Blather

For Christmas, my big son Richie got me some tickets to "Xanadu the Musical" at the New Conservatory Theatre Center. (Let's remain positive regarding their choice of name- they chose the British "Theatre" but the American "Center." Yeah, only *I* would notice this lexical hiccup. Well, let's get beyond that, OK?

Richie took me to dinner at a very good Italian restaurant in downtown Hayward, Buon Apetito, then to see "Xanadu the Musical." He is a bit less acquisitive than I am, so he favors gifts that don't take up space in one's closet. (Discussion of various overcrowded closets is tabled for another time.) I had lamb with tomato and polenta, washed down with a glass of nice wine. We had a nice, post-rush-hour drive to San Francisco, and hit the Holy Grail for us knee-jerk cheapskates: a free parking spot on Van Ness 100 feet south of Market Street. I was a happy camper. We hiked all of 200 yards to the theater, got our tickets at will-call and had a half-hour to kill. The Chinese cafe on the corner sold excellent take-away coffee, so we took away a cup and strolled San Francisco. Cool shop windows interspersed with clumps of street people sizing us up for possible panhandling. Even in my casual best, I wasn't enough of a toff to get accosted. Saw fire trucks come screaming out of a station, going the wrong way on two intersecting streets. Then it was time to look for our seats.

'Twas a small theater, so the stage was tiny. But the cast was terrific!! Kira (Olivia Newton-John's role) was very good, very young and very pretty. Sonny Malone (Micheal Beck's role) was a great actor, funny and confident enough to wear goofy 80's clothing. Gene Kelly's part, Danny McGuire, went to an older guy who was both a good singer and funny in an almost burlesque manner. Two muses stole the show- a rather pretty gal who got very un-pretty by wearing goofy hair and glasses, and a saftig gal with an outstanding voice and a ton of moxie. These two really carried the plot which differed from the movie. In this production, the two sister muses conspired, amid lots of hysterical cackling, to make Kira and Sonny fall in love, a serious Mount Olympus faux pas. They were perfect as malicious siblings, but in a very funny, non-threatening way. This wasn't a serious play, just an excuse to sing a lot, skate a little, and have bunches of campy fun. They poked fun at a lot of things, including themselves. Of necessity, Zeus had to note that if Kira stopped being a muse, there would be no creative work in "the arts" for several decades, beginning in 1980. And there was a hilarious moment when this led to a pessimistic appraisal of a bad movie's music getting thrown at a group of actors in a futile attempt to revive a thin plot. Yep, if you can laugh at yourself, you're all right with me.

Probably because the cast had to be small, they only had seven muses, six of whom had a second role, but allowed two of the muse sisters to be in the "technical box" at the back of the theater. (Hey, someone had to wind up the lighting and music, right?) And in an only-in-San Francisco way, two of the muse sisters were guys, again with a lot of individual, personal confidence. A few costume changes, some rolling scenery and some pretty good mikes up in the air made for a not-so-complex production. But the best part was the singing and fun everyone had. Sonny broke the fourth wall frequently, had a lot of tongue-in-cheek lines and the personality to go with that approach. Kira put on a very hokey Aus-try-lee-ann accent. (We all know where Olivia Newton-John is from, right?) For the scene when Gene Kelly recalls his youth, she becomes Kitty, with an equally broad and annoying Southern Belle accent. One of the male sisters was a terrific dancer, and slid onto the stage when Gene Kelly was recalling his youth with Kitty/Kyra, tap-dancing and dancing with Kyra. She and two female sisters did the 40's medley of songs, and Sonny and the two male sisters, now dressed in suitably macho punk slashed jeans, did the modern hard-rock stuff. Really fun, really good. The other male sister muse got a second role as Mercury, messenger from Zeus and brought the house down the way he dissed Kira when she moaned about Zeus' impending anger. Kira and two of the other females sang the 40's medley while Sonny and the two male sisters, dressed in suitably punkish slashed-levis, sleeveless jacket clothes, did a great number, eventually filling the stage with six talented and dancing actors.

I guess I expected a low-budget version of the movie. The music kinda got shuffled around a bit, Richie noted a couple of ELO songs that weren't in the movie, but the plot wasn't badly bruised. The movie scenes where Sonny argues with his boss were gone, just not essential to the story. We agreed that all you needed for the plot to work was for Sonny and Kira to "fall in love," so the office stuff wasn't needed. The scenes with Zeus were a bit different, with three sisters putting on ridiculously big wigs on and trying to stick up for Kyra. The gal who played Euterpe was an outstanding dancer, tall and willowy yet strong and never hesitant in her gestures. The program says she trained with Ann Reinking's Broadway Theater Project. (Who could forget Ann Reinking in "All That Jazz?" What a dancer!!)

The big finale with everyone on roller skates was more like a couple of slowly-rotating pinwheels, but the small size of the stage meant no one had much chance to skate well. There was a cool scene where Sonny got into a telephone booth and sang with Kira as she rolled the booth across the stage. When he exited the stage, he was on skates. Oh, all right, not the most difficult of sleight-of-hand, but everyone gasped a bit at the "magic."

Not sure how often you get to the city, but if you have a chance, go see this schmalzy, warm, funny bit of theater that will end soon in the middle of January. Thumbs way up!!! I dare you not to sing along and laugh at the humor. This was a terrific show, woo hooo!