After our December sailing on Crystal Symphony, my wife Karin and I rejoined the ship for another A+ cruise in February, 2026 for 16 days in the equatorial region of the Indian Ocean from the Seychelles to Singapore.  Disembarking, we stayed in Singapore on our own and continued on to Bangkok.  What started as an anecdote about a cruise excursion to a game reserve in Sri Lanka intended for my annual December letter has morphed into another traveler’s commentary. 

YALA NATIONAL PARK, SRI LANKA

Following are some notes about a “safari” day trip to Yala National Park in Sri Lanka, which we hadn’t heard of.  We had low expectations but really enjoyed it.  The hour-long trips to and from the park were highly interesting in their own right.  A huge and attractive wetlands covers the south of Sri Lanka, and we saw a profusion of water birds of many types in lagoons and marshes along with lush rice paddies.  What made the trip particularly unique is that there were at least several feral dogs per mile of roadway (which was in much better shape than the average in the U.S.), and they lolled about the pavement with impunity, often lying in the middle of the road.  We passengers flinched throughout, but dogs and drivers managed misses, and we never saw evidence of a dog being hit.

The other notable incident in the open safari vehicle on the road was that as I was facing sideways, I heard a thunderous sound and felt what was like 10 or 12 small, sharp pelts on my face.  Looking at the woman behind me that I was talking to, all of a sudden she had 30-40 bees on her blouse.  We still don’t know if it was from the vehicle hitting an overhanging branch or what, but we figured there were 150-200 bees in the attack in all.  Fortunately, we riders suffered only four bee stings, but it sure was an adventure fighting the bees off.

We were shocked about how many tourists that we saw in scores of safari vehicles in this park that was unknown to us, but a lot of visitors to Sri Lanka seem to know about it.  Other than herd animals and a few other common species, we saw only one or few of some of the more sought-after like leopard, jackal, and mongeese.

Our separate sightings of a leopard and a jackal were from great distances.  However, we had a close look at a crocodile kill of a deer, in which the croc patiently clinched the deer’s leg, and over many minutes eased the larger deer underwater.  Also, we could have slapped an elephant on the side while it ignored our vehicle and munched away on tree branches.

At a nearby town, axis deer herds hang out near fruit stands to benefit from the wastage.  Not only did I get to pet a wild deer, but we got photos of crows riding on deer’s backs, waiting for their turn at coconut meat from discarded shells.  A summary of the animals seen (mostly for my external memory!) is at the end of this commentary.

SINGAPORE versus BANGKOK

The two economic and tourism lynchpins in Southeast Asia, both of which we visited on this trip, are Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand.  So which is considered more desirable?  They couldn’t be more different.  We resided in Singapore 1972-74, and while we lived a life of luxury unlike any other time in our lives (living in a stunningly modern 5 bedroom, 5 bath house with tennis court, having membership in a country club with four 18 hole golf courses, plus subsidized this and that), we were bored and felt repressed.  Censorship and numerous restrictions on social behavior were abundant.  We’ve been back there several times over the decades and witnessed the changes, overwhelmingly positive, though it’s become one of the world’s most expensive cities.  Outside of places overseas that we’ve lived, we’ve visited Bangkok more than any other city.  So each place is familiar to us.

Both are foodie cultures with delicious offerings.  Coconut-based curries are central to Thai cooking, and there is heavy use of basil, ginger-family aromatics, and what may be the most fiery use of chilis anywhere. In Singapore, you’ll find great variety representing its ethnic communities – scrumptious Chinese, Malay, Peranakan (also called Nyonya, a hybrid of the first two derived from ethnic intermarriage), Indian, and other cuisines.  Karin has said that if she could eat only the cuisine of one continent, it would be Asia, and the offerings from these two sources would suffice.

But when I saw an article selecting Bangkok as having the best street food in the world, I bristled.  How could it not be Singapore?  Upon reflection, I realized that street food acts a microcosm of the differences between the two cities.  In Bangkok, vendors of Thai specialties appear randomly and chaotically on the sidewalks wherever crowds of people appear, and the food is eaten on the run.  While Singapore has the greatest quality and variety of hawker food anywhere, like everything else, it is organized by regulation.  Rather than appearing with seeming abandon on the sidewalks, these convenience foods are sold in hawker centers, pavilions with tens of food stalls and tables for eating, so that it doesn’t really qualify as “street food,” though the offerings are delicious.  Try the famed Lau Pa Sat in Central for a wide variety of treats like dim sum, laksa, biryani, chili crab, and satay.

Like its food, Singapore is gemisched culturally, an admixture predominately of Chinese (mostly Hokkien and Teo Chew) but also Malay, Tamil (southern Indian), and others.  However, for decades Singaporeans have been taught to suppress ethnicity for national identity.  While Thailand does have some tribal people and significant Chinese influence that has been largely integrated, it is otherwise pretty ethnically homogeneous.

As might be anticipated, Singapore is highly diverse religiously, but faith is less a part of its culture.  Bangkok is profoundly Buddhist, with social and legal strictures to support it.  One difference between the two cities is evident in their notable edifices.  In Bangkok, wats, Buddhist temples, abound.  They are filled with stunning Buddha images from the Emerald Buddha at Wat Phra Kaew to the 46 meter-long reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.  In Singapore, secular works prevail, like the Supertrees by the Bay and the Marina Sands Casino and Hotel with its unique ship-like structure atop three towers. 

Singapore is also distinguished by investments in public attractions, like a cluster of five wildlife-related parks with the largest bird park in Asia; the botanical garden with the largest orchid collection in the world; and Sentosa Island, filled with entertainment sites from Universal Studios and Madame Tussaud’s to golf.  Meanwhile, Bangkok offers floating and night markets; a vast array of handicrafts, artifacts, textiles, bespoke tailors, and day trips to UNESCO heritage sites.  It is also a major center for well-priced dental and medical tourism from well-trained, English-speaking specialists.

Yet the most pronounced visual and social difference between the two cities is the overall organization and appearance.  Long-time Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew noted that Singapore must plan below the ground, on the surface, and in the sky.  As a result, the city-state is the most ruthlessly planned existing metropolis (as opposed to de novo cities) anywhere.  Using eminent domain, it converted miles of characterless low-rise buildings into mid-rises.  But rather than creating concrete canyons, these buildings are surrounded by trees and other greenery, so that even the heavily built-up areas don’t seem oppressive.  When we lived there, tree planting by civic-minded organizations was the order of the day, despite the existing lushness.  The strategy paid off with incomparable greenery for an urban environment.  The old buildings that remain like houses of religion, the repurposed godowns (warehouses) of the Singapore River, and classic public buildings are well chosen and retain the better character from the past. Another policy has been reclaiming land to expand island’s size in strategic locations.

On the other hand, Bangkok is organic and chaotic, with five-star hotels and premium shopping malls often plunked in cheesy areas of ramshackle retail.  It does however have pleasant parks and klongs (canals), plus the Chao Phraya River, which gives the city character as it is woven into the fabric of the area.  It is also a monarchy with a civil government that often suffers coups, military interventions, and incarceration of leaders, but these disruptions don’t often affect day-to-day life.

Finally, there are the people. As a rule, Singaporeans tend to be aspiring, accessible, and proper – well-behaved as would be expected in a society that is highly regimented, where chewing gum and vaping are illegal, and many behavioral strictures apply.  Thais are among the most friendly and gentle people in the world, yet there is a pride in being the only Asian country never to have been colonized.

On our recent trip, we were fortunate to be hosted for part of our stay in both locations.  We had met a Singaporean couple, CH and Beng Hwa, on our December cruise, and they were incredibly generous hosts for a full day that included two meals (hawker and vegetarian Peranakan) and a visit to Bird Paradise that concluded with a cancelled outdoor production due to torrential rain and the loudest, most frequent thunder I can remember.

