Opened Jan. 31, 2008 at the Aurora Theatre Company

Crowded orbit mars Son’s Satellites
Two stars (Needs space and time)

The really interesting thing about plays, movies or TV shows that attempt to depict the real-world diversity of this country is that, when you get right down to it, our shared humanity prevails. And it’s always messy.

Diana Son’s Satellites at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company is an ambitious jumble of a play. It’s a one-act that crams so many issues into about 100 minutes of stage time that the result is like two sitcoms and a serial drama mashed into one intermittently engaging evening.

Curiously, Son’s play, along with Danny Hoch’s Taking Over at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, is the second play on Addison Street to be dealing with, in part, the gentrification of Brooklyn. Hoch’s play is much more convincing, while Son’s is aiming for something more personal and less overtly political.

Her protagonists are Miles (Michael Gene Sullivan, above), an African-American man, and his wife, Nina (Julie Oda, above), a Korean-American woman. They have a 6-week-old daughter and a new run-down four-story brownstone in Brooklyn.

Nina’s architectural office — and partner, Kit (Ayla Yarkut) — are in the basement, and a mysterious (and wholly unnecessary to the play) tenant (Samuel Raskin) lives on the fourth floor.

With walls crumbling and the living room strewn with moving boxes, the transition to Brooklyn is rough. Miles’ brother, Eric (Darren Bridgett, above, pants down), comes home from a long international trip and gets mugged on his way from the airport. Then someone lobs a rock through the front window. And a burly black neighbor, Reggie (Michael J. Asberry), a native of the block, ambles into the house and makes his presence known.

Everything in the play is complicated. There’s not really a plot, but there’s plenty of complication. Miles, a preemie born to a heroin addict, was adopted into a white family, so the brothers are black and white.

Nina has guilt about not being Korean enough, so she hires a Korean nanny, Mrs. Chae (Lisa Kang), to speak Korean to her infant. And Nina’s commitment to her architecture projects is wavering because she’s devoting so much time to her family and the establishment of their new home.

Throw in a budding romance between Kit and Eric, the threat of theft from Reggie (who’s a whole lot smarter and more sensitive than the average sitcom would allow), the lurking (and ridiculous) tenant, and you’ve got a mess.

That seems to be part of Son’s point – life is a mess, and everything we bring to the table, be it race, culture, age, insecurity, ego – only adds to the complication. The formula for Son’s play is: set-up, chaos, yelling, tears, moment of grace.

The moment of grace that comes out of nowhere at the end (and awkwardly gives the play’s title its meaning) doesn’t feel earned, nor is it believable. But the end is certainly welcome.

Director Kent Nicholson stages Son’s quick-cut scenes efficiently, and Melpomene Katakalos’ realistic set allows the action to switch effortlessly from floor to floor of the brownstone.

There are some terrific moments amid the chaos. Bridgett oozes charm as Eric, and his flirtation with Yarkut’s Kit gives the play some much needed spark. Kang (above) as the nanny ends up spoon feeding soup to an over-burdened Nina (who has mother issues) in the play’s most provocative scene.

But the overall impression of the play, which tries to do too much in too little time, is a shrill slice of life that feels more scripted than real and more TV than theater.

Satellites continues through March 2 at the Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $40-$42. Call 510-843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.

I’ve already offered up my Top 10 list of 2007’s best Bay Area theater (see it here).

That’s all well and good, but there was way too much good stuff in 2007 to contain in a polite numbered list. What follows, in no apparent order, are some of the year’s most distinctive theater moments (mostly good, some not so much).

The shows in the Top 10 were really great shows, but so were these. This is my honorable mention roster:

– American Suicide, Encore Theatre Company and Z Plays
– Pillowman, Berkeley Repertory Theatre
– The Birthday Party, Aurora Theatre Company
– Pleasure & Pain, Magic Theatre’s Hot House ‘07
– After the War, American Conservatory Theater
– Heartbreak House, Berkeley Repertory Theatre
– Tings Dey Happen, Dan Hoyle and The Marsh
– Annie Get Your Gun, Broadway by the Bay
– Des Moines, Campo Santo, Intersection for the Arts
– Richard III, California Shakespeare Theater

Favorite scene: Didn’t even have to think twice about this one. The dinner scene in Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s adaptation of To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Director Les Waters, working from Adele Edling Shank’s script, fashioned a multilayered scene that would have made Woolf herself proud. A boisterous family dinner, warmly illuminated by candles, allows us into the head of each of the diners without ever losing track of the dinner conversation. Extraordinary and beautiful — and vocally choreographed like a piece of complex music.

Greatest guilty pleasure: Legally Blonde, The Musical, had its pre-Broadway run early in 2007 at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre, and though it had its problems, it was a heck of a lot of fun. The best number was the lengthy “What You Want” in which sorority gal Elle Woods (Laura Bell Bundy) decides to apply to Harvard. In true musical fashion, the number sweeps through time and space, coursing through months of effort and from Southern California to the hallowed halls of Harvard. Jerry Mitchell’s choreography incorporates a frat party, the Harvard selection committee and a marching band.

Favorite image:The green girl in Berkeley Rep’s The Pillowman.

Favorite couple: Francis Jue as Mr. Oji and Delia MacDougall as Olga Mikhoels in Philip Kan Gotanda’s After the War at ACT. The sweetest romance was also the most surprising: a shy Japanese man and a recent Russian immigrant, neither of whom speaks much English.

Speaking of MacDougall: It was a good year for the actress (seen at right with the fur and tiara), who died memorably in Cal Shakes’ King Lear and ended 2007 with a superb, hip-swiveling, lip-pursing performance in Sex by Mae West at the Aurora.

Favorite tryout: Joan Rivers is more than a red carpet personality and an experiment in plastic surgery. An avowed theater lover, Rivers got down to some serious (and seriously funny) business in The Joan Rivers Theatre Project at the Magic. She combined stand-up with drama as she told an autobiographical tale of growing old in show business. The play was far from perfect, but she gets an A for effort.

Best ensemble: Behind every good show is a good ensemble, in front of and behind the scenes. But the one that comes to mind that, together, elevated the play was the fine crew in TheatreWorks’ Theophilus North (left) directed by Leslie Martinson.

Biggest disappointments: There were a few of them. I adore Kiki and Herb (Justin Bond and Kenny Melman), but their summer gig at ACT was in desperate need of a director. Berkeley Rep hosted Neil Bartlett’s adaptation of Oliver Twist, and while it was good, it didn’t reach anything approaching the heights of David Edgar’s Nicholas Nickleby. I complained about this in the review, and I’ll complain about it again: In ACT’s The Rainmaker, when the rain falls at the end, the actors should get wet. That’s the whole point of the play. In this version, the rain fell from above, but the actors were behind it and only pretended — acted if you will — the wetness. Lame.

Most gratuitous nudity: Actors bare all emotionally _ it’s what they do. But this year saw some unnecessary flesh, most notably in ‘Bot at the Magic, Private Jokes, Public Places at the Aurora and Two Boys in Bed on a Cold Winter Night. Costumes are a good thing.

Favorite quote of the year: It was uttered by the food critic Anton Ego (and written by Brad Bird) in the brilliant Pixar/Disney movie Ratatouille. As a critic (or what’s left of one), the words really hit home. And they’re true.

Here’s a taste: “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new.”

Happy New Year. May your stages in 2008 be full of the discovery of the new.

I can’t really review the Aurora Theatre Company’s production of Sex, a 1926 play by the delectable Mae West. One of my best friends is in the cast (he’s brilliant, by the way), so I have what they call in the ethics business a “conflict of interest.”

So, knowing my bias, here’s what I enjoyed about the production, directed by Tom Ross, the Aurora’s artistic director.

This is unlike any show I’ve seen in 10 years of going to the Aurora. First of all, it’s a musical (under the terrific musical direction of Billy Philadelphia, who tickles the ivories, and when pressed into acting service, looks sharp in an officer’s uniform). The second act of West’s play takes place in Trinidad, and it’s mostly an excuse to sing a lot of songs. Philadelpia has written three new songs to add to the Sex-y song list, and they’re terrific. The best one is “At the Cafe Port au Prince,” expertly performed by Danny Wolohan in an afro wig. It’s a funny, catchy number, and Philadelphia’s other new tunes, “Under the Red Light” and “Goin’ Down Under,” make me think that perhaps it’s time for Philadelphia to seriously consider writing a jazzy musical (and his wife, Meg Mackay, could star because it’s been too long since we’ve seen her onstage).

To be perfectly honest, Sex is a fairly lousy play. There are some very funny lines, and West wrote herself an interesting role in Margy LaMont, a Montreal prostitute who attempts to go straight and gets involved with a naive society boy. But the dialogue is stiff and dated, and as for plot, well, nothing really kicks in until Act 3 when the past and present clash in an amusing way.

What makes Sex interesting now is, of course, West herself. She wrote this piece before she had fully developed her trademark Mae West persona, so we get her intelligence, humor and strength with less of the robotic waxwork mechanisms she later created for herself.

Ross’ supporting ensemble — Robert Brewer, Steve Irish, Craig Jessup, Maureen McVerry, Kristin Stokes, Philadelphia and Wolohan — does a whole lot to keep the play from dragging (in lesser hands, boy would it drag). But the star here is Delia MacDougall as Margy.

MacDougall has always been a smart, reliable actor, and she knows that simply doing a Mae West impersonation for 2 1/2 hours isn’t going to cut it. So we get glimpses of Mae — especially when MacDougall struts and sings “Sweet Man” and “Shake That Thing” (a great ensemble number) — but what we really get is Margy, a worldly broad desperate to make something of her life. She doesn’t exactly have a heart of gold, but she has a brain and good instincts. And perhaps most happily of all, she has a raging libido, and she owns it. Could this be where the expression “You go, girl!” comes from?

MacDougall is marvelous (and she looks fantastic in Cassandra Carpenter’s ’20s dresses). Her performance alone should make you eager to dive headlong into Sex.

For information about Sex, visit www.auroratheatre.org.

Here’s a trailer for West’s movie I’m No Angel from 1933 with Cary Grant.

This month, if you’re looking for good Sex, you may need to head for Berkeley.

This week, the Aurora Theatre Company opens Mae West’s 1926 show Sex starring Delia MacDougall as Margy LaMont, the role West originated herself.

MacDougall, a familiar face to Bay Area audiences (she most recently died onstage in California Shakespeare Theater’s King Lear), grew up in Mountain view and remembers her mother taking her to Palo Alto’s Stanford Theatre to see old movies.

“My mom was a big fan of Mae West’s and would quote her all the time,” MacDougall says from her San Francisco home. “I loved all those sexy pre-Code 1930s ladies. I think Mae West had something to her that was more powerful than any of them — more sexual but not very sexy. She was a powerful, sexual woman.”

Of course young Delia didn’t necessarily know what West was talking about.

“It still takes me a while to catch on — she makes innuendo out of everything.”
Even before MacDougall was approached by Aurora artistic director Tom Ross about playing West’s role in Sex, the busy actor/director was something of a West aficionado.

“I saw her films then started reading the biographies. I was impressed by the paths she cut,” MacDougall says.

After an audition for another Aurora show, MacDougall was sensing she didn’t get the part when Ross handed her the Sex script. The first few pages had MacDougall hooked, and she knew she wanted to do the show.

“The character, Margy LaMont, is clearly a prostitute, and that’s what was so upsetting to people at the time,” MacDougall explains. “She’s very real, which is a funny thing to associate with Mae West. In the ’20s, prostitutes onstage had to suffer and die at the end. Audiences had to believe there was good in them somewhere. But with Margy, it’s not like that.”

Sex got bad reviews when it opened, but, as you might imagine, audiences adored it. It ran for a year before the City of New York sent the police in to shut it down. West was arrested on a morals charge and served eight days in prison (though legend has it she was allowed to wear her silk underwear in jail).

Of course, being the Madonna of her day, West turned all the publicity to her advantage, wrote more plays (most of which were shut down or forced out of town) and made her way to Hollywood.

Because Sex emerged before the West persona was set in curvy stone, the character of Margy is, as MacDougall puts it, “more man- and society-angry than later West characters. Mae had a better sense of humor than Margy.”

Consequently, MacDougall does not have to do an out-and-out West imitation, though she is working on her shimmy.

“I think it’s a good play — it’s not Inherit the Wind but it moves quickly, you don’t know where it’s going and it has characters you love,” MacDougall says. “And Mae always wrote that Margy is in a clinch, so I love playing the part because I’m always in the arms of some guy.”

