 | | | Sharon Simpson and Jim Roethe cutting the ribbon
| | | | | | Opening Night at Cal Shakes was a five hour, two-act party. Starting early, at 6 p.m., Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone and Managing Director Susie Falk shared master of ceremony duties. Their brief, sincere thank you speeches preceded glowing introductions of Campaign Co-Chairs Jim Roethe and Sharon Simpson. Together, Roethe and Simpson wielded a theatrically oversized pair of scissors, cutting the ribbon to commemorate the organization's completion of Phase one, a 7.8 million dollar fundraising campaign, and the opening of the new Patron and Artist Center.
Simpson, whose name graces the new building, was clearly the life of the pre-show party. Claiming she required prepared notes to speak publicly, Simpson rapidly ignored the cards in her hand; captivating her audience with both charm and youthful chutzpah.
Minutes later, she spoke to this reporter about the Sharon Simpson Center. "When I found out the name, I was dragged, kicking and screaming," she said, her face serious. "But I realized there is a time to be gracious." Simpson succumbed to the honor, but wanted 2-inch high letters. "You see they're a bit larger than that," she said.
With a final champagne toast, the first act moved on to mealtime. Dinner at Cal Shakes is a cleanly divided, but intensely amicable blending of the everyman lunch bucket and three-fork, gourmet epicureanism. Seated at picnic tables, or simply on the grass, people eat food purchased from the new cafÇ, or brought from home. On Saturday, some munched salads packed in Tupperware, drank water out of paper cups, and finished it all off with grocery store cookies. Others opened their cloth-lined baskets, unloading china, cheese plates and fine wines. All together, they listened to an onsite Grove Talk about The Pastures from Heaven, the first production in this summer's season.
Made a community by their ticket purchases alone, the Cal Shakes audience is more unified than ever before. The renovations, particularly the landscaping, are largely responsible. "Before, it was random," Marsha Maytum, a Principal at LMS Architects, says of the previous arrangement. "Our desire was to open up the landscape so the theater became the center piece." The architects spent time at the site, noting the need for shade at hot matinees and wind screens on cool, East Bay evenings. The flow of the rooflines was important, the comfort of patrons and artists was primary.
Patron comfort drew the most prolonged applause of the night when Moscone delivered his "curtain" speech at 8 o'clock. "New bathrooms-and more of them!" he exclaimed, nearly causing a standing ovation. The faint whiff of manure rising from the newly furrowed grounds-"They were putting in plantings just two hours before we opened," said one excited volunteer-added emphasis to the announcement.
There was nothing stinky about the evening's second act, however. The three-story set, a split-open period house rising suitably in the forefront of the magnificent Bruns hillside, paid homage to the state's beauty. The cast, with pioneering spirit and command, played men, women, children, animals and even grass. The adaptation of John Steinbeck's book, by San Francisco's Octavio Solis, carried the audience both backwards, to Steinbeck's legacy, and forwards, coasting on the young playwright's fresh, lyrical voice. As happens every night at the outdoor theater, the sun set; the audience wrapped themselves in blankets while sipping warm drinks. Kathryn Tringale, a 6-year volunteer at Cal Shakes, swept her arms open wide, as if to embrace and describe the atmosphere of opening night best: "We love the plays-my whole family is here."
|
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA