SMASHING HEADLONG INTO THE GLASS CEILING 
                                              By Carol Benet
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater
                                                                 Weeks starting Feb. 21, 2011
                                                                 Vol. 13, No. 69
            What We’re Up Against  by Theresa Rebeck is  a timely comic hit about women and the glass ceiling in office life, currently rollicking at the Magic Theatre. 
                Changes for the better have marked Loretta Greco taking over as artistic director of the Magic Theatre.  The theater was almost defunct two years ago when a plea went out to theater lovers in the Bay Area.  Funds flowed in and Loretta Greco chose and directed many of the new plays.  Not that the Magic is completely out of the red, but it’s  are functioning – and with great flair.
                Greco directs this small cast of five that is making the play buzz with reality and humor.  Eliza (Sarah Nealis) is a new hire at a staid architectural firm run by the men in it.  She is talented, pretty and outspoken.  Her superiors by tenure include the fussy and arrogant Stu (Warren David Keith), who hates her and the entire women’s movement.  Even worse, he is jealous of her. His colleague Ben (Rod Gnapp) mostly sides with Stu but  is less vitriolic.  Consequently, she is assigned no work.
                Meanwhile another new hire who just joined the firm, Weber (James Wagner), gets lots of assignments.  So does Janice (Pamela Gaye Walker), a compliant female employee who knows not to ruffle feathers.
                When Eliza storms into Stu’s office, all hell breaks out.  She is passionate about being passed over, and rightly so.  She also knows she is much more talented than the others and has easy solutions to what they find problematic, (e.g., air ducts). The five actors are pitch-perfect in their roles.
                The office politics of an architectural firm comes alive with drama as each of the five actors takes on a specific role under Greco’s guidance.  Eliza fights back with supreme  cleverness, and the play itself comes up with a just and clever ending.
                G.W. Mercier’s set is terrific.  Fitting its architectural purpose, it is spare with glass panels easily moveable to create new scenes.  Alex Jaeger’s costumes define the characters with Eliza in grey or black and very mod shoes, Stu in his bow tie and suspenders looking prissy and dandy, and  the latest hire Weber in jeans and a jacket, stylistically very SOMA (South of Market Area) .
                Playwright Rebeck has won many awards including the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award.  Her play Mauritius  had appeared at the Magic in 2009 to sold-out and extended performances.
                 Greco has clearly put the Magic Theatre on a winning path thanks to her judicious choice of plays, actors and other theater professionals.
                 What We’re Up Against runs at the Fort Mason, Building D, San Francisco through March 6, 2011. On Thursdays, right before curtain, there are discussions of the play.  For info: (415) 441-8822 or go online.                                                                                          #
        © 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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