So which will it be for you?  The elegant Grace Kelly, or the earthy Sophia Loren?  The one that works better depends a lot on your mission.  If you’re looking for arts and souvenirs, body or tooth work, tailored additions to your wardrobe, religious monuments, organic chaos, and a more traditional Asian experience, it’s Bangkok.  If you want exemplary order, neatness, and cleanliness with theme parks and fauna and flora reserves, high-end shopping, diverse but modulated cultures, all in a predominantly English-language environment, it’s Singapore.

My recommendation is that as long as you’ve gone that far, do both.  Note that Metro train transit is cheap, intuitive, and clean in both, and taxis and peasant food are also inexpensive.  Presently, hotels cost considerably more in Singapore, being the budget difference maker.

FOLLOWING ARE BRIEF COMMENTS ON OTHER STOPS ON OUR FEBRUARY CRUISE:

I should note that at dinner in our hotel in Mahe, Seychelles before the cruise we met and befriended Major General (retired) Craig Whelden, who was a scheduled lecturer on the cruise, and his English friend from school days, Roger.  Coincidentally, on 9/11, when Craig, then an active Major General, was organizing logistics after terrorists crashed a jet into the Pentagon, he called for materiel from the unit that I had been in during the Vietnam era – 1st Battalion, 3^rd Infantry (The Old Guard). His several onboard lectures were on politico-military history, and since the Trump-Netanyahu organized attack on Iran occurred during our cruise, he was able to start developing a new lecture in real time.

On the second leg of the journey, long-time friend Cindy and new friend Betty joined the cruise in Colombo. 

PORT BLAIR (NOW OFFICIALLY SRI VIJAYA PUNAM), ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA

Isolated, nearly 800 sea miles from either Chennai (Madras) or Kolkata (Calcutta), Port Blair was established in 1858 as a British penal colony to incarcerate Indian freedom fighters, mostly from the 1857 Indian Rebellion.  With an impressive hub and 7 spokes design, each of the arched-front 700 cells provided solitary confinement, though prisoners had contact with one another in brutal hard labor on the island.  In use until the Japanese invasion in WW II, the prison is now a showcase.  The hilly town is a bustling India-in-Miniature, right down to the venerated cows roaming free and interrupting traffic, though the pace is less hectic than India’s big cities.  The tropical beaches are the main draw for vacationing Indians from the mainland.

As an aside, we have visited a number of notorious prisons besides Port Blair.  Locally, we have Alcatraz, which ranks as San Francisco’s number one attraction, despite a wide array of others.  Though we haven’t been inside, we pass by San Quentin’s gate frequently.  It is on a prime San Francisco Bay promontory in Marin County and is worth a fortune.  Others in our memory bank are Robben Island (Nelson Mandella’s home off Cape Town for 27 years); New Caledonia (the grim South Seas French penal colony, now a great beach holiday spot); and Botany Bay (the original British penal colony in Australia).  When we lived in Sydney (1974-76), Karin worked as a psychologist in Long Bay Penitentiary, the contemporary maximum-security lockup at Botany Bay.

MALACCA, MALAYSIA

A pleasant surprise for us, we had visited there when we lived in Singapore and even bought two double-decker chests (one known as a Malacca chest), which we still have.  Like everywhere, it has grown and changed.  Now a UNESCO city of 100,000, 200,000, or 500,000 (depending on your source!), we like the charm of this city steeped in the history of Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonization and the infusion of Chinese population. Oddly, of the ten ports in seven countries on the cruise, this was the only one that is not on an island.

Central to retail life is a waterway akin to an Asian version of San Antonio’s Riverwalk.  We have taken boat cruises on both.  Cafes and bars cover the Malacca River waterfront, and running perpendicular from the river is Jonker Walk, a garish and crowded commercial area in the city’s Chinatown.  Also along the river is Kampung Merton, a living traditional village preserved in its original style, with over 100 homes and businesses.  Its character would have been the mode when we were in Malacca before.  Attractive red-brick historic buildings from the colonial era dot the central city.

SEYCHELLES and MALDIVES

These are two very different equatorial island chain getaways more for Europeans than Americans because of their locations.  Nothing separates the two but 1,200 miles of Indian Ocean.

The Seychelles are Africa’s richest and smallest country and have attracted some expatriate population and high costs.  The capital island, Mahe, draws from natural attractions including exclusive resorts on the shores and a man-made canal along steep hillsides with nice homes.  The Maldives are in Asia, and its undistinguished capital island, Male, is pretty forgettable.  Significantly, Sunni Islam is mandated for residents by law.

Both countries offer stunning coral reefs accessible from beaches and abundant tropical sea life, but the island chains are much different.  The Seychelles are mountainous, verdant, and rich with biodiversity.  The Maldives, with little exception, particularly the capital, are comprised of atolls, low slung sand rings with palm trees surrounding lagoons.  Typically, a single exclusive resort is on an atoll, so that for vacationers, isolation with all-inclusive offerings is the mode.  The rigid Islamic strictures, including prohibition of alcohol, are suspended on the resort atolls, genuflecting to the god of foreign currency.

Of the two, the Seychelles offers a more diverse experience, but unless you have other business in that part of the world, there are closer, cheaper, and more interesting alternatives.  On a personal note, I first visited Male, Maldives in 1980, when I was Chase Manhattan Bank’s Regional Manager for South Asia.  I may still be the only visitor to the island who wore a western business suit.

PHUKET, THAILAND and PENANG, MALAYSIA

These are the two biggest seaside vacation spots in their respective countries.  Both are islands and metropolises – Phuket with 1 million population, and Penang with 500,000.  We are not really interested in the beaches, but Phuket has not only nice beaches but the distinctive tree-covered limestone karst towers that soar out of the bay made famous by the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun.  Penang is generally not recommended for swimming because of frequent jellyfish presence and often murky water, but water sports like ski boating and parasailing are popular.

Like the Bangkok-Singapore comparison, both are great for food, and you can eat your way through a vacation.  Phuket is more ragtag, spread out, and good for shopping for local goods, Buddhist temples, and muay Thai competitions.  Penang is more organized with a distinctly attractive colonial district, Armenian Street for buying local tchotchkes, the clan jetties with overwater houses, and nature sights including a butterfly farm.  My preference is Penang, but Karin’s is Phuket, so which makes sense depends on your vacation goals.

COLOMBO and TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka is becoming a greater tourist destination, much like India but with less complexity and less edge.  While not conveniently located at the crossroads, it is an appealing destination for the experienced traveler seeking more exotic locales.  Colombo has the accoutrements of a capital and a metropolis.  It is the home to Sri Lanka’s ascendent cuisine and to the majority, Buddha-worshiping Singhalese people.  With South Indian roots, 20% of the population is Tamil, mostly Hindu, but with many Muslims.  Historically, the Singhalese and Tamils have clashed violently, but now is one of the periodic times of respite.  Trinco is the center of Tamil culture with many Hindu temples.

The teardrop island, formerly known as Ceylon, and anciently as Serendib (from which serendipity derives), is rimmed with beaches and flush with greenery in the tea plantations of the hilly center.  The main cities serve as launch points for the seaside, nature parks (like Yala, highlighted above), and antiquities in Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura, and Sigiriya.  Cooler (very much literally as well as figuratively) are two contrasting hill stations, Nuwara Eliya which best represents the British colonial presence of the past, and vibrant Kandy which is the center of Singhalese culture.

Sri Lanka has the highest density of elephants in Asia, some of which are used domestically and honored in Kandy pageants.  In addition to the normal array of touristy trinkets and clothes, Sri Lanka is famous for its gems, particularly world-class sapphires and rubies.

IMPEDIMENTS TO VISITING THESE COUNTRIES

Remarkably, in a short period of time, many of these countries have gone from laissez faire to doctrinaire visa or travel authorization requirements for tourists.  I hope that these demands drag on tourism enough that they are discontinued, because they are infantile, and the information gathered and security gained is almost without value.  I believe that Malaysia is the only country we visited on this trip without any administrative paperwork.

