way to spend an evening. Director Sharon Ott has carved another notch on her magic wand of directorial success with this highly “sucsexsful” production. I am sure that this show will become a new comic standard for the stage. It is certainly apropos for our times as we see politician after politician trying to re-make his or her image at all levels of government. We all need a good laugh and this show delivers laughter without a drop of blood being drawn.

This production is in the Thrust Stage at 2025 Addison Street (at Shattuck) in Berkeley. Tickets range in price between $33 and $71 a seat. Call (510) 647-2949 or visit their website at http://www.berkeleyrep.org/ for more information. You can purchase tickets toll-free by calling 888-4-BRT-Tix. The theater is just a little over one block from the downtown Berkeley BART station. Show times are Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Wednesdays and Sundays at 7 p.m., with matinees on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m., continuing now through June 28th.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee spells great success in this current production!

I absolutely love the San Jose Repertory Theatre Company which is currently producing “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”, a tongue-in-cheek trip back in time for those of us who are in love with words and can remember the awkwardness and trials and tribulations of attending the local spelling bee contests in our adolescence. It is a celebration of the courage of our youthful competitors in all personal development and language skills, including debate, spelling bees, 4 H and youth in government competitions. It is a funny, funny, tunefully enjoyable way to spend an evening.

Director Timouthy Near has fine tuned this award winning musical show with outstanding actors, a superb set and outstanding direction into an evening one will not soon forget. Near has just recently completed her 21 year tenure as artistic director for the San Jose Repertory and has left a legacy of outstanding memories that she has created or overseen in this very comfortable and attractive facility. I personally want to thank her publicly for the great gift she has give our residents who have journeyed to San Jose to see her shows over the past 20 years. She will now be directing shows all over the Bay Area, including in the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts (in Walnut Creek) occasionally.

The judges of the competition, Rona Lisa Peretti (Alison Ewing) and Douglas Panch (Steve Irish), set the mood and develop their character for us by reliving memories about their own personal experiences as childhood competitors and/or their relationships with school administration challenges and being part of the educational system that loves and works for children.

The children are played by professional actors who are really quite believable as high-school aged competitors, each with their own life’s baggage that is inadvertently brought along to the competition. One young lady, Miss Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Molly Bell), has two male parents rooting and conniving for her; Chip Tolentino (last year’s spelling bee winner)(played by Marc de la Cruz), who is having problems coping with the burgeoning ups and downs of manhood; Marcy Park (Sophie Oda), an over achiever who speaks 6 languages and competes in every avenue of her life; Olive Ostrovsky (Dani Marcus), who is brilliant and introverted at the same time; Leaf Coneybear (Clifton Guterman), who makes his own clothing and lives with a hippy type family; William Barfee (Mark Farrell), who is brilliant and knows it. In addition, Mitch Mahoney (Berwick Haynes), is a troubled adult who is doing his community service by assisting the judges and delivering little bits of positive anecdotes and encouragement to each contestant as each one bombs out and leaves the competition.

I have had the pleasure of seeing these actors play in many other productions and it is absolutely wild to see them playing these teen-aged fonts of verbal wisdom.

As you enter the theatre you will be asked if you have any interest in spelling competition and several people will be selected to join the cast on stage as members in the spelling bee competition. They actually are given words to work on, some ridiculously simple such as “cow”, others much more difficult, to which they may ask (as each student is allowed to do) of the judges , “may I please have the definition- - use of the word in a sentence- - word origin, etc.”

The music and lyrics are fittingly funny, poignant, touching, and memorable of the process of growing up and taking ones’ place in life. “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” is a most enjoyable show, and provides an evening to just sit back and let the fun begin, to let the good feelings and laughter simply lift your spirits.

“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” plays Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m., Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 8 p.m., with matinees at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays, at 3 p.m. on Saturdays and at 2 p.m., on Sundays, now through June7th. The theatre is located near San Jose State University, at 101 Paseo de San Antonio, between 3rd and 4th streets, one half block north of San Carlos street. There is a large parking garage at the corner of San Carlos street and 4th street that is both convenient and reasonably priced. I highly recommend the 45 minute drive to San Jose to see this show. Also, I highly recommend driving down early and having dinner in one of the many fine restaurants near the theatre. There is a Scott’s Seafood Restaurant nearby that serves a great dinner.

Call (408) 367-7255 for ticket and reservation information, or visit their website at http://www.sjrep.com/ or visit the theatre box office at #101 Paseo de San Antonio to purchase tickets. Tickets range in price between $40 and $62, depending on performance date and seat location in the theatre. This is a terrific show and now's the time to go!