TIGERS BE STILL

The SF Playhouse presents……
TIGERS BE STILL by Kim Rosenstock…..a moving, funny glimpse into what we are.

People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.
Judith Guest

If you see no other production this year, treat yourself to the SF Playhouse ‘s TIGERS BE STILL written with depth and sensitivity by Kim Rosenstock and directed with just the right touch by Amy Glazer. To tell you what this play is about is to explain what living is. We wake in the morning and some of us leap into the excitement of the day. Others cannot even get out of bed. Reality strikes unexpected and punishing blows to us all and some of us survive. Sadly, others do not. TIGERS BE STILL is about five people who won the fight, each in his own unique way. Sherry Wickman (Melissa Quine) has managed to pull herself out of her blue funk because she finally has a job. She is determined to be the best teacher and art therapist in the universe. Yet, she is petrified because inside she knows she could very well be the worst. Her mother (never seen on stage) cannot come to terms with what steroids have done to her body and like more people that one would suspect never leaves her room. Grace Wickman (Rebecca Schweitzer) has lost the love that gave her life meaning and she is furious, depleted and afraid of what blow the next minute will bring. She cries, she drinks and she sleeps.

Add into this sad mix of failures and fears, Zack (Jeremy Kahn) who believes he was responsible for killing his mother and Joseph (Remi Sandri) who gives us one of the most beautiful portrayals of a man trying to come to terms with his loss and be a mother and father to a son paralyzed by guilt. When Joseph tries to mend a button on his son’s shirt, the audience is riveted. Everyone there needs him to thread that needle and repair what is left of his life.

The four actors in this production are a perfectly synchronized ensemble. It is impossible to single out one performance because each depends on the others for veracity. Bill English’s set never detracts. It creates exactly the right time, space and mood. Michael Oesch’s lighting design moves us seamlessly from the Wickman living room, to Joseph’s dining room to his office. The pace is perfect and the lives we see unfold before us are poignantly real. We all have lived what we are seeing. We have fought similar torments and too many of us give up. “TIGERS BE STILL uses theatre to explore another human quandary: what happens when we get stuck?” says Bill English the Artistic Director of SF Playhouse. “How do we struggle to break free of depression? Throughout the ages, theatre has shown us how we struggle with defeat and how we defeat the powers that hold us down.”

IN TIGERS BE STILL we see four people on their way into their own sunlight. The production casts a spell we wish would never end, so captivating is the combination of the humor in the lines and pathos in the emotions played out on stage. The theatre itself is small enough so that everyone in the audience is part of the drama. Amy Glazer has done a masterful job of opening the window into the fourth wall on stage. We are all part of every scene and we all care very much for its resolution. TIGERS BE STILL is a masterpiece on every level. Don’t miss it.

I don't want any more vicissitudes,
I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff.
I just want out.
Elizabeth Wurtzel
TIGERS BE STILL continues until July 30 at The SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter in San Francisco Tuesday and Wednesday @7pm, Thursdays-Saturdays 8 pm and Saturday matinees at 3 pm.
Tickets & information: ($30-$50): 415 677 9596 or www.sfplayhouse.org