Sometimes revisiting a time-honored tradition lends the perfect twinkle to holiday season theater productions; sometimes not. One sugarplum and two lumps of coal, coming in hot!
The cast has a habit of throwing candy from the stage at "Peter Pan: Panto in the Presidio." It goes flying over the heads of the kids in the audience, as do fistfuls of cheeky innuendo. As a treat for little ones in your life, an offbeat date night, or some much-needed quality time with your inner child, the fourth annual edition of this glitzy camp extravaganza delivers a shot of 100-proof seasonal cheer.
Blending fractured fairy tales, slapstick humor, and audience participation, Christmas pantos are a British holiday tradition which producer Peggy Haas, a longtime fan, first brought to San Francisco four years ago. Like its Presidio predecessors, "Aladdin," and "Sleeping Beauty," "Peter Pan" plays fast and loose with its source material.
Writer/lyricists Stephanie Brown and Richard Ciccarone give us Wendy (Abigail Esfira Campbell) as a hard-driving corporate tool, Peter (Corey Bryant) as a dimwit twunk, and Captain Hook (Rotimi Agbabiaka) as a swishbuckling casualty of the "Great British Baking Show" (Don't ask, just go).
The suave crocodile (William Schmidt) frequents a reptiles-only Neverland disco, and the mermaid (Renée Lubin) makes like Ethel Merman, belting barn-burning parody versions of Earth, Wind and Fire and Gloria Gaynor classics.
In the show's 14 silly song-and-dance numbers, pop hits become Dad jokes as garlands of groan-worthy wordplay are grafted onto instantly recognizable melodies. Chappell Roan and Bruno Mars are among the desecrated, but the show's apotheosis is a pirate rave in which Madonna's "Vogue" becomes the gloriously dopey "Boat."
Such pop culture pastiche borrows as much from San Francisco's late, great "Beach Blanket Babylon" revue as from UK panto. And, indeed, cast members Lubin and Curt Branum, who plays elastic-faced emcee Dolores, as well as music director Bill Keck, are emeriti of that yuk-yuk juggernaut.
Spectacularly embellished costumes, bold makeup and gargantuan technicolor wigs by a team led by Alina Bokovikova, Calli Carvajal, and Lindsay Saier gleam like Christmas ornaments. And the endlessly clever production, lighting, and projection design by Sean Riley, Andrea Schwartz and Peter Crompton provide Disneyland-worthy delights.
Director Liam Vincent keeps the show moving along at a brisk clip, and, in something of a showbiz holiday miracle, manages to consistently hit a tonal sweet spot that will simultaneously engage impatient preschoolers and jaded queers. Bring the fam.
'Peter Pan: Panto in the Presidio,' through Dec. 29. $33.90-$67.80. Presidio Theatre. 99 Moraga Ave. www.presidiotheatre.org
Judging by the thin gruel served up as holiday fare at "Deep Inside Tonight!", it may be time to 86 the Kinsey Sicks.
From its San Francisco beginnings back in 1993, the Dragapella® Beauty Shop Quartet, blazed a valuable trail, using smart parody songs to fight back and lift queer spirits in the face of the AIDS crisis, intolerant conservative politics, and antisemitism. They were a hit off-Broadway, in Las Vegas, and even overseas.
But the registered trademark symbol long-ago added to the group's self-description has proven a harbinger of present-day circumstances. "Deep Inside Tonight!" seems more like a ritual trotting out of intellectual property than the angry, angsty artistry that were the Kinseys at their keenest.
Like the Four Tops and the Temptations, the band plays on without any of its original members, banking on nostalgic appeal. Group founder Ben Schatz, a Harvard-educated lawyer who developed AIDS policy for Bill Clinton, still writes for the quartet sporadically.
But while the quartet's performances once had a sharp underbite of activism, "Deep Inside Tonight!" just feels like an act. The current quartet of Spencer Brown, Jeff Manabat, Nathan Marken and J.B. McLendon are strong harmonic singers, but they feel like they're playing fictional characters called the Kinsey Sicks rather than embodying their own deep-seated alter egos. They're cute, cartoonish, and largely toothless.
Today the sort of smart, politically-conscious drag that Kinsey pioneered can be seen on a regular basis at Oasis shows like Princess and Reparations (where the bodies that do the embodiment are markedly more diverse).
Sure, the barbershop harmonies have been left by the wayside. But the lessons of the Kinsey's old school pedagogy have been learned and passed along. A heartfelt thanks for a job well done. Now it's time to get on with the show.
'The Kinsey Sicks: Deep Inside Tonight' through Jan. 5. $41-$62. New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness Ave. www.nctcsf.org
There's a moment late in "A Whynot Christmas Carol," American Conservatory Theatre's sleigh-wreck of a holiday show, when a character turns to the playgoers at the Toni Rembe Theatre and asks, "Can we not in this moment find some reason for hope?"
It's a set-up for the crowd to shout a plucky, "Why not?" On opening night, it got crickets at first. (The bit isn't well teed up-by Craig Lucas' script, which sets no expectation for audience participation.)
But, after an awkward pause, a sole patron in the orchestra seats uttered his reply: "Nope."
While this fellow's response may have reflected his cynical take on the potential for societal generosity and respectful shared humanity on the eve of Trump II (Lucas draws a few too-obvious connections between Ebeneezer Scrooge and the Donner), it also spoke to the chance that this production might somehow achieve coherence before the final curtain.
Playwright Lucas and director Pam Mackinnon have created a hectic head-scratcher of a replacement for A.C.T.'s traditional staging of Dickens' classic novel. It's an everything-everywhere-all-at-once Chrismishmash.
A contemporary community theater in a village called Whynot is producing "A Christmas Carol," which means many A.C.T. cast members take on bi-layered roles. (For example, company stalwart Dan Hiatt plays Phil, who plays Scrooge).
In wedging both a backstage drama and an abundance of play-within-a-play sequences into a production that runs just over two hours, Lucas doesn't leave himself room to flesh out the provincial thespians.
I can tell you virtually nothing about townsfolk Jess (Jomar Tagatac) and Simone (Jenny Nelson) other than the fact that, when they take the stage as Marley's Ghost and The Ghost of Christmas, they're terrific.
As stick figures alternate with robust interpretations of familiar characters, you may find yourself wishing for a Whynot-ostomy. There is plenty of impressive, expensive stagecraft, including David Zinn's presto-change-o set design, visually dazzling illusions by Skylar Fox, and a looming metallic Ghost of Christmas Future puppet, elegantly designed by Amanda Villalobos.
There are also inexplicable dance breaks to electronic music; jokes about gender pronouns; a random cameo by carolers, identified as coming not from London or Whynot, but from A.C.T.'s Young Conservatory; and a hot take on able-ism vis-a-vis Tiny Tim.
Your head will spin, but your heart will feel zip. This Christmas Carol is all busyness, no pithiness.
'A Whynot Christmas Carol,' through Dec. 24. $25-$148. Toni Rembe Theatre, 415 Geary St. www.act-sf.org
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