THE DECLINE AND FALL OF TRUE ENTERTAINMENT
                        Both Today and in Ancient Rome 
                                              By Georgia Rowe
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater, music and dance 
                                                                 Week of May 22-29,  2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No. 103
          More than mere coincidence?  “You, Nero” opened on stage the same night (May 20) that “American Idol” reached its finale on the tube.  
            Even as TV’s risible celebration of bad singing was winding down, Amy Freed’s comic cautionary tale about the de-evolution of entertainment in the Roman empire debuted in an effervescent and oddly sobering Berkeley Repertory Theatre production.
            Comparisons are odious, of course, but Freed draws the connection between 64 A.D. and 2009 in deft strokes.  In Nero (Danny Scheie, in a note-perfect performance), she has a suitably vicious and vapid tyrant, and in Scribonius (an earnest Jeff McCarthy), the Carthage playwright enlisted to dramatize the emperor’s life story, she creates an agreeably hapless protagonist.
            Scribonius, who has a string of flops behind him, devises a plan; he’ll write a play portraying his subject in the best possible light, hoping that Life will imitate Art and Nero will stop gelding his slaves, eviscerating his enemies and offing his ex-wives.  The plan doesn’t work – Nero, who has already banned tragedy, only enjoys the lowest kinds of amusements - but it gives Freed plenty of room to riff on the notion that pop culture, at its mind-numbing worst, can leave us completely zoned out when Rome catches fire. 
            It’s a rather slender premise, but a fine cast wrings the script’s theatrical in-jokes, historical references and sly contemporary humor for every possible laugh.  Scheie, in leopard-skin briefs and gold sandals (yes, gladiator footwear is big this year), has the small stature, piping voice and knife-edge timing to make Nero truly funny.  McCarthy is a likeable Scribonius; Susannah Schulman’s seductive Poppaea, Kasey Mahaffy’s fey Fabiolo, and Lori Larsen’s creepy Agrippina make essential contributions.  Richard Doyle and Mike McShane (who, at the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival in the mid-80s, was arguably the best Falstaff the Bay Area has ever seen) excel in multiple supporting roles.  Ott and her design team make it all work splendidly: the moment when Nero finally takes center stage to play himself is a stadium spectacle worthy of Celine Dion – or, perhaps, the next “Idol” champion.
            “You, Nero” continues at Berkeley Repertory Theatre through June 28.  Running time is two hours, with one intermission.  More info at  510-647-2949, or go online. 
        ©Georgia Rowe 2009

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            Georgia Rowe is a Bay Area arts writer. Her work has appeared in Opera News, the San Francisco Examiner, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Contra Costa Times in addition to artssf.com.     These critiques appearing several times weekly focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.

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