This will be the year MacDougall chose Sex over Christmas (the sex jokes just never end with a title like that). She was all set to go back into American Conservatory Theater’s annual A Christmas Carol, but decided to opt for West’s play.

“I don’t know how many more years I can be in a play called Sex,” she says.
If you’d like to sample a little of West at her best before you head to Sex, which is directed by Ross and features Maureen McVerry, Danny Wolohan, Steve Irish, Robert Brewer, Kristin Stokes and Craig Jessup, MacDougall recommends West’s first movie, Night After Night, in which a hat-check girl says to West, “Goodness, what lovely diamonds.” To which West replies, “Dearie, goodness had nothing to do with it.”

MacDougall also recommends listening to West’s song “A Guy What Takes His Time.”

The Aurora’s Sex continues through Dec. 9 at the Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $40 to $42. Call 510-843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.

Opened Thursday, April 12, 2007, Aurora Theatre Company

Aurora exposes laughs, drama in Public Places
Two [1/2] stars Sturdy laughs

Building a play about architecture is a tricky business.

Certainly architecture is something that affects each of us every day, even though we probably don’t think about it much beyond, doors, walls and windows.

Playwright Oren Safdie, son of famed architect Moshe Safdie, received his MFA degree in architecture from Columbia but ended up constructing a play about architecture for his wife, actress/playwright M.J. Kang.

The play, Private Jokes, Public Places, opened Thursday at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company starring Kang as Margaret, a grad student at the National School of Architecture making her thesis presentation to a panel of three judges.

There’s a twitchy Brit (Charles Dean), an ego-brandishing German (Robert Parsons) and a milquetoast American (Max Gordon Moore), who also happens to have a little crush on Margaret.

The 80-minute play transpires in real time, and we in the audience are far from impassive. We’re fellow grad students and guests observing the judging process.

More entertaining for its flashes of satirical humor than for its insights into the world of design, director Barbara Damashek’s production is slick but lacking in punch.

The tone varies from the broadly comic to the deadly serious, and that variation creates a wobbly foundation.

Dean and Parsons seem to relish creating broad caricatures of their snooty Euro designers. The Brit is the “dinosaur,’’ a sniffy traditionalist in little round glasses, a bow tie and argyle socks (costumes by Brandin Baron), while the German is the black-clad post-post-modern windbag who bandies about phrases like “protean trajectories.’’
In full-on blowhard mode, both actors generate big laughs. For instance, Parsons, defending an avant-garde project of his, stammers: “It’s not a bridge to nowhere. It’s a bridge to contemplate where it leads.’’

There’s also some well-executed physical comedy, as when Moore, frightened by his European compatriots, comes running into the room, plops himself in a folding chair and promptly falls flat onto his back.

In the midst of such lively buffoonery, we have Kang’s Margaret, an earnest, intelligent young woman with little patience for her judges’ self-inflated pronouncements and exhortations. Her design project is for an impressive public swimming pool that is thoughtful, progressive and highly functional.

Such practicality, even though it’s well designed, doesn’t sit well with the judges, who care more about ideas than people. This angers Margaret, and at one point she shouts back at a judge: “What has modernism done for the people?’’

We’re expected to accept that Margaret’s journey from the beginning of her presentation to its stormy, soul- (and body-) baring conclusion is not the stuff of comedy, but genuine, reality-based drama.

It’s a difficult leap to make, especially when the play turns into what amounts to a trial, with Margaret on the defensive and the German judge, once he stops talking about the “power of the Gestalt,’’ is her self-appointed prosecutor.

In form, the play is lovely – Kate Boyd’s clean, white classroom set comes complete with architecturally appropriate beams crossing the airspace over the stage – and the performances are energetic, especially Kang’s when she gets worked up into a righteous lather about architecture’s true function in the world.

As a complete unit, however, the pieces of Private Jokes, Public Places don’t quite come together.

For information about “Private Jokes, Public Places,’’ visit www.auroratheatre.org.

The Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle’s 2006 award winners were announced last week, and the recognition was spread out pretty evenly. American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and California Shakespeare Theater all received four awards, while Aurora Theatre Company, SF Playhouse and San Jose Repertory Theatre each received three.

In the musical category, Broadway by the Bay led with nine awards, and Foothill Music Theatre had five awards.

The outstanding drama award was shared by Berkeley Rep’s The Miser (left, which actually originated at Minnesota’s Theatre de la Jeune Lune) and Aurora’s Salome.

