Paula Poundstone @ UCSB Arts and Lectures:
FRIDAY, April 22, 2011
by Erin J. Smith
With her oversized, brightly colored tie and vintage-style black and white shoes, the freakishly funny Paula Poundstone appeared much like a clown for grown-ups during a recent performance on the Campbell Hall stage at UCSB.
“I love coming to Santa Barbara,” said Poundstone, who returned to the area for her sixth UCSB Arts and Lectures performance. “There’s so much excitement in the air. You might see Oprah!”
With nothing but a stool, a microphone, and her characteristic can of Diet Pepsi, Poundstone riffed on everything from the state of public education and the economy to the advertising mumbo jumbo we see on everyday items, such as the odd directives on yoga mat boxes to check with a doctor before using or the ridiculous notion of a ‘clarifying’ shampoo. The audience, too, was not safe from her jibes. Poundstone’s informality and ease bubbled over the stage and before long, members of the audience were drawn into conversations, which inevitably ended in peals of hysterical laughter. At one point, she even translated an Elvis song into British English and performed a spontaneous puppet show with her feet.
“I think it must be a form of OCD,” said Poundstone. “I can’t stop talking. Everything I say reminds me of something else. Who’s the victim? You people. I’m glad you’re here, but the truth is that I would be doing this even if you weren’t here.”
Poundstone grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts. She began developing her natural gift for comedy from a young age and cites her kindergarten teacher as an early fan. In a letter home to her parents, her teacher wrote, “I have enjoyed many of Paula’s humorous comments about our activities.” At the age of 19, Poundstone made her way across the country on a Greyhound bus, hopping from comedy club to comedy club building her chops. Poundstone may best be known for her appearances on NPR’s weekly program Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me and is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post and NPR’s Morning Edition. Along with her high school math teacher, Faye Ruopp, Poundstone is the author of three math textbooks, The Sticky Problem of Parallelogram Pancakes, Venn Can We Be Friends?, and You Can’t Keep Slope Down. She lives in Santa Monica with her three children, 16 cats, and a dog.
The evening ended with a private reception for Producer’s Circle patrons where fans got to mingle with their favorite comedienne. On the menu? Diet Pepsi of course!
If you missed the show, check out Poundstone’s live comedy CD, I HEART JOKES: Paula tells them in Maine, or pick up a copy of her memoir, There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say.
Caption: Paula Poundstone and Sue De Lapa.
Photo by Erin J. Smith.
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Paul Taylor Dance Company:
FRIDAY, December 3, 2010
by Erin J. Smith
THE ICONIC AND FUN-LOVING Paul Taylor Dance Company returned to Santa Barbara to perform in front of an audience filled with hundreds of UCSB students during a recent performance at the Granada on November 17th.
“To put it simply, I make dances because I can’t help it,” writes Paul Taylor, who is celebrating his 80th birthday season and 56th year at the helm of his own dance company. “I make dances because I believe in the power of contemporary dance, its immediacy, its potency, its universality. I make dances because that’s what I’ve spent many years teaching myself to do and it’s become what I’m best at.”
The evening’s trio of dances began with Dust, first performed in 1977 and danced to music by Francis Poulenc. With an umbilical-like, braided rope hanging from the ceiling as the only stage prop, dancers dressed in flesh-colored unitards and colorful starbursts explored the idea of imperfection and insignificance. Ranging from beautiful and balletic to a more unconventional, animal like movement, the dancers proved that we may be insignificant, but we’re all insignificant together as they finished in an interconnected line reaching above toward the light. As the long-time company member and universally revered Bettie de Jong described in the Q&A following the performance, “Dust is an ode to all people who are impaired in some way and the hope they all have.”
Brief Encounters (2009) found the dancers stripped down to their skivvies. Clad only in black undies, the dancers’ statuesque, athletic bodies played off an aged, architectural backdrop. Cheeky and droll, Taylor’s infective humor had the audience laughing as the dancers teased each other in a human comedy, not without its darker moments.
Company B (1991) closed the performance, transporting the audience back to a bygone era; but the boogey-woogie beat was tinged with the harsh realities of war. The juxtaposition of dancers kicking their heels up to the cheery music of the Andrews’ sisters was brought into focus as dancers in silhouette were slowly blown to smithereens.
“It’s my greatest joy,” said de Jong, “to have all the dancing done. It’s one of my greatest pleasures to witness those magical moments when the dancers breathe as one person. I can live on it for days.”
Caption: Amy Young and Francisco Graciano in Brief Encounters
Photo by Tom Caravaglia.
