AlterTheater review from The Ark

AlterTheater’s “Street Smarts”

What do these three locations have in common: the Rocking Chair Store, an empty thrift shop, and ArtWorks Downtown? Correct, all are in San Rafael, but they’ve also served as performance space for AlterTheater.
This group performs “stripped down and unplugged” new theatrical work in storefronts along Fourth Street. Starting several years ago with programs of brief scenes called “Smorgasbord of Shorts,” AlterTheater has now taken on a full-length work by San Francisco playwright, Brian Thorstenson.
In the most recent “Smorgasbord of Shorts,” another Thorstenson play, Drop, was an audience favorite. Summerland, his full-length present production, lacks the playfulness and surprise of the shorter work. It is also older, having been revised from previous versions of 2000 and 2002, and much of it now seems familiar. The location is “Big Sky country.” The characters are a lonely single mom, running a roadside café, her rebellious teenaged son, an admiring trucker, a drunken bully, a homosexual love interest, and a spiritual guide from the family tree. The characters are not always sympathetic or believable, but the astonishing thing is, much of it works because it has big talent behind it.
Director Ken Sorkin has assembled an almost-all-Equity cast for Summerland and has made a dramatic space out of this art gallery. There’s no theatrical lighting; there’s no sound system; there isn’t even a stage with room for exits and entrances. These actors appear and disappear from corners of the room and perform within inches of the audience.
Anne Darragh appears as Doreen, the coffee shop mom, much as she did in a recent production of Charlie Cox Runs with Scissors. Patricia Silver is Aura, Doreen’s late grandmother and guide. Bud, the teenager, is played by Zac Jaffee of San Francisco. Michael Navarra portrays Tom, the good guy trucker, Marvin C. Greene gets to be the bad guy, Sam, and Ron Rittinger is Jonah, the love interest from California. Only Jaffee is non-Equity, but he’s by no means inexperienced. And Sound Designer Norman Kern has devised believable effects for this space that range from a car with its radio on to a pistol shooting out a light. (Kern did not claim credit for the car alarm going off at the curb outside, however.)
Summerland, for all its revisions, still suffers from a cluttered script. Multiple themes crowd for attention, and the characters are too broadly drawn to be terribly interesting. Still, Brian Thorstenson is a playwright who knows dialogue. He gives his characters good lines, and he keeps their stories in motion. It seems likely that Mr. Thorstenson has more stories to tell. Hopefully, AlterTheater will find them a performance space.
Summerland will run through May 14 at Art Works Downtown, 1337 Fourth Street (at D) in San Rafael. Tickets are $20. For more information, see www.altertheater.org.