Everyone fell in love with "She Loves Me" and in the next theatrical breath, we're pulled up short by the passion of "Compulsion"!

Ryan Drummond and Kelsey Venter star in "She Loves Me" at Center Repertory Company in Walnut Creek!
Photo credit: http://www.kevinberne.com/

Wow, two truly diverse, emotional and richly rewarding theatrical experiences are available for you this week! I truly loved the Joe Masteroff, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s upbeat musical offering, “She Loves Me”, that Center Repertory Company mounted recently. Also, Berkeley Repertory Company is currently offering a stunning story about Meyer Levin’s all-consuming obsession to bring a complete and faithful adaptation of the Anne Frank diary without the usual compromises in "Compulsion"!

I remember a delightfully romantic movie starring Jimmy Steward and Margaret Sullavan entitled, “The Little Shop around the Corner”, that I probably first saw on AMC several years ago. That movie was in turn modeled after the original Hungarian stage play written in 1930, by Miklos Laszlo, entitled “Parfumerie”. Little did I realize at the time I discovered the Jimmy Steward movie version, that there was a whimsical and lighthearted musical written and first staged in 1963, based on that same movie and earlier play, a wonderful musical entitled, “She Loves Me”.

The story is set in a beautiful and historical city in pre-war 1930’s Hungary, at a time when the depressed economy was causing employees to fret and worry about their employer’s solvency and the stability of their well seasoned jobs. This romantic adventure takes place in Maraczheck’s parfumerie, an upscale cosmetics establishment. A new employee, Amalia Balash (Kelsey Venter), is employed by the owner of the store, Mr. Maraczheck (Richard Farrell), over the prudent and conservative management decision of the store’s manager, George Nowack (Ryan Drummond), who felt that they should not be adding any additional employees at that particular time.

Both individuals, Nowack and Balash, who are single, mature young people, immediately clash and are constantly at odds with each other in the working environment. In their own personal time, they have both answered “personal ads” in a local newspaper seeking pen-pals. Unbeknownst to them, they (the two battling employees) have become each other’s pen pal. In their letters, they never actually refer to each other by their given names, using only pseudonyms in signing their letters, referring to each other simply as “Dear friend”, etc. Through these letters the respective pen-pals discover that they have many interests in common and over time, this extensive communication routine has revealed a person that they both imagine and fantasize would be their perfect “life partner”. While these two are fighting daily at work, they are making plans to finally meet each other in person, for the first time, at a local bistro that prides itself in catering to lovers and romantic encounters.

When the two finally meet, will the good romantic chemistry generated by the pen-pal correspondence over-come the bad working chemistry generated in the shop? Well, you will have to see this terrific musical to find out, as I will not “spill the perfume”!

Director Robert Barry Fleming has selected a truly stellar multitalented ensemble cast, each member embracing their supporting character as if the role were written specifically for them. This story is far greater than the simple storyline revealed earlier. Employee Ladislav Sipos (Jackson Davis) closely aligns himself with manager Nowack and employee Llona Ritter (Brittany Ogle) befriends Miss Balash, and at the same time is engaged in a romantic affair with co-employee, Steven Kodaly (Noel Anthony) who is a playboy type who preys on anything and everything in skirts. Arpad Laszlo (Jason Hite) is a delivery boy, aspiring to become a full time store clerk. Derek Travis Collard plays a private detective employed by shop owner, Maraczek, to ferret out the participant in a suspected liaison between an employee and Maraczek’s wife. There are two additional characters who add measurably to the bistro scene, the busboy, Dane Paul Collard, and the lead waiter played by Evan Boomer, who almost steals the bistro scene. All members of the cast have superb voices in addition to their excellent acting skills.

I strongly recommend to romantics everywhere to see this heartwarming musical. It is just plain terrific!

Musical Director and pianist Brandon Adams, the same director who did such an excellent job with “A Marvelous Party” at Center Rep, is back again. This time he is melding the sonorous talents of violinists Pamela Carey and Heghine Boloyan, Woodwind artists Lori Rodriquez and Steven Logoteta, Dan Bauer and Lenora Warkentin and percussionist Erika Johnson. The measure of this musical is significantly enhanced by the exquisite musical accompaniment.
“She Loves Me” continues in the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts at 1601 Civic Drive in Walnut Creek, Wednesdays and Sundays at 7:30 p.m., on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m., closing on Sunday, October 10th. Call 943- SHOW (7469) or go to http://www.centerrep.org/ , or visit the ticket office in the Lesher Regional Center or the ticket outlet at Barnes and Noble in Walnut Creek. Tickets range in price between $17 and $45 each. Call the above number for more information.

