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Theater: The 'Forest' for the tree huggers
MTC in familiar territory, literally, with emotional play about communes

by Lee Brady

Sweet smoke fills the audience as an onstage family looks back at an Eden that contained several sexual snakes. Zayd Dohrn shows his first-hand familiarity with communes, using his playwright's gifts in Magic Forest Farm, giving credibility to those who kept the faith and to those who moved on. Although there is humor as Gabby (David Cramer) puffs away and rants about his middle-class parents, Dohrn never makes fools out of his characters who move back and forth through a decade, facing problems that are dramatic and touchingly human.

Young son Ben (Avery Monsen) only wants to get on with it; Marvin (Robert Sicular), a teacher of "History of American Radicalism," likes his life; and his wife, Eleanor (Julia Brothers) accepts hers. When young Allegra (Laura Morache) demands to know why they left the commune, and if it had something to do with sex and her 6-year-old self, we find out it had everything to do with sex of all kinds, none of it monogamous.

Designer Jeff Rowlings creates boxes within boxes, used well by director Ryan Rilette, who makes sure the stories, both true and false, are nakedly told. Sicular and Brothers superbly show the emotional burdens of parents who watch their children screw up for the best of reasons.

Magic Forest Farm proves to be an entertaining and satisfying choice for MTC's first annual Sky Cooper Award.

• • • •

Fifty brides ask for political asylum from arranged marriages and, when they don't get it, vow to kill their new husbands. The story is ancient, but Charles Mee brings it up to date—and cuts the number to five in Big Love.

Lydia and Olympia (Ariel Allen and Elena Spittler) don't want to marry their cousins; Thyona (Alicia Morales), who hates all men, convinces the others that they should slay their new husbands. In the original Greek play, 49 followed through with the killing, but one fell in love. So it is here; Lydia falls in love with Nikos (David Abrams). The others (including brides Eryn Brydon and Sally Wahlberg) slash away in a bloody battle of the sexes.

In less violent moments there are songs, dances and tumbling, and even a delightful monologue about 12 sons/12 tomatoes, delivered by Floriana Alessandria. The bride's host Piero (Charles Isen) is reasonable but helpless, while his gay son Guiliano (Emmanuel Linden-Broner) goes along with it all and croons love songs. Big Love takes on all kinds of love but it is the murderous kind that gets our attention. But it is all in fun, and director Molly Noble ends the evening harmoniously even as dead bodies still litter the stage floor.

• • • •

Playwright Lloyd Suh's comedy about the reunification of a Korean-American family was inspired by Korea's 60th year "hwangap" celebration even though the country has been divided for most of those years. In American Hwangap, Min Suk (Keone Young) comes home to his Texas family to celebrate his ritual birthday. He has been gone for 15 years and this situation makes for a family comedy that is as American as apple pie and twice as delicious.

Short, 60ish, overweight and unaware of the damage he's done, Young's comic timing is spot on. Likeable in spite of his male arrogance, when he reveals the truth about his 15-year absence and discovers the damage he has done to his family, he becomes sympathetic.

Youngest son Ralph (Jon Norman Schneider) is 29 and brilliant, with an engineering degree (like his father). Ralph lives in his Mom's basement because he has "a nervous disease." His sister Esther (Angela Lin) is home with marital problems (like her father); she resents her mother Mary's (Jodi Long) taking Min Suk back into her bed. Long's inner fury and outward calm play out comically. But the older son, David (Ryun Yu), twists this comedy by its heart strings as he checks by cell phone from his successful life in New York City. As each call reveals more of his character's inner destruction, the dysfunctional family drama turns into a minor tragedy.

In American Hwangap, Suh addresses issues much larger than family squabbling. Will Korea ever be reunited? Well, if Min Suk succeeds in pulling his family together, anything is possible.

NOW PLAYING

Magic Forest Farm runs through May 17 at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley; 415/388-5208, www.marintheatre.org .

Big Love runs through May 10 at College of Marin, Kentfield; 415/485-9555, www.marin.cc.c.us

American Hwangap runs through May 3 at the Magic Theatre, Bldg, D, Fort Mason Center, S.F.; 415/441-8822, www.magictheatre.org

Tell Lee Brady to break a leg at freshleebrady@gmail.com.

Posted by manet, a resident of the Kentfield neighborhood, on May 16, 2009 at 10:12 pm

'Big Love' was a brilliant production by talented actors.

Your review doesn't even come close to acknowledging the fantastic performance it was.

Congratulations to all who made 'Big Love' a must see.

It was great!