India, the only one of these countries to characterize their demand as a visa, was so intimidating that one of our traveling companions wanted to opt out of the trip.  When we returned to Thailand after having been there less than a week before, it took us two hours to get out of the airport because of the nonsense of having to reapply for travel authorization.  My advice is to check these things out before you commit to travel and to make sure you have plenty of time to complete the requirements if they must be done in advance.

THE FOLLOWING SECTION GIVES THE HEADCOUNTS OF ANIMAL SPECIES SEEN IN AND NEAR YALA NATIONAL PARK

Numbers of species seen – many specimens of all herd animals were seen. Otherwise, in other categories, an x in parentheses (x) indicates that many specimens were seen; two numbers in parentheses indicates the number of sightings followed by how many total specimens were seen. No parentheses indicates one individual was seen. 

SOCIAL OR GROUP ANIMALS that we saw tens of:

buffalo, sambar deer, axis (spotted) deer, gray langur monkey

OTHER MAMMALS:

feral dog (x), elephant (3-4), leopard, golden jackal, black naped hare, ruddy mongoose (4-4), palm squirrel (2-2), giant squirrel

REPTILES:

mugger crocodile (x), land monitor (x), cobra

BIRDS:

sea eagle (x), hawk eagle (x), peacock (x), Ceylon junglefowl (2-2), blue tailed bee eater (x), black necked stork (x), otherwise huge variety from all types of shorebirds to egrets, pelicans, and cormorants as well as unknowns.

INSECT SWARM

Bees (note that otherwise we had no instances of insect bites on the trip)

To begin with, let’s decipher the title.  The first and last words directly relate to the content of the play as the narrative concerns a music summer school for high school girls in Berkeley, California.  The middle word specifically refers to aleatory music which includes randomness in composition or scope for individual interpretation by the performer.  More broadly, chance encompasses all manner of stochastic outcomes in the girls’ lives – from fortune or misfortune of birth and family to getting a lottery assignment to a school with a music program to the unpredictable outcomes of improvisational jazz. (The students fall into two camps of performance – improv and classical.) The symbols of the two vertical pipes with a colon in the title are “begin repeat” (with colon after) and “end repeat” (with colon before) indicators in a musical score.  Serious music players confront many recurrences, the most common of which is rehearse, rehearse, and then rehearse.

The Eisa Davis written play is a four hander about a group of girls new to each other who find bases for performing together.  But apart from developing musicianship, it is about girls being girls with their yearning for affirmation and friendship, sometimes upended by resentment, envy, and misunderstanding.

From the start of the play, the element of chance enters.  When the fixed story begins, the lively and level-headed singer Fax (Hillary Fisher) is assigned a pianist, the stoner Rile, (Yeena Sung) as an accompanist, and in the middle of Fax’s singing an opera aria, Rile goes on improvisational tear, illustrative of the classical/improv clash.  Also joining the fray are the mercurial and mysterious percussionist Margot (Naomi Latta), and what instrument is more inherently improv than drums?  Finally, we have the breezy and independent wind player Clementine (Gianna DiGregorio Rivera) in a curiously underwritten part for such a small ensemble.

Laudably, ||:GIRLS:||….. reflects its intellectual power throughout with its aspiration to educate along with entertaining, and it particularly benefits and suits a younger audience with a serious interest in music.  But as a stage drama it could use more cohesiveness.  As somewhat a gimmicky prelude to the action, 12 audience members select 12 keys from a piano on stage, a random outcome, and music is composed and performed by the actor/musicians using only those notes.  And while this device is instructive and even interesting, it deflects from dramatic impact of the story line.  The play tries to be too many things that are out of balance or don’t mesh together.  Also, there was one musical performance in the latter part of the show that was far too long to fit in with an absorbing dramatic pace.

Engaging story elements and characterizations punctuate the action.  Friendship alliances emerge, sexual preferences are exposed, and a diversity of family compositions and lifestyles affect the girls individually and collectively.  An overall contributing theme is the idea of female empowerment, reacting to the notion that women are expected to defer to others, even to one another.  These thematic aspects make for thoughtful theater, and musical expression using the framework of girls’ summer music school has an important place in the mix.

Another theme is the question that each participant who may wish for a career in music must answer: “What does music mean to me?”  Like in the movie “Whiplash,” the moody Margot is wholly absorbed by rhythm.  Will she be the one who succeeds in the business?

Director Pam MacKinnon, in her swan song as Artistic Director of the company, has enlisted and coordinated a fine team.  Acting and musical performance meet standards, while some of the artistic design contributions are stunning.  Nina Ball’s deceptively simple but powerful wedge-shaped set employs various types of columns, including non-vertical, in natural wood with faux-fluting.  Their wonderful aesthetic design and spatial relationships beautifully interact with Russell H. Champa’s dramatic and at times colorful lighting to create uncommonly coordinated and outstanding visual imagery. As an illustration, compare the first and last photos in this review.

On the negative side, the sound design decision to eschew voice amplification doesn’t work except for audience in the first tier of the theater.  A common discussion point by patrons in the upper deck after opening night was that they might have appreciated the performances if they could hear half of the dialog.  Even though I heard the greater part of it, straining to understand means missing nuance and distracts from overall appreciation.

Premiers usually undergo revisions that benefit the long-range prospects of the show.  This play has so much going for it that hopefully some tweaks can give it legs.

||:GIRLS:||:CHANCE:||:MUSIC:||, a world premiere, is written by Eisa Davis, produced by American Conservatory Theater and Vineyard Theatre Company, and performed at ACT’s Strand Theater, 1127 Market Street, San Francisco, CA through April 19, 2026.

Kenneth is nothing if not as consistent and predictable as a Swiss watch.  Orphaned at age 10 and unmarried at age 38, he’s had only one job as an adult, working at an independent bookstore in Cranberry, New York, a fictional exurb of Rochester.  He’s never amounted to much or had much of an impact on those around him.

He also claims in 15 years never to have missed the daily happy hour, at Wally’s, a local tiki bar, except on some Sundays.  His steadfast order is two mai tais, and that drink exemplifies the rut of his life, as he has never even tasted a martini.  When each evening starts with a minimum of two mixed drinks, the imbiber probably qualifies as a drunkard.

What makes him particularly memorable to the bar staff is that he is always alone – in their observation, but not in his mind.  Kenneth is almost always able to invoke Bert, his alter ego and only friend.  But leading to questions of his mental stability, he sometimes speaks to Bert aloud.  However, the incessance of Kenneth’s aimless march through time is disrupted when Sam, the bookstore owner, announces that he must close the store, forcing Kenneth into an unfamiliar decision mode.

Playwright Eboni Booth’s treatise on loneliness, Primary Trust, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Literature and is already the most produced dramatic play in the country in 2025-26.  Unsurprisingly, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s production, directed with verve and sensitivity by Jeffrey Lo, pushes all of the right buttons and makes for a thoroughly entertaining and thoughtful experience.  The acting ensemble could not be more powerful, and the staging is highly distinctive.

The cast is led by the redoubtable William Thomas Hodgson who captures Kenneth’s grief with hesitant communication and an inability to connect with others.  But the actor offers not just broadbrush strokes of the character, but nuanced and touching reflections as well.  While Kenneth seems simple of mind, he does love books, so his long-held job suited him well.  But despite interaction with customers, there is no translation to higher order socialization.   So when interviewing for a new job, his ineptness is total, and only the desperate need to fill vacancies on the part of the employer plays in his favor.

The protagonist’s good fortune in gaining unearned support from the time of his placement in an orphanage to getting the new job is reminiscent of Blanche Dubois’s comment in Streetcar Named Desire that she always relied on the kindness of strangers.  The title of both this play and the bank that Kenneth will work for are perhaps reinforcement of the notion that kindness, connection, and sense of community contribute to wellness and mutual benefit.  Also embedded in the play’s message is that sometimes unpleasant disruptions to ones comfort provide fresh opportunity.