Outstanding musical awards went to three winners: Broadway by the Bay’s Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Foothill’s Urinetown and TheatreWorks’ Vanities.

In the dramatic acting categories, principal performance awards went to Rita Moreno (below left, The Glass Menagerie, Berkeley Rep), Susi Damilano (Reckless, SF Playhouse), James Carpenter (The Master Builder, Aurora) and L. Peter Callender (World Music, TheatreFirst). Supporting awards went to Delia MacDougall (The Merry Wives of Windsor, Cal Shakes), Nancy Carlin ( TheImmigrant, San Jose Rep), Sue Trigg (Noises Off, Willows Theatre) and Dan Hiatt (The Immigrant, San Jose Rep).

In the musical categories, principal performance awards went to Jessica Raaum (Annie Get Your Gun, Foothill) and Rick Williams (1776, Willows). Supporting awards went to Tiffany Marie Austin (Miss Saigon, Broadway by the Bay), Mary-Pat Green (Putting It Together, SF Playhouse), Maureen McVerry (Pardon My English, 42nd Street Moon), David Settler (Miss Saigon, Broadway by the Bay) and Paul Araquistain (Miss Saigon, Broadway by the Bay).

Director awards went to Barbara Damashek (Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Center Repertory Company) and Alex Perez (Miss Saigon, Broadway by the Bay). Ensemble awards were given to San Jose Rep’s The Immigrant, Center Rep’s The Marriage of Figaro and Berkeley Rep’s Passing Strange.

Touring productions cited for excellence were Doubt, Hairspray and Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake.

For a complete list of winners, visit www.theatrebayarea.org.

The Aurora Theatre Company’s The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter has just been extended through March 11 in Berkeley. That’s good news for Pinter fans. It also gives us more time to figure out just what the heck that show is about.

To that end, and with her permission, I’d like to share with you an e-mail I received from Susan Dunn. She and her husband, Jeff, formulated a theory. Please note how well-written this missive is. And then play along. Contribute your own theory about what Pinter is up to with The Birthday Party. There are no wrong answers. Pinter himself says he doesn’t even know. Note: if you haven’t seen the show, there are spoilers ahead.

We saw the The Birthday Party last night and I think my husband nailed a great way to figure out the play — not that there is only one way. But you might see the genius in this play through his interpretation.

Stanley is everyman, and in act one, he is a child. He sleeps late, has no responsibilities, and is cared for by the couple as though he was their child. And he acts like a child, being wilful, demanding, mercurial, etc. Won’t even get up to get his breakfast plate. Meg can’t help but keep caring for him (since he is the child), but like many children, he drives her crazy. Also, in Act 1, when Lulu comes in, he is not yet sexually mature, so he shows a lot of interest in Lulu, but he doesn’t know how to get her (and maybe even what “get her” means at that stage). He is afraid of the two men, and we don’t know why, but when we realize what they are up to, we know why Stanley is afraid, and hides from them like a child. At the end of the first act, he gets his gift — a drum, and does what many spoiled kids do, uses it in a way that torments his parent (Meg).

In Act 2, Stanley starts to mature. The two men arrive, and he can’t escape them They represent growing up. Goldberg is the authoritative, confident and persuasive adult figure that represents a concept of “following the rules” and achieving success. His success is emphasized by McCann who is his henchman who pays “fealty” to Goldberg in many ways throughout the play, through deference, through blowing in his mouth (representing that a power person can make an underling do ANYTHING), through following orders no matter what. So the strangers are there to carry Stanley through to maturity. He resists, but he can’t escape. Stanley is dependent on his glasses, or he THINKS he is. But the glasses are really like a Blankie or a thumb. They are what he needs to stay a child. When McCann breaks the glasses, its because Stanley won’t be needing them anymore as an adult. During the birthday party, Stanley has his last moment of resistance, rebellion and victory when he finds Lulu in the dark and has sex with her on the table. His face at the end of that scene shows Goldberg that he has bested him…. for the moment.