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John Lithgow @ The Granada:
FRIDAY, October 29, 2010
by Erin J. Smith
It seems we never really outgrow the joys of a well-told story read aloud. Weaving personal narrative with dramatized short stories, John Lithgow regaled an audience during his recent Santa Barbara debut at the Granada with his extraordinary ability to bring stories to life.
“This evening is about storytelling,” said Lithgow. “There are those who tell stories and those who listen.”
Lithgow began Stories by Heart with a personal story about his father, a gifted storyteller and actor in his own right who carted Lithgow and his siblings from one small town to another in pursuit of his next theatrical production. “I had a crazy childhood, but a good one,” said Lithgow. “We were a warm, interdependent, and tight-knit family. Stories kept us together.”
When his otherwise dynamic father fell ill and had to undergo surgery, Lithgow found himself in the position of caregiver for his elderly parents and moved into their small Massachusetts condo to orchestrate their care. To cheer them up as he tucked them into bed at night, Lithgow read stories from the beloved family treasure Tellers of Stories, a collection of short stories that included the long-time family favorite Uncle Fred Flits By by P.G. Wodehouse. Not long after beginning to read to the audience from the familiar pages, Lithgow was on his feet enacting each and every character – even the parrot.
Like children begging for another bedtime story, the audience returned from intermission ready for more. Lithgow shared another favorite short story from his childhood, the disturbing yet somehow familiar Haircut by Ring Lardner. Told in the first person, Haircut reveals small-town America at its most endearing and disquieting. In an uncanny transformation, Lithgow was completely taken over by the main character, a barber who shares a little too much about his friends and neighbors with the silent stranger as he performs the otherwise quotidian shave and a haircut.
Following the performance, Lithgow joined special guests at a reception in the beautiful McCune Founders Room. The evening was sponsored by Luci and Richard Janssen and supported by Anne and Michael Towbes, while the reception was sponsored by Merrill Lynch’s JWS Group.
Lithgow holds a Bachelors and Honorary Doctorate from Harvard University. He made his mark on the theatre world in 1973, winning a Tony Award three weeks after his Broadway debut for his role in The Changing Room. In addition to his multiple Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe nominated and winning performances, Lithgow is the author of eight New York Times best-selling children’s books. He is the father of three children and lives in Los Angeles with his wife Mary.
Caption: Richard and Luci Janssen, sponsors, John Lithgow, Drew Janssen and Dan Janssen.
Photo by Erin J. Smith.
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Now Playing at Ensemble Theatre Company:
FRIDAY, October 15, 2010
by Erin J. Smith
Just how far off Broadway can you be and still feel its magic?The Ensemble Theatre Company proves you don’t have to go any further than the Alhecama Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara to experience a captivating night of off-Broadway fun. Fresh from a critically acclaimed off-Broadway run, The Housewives of Mannheim marked its West Coast premiere with a knock-out performance followed by an opening night party with the cast.
“Memory has always been a rich source for my work,” said playwright Alan Brody, who was in attendance for the opening night performance. “The Housewives of Mannehim is a memory play. It draws on my own childhood growing up in an apartment house in Brooklyn at a time when an apartment building was still something like a village community, even an extended family. At least that’s the way I remember it.”
Set in the kitchen of a Brooklyn brownstone in 1944, The Housewives of Mannheim tells the story of three women coping with life rendered uncertain by war – and the intoxicating possibility of the freedom it brings to their otherwise conventional existence.
“Housewives is based on some of the people who were vivid to me,” said Brody. “I’ve tried to capture a time in the life of America with Housewives, what made it special and those universal elements that made it a part of the continuum of all human history.”
Together the young and beautiful May Black (Pheonix Vaughn), the sassy and irreverent Billie Friedhoff (Corey Tazmania), and the nosey yet conservative Alice Cohen (Wendy Peace) hold their world together with talk of coupons, linens, and war bonds. Yet when Sophie Birnbaum (Natalie Mosco), an Austrian émigré escaping war-torn Europe, moves into their building, May confides her new found fascination with art history and her dream of going to college. Just as May wonders what life was like for the women in Vermeer’s paintings, we look through the picture frame of the theatre into the lives of these women as they test the boundaries of their reality.
“Beneath the domesticity of their world lie repressed passions and dreams that rise to the surface in this remarkably subtle and beautiful play,” said SuzAnne Barabas, Director. “The play transcends, as few plays do, the confines of its moment.”
The Housewives of Mannheim runs at the Alhecama Theatre for the month of October. Performances are held Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm and 7pm. Subscriptions, single tickets, and group tickets are available through the box office. Call 965-5400 or visit www.ensembletheatre.com for further details.
Caption: Pheonix Vaughn as May Black; Wendy Peace as Alice Cohen; and Corey Tazmania as Billie Friedhoff in The Housewives of Mannheim.
Photo by David Bazemore.
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