Perhaps the biggest variation in Kenneth’s life has been the frequent turnover of bar maids at Wally’s, who he interacts with in a perfunctory manner until one with more compassion and substance, Corrina, comes along.  The depiction of the bar maids is hilarious.  Rolanda D. Bell is truly spectacular in creating distinctions among the over 20 characters that she plays, including men in different contexts.

In many of the bar maid sequences, she passes across the stage, taking an order from Kenneth, does a quick costume change in the wings and passes through in the opposite direction as another.  In one classic exchange, she plays two characters on stage simultaneously, switching her voice and affect along with the direction of her baseball cap to distinguish them.

Also acting multiple parts is Dan Hiatt, who performs two bosses and a waiter at a French restaurant.  He is as much a scream in his roles as is Bell in her comic turns.  He is forthright, cynical, overbearing, dismissive, and self-indulgent, tossing about grand gestures, yet in his roles as bosses, he does display generous humanity and takes an interest in the seemingly impassive Kenneth.

Throughout the action, Kenneth has conversations with himself, that is, with Bert, who gives guidance as best he can.  Kenny Scott is Bert, and though he plays him with great energy, his part lacks the range that the other three actors get to display.  However, lest you conclude that he is a lesser actor, note that Scott won the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Performer in a Comedy last year, so he certainly has the chops and contributes admirably to this star alliance of actors.

A unique contribution to the context of Primary Trust is Christopher Fitzer’s striking scenic design.  A cartoon map of the center of town appears as a huge scroll that begins on the backwall, reaches across the stage, and flows over its front lip.  References to the two banks, two bars, and so on are even pointed out on the map. While the function elements of the bar and office staging are minimalistic, the framing creates a small-town feel that connects to the themes of the play. 

Primary Trust, written by Eboni Booth, is produced by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and plays at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA through March 29, 2026.

Anti-war messages have appeared in all art forms since their inceptions.  Sub-themes include the notion that because of their different nature, we would have no wars if women were national leaders.  While there might be fewer wars, you need look no further than Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher (or this play’s opening scene?) to disprove the universalism of that thought.  Perhaps more reliable is the claim that wars are fought largely by the poor on behalf of the privileged.

Nobel Prize winner George Bernard Shaw’s 1894 exploration of the futility of war opens with a mother and daughter giddy about the victories that their beloved have scored over the enemy as if they were rhapsodizing over the love scene of a matinee idol.  The setup occurs during the final days of the Serbo-Bulgarian War.  A Swiss mercenary, Captain Bluntschli, who has fought for the Serbs sneaks away from the fracas into the home of the Bulgarian Army leader, still away, and insinuates himself on the Bulgarian’s daughter, Raina.

The clash of beliefs comes when the professional military man disabuses Raina’s fantasy by claiming that nine of ten soldiers are fools.  Her idealism about military comportment is further undermined when he tells her that he uses his ammo pouch to carry chocolates, not bullets.  When he later ravages the remains of a box of her chocolates, he would become her “chocolate-cream soldier.”  Variations of that term have since entered military parlance worldwide, and always as a pejorative.

B8 Theater Company of Concord has taken on Shaw’s classic, and their production is another indicator of the depth of theatrical talent in the Bay Area.  Director Becky Potter has chosen a farcical mode by having actors exaggerate their portrayals, virtually screaming their lines, and using overwrought gesticulation and expression.  While some observers may not care for the mannerism, it works well with the material, and those who often complain that they can’t hear dialog from a stage should not have that issue in this intimate venue.

A minor criticism about the delivery of the dialog is that it is sometimes a little halting, which impairs the effect and slows the pacing.  And while drama can usually indulge variations in meter, comedy demands split-second timing.  Another concern about transporting these revivals to the stage is that references with emotive impact from other eras may be lost on today’s audience, and the very nature of what tickles the funny bone varies by time and place.  That said, this worthy play deserves attention.

Otherwise, the acting is bright and commendable, particularly from the two male leads.  As Bluntschli, Mitchell Van Landingham, at first seems soft for the role of a mercenary officer, but he displays defined facial expressions and verbal demeanor that make for a winsome characterization.  His battlefield and romantic rival, Major Sergius Saranoff, played by John Mosa’ati, is engaged to Raina, an effective Samira Shahan, whose part however is one-note.  Mosa’ati’s verbal and physical swagger perfectly fit the preening peacock.

Apart from denigrating the quest to conquer enemies in war, Shaw attacks other social behaviors as hypocritical and self-serving.  The wealthy Saranoff has dalliances with the maid, Louka.  Along with the Bluntschli-Raina relationship, social class implications are revealed.  And the spirited major, reflecting the sensibilities of the day, challenges Bluntschli to a duel, but the more experienced and level-headed Swiss man has other ideas.

Kudos to Diane McRice’s staging, which involves a single set-frame which is amended and accessorized as three different locations.  One matter prompts comment only because of the Director’s Note in the program.  Apparently, the word ottoman appears in the stage directions 27 times but never in the dialog.  What appears to be a day bed centers the stage in Act 3.  While it could be characterized as a mammoth ottoman, virtually anyone’s vision of that apparatus is as an overgrown, symmetrical foot rest, and this representation doesn’t work.  The significance of the word is that Bulgaria was subjugated by the Ottoman Empire when the play was written and would not achieve independence until 1908.

Arms and the Man, written by George Bernard Shaw, is produced by B8 Theatre Company and plays at The Campbell Theatre, 636 Ward Street, Martinez, CA through March 22, 2026.

To those unfamiliar, opera may seem a staid performance art for the aged, stuffy elite.  Of course, aficionados know opera as a hotbed of intrigue, betrayal, and all manner of violent death from murder to war.  And opera played such a profound role in Europe’s culture, especially in the 19^th century, that state and local censors ensured that salacious and potentially disruptive political themes didn’t make it to the stage.

In 1905, with somewhat more relaxed censorship, Richard Strauss’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome premiered.  In his home country of Austria, however, Vienna’s censor forbade it, so that the premiere had to be given in Graz, albeit, with luminaries such as Puccini, Mahler, Berg, and Schoenberg in attendance.  It was initially banned in Britain, at the Met, and elsewhere, but its successes, particularly in Germany, eventually opened doors.

The ban-birds were offended by the vulgarity of the script, which is decadent even within the context of opera.  A summary of the plot, which extrapolates fancifully on the Biblical story, is that the psychopathic Salome’s lust for Iokanaan (John the Baptist) is unrequited and spurned, so she demands that she be brought his head. Her dictate is fulfilled.  The horror of the murder was enough to offend censors in Christian countries, and the erotic “Dance of the Seven Veils,” which precipitates the beheading, added to the calls for redaction or rejection.  And though the music wasn’t a basis for censorship, its dissonant violence challenged accepted norms.

Led by a sizzling soprano in the central role, exquisite supporting players throughout, and a sonorous and responsive orchestra conducted by Jose Luis Moscovich, West Bay Opera offers a compelling rendition of this powerful work.  While it is a traditional production with an attractive period set and costumes, you can already tell, that doesn’t mean it’s tame.

More than most operas, Salome rises and falls on the performance of one artist, the title character, who dominates the action once she makes her appearance.  And Strauss’s music places huge demands on a Salome’s vocal strength, endurance, and range.  In her Bay Area debut, Joanna Parisi gives an enthralling performance with a voice that reaches the outer limits of what a human is capable of.  With house-filling power and crystalline clarity, her Wagnerian dramatic soprano fulfills every need of this role.  Yet, her performance here and her history of diverse roles reflect the young, talented artist’s lyric abilities as well.