In Act 3, which suffers because we don’t see much of Stanley, he is being educated (school?) by McCann who is upstairs in his room doing a lot of talking. This represents the brainwashing that we all go through to leave the careless world of childhood behind and assume tradition, responsibility, respectability, and in Pinter’s view, inanity. When Stanley emerges, he is a brainwashed zombie. Goldberg and McCann list all the wonderful things he will have in his new world, but in Pinter’s view, there is really a huge loss. He has lost his will and his soul. Goldberg asks him what he thinks, and his croaking response shows that now that he is brainwashed, he can’t really THINK anymore, although he can get through the mindless world of being a working adult (drone). When he puts on the glasses, they don’t illuminate anything for Stanley. They are only lenses now, not the artifacts of childhood, freedom and power which a child exerts on the adult world. That aspect of the glasses is lost forever. Petey’s last words underscore this view of the play when he says to Stanley “Don’t let them tell you what to do”. The irony of course is that its too late - both for Petey and for Stanley.

I found this a very satisfactory way to look at The Birthday Party, and it made more sense to me than thinking that the 2 men were the agents of death, which is another interpretation. What do you think?

(opened Feb. 1, 2007)

Actors sizzle, plot fizzles in Aurora’s `Birthday Party’
two and 1/2 stars A well-made muddle

There’s an old saw about a tree falling in the woods, and if there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a noise — you know the one.

Well, what happens when a play falls into a pit of murky inscrutability and there are plenty of people around to hear it? Does the noise even matter?

That’s the question surrounding Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, which opened Thursday at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company. Artistic director Tom Ross, who has found success with such signature Pinter works as The Homecoming and Betrayal, now tries his hand at Pinter’s first produced work.

Since the play’s first London performance in 1958, which was not well received, Pinter has gone on to become, well, Pinter — one of contemporary drama’s most revered playwrights. He won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature and has influenced generations of writers.
But what to make of this first effort, which, though entertaining, may be too obtuse for its own good.

In this nearly 2 1/2-hour drama, Pinter deliberately withholds details to the most basic dramatic questions, which is sort of a cheat when it comes to creating dramatic tension. Then he makes us question the details we’re given, so there’s absolutely no point in trying to make sense of any of it.

So without plot or characters to trust, what is there?

In Ross’ sturdy production, we get some menace, some horror and, best of all, some marvelous Bay Area actors doing interesting things, even if they’re all ultimately just spinning their well-trained wheels.

The story, such as it is, takes place in a dingy boardinghouse on the English seaside (Richard Olmsted’s highly wall-papered set is perfect). Meg (Phoebe Moyer) and Petey (Chris Ayles) run the place, though to call it a boarding house is a stretch because for at least the past year, they’ve only had one tenant.

His name is Stanley, and when he makes his entrance down the steep staircase, he gets a laugh. As played by the masterful James Carpenter(above), Stanley is so run down and cranky, his woebegone appearance is a few bedrags below bedraggled.

Amid the normal morning chatter about sour milk and news of the day, two men in suits arrive: Goldberg (Julian Lopez-Morillas) and McCann (Michael Ray Wisely(below left), possessor of the best bushy eyebrows in three counties).

We don’t know why they’re their, but we know it’s mysterious and it has something to do with Stanley, who probably isn’t the concert pianist he says he is.

Apparently there’s been a “betrayal of the organization,” which leads the men to put Stanley through a bizarre interrogation (complete with hyper-dramatic lighting by Christopher Studley). But that’s not as bizarre as the actual birthday party thrown by Meg for Stanley (who, true to form, swears it’s not his birthday).

A game of blind man’s bluff, with special guest Lulu (Emily Jordan), ends with the lights out, violence and sexual mayhem.

There are non-sequiturs everywhere. For example, Goldberg, who makes much of being Jewish but has probably stolen his identity from someone else, invites Lulu, whom he calls “a big, bouncy girl,” to sit on his lap. She says, in her nonstop flirtatious way, “Can I tell you something? I trust you.” To which Goldberg replies, “Gesundheit.”

There’s a lot of sly humor in The Birthday Party, and that’s something that comes through in this production. Moyer is especially adept at pulling laughs from Meg’s cluelessness.

But around about Act 3, and after the second intermission, the fun of this Party begins to wane, and the weirdness takes over. The plot becomes a water balloon bumbling its way through a pinball machine, and Pinter’s notions of power and abuse and the horror of conformity as a measure of success only go so far before we lose track of the darkness and are left with absurdity instead.

For information about Aurora’s The Birthday Party, visit www.auroratheatre.org.