A PLAY THAT'S OVERDRAWN, UNDERCOOKED
                                              By Carol Benet
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater
                                                                 Weeks starting Oct. 3-10, 2011
                                                                 Vol. 14, No. 12
            Were they still workshopping the play?
            Stefanie Zadravec’s play ”Honey Brown Eyes”  is a bust.  It is a one dimensional political rant against the events in  Bosnia War from 1992 to 1995.   And that is the problem; the politics take over and even if you think the whole deal stunk, you have no other levels to ponder. Even the program lists of “horrific ethnic” cleansings in the modern world without much thought to their differences.  There is a problem when politics take over art and not the other way around.
            The small and innovative SF Playhouse at 588 Sutter Street in San Francisco  has produced one successful play after another.  But what goes up, goes down. And this time around, the “Eyes” just don’t have it. 
            Act I is about the Visegrad massacres and takes us to an apartment where a nervous soldier Drag (Nic Grelli) breaks in looking for a young girl.  A woman, Alma (Jennifer Stuckert), lives there and says there is no young girl.  Dragon tots his gun, struts around and pretends to play his guitar.  And voilà it turns out he is a friend of her brother’s and remembers her as a beautiful girl, older than he. Reminiscing takes place, I guess to show that they were once teenagers with a life other than now. That’s about it.  Cat and Mouse act with searching, intimidating and bravado.
            Act II is called Sarajevo where new characters enter the story.  Jovanka (Wanda McCaddon), an older woman puttering around in her kitchen, is joined by Denis (Chad Deverman).  They talk about the atrocities.  Then we go back to the first apartment and the girl Zlata (Madeleine Pauker that night in a shared role) is found hiding in a vent.  She is indeed the daughter of Alma.  Both women are marched out.  The end.
            With the program comes a bright green paper that explains “What happened in Bosnia.”   But the play is another matter, one that can never recreate the horrors of the situation.  It is almost impossible to recreate war, atrocities, sickness, death, etc. on stage.
            The set by Bill English was another one of his successes.  Acting? It seemed as if this play was still being workshopped.  Too many of the lines were muffed.  It needs a rewrite and more work on all levels.  Undercooking can ruin even a gourmet meal.
            “Honey Brown Eyes” runs through November 5 at the SF Playhouse, San Francisco. For info:  (415)  677 9597, or go online. 

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        © Carol Benet 2011
        Carol Benet is a regular theater reviewer for artssf.com.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly)focus on theater, dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into recordings by local artists, and a few departures into books (by authors of the region)as well.
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