In this story, the married but feckless King Herod (steadfast tenor Will Upham in an ambiguous and ambivalent role) yearns for his stepdaughter, the 15-year-old Salome, who disdainfully rejects his approaches.  But when he asks her to perform the dance of the seven veils, the petulant teen agrees if he will grant her a wish.

Of course, Herod is shocked when he learns of her horrific wish, but the question is – what does his acquiescence say about the character of the king when he reviles the command that he gives?  Or what of Herodias (the formidable mezzo Laure de Marcellus who sometimes goes toe-to-toe with Parisi in the high, harsh notes), his bloodthirsty wife and mother to Salome, who revels in the debauchery?

In some productions, the singer of Salome also performs the dance, while in others, a preferably lookalike dancer substitutes.  In this case, Parisi sashays sexually but is also joined by dancer Lydia Lathan, who acts as an attendant in the interesting choreography which plays to orchestral music that reveals both Arabic and Viennese strains.  While Parisi is not as smooth or nimble as Lathan, she is most effective when provocatively twirling her unfurled hip-length blond hair and writhing on the floor.

Parisi’s dramatic acting excels in the closing sequences before the beheading when it is unclear whether she regrets her wish and after in her mad scene.  Conversely, some early missteps with curious actions and posturing by her and others seem somewhat comic and break the dramatic trance.

 Another potential staging issue concerns the offstage singing of Iokanaan, as any singing behind the scenes can get lost.  To begin with, Nathaniel Sullivan as Iokanaan has a strong and agile voice and when bedecked for it, fits the part well (i.e., in real-life he appears more a Clark Kent, but he transforms into primitive-looking Superman type).  The solution is rather than singing from the wings, he sings from the cistern in the middle of the stage in which he is imprisoned.  He also uses a homemade, unamplified megaphone, so that he comes through loud and clear.

Salome is structured as a stage tone-poem, with no set pieces, yet some sequences are separable such as the stunning and energetic duet when the religious Iokanaan emerges from the cistern to Salome’s lascivious appraisal of him and the vigorous quintet of five Jewish men.  While the music is often harsh and dissonant, it is tonal and often in the Romantic vein.  Strauss also uses a number of identifying leitmotifs, as well as some that are murky.

This opera was Strauss’s first success and began a string of hits.  In 90 minutes or so, it is compact dramatically and musically, and West Bay’s production is well worth seeing, with some memorable performances.

Salome, composed by Richard Strauss with libretto by Hedwig Lachmann and based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, is produced by West Bay Opera and performed at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA through February 22, 2026.

Stereotypes, heuristics, prejudices, schemas, models, labels, tropes, memes. In different ways, they all help us simplify the world around us. While they can serve the god of efficiency, especially for those pressed for time, they can also close the mind to possibilities and lead to disastrous results.

With M. Butterfly, multi award-winning playwright and opera librettist David Henry Hwang introduces us to a fictionalized real-world relationship that confounds most people. Beginning in the late ‘60s, a French diplomat in China, Rene Gallimard in the play, carries on an intimate affair with Song Liling, a singer in the Chinese opera for over 20 years. But despite having a carnal relationship with this “mistress” and the fact that men perform women’s roles in Chinese opera, Gallimard was (presumably) naive to Song’s gender identity the whole time. Furthermore, he was unaware that she was spying on him for the Chinese government.

San Francisco Playhouse has launched a handsome and winning production of this unique and provocative play with top actors and striking staging. While it earned the Tony Award as Best Play in 1988 and its nomination for the Pulitzer, the play itself is a little long-winded and could easily be trimmed. Like many other plays, much of the text is subject to interpretation, and non-verbal elements can alter tone and even meaning. While some humor is inherent in the text, Director Bridgette Loriaux and her actors have maximized the more comic elements in the play. What results keeps the play from being dark throughout, but the frequent interference with the seriousness of the situations saps the dramatic arc.

Conceptually, the narrative is presented in a series of flashbacks, so the audience knows the denouement from the outset. Before adulthood, we see Gallimard with his best friend Marc, whose amorality and cynicism lead to an obsession with girls as sexual objects. We then see Gallimard as a low-level functionary whose competence lies in research but who lacks the skills to rise to powerful positions. Upon meeting Song, he is enchanted by her feminine delicacy, and though married and not sharing his friend’s predilections, he begins his tryst.

The playwright links the lives of the couple to current affairs in China and elsewhere. Gallimard’s knowledge of the American involvement in Vietnam makes him more important. His flippant ambassador, repeatedly entices him with talk about promotion, and finally she makes him a Vice Consul, but along with increased visibility comes vulnerability. This makes him a more valuable asset to the Chinese government as well, and Song’s handler encourages her to deepen her involvement.

Interspersed and sometimes integrated with the plot line are snippets from Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, which enhances the thematic elements of the story. While Gallimard sees conflict in identifying with Lt. Pinkerton, the American naval officer who marries Cio Cio San (Madama Butterfly), he fully sees Song as representing her. Song is Gallimard’s Butterfly.

But rather than focusing on the suspense of what is revealed, Hwang is more concerned with making a socio-psycological commentary on sexual attitudes and behaviors as well as political philosophy. At one level, the playwright sees this as a war of the sexes, with the female perspective largely represented by the crossdressing Song. The Occidental view of Orientals, and their women in particular, is that they are compliant and subordinate. Though Gallimard in no way seems macho, he does feel his masculinity rewarded by having dominion over a delicate female, especially an Asian – finally succumbing to lasciviousness like Marc’s. He would see women as butterflies to be collected and seen as adornments.

Yet in many ways, Gallimard is subservient to her, as his lust seems less controlled than Song’s, and in important ways, he will become the Butterfly. But another dimension of the personal relationship is explored after Song is exposed as being male. Song is no different than before, but can Gallimard be drawn to him in the same way as before? Is it fantasy or reality that acts as the magnet? And did Song really have an affinity for Gallimard, or was the only draw for Song that a homosexual could lead a life style that is otherwise illegal but endorsed by the government?

Overlying this dyad is the greater issue of the political realm. Westerners also conceive eastern countries to be aged and weak, and the gentility of eastern women is also imputed onto their whole societies. The result of western thinking results in condescension toward Asians and their countries, which may work over long periods of time. But ultimately, acting on mistaken impressions is a trap that can lead to dreadful mistakes. Westerners fail to grasp the longer term thinking of Asians; their willingness to allow westerners to delude themselves; and their patience in achieving their objectives. These factors come to play in the Gallimard-Song relationship and in the broader political events of the time.

The two leads dominate the action. In Dean Linnard’s portrayal, Gallimard’s contradictions come through. Concise in diction and precise in thought, he is still stumbling and ineffectual. Edric Young captures Song’s fraudulence with grace and conviction, playing the modest and shy card to great effect. They both break the fourth wall frequently which enhances the connectedness of the audience with their characters. Supporting roles are well acted, though they are almost all one-note characters. Andre Amarotico is ebullient as the rascally Marc, while Stacy Ross is breezy and smarmy as the ambassador.

Production values in M. Butterfly are superb. Randy Wong-Westbrooke’s scenic design draws from Chinese black lacquer-work. Mimicking lacquer screens, three concentric black arches with gold designs frame the proscenium, with slick black steps and other angular features dominating the stage. Michael Oesch’s often stark lighting highlights the action, while Keiko Carreiro’s costumes stand on their own and provide sharp contrast with the background. Often, stage wigs can look very phony, but Alexander Class’s wigs for Song are most appropriate. Final kudos go to Sound Designer James Ard who joins the Asian and Western sound elements into a harmonious whole.

Most theatergoers should find M. Butterfly an exotic, thoughtful, and satisfying experience.

M. Butterfly, written by David Henry Hwang, is produced by San Francisco Playhouse, and is performed on its stage at 450 Post Street, San Francisco, CA through March 14, 2026.

