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Agree with reviews by Hurwitt and D'Souza posted above.
Some elements were deceptive, some downright insulting and other moments provided the glorious beats that even Stanislavsky would have saluted. The deceptions extended to the publicity, which showed Kara Davis and Muriel Maffre as cast members or project principals. Neither appeared--for reasons which Carey Perloff seemed to brush off when asked. Sabina Allemann was a brilliant un-advertised member of the cast, showing that despite many years in retirement, she is still steadfast in technique and theatrical heft. Another (insulting) deception is more of a choice than a lie: the decision to represent the 60s decade as The Summer of Love, a San Francisco affliction that has encumbered much of the culture here over the past two years around the celebration of the anniversary of that vacuous season. For most of the world, the sixties was about the war in Southeast Asia. Unlike the notion currently being spread around like horse ticky (and repeated in the Tosca Project), anti-war activists did not make it a habit to spit in the faces of returning GIs. On the contrary, many (and I was one of them) took on the brass by courageously driving to army bases, dressed not in hippie rags, but respectably, carrying flyers inviting GIs to join the struggle against the war as GIs. A contingent of such GIs in uniform led the massive April 24, 1971, anti-war march here from the Embarcadero down Geary Boulevard to Golden Gate Park. Anti-war activists also set up coffee houses where GIs could engage in political discussions about their experiences. They fought for and won in the Fort Jackson 8 case, the constitutional right of the citizen-soldier to oppose the war while on active duty and gather in groups to listen to the speeches of Malcolm X on the base! That is one of the main reasons the U.S. lost the war: the soldiers were convinced to oppose it and actively did, both stateside and in Vietnam. Moreover, they convinced civilians of the currency of their anti-war views.
We have to salute Pascal Molat, whose unerring talent for character work, combined with a commitment to excellence (no matter how thin the challenge), and unstoppable technique, gave us the best work in the show: his disabled vet, among the most memorable of sketches. Similarly, Gregory Wallace and Rachel Ticotin gave us a gripping flashback to a fatal accident that arrived in a burst of passion. Those who abandoned the project clearly could cite credible reasons to do so; those who stuck with it gave it their best and it showed (Lorena Feijoo, Nol Simonse, Gregory Wallace). The inescapable conclusion is that they and we deserve better material.
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"Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation!" Eddie Izzard
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