Berkeley Repertory Company once again charges fearlessly into the breach, with Rinne Groff's "Compulsion".

The fearless management of The Berkeley Repertory Company, Tony Taccone and Susan Medak, are exploring the darker side of relationships with their powerful, evocative and moving interpretation of Rinne Groff’s latest play, “Compulsion”, on their thrust stage in Berkeley.

Ever since the early ‘50’s, the name of Anne Frank and a diary she left behind in a secret annex to her father’s spice warehouse and offices, has become synonymous with the horrific treatment of the Jews and their struggle for existence and survival during the second world war. Millions of people worldwide have read “The Diary of a Young Girl” and yet most have no idea of the amount of debate and criticism voiced since its publication, including criticism over the editing of its content by her father, as he prepared it for publication.

During the waning years of the war, between 1944 and 1945, a Jewish journalist by the name of Meyer Levin, who had earned much acclaim for his reporting on the Loeb and Leopold trial in 1924, was a first hand witness to the carnage and atrocities discovered by the American military as they freed Jewish prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps. It had an overwhelming affect on his writing and his desire to inform the world of the true nature of the Jewish social and political experience. He felt unable to articulate the degree of humiliation and devastation occasioned by the horrific nature of this war on his race. When he was given a French version of “The Diary of a Young Girl” by his wife in 1950, he felt he had finally found his voice.

He immediately contacted Otto Frank, Anne’s father, and the only surviving member of the family that had occupied the “Het Achterhuis” or “The House Behind”, the secret residence in which the Franks and their guests hid for over two years, and offered his services to create an English-translation version to Frank’s book publisher. He asked for no remuneration from this effort, but did request the right to adapt the finished book for the stage. When the American version of the book was published by Doubleday, it was a spectacular success, selling out its entire first printing in 10 days, due in large part to the crucial review written by Levin for the New York Time Book Review.

The story of the journey of the book to stage, is the subject of this magnificent play. Author Rinne Groff has given all of the characters portrayed in her play, substitute names, but the story and the events that take place in the play are basically factual. Meyer Levin becomes Sid Silver and his character is played brilliantly by Tony Award winning actor, Mandy Patinkin. There are only two other actors who play numerous other characters, Hannah Cabell, who portrays both Miss Mermin (who takes on the real-life role of theatrical producer Cheryl Crawford) and Meyer Levin’s wife, known in this play as Mrs. Silver. Matte Oslan plays a number of other characters all central to Levin’s attempt to publish and produce his adaptation of the book into a stage play. This may be Patinkin’s most powerful work yet!

Levin became obsessed in keeping the play true to the tenor of the original diary, to retain and incorporate more of the controversial content left out of the book by Anne’s father. He made demands that it be a “Jewish” work in every respect, from producers, to directors to publishing house. In so doing, Levin (or Silver as he is known in the play) alienated himself from Otto Frank and the people actually contracted legally by Mr. Frank to see the book transcend into a stage production and eventually a movie. This is a story of a man unwilling to compromise what he saw as a young girl’s dream to document explicitly her family’s experience so that she could live forever through her writing. He wanted nothing changed for art’s sake or societal marketing correctness, nothing to take a back seat because of the fears being raised by Joe McCarthy and the Senate hearings on un-American activities or black-listed writers and actors.

Director Oskar Eustis has delivered a magnificent and spellbinding story to the stage, a stage that has been open to producing plays that few other theaters in this country would sponsor, a stage that is rapidly becoming the off off Broadway trial entity for many of the new and most powerful productions opening in this country at this time. The incorporation of marionettes to infuse the Anne Frank diary characters into Meyer Levin’s world and story development works exceedingly well. Also, I strongly recommend that you come to the theater early enough to read the extensive and articulate supporting back-ground material provided in the Berkeley Repertory company’s program.

“Compulsion” continues Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., with Wednesday and Sunday evening performances at 7 pm, matinees are offered primarily on Thursdays and Sundays at 2 pm, now through Sunday, October 31st . The Berkeley Repertory Thrust Stage is located at 2025 Addison Street (near Shattuck) in Berkeley. Ticket prices range between $34 and $73 for each seat, varying in price by seating location and date. Check their website at http://www.berkeleyrep.org/ for more information and to purchase tickets. Tickets may also be purchased by calling (510) 647-2949 or toll free, by calling (888) 4-BRT-Tix.