The decade of the ‘60s was one of the most tumultuous in the modern history of the United States – Vietnam; activism for civil, women’s, and gay rights; music and pop culture appropriated by youth; hippiedom and the Summer of Love.  It was also the season of assassination, with four noted national leaders, led by President John F. Kennedy, dying from gunfire.  The great civil rights martyr, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose influence continues unabated after his death, was also among them.  Not only is MLK memorialized by a federal holiday in his name, but multitudinous cities have streets honoring his name, including the location of this production on MLK Jr. Way in Oakland.

The image that public figures of all types present is often carefully curated and may be at variance with their private personas.  Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Katori Hall explores that contrast in her magnificent two-hander The Mountaintop.  Oakland Theater Project presents a stunning production of the play co-directed by James Mercer II and Michael Socrates Moran with non plus ultra performances from two of the Bay Area’s finest actors, William Hodgson and Sam Jackson. 

The playwright’s conceit is a fictionalization of 90 minutes of King’s life on April 3, 1968. the night before his murder on the balcony of Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  Alone in his room on a rainy night, he orders a cup of coffee, which is delivered by a beautiful, sexy, sassy young black maid called Camae.  The perennially lonely King asks her to keep him company for a while, and he soon finds that her insights and verbal expression belie her employment and presumed education.

To MLK’s surprise, Camae reveals detailed knowledge of him, including his dalliances, though he is also shown having a warm phone conversation with his family.  When King repeatedly asks how Camae could know such things, her response is always that “Negro talk is faster than lightning.”  But when she inadvertently calls him Michael, his birth name, he becomes suspicious.  Is this a set up?  Is he dreaming?  Indeed, the narrative does a splendid job of balancing comedy, drama, and fantasy.

William Hodgson captures King’s persona from an appropriate look to his ambiguities and contradictions.  King’s gravitas is largely held in reserve, while Hodgson explores his struggles.  He is earnest and emotional.  One of history’s truly courageous and committed individuals, having delivered ringing speeches and sermons with exemplary confidence and dignity, in private, he is sometimes depicted as frozen by paranoia.  Hodgson feverishly overturns chairs and tables looking for electronic bugs.

Frequent thunder triggers heart palpitations as if it were bullets.  In the real world, though he died at age 39, MLK’s autopsy specified that his heart was that of a 60-year-old, suggesting that stress had taken its toll.

Hodgson’s King maintains a superior but warm relationship with Camae, being flirtatious and even making advances that are interrupted by thunder.  Yet we are led to feel that his intentions are playful rather than adulterous.  His conversation with her is both personal and of national issues.

Of course, the weighty focus is on race relations and the challenges of interacting with the white race whose cooperation is needed to overcome discrimination, but who collectively have been contemptible and criminal in their behavior.  King respects her comments, asking what she would say in his place in a coming speech, which is suggestive of the notion that anyone can have the acumen to discern problems and envision solutions.  Yet they differ on fundamental philosophy with her arguing that “to speak by love is to die by hate” while he practices passive resistance and insists that “to live by the sword is to die by the sword.”  In her other departure from his beliefs, Camae’s God is a black woman.

Meanwhile, Sam Jackson as Camae devours the role with gusto.  She postures and sashays and smiles with a come-hither look and repeatedly puts King off kilter.  Jackson relishes delivering the irreverent, combative, foul-mouthed repartee, with an occasional innocent-looking-and-sounding apology.  She is also demeaningly blunt with him about his feet smelling from so many long marches and his even having body odor.

MLK presciently reflects on his own mortality and wonders if he has done the right things in life and if he has done enough.  We can all ask ourselves those questions and answer them by action.  As Dr. King said, “Pick up the baton.”

The Mountaintop, written by Katori Hall, is produced by Oakland Theater Project and is performed on its stage at FLAX art & design, 1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland, CA through February 15, 2026.

Along with his other masterpieces, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard resides in the pantheon of international theater.  The last of his plays, published in 1904, it appeared just before the emergence of revolutionary activities, but over a decade before the Russian Revolution of 1917.  Yet it seems to anticipate sea change in so many ways with its depiction of the precipitous decline of the privileged classes, the successes of many who descended from serfdom, and the influence of idealistic intellectuals in framing the shape of the new society.

Like some of Chekhov’s other works, one of the challenges of launching The Cherry Orchard is its duality.  Is it a comedy or a drama?  Director Carey Perloff’s interpretation of the handsome and engaging Marin Theatre production is clear from the outset, as characters flounce about the stage breezily with exaggerated gestures and expressions.  Though the script shows some weaknesses, a brilliant cast and energetic direction make the best of it.  And perhaps one of the ensemble’s strengths is that it reunites the director and several of the actors who appeared last year in Marin’s production of the Edwardian play Waste, which shares some similar themes and comes from the same era.

The action revolves around a single event.  Liubov (portrayed by Liz Sklar) is a widowed petite-aristocrate who has returned from several years in Paris as her estate with her beloved cherry orchard is failing and is set to be foreclosed and sold at auction.  Lopakhin (Lance Gardner) is the wealthy son of a peasant who worked on the estate.  Though it is perhaps a stretch to say that Lopakhin was modeled on Chekhov himself, both were grandsons of serfs, abused as children, and were involved in a sale of property that was life changing.  In this case, Lopakhin offers a way to preserve a bit of the property and ensure wealth to secure the lifestyle of Liubov and her brother Gayev (Anthony Fusco).

The proposal is to raze the orchard, subdivide the property, and build dachas, vacation homes for wealthy urbanites.  But Liubov and Gayev are so entrenched in their memories, their way of life, and the fantasy of its never ending, that the idea is so anathema that they are unable to grab the lifeline.

Sklar is delightful as the vivacious Liubov, wearing the perpetual regal smile as she blithely and generously fritters away what little money she has.  Appearing simple and frivolous in many ways, Liubov is a fully-developed character.  At times philosophical and insightful despite her glaring blind spots, her concern for her daughters and others who rely on her largesse, like the servants and workers, is revealed.  Her candor about having had an affair while married surprises, and she is still conflicted by that problematic love link which lies in Paris.  Is she delusional to think that her problems resolve in France, or should she succumb to the pull of her homeland?

One of the weaknesses of the script, however, is that all of those around Liubov are caricatures.   Lopakhin, beautifully played by Gardner, conveys the discomfort of a nouveau riche with the ability to solve the problems of his former liege.  He knows only one measure of success, and that is money, which solves all problems.  Gardner shows nervous surprise when two characters at different times, each of whom are in need of money, deny his offering of cash.  When given the chance to embrace humanity, Lopakhin reverts to his pecuniary instincts.

The restrained Fusco’s somewhat brooding but also affectionate Gayev has one obsession, and that is billiards, which recurs in his conversations.  Totally inert and uncontributing, even more than his sister, he represents the sunset of the Russian aristocracy with his ad hominem rejection of Lopakhin’s idea to save their property from the auction block.  And lacking either motivation or experience, he thinks that a bank job that he has been offered will somehow preserve his station in life.

The interloper into this coterie of tradition is Trofimov, an eternal student, performed with stridency yet charm by Joseph O’Malley.  He captures the know-it-all, idealistic youth who lacks experience and responsibility but somehow thinks that he has all of the answers.  He has the gall to tell Liubov to forget the estate, that it is already dead, though she notes that he has never faced these circumstances.  He even castigates intellectuals for having theories with no action behind them, when he is guilty of the same thing.  I suspect some of us can see a past version of ourselves in him.  He does serve as a love interest who could divide a household, but more importantly, he stands for the prototypical Bolshevik who will totally upend the established order in Russia.

Several notable actors appear in smaller roles and are wonderful in them (see photos and captions).  Though most characters are one-dimensional, the actors avail the opportunity to groove deeply into a particular behavior type.  Some are also involved in subplots that are superfluous, which is another weakness in the script.  Other issues that are common to some Russian novels, but are more difficult for the viewer to deal with in a play, are the inundation of characters at the outset and that they can be variously referred to by surname, given name, and nickname before you even know who they are and how they fit in.

