Among the San Francisco Bay Area's many small theater companies SF Playhouse (www.sfplayhouse.org) has always been a sure bet for entertainment. "Always" is what it seems like, although Bill English and Susi Damilano founded the theater off Union Square less than nine years ago. The company has created a solid niche for itself.
The current offering (through March 10) is the perfect example of what this company does so well. Gina Giofriddo's "Becky Shaw" is delightful theater. This is the Northern California premiere of the 2009 Pulitzer finalist.
If you're a fan of Yazmina Reza's "God of Carnage" or, somewhat less, of Roman Polanski's current film adaptation of (just plain) "Carnage," this is familiar territory.
Four initially attractive people are thrown together, to spend two suspenseful hours unmasking each other and themselves. Clever - but never forced - dialogue, a dramatic situation peeled layer by layer, secrets both in plain sight and hidden to the end, and a wonderful cast: a great evening, or, in my case, a hilarious Sunday matinee.
Packed with highschool students, the theater kept exploding with laughter and whoops as the actors said something particularly cutting or, OMG!, kiss each other. An all-adult audience is certain to be more restrained, but enjoy the play all the same.
Brian Robert Burns' Max and Liz Sklar's Suzanna open the play, revealing their shared childhood, half-hidden attraction to each other, and complex personalities. Burns, with a bit of Tom Hanks' boyish look and mannerisms, plays a powerful, aggressive, uncivil, take-no-prisoners man. Sklar's Suzanne is a mess: neurotic, sniveling, helpless, dependent on anyone who would have her.
Later in the play enters the man who fulfills the function. Lee Dolson's Andrew is the opposite of Max: uncertain, kind, struggling where Max makes instant decisions, but his "heart of gold" appears what Suzanne needs.
And then comes a first seemingly unimportant character, a throwaway (were it not for the tip-off in the play's title). Lauren English is company director English's daughter, but there is nepotism here: however young, she is already an actor of note, she is perfectly overdressed and overwhelmed as the intended blind date for Max. Complications ensuing thereafter make up the turns and twists none of which will be blabbed about here, spoiling the fun.
Also, a correction about the number of players: I used the "Carnage"-like four, and in fact there are four major players, but veteran San Francisco actress Lorri Holt also appears briefly, as Suzanne's troublesome and trouble-making mother.
Amy Glazer's fluid direction on Bill English's simple and effective set, with Miyuki Bierlein's costumes add up to an excellent production.
For Gionfriddo, coming after her heavy "U.S. Drag" and "After Ashley," "Becky Shaw" seems almost a vacation, but the connection is clear: the absurdities of American culture come across as comic reality in this play, not quite a comedy, but with a lighter touch than her other works.
She feels a measure of responsibility in following reality shows, "the pleasure of watching other people's humiliation and misfortune... using other people's pain to entertain ourselves. The questions I want to engage are pretty dark and the phenomenon so ridiculous." And, there is also a complex connection between "Becky Shaw" and Becky Sharp of "Vanity Fair," but I'll let the audience figure that out.
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