In the world of theatre, a new live-theatre venue opening is always a cause for celebration.  The occasion signals the world’s oldest spoken art form – The Theatre – has added another mirror of society for exploration and examination by playwrights, actors, directors, and creative individuals, right here in the Coachella Valley.

     “Coachella Valley Repertory Theatre”, after a three-year gestation period, opened its doors to patrons on Wednesday, January 25^th in its beautiful, new 88-seat home, located in The Atrium, in Rancho Mirage.   Prior to the performance, Founder and Artistic Director Ron Celona beamed with pride and appreciation by publicly acknowledging and thanking those key Valley sponsors and individuals who made the entire venture possible beginning in 2009.

The story takes place in Philadelphia in the late 1980’s and centers on two neurotic people searching for love.

     Rose (Courtney DeCosky) is a nervous and skittish woman who works in a Five and Dime store, is haunted by past events and is obsessed with meeting the man of her fantasies.  She dreams of true-love and how she will meet a man one day who is perfect for her.  One who doesn’t smoke, drink, curse or make fun of her. Rose yearns for a guy with a smile; one she can hang onto, “a guy I can speak to without words”.

     Instead of Mr. Right, she meets Cliff (Chip Bent), a potty-mouth, fast-talking, wise-cracking, blue collar cross-country truck driver whose rig has broken down in South Philly.  While waiting for his truck to be repaired, Cliff wanders into Rose’s store looking for a one-night stand.  “The Woolgatherer”, is a two-person character study and a great opportunity for these two wonderfully talented actors who bring to life, warts and all, the story of two very complicated and oddball characters through comedy and pathos.

     The beauty and the joy of this production, which is seamlessly and creatively directed by Celona (the company’s Artistic Director), are the performances of DeCosky and Bent.

Their on-stage chemistry perfectly compliments the characters that playwright Mastrosimone must have envisioned and more. 

     Director Celona and his Board of Directors have launched and introduced a quality, professional theatre company to audiences of the Coachella Valley with this auspicious production of “The Woolgatherer”.  The play performs on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 pm February 1 through February 4.  Sunday, February 5^th matinee is at 2 pm.  Call the box office for reservations and ticket information at 760-296-2966. 

     As a side bar note CV Rep has announced that stage, screen, television, and film star Jo Anne Worley will be the special guest artist at their upcoming February Luminary Luncheon.  This special luncheon, which is open to the public, is part of CV Rep’s series of Luminary Luncheons and will be held on Wednesday, February 22, 2012.  The luncheon, sponsored by Acqua Pazza/Lulu California Bistros, begins at noon, followed by an interview and a Q & A session with Ms. Worley.  Tickets are $35.00, and reservations are required.  Call 760-296- or go online at www.cvrep.org.

One of the most cruel and devastating tricks that fate can play on a parent is the loss of a small child.  In some cases the parents never come to grips with the reality of it and, as a result, some remain damaged forever.

     Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s compelling and poignant drama “Rabbit Hole”, sensitively and intelligently directed by Sheridan Cole Crawford, is being presented by the Kentwood Players on the stage of the Westchester Playhouse, in Los Angeles.

     The Kentwood Players, one of the oldest community theatres in Los Angeles (60 plus years), is no stranger in presenting powerful and intense dramas to their audiences.  They are an award winning theatre organization, recognized by City, County and the State – with proclamations and the awards to prove it.

     When director Crawford first read the material, she related to me following the performance  “… all sorts of ideas, emotions, and challenges presented themselves” adding “But, I knew I wanted to do this play”.  Lucky for the theatre group that she persevered. 

    The story is an emotional roller-coaster ride of grief, insight, compassion, empathy and hope, centering on the accidental death of Danny, a 4 year-old boy (whom we never see on stage), who was struck and killed by a neighborhood teenage motorist (Kenny Allen) some eight months ago.  Danny’s parents Becca (Alison Matizza) and Howie (Harold Dershimer) are struggling, each in their own way, to understand why such a tragic event had to happen to them and their son Danny.  In their struggle for closure, the gulf of understanding between them widens.  The compelling need to move closer toward one another to begin the healing process is instead, threatening their marriage.  Howie accuses Becca of trying to erase Danny from their memories as if he never existed with by decision of wanting to sell their house and move away. She counters with the argument that she needs time to grieve in her own way in order to heal.  It’s not an uncommon issue in situations like theirs.

     Becca’s younger sister Izzy (Tara Tyson) is an irresponsible, but loving younger sister who is full of life figuratively, as well as, literally.  Although unwed, she is pregnant and her condition is a constant reminder to Becca of the unfairness of her situation.  Nat (Lois Bostwick) the mother of the sisters is a voice of reason and understanding and helps Howie and Becca with packing and such during the moving process.  Nat has been down this road before, losing Arthur, her 30 year-old son to heroin addiction and eventually to suicide.