Despite these criticisms, The Cherry Orchard is highly entertaining and well worth seeing.  The overarching themes of evolving society, competing values, living in the past, the delusions that people live by, and love and loss are among those that make it compelling.  Further, the subtlety amidst the raucousness is that the playwright eschews judgment.  Each of the key characters is clearly defined, while possessing good and bad characteristics, and it is up to the individual viewer to decide their worthiness.  As previously noted, the performances and direction are superb, and the production values are great, especially Nina Ball’s scenic design of the nursery room in the manor teeming with dolls and Lydia Tanji’s costumes.

The Cherry Orchard, written by Anton Chekhov, is produced by Marin Theatre and appears on its stage at 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, CA through February 22, 2026.

Starting with the Revolutionary War, women have served the armed services of the United States, often as non-military auxiliaries such as nurses, but even as combatants, when a few brave women disguised themselves as men.  The first official female induction into the US military occurred in World War I when the Navy recruited thousands of women for stateside clerical duty to release men to combat.

Simultaneously, the Army recruited women to serve in war zones, but their classification as military or contractors would be contested for decades.  The need was for women who had telephone operator skills and who spoke adequate French to serve in the Signal Corps of General John J. Pershing’s Expeditionary Forces to provide needed communication and translation between the American military and French operators and operatives.

These patriotic and courageous women became known as “The Hello Girls,” and their story is memorialized in the Peter C. Mills and Cara Reichel stage musical of the same name which was nominated for numerous Off-Broadway awards.  Ross Valley Players offers a heartfelt and charming rendition of this largely unknown but significant story.

The action is based on the experiences of five of the first wave of Hello Girls led by Grace Banker who was designated as chief of the unit.  Monica Rose Slater portrays Grace who not only has to manage the girls’ professionalism but must act as the boundary spanner between them and her boss, Lt. Riser (Nelson Brown), who, along with many other men in the unit, can’t fully accept women as having equal competence as men.  Yet Grace always wins the day with efficiency that the men can’t match.

Meanwhile, the women who are stationed at Expedition Headquarters in Chaumont, France are itching to get to the front lines but held back by sexism.  Grace handles the conflicts with her superiors and subordinates well, and Slater displays excellent acting and a fine singing voice in the depiction.  The girls, who are gung-ho, are led by multi-talented Grace Margaret Craig as Suzanne and Jaqueline Lee as Louise.  Both act and sing well in their roles.  But further, like some other cast members who must also play musical instruments in some songs, they play the cello and violin with competence respectively.

Another plus is that the French accents are very convincing.  Credit dialect coach John Rustan.  All of the girls have smatterings of dialog in French, but in addition, Louise was born in France and has a French accent in English.

The narrative moves along energetically through 22 well defined scenes, starting with the candidates’ selection process in New Jersey, going through transition and ultimately proving themselves over the many conflicts that they confront with their own comrades.  Toward the end of the war, the girls’ unit engages in the brutal Meuse-Argonne Offensive, witnessed by the telling song “The Lost Battalion.”  The performance concludes with a historical epilog and honoring veterans in the audience with snippets of theme songs from each of the branches.  Four of us, all looking like Viet Nam era vets, rose on cue to The Army Goes (better known as The Caissons Go) Rolling Along.

Musically, virtually all scenes are adorned with song.  From the opening “Answer the Call” and “Connected,” they are melodic, often with delicate harmonies.  They also bounce and drive the plot forward and are replete with appealing lyrical overlaps, counterpoint, and mini-rondo.  In an important song, “Twenty,” Grace enumerates 20 reasons why The Hello Girls are needed at the front.  Very much in the modern Broadway style, a few tunes sound like Company and Follies era Sondheim.  The female leads deliver nice versions of all of their singing parts, while the remaining performers are somewhat uneven.

It is really pleasing to be able to enjoy a production like this.  Although violence and death abound in the play beyond the stage, and a sexism somewhat born of social innocence does pervade, it is still a feel-good musical about the success and progress of women.  We now live in an era in which media coverage of our uniformed public servants often accurately shows them as perpetrators of violence and enemies of democratic process, from police to ICE killing and terrorizing defenseless people.  The chapter of The Hello Girls tells of our history about fighting the good fight and the good guys winning.

In addition to being a plug for women’s rights, the playwrights conspicuously inject an anti-war message into the plot.  Rather gratuitously, a German soldier is taken as a prisoner-of-war, and he is happy with his new status.  In characterizing the premises to war, he notes that countries’ leaders tell lies to the general public and to the military (e.g., you are better dead than taken prisoner by the enemy) that are designed to stir hatred for people from other countries and cultures.  Belief in those lies triggers animosity toward outsiders and fuels the willingness to engage in war at the behest of the privileged class.

The action and movement under Director Maeve Smith’s guidance ensures that the pace is brisk and that interest does not wane.  This is a worthy production concerning these important events in American military history and the evolution of civil rights for all.

The Hello Girls with music, lyrics, and book by Peter C. Mills and book by Cara Reichel is produced by Ross Valley Players and is performed at The Barn Theatre of Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Ross, CA through March 1, 2026.

In December, 2025, my wife Karin and I took a cruise in southwest Africa, terminating in Cape Town and then went to Zimbabwe for wildlife viewing. What started as notes for my annual holiday letter to friends took on a life of its own, and I’ve been sharing this larger than expected work already. As a forewarning, some of this is a conventional travelog from a personal perspective, but much is personal anecdotes that can’t be replicated but are of the sort that can happen when you travel and that make it fascinating.

Cape Town is wonderful

Our December 2025 West African cruise put us in Cape Town, one of our very favorite cities, for the third time in 12 months – all being the terminus of cruises.  For those unaware, like our home town of San Francisco, Cape Town has a multicultural population, temperate weather, a foodie culture and nearby vineyards with great wineries and tasting rooms.  And while Robben Island doesn’t have the pizzazz of Alcatraz, for 27 years it incarcerated Nelson Mandela, whose inspirational story can be learned there.  The city also has the breathtaking backdrop of Table Mountain (where thick clouds can flow down from the flat top like waterfalls) plus Signal Peak and the 12 Apostles.  With that, it completes the list of the world’s four most stunning combined urban/mountain/seascapes along with San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Rio.  Cape Town has a visual sparkle and lifestyle zeitgeist that competes with Sydney; beautiful, white-sand beach town suburbs like Miami; botanical gardens and bird sanctuary (both with many species unique to the area) akin to Singapore; remnants of colonial history and architecture; and probably the best pan-African artisan and arts markets anywhere.  Oh, and there are national wildlife reserves within a few hours drive endowed with lions, elephants, and such.  Other than that, Cape Town is quite ordinary.

This time we visited the Zeitz Museum of Modern African Art on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront – that’s not a typo – the city honors her son who visited there, not her husband Prince Albert.  The spectacular interior of the edifice was carved from a battery of adjoined cement grain silos.  Its 60-foot-high atrium reveals various oval cuts and abutments sliced from the original silos, and this magnificent centerpiece alone is worth the price of admission.

Ice and imitation

Our other notable experience in Cape Town in 2025 started in 2003, when we entered its most distinguished diamond retailer – Prins & Prins.  After being seated, the salesman, noting the dulled 2 ½ karat sparkler on Karin’s finger, asked “May I replace your cubic zirconium?”  Surprised at his observation and presumptuousness at its not being a diamond, she replied “What would it cost?”  “No charge,” said he.  This is a diamond merchant, replacing a CZ for free on his own initiative.  Are you kidding?

Flash forward to December 2024, and we return to Prins & Prins and have the seemingly dulled, free CZ from 2003 replaced for the modest cost of labor.  Karin was never that happy with the new one and when we knew we would be back in December 2025, we scheduled an appointment for yet another replacement.  They set aside two possible successors, and as a courtesy when we arrived, buffed up the old 2003 rock that Karin had, of course, saved and brought along.  Of the four possibilities, the 2003 CZ that they initially gave her looked the brightest and biggest, and lo and behold, it is back in the setting again (you may age yourself if you thought of Gene Autry’s song “Back in the saddle again”).