     “Rabbit Hole” is not the “downer story” one would imagine it to be.  There are many things in this world that are beyond our comprehension, and playwright Lindsay-Abaire gives his audiences the insight and hope, along with a healthy dose of understanding, to ease the pain.  In the hands of the Kentwood Players’ talented cast, this production delivers moments that everyone – parents and those yet to walk down that road – can relate to.

     Alison Matizza’s beautifully controlled anguish and grace, under the worst of life’s unfair moments, is most felt in her scenes with Kenny Allen.  Allen’s achingly poignant speeches of remorse, is the stuff that brings tears to the eyes of even the most hardened, revenge-driven individual.  It’s a wonderfully understated and nuanced performance by a young actor who makes one believe he really knows and understands the depths of despair and the healing process that inevitably follows.

     Harold Dershimer nicely walks the thin line between being seen as the misunderstood, long suffering parent vs. a callous, non-caring husband.  Tara Tyson’s breezy, but concerned, portrayal as the self-absorbed Izzy, also is nicely drawn.   Lois Bostwick’s solid performance, as a worldly but weary mother and grandmother, lends an air of normalcy to a household that is far from it.   

    In the technical department, Jim Crawford’s cleverly designed functional set is complimented by a mood-inducing lighting design by Richard Potthoff; enriching the play that is lovingly and tenderly directed by Sheridan Cole Crawford. 

    “Rabbit Hole” at the Westchester Playhouse is a must see production, especially if you live in Los Angeles, and worth the trip for residents of the Coachella Valley who may be planning a trip to LA. 

    The play performs on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm through February 18^th.  For ticket information and reservations call 310-645-5156.

Photos by Shari Barrett

Germany marked Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday with a special session of parliament and a call for the nation’s citizens never to forget the danger posed by right-wing extremism.

The president of the German parliament called on Germans to actively stand up to all forms of right-wing extremism, speaking on the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

“It is these people who set an example and demonstrate courage,” Bundestag President Norbert Lammert said in remarks commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Memorial Day falls on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet forces on January 27, 1945.

His comments follow a move to set up a parliamentary inquiry into a series of murders of nine foreign immigrants and a policewoman by an underground neo-Nazi gang. This week, a survey conducted in Germany also found that 20 percent of Germans had latent anti-Semitic feelings. “That is 20 percent too many,” said Lammert.

The ceremony was also attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Christian Wulff.

Norway on Friday also offered for the first time a long-delayed apology for the country’s complicity in the deportation and deaths of Jews during the Nazi occupation in World War II.

A survivor remembers

In a moving speech in the Bundestag, the prominent Polish-born German literary critic, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, reminded parliament of the systematic torture and organized mass murder of European Jews launched by Germany under Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler.

Reich-Ranicki, who is 91 and frail, grew up in a Jewish family and later survived the Nazi purge of the Warsaw ghetto.

“They had only one goal; they had only one purpose – death,” he said referring to Nazi claims at the time that they were simply resettling Jews.

The Germans set up the Warsaw ghetto in November 1940, cramming hundreds of thousands of Jews into the district under appalling conditions. Most of those who survived that fate soon found themselves confronted with another: the transportation to death camps, like Auschwitz and Treblinka. The Nazis finally burned the Warsaw ghetto to the ground in April 1943.

Prior to his appearance in the Bundestag, Reich-Ranicki told the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper that he had mixed feeling about his speech.

“I don’t know if I can do it, if I am up to the task to talk about the fate of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. A day never goes by without thinking about it,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews and others were deported and put to death in Auschwitz

Poland commemorates the Holocaust

Poland also marked the 67th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with a Catholic Mass for the victims at a church in Oswiecim, the town where the concentration camp was located in Nazi-occupied Poland. Some 30 survivors attended the mass.

City officials paid tribute to the victims by laying wreaths and flowers at the site of the former death camp, which now serves as a memorial and museum.

“Auschwitz is a warning against hate in the private and public sphere, against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia,” said Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.

“Auschwitz will remain a wound on the soul of Europe and the world,” he said.

Author: Gregg Benzow (dpa, AP, AFP)
Editor: Nancy Isenson

Micro-blogging service Twitter has announced that it will filter tweets on a country-by-country basis due to differing legal demands. Critics were quick to accuse the company of attacking freedom of online speech to make extra profit.

Individual tweets can now be shown in some countries but blocked in others, the internet giant said in a blog post on Thursday. The goal is to comply with legislation under different jurisdictions, while not deleting offending content globally. Twitter offers the example of France and Germany, where public pro-Nazi statements are banned.

“Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world,”the statement says.

Twitter adds that it will do its utmost to keep its filtering actions transparent and notify users, whose tweets are being blocked, of why this is being done.

Coming at a sensitive time shortly after the global internet strike against the SOPA/PIPA bills, deemed a bane on online freedoms, the move could not but draw criticism over ‘self-censorship’. Forbes contributor Mark Gibbs called it ‘social suicide’ on Twitter’s part, going on to speculate that the company now probably filters all new tweets for keywords like “Nazi” and automatically bans those deemed suspicious.

Read the whole article…