Prins and Prins paid 75 cents for this promotion.  Not really, but they did give us free bottled drinks along with all of their attention.  It still amazes how well they treat us, time-after-time, pretty sure that we’re not going to spring for $45,000 to buy the real thing.

Benin – fond memories from one of the world’s poorest countries

Our cruise embarked in Accra, Ghana, but since we had been there before and since Ghana’s new visa process is extremely taxing and threatening, we decided to skip it and strongly recommend that others avoid Ghana as well.  Karin detailed the process to her orthopedist, who is African-American and had planned a one-week slave-history related vacation to Ghana with his family of four, and he abruptly cancelled.

Our southwest Africa cruise actually began in Cotonou, Benin, the commercial center of the country near the capital of Porto Novo, but it almost didn’t, as there was a failed coup two days before we left SFO.  We didn’t know if we might get stuck in Paris (there are worse places to spend a few unplanned days), or worse yet, if we would get to Benin and our cruise ship would decide to bypass the destination because of the risk.  The cheapest way to get out of Benin and make it to a later destination on the cruise would have been to return to Paris and then go to Lisbon!  As it turned out, Cotonou’s airport and seaport were reopened and we made it.

On the flight from Paris, we had met a young Beninese man who works for Google and lives in the Bay Area.  After we returned home, we found that he and his wife both had to make unplanned trans-Atlantic flights concerning her residency to deal with Trump’s scheduled travel ban, instituted with his characteristic racism, ignorance, and lack of any cohesive plan.  Ash showed us around town in a way that only a local could, insisting on paying for everything, including a restaurant that no tourist would find, so it turned into a great visit.

Highlights of Cotonou were the longest graffiti mural in Africa, at over 3,000 feet, along a main artery, with many artists contributing panels to the appealing attraction; the vast open market with hundreds of mostly grocery and fabric stalls;  an exurb of 40,000 people all in houses on stilts in a lake that is only accessible by water; and seeing the hoopla surrounding a woman who had already broken the Guiness Book of World Records standard for continuous cooking – though she was allowed, by Guiness rules, two hours sleep per night and 15-minute breaks every four hours.  She was in her 11^th day and targeted 14 to smash the world record of six days.  Taking advantage of the buzz, 60 or so temporary food, tchotchke, and entertainment kiosks sprung up near the Convention Center, creating a carnival-like atmosphere.  Despite the level of poverty in Benin, our hotel was among the more lavish that we’ve stayed in, with huge grounds.

What a difference a fly makes – Another song reference, this from Dinah Washington, substituting fly for day, which also works for the story

The greatest trepidation on this trip because of long term or terminal implications came from São Tomé and Principe, a tropical island nation that is Africa’s smallest country.  I was bitten on the elbow by what we are certain was a tsetse fly, which causes African sleeping sickness, a usually fatal disease, though treatable if caught in time.  Karin and I both saw the bite occur from the fly, which is several times larger than a common house fly.  It left pain, itch, and a 1 ½ inch in diameter round, red spot.  Other than the Crystal Cruise doctor, who was not a tropical disease specialist and had no available treatment, I was unable to get medical attention until four days later in Namib, Angola.

With the help of the driver of a Crystal contractor, we had an adventure searching out five different pharmacies looking for medicine.  Many travelers would find this a real headache, but we enjoyed having a mission, interacting with the locals, and seeing the town beyond the touristy spots and things to do.  The reason for lack of availability of medication was that the northern Angolan jungle is endemic with sleeping sickness, but Namib is in the desert, with no incidence of tsetse flies.  Finally, someone recommended going to a hospital.  The hospital was free, and I was whisked through the emergency room and attended immediately.  The knowledgeable doctor noted that since I didn’t have site infection within three days, I was likely clear, but that I should look for symptoms over the next few weeks.  It seems that I dodged the bullet on that one.

Safari – our main, but not only, motivation for African travel

The trip ended in Zimbabwe and Botswana with great land photo safaris (Hwange in Zim and Chobe in Botswana) with great guides as well as wonderful safari cruises on the Zambezi and Chobe Rivers.  It doesn’t appear that canoe rides near Victoria Falls among the hippos and crocs like we took in 2002 are allowed any longer because of danger.  Except for ubiquitous impalas, elephants, hippos, and crocs, wildlife sightings on land were relatively low because rainy season provides cover and well distributed water, so that game doesn’t have to go to permanent water holes.  We did see zebras, wildebeests, jackals, kudu, water bucks, warthogs, buffaloes, striped mongeese, steenboks, and more – including rare and beautiful painted dogs although in an acres large jungle reserve.  But a wide variety of interesting birds is always around, and the wildlife and whole experience was still amazing.   Hwange is elephant rich, and we had two or three very close and threatening interactions with elees.  A first for us was that our safari vehicle was able to follow two brother lions cavorting and marking their territory repeatedly.

By the way, the Zimbabwe city of Victoria Falls, which was our hub, is unique for multinational game viewing – strongly recommended.  Within two hour drives or less, you have your choice of wildlife in Zim, Zam (Zambia), Botswana, and Namibia.  There is even a nearby bridge that touches all four countries.  Plus, there is the falls – the largest continuous sheet of water in the world.  Iguazu has more total water flow but is broken into many divided cataracts.  Niagara is the third in size in this unique group of massive cataract waterfalls, but still spectacular.

Despite the appeal of a Vic Falls based itinerary though, for first-time safari goers, South Africa offers the most.  While Kenya and Tanzania attract more attention, they target foreigners exclusively and are priced accordingly, while South Africa has its own large middle class and includes game options that are targeted for them as well as the well-heeled.  And for supplemental activities, it is without peer.

Huge stress to make the plane

Our 40-hour door-to-door return home (longest ever for us) started with a time-pressured, white-knuckle, two-hour drive from a remote camp in Zim’s Hwange National Park on a heavily potholed, muddied, puddled, dirt road on which we saw no other vehicle for over an hour.  Oh, yes, and we had already blown out a tire the previous day, and couldn’t get a replacement in this isolated area, so if we’d had another flat, we would have been marooned without a spare for a good while and would have missed our three-flight program home.  We made it to the airport with minutes to spare, but understandably had to pay extra fees to the car rental company for tire replacement, minor damages, and cleaning the mud-covered car.

Anecdotes for the informationally curious

As a side note, all of you probably already knew that Angelina Jolie birthed her twins in Swakopmund, Namibia (or maybe not!), and that this town of mild climate has virtually the same monthly average temperatures (reversed for different hemispheres) as Monterey, California, both benefiting from cold currents from their respective polar oceans.  Also, nearby Walvis Bay (another stop on the cruise) has the longest palm tree alley in the world with 1,800 mature trees spread over three miles on the highway toward nearby Swakopmund.

Confusion from naming abounds in this region, largely thanks to colonial rule.  It has the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with their national capitals across the street from one another.  The city of Namib is not Namibia, but Angola.  Benin City is not in Benin, but in Nigeria.  And the famous Benin bronze statues are from Nigeria, not Benin.  Former colonies along the Bight of Benin (the country was named after the huge gulf, not the reverse) were originally and oh so cleverly named Gold Coast, Grain Coast, Slave Coast, while only Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire in the official French) persists with the colonial name as the country name.

Finally, Americans tend to look at slavery from a U.S. perspective, and we view the main sources of slavery as being Gambia (“Roots” and Alex Haley’s ancestral history started there) and Senegal (President Obama visited Gorée Island, off Dakar, with its “Door of No Return”).  But, get this, present-day Angola provided more than 10 times as many slaves to the Western Hemisphere than the combined other two mentioned.  Who knew?