Oakenboard Tavern Theatre Under The Stars

Oakenboard Tavern Theatre Under The Stars begins its twenty-fifth season with a stellar production of Oliver!, directed by founding Artistic Director Mitchellson Mitchellson who, as you have no doubt read, was raised by a theatrical family here in the Bay Area who all played leading roles at one time or another at Chanticleer Theatre or Hayward Little Theatre. Their adventures are oft recounted by Mitchellson during breaks at Oakenboard, and many are the glazed eyes of younger actors who have fervently prayed he would finish his tale in time for them to piss.

Oliver!, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' immortal classic, Oliver Twist, is a very good musical. It will make money every time you do it because it has the best of everything a family musical can offer: a gaggle of precocious kids who sing and dance, a dog, and a happy ending. Mitchellson Mitchellson is notoriously particular about the dogs he uses in his shows and he began the first rehearsal by bellowing the following in his inimitable stentorian tone, "The dog will be a Basset Hound."

Those of you who know Oliver! know that the dog, Bullseye, belongs to Bill Sykes. Bill Sykes is an evil bastard of a villain whose only redeeming quality is that he cannot forget the image of his lover's eyes as he beats the living shit out of her; so plagued by this vision is he that his last words as he falls to his death are, "The eyes! The EYES!!!" Bullseye is supposed to be a Bull Terrier or Pit Bull or an English Bulldog, and frankly the latter is too damned cute to work well for him. The dog should compliment Bill Sykes' viciousness. They should be a matched pair, almost symbiotic. Bad man, vicious dog, scary scary.

To have Bill Sykes make his first appearance with a Basset Hound snuffling in after him seems to me to be less than ideal. With few exceptions, the general response to a Basset Hound is, "Awwwww! Cuuuuuute!" Perhaps I am taking things a bit too seriously, but this doesn't seem to be the most effective response to Bill Sykes or anything closely associated therewith.

I know what I'm talking about. When I played Bill Sykes at PCPA in 2006, their Bullseye was played by a verrrry friendly Golden Lab named Kyle. He was pristine in his cleanliness. He got a cheer when we took our curtain call. I got a nod. While I was somewhat terrifying as Sykes, Kyle's presence effectively cut the balls of evil right off of my character and immediately threw Sykes' backstory out of whack. The result was that I was never quite as scary as I would have been had the dog been a) scary or b) not there at all.

I think the show works better if you can have the dog present. But if you can't get the right dog, don't just go for any dog. It's not like Annie, where there pretty much has to be a dog. Sandy is the character to whom Annie sings Tomorrow, though that song is often spent wrangling a happy woofie so his anus isn't eye-level with the front row; ideally, the song is meant to reassure Sandy and, by extension, Annie herself and all of us, that tomorrow will be better. I have yet to see a production where Sandy will sit still during that song. Perhaps a Basset Hound would be a better choice for Annie. But that's neither here nor there because it's Oakenboard's Oliver! I'm writing about.

I don't play Sykes in this Oliver!, I play Fagin. I'm a ringer, I've played Fagin before. In Idaho. A delight. In this production, Bill Sykes is played by none other than Johnny Ringold. If you've seen me in any shows recently, you've seen Mr. Ringold in at least one of them. He was the pudgy tapper in the chorus. He played Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals. He was neck-in-neck with Peggy Levine for Mrs. Lovet in Oakenboard's disastrous Sweeney Todd of two seasons ago (dubbed Queeney Odd for the peculiar homoerotic quality of the title role's interactions with the strapping young sailor), until it was revealed that Ringold was the source of the rumor that Mitchellson Mitchellson is half African-American, which shocked many subscribers in the 925.

LeshleyRep's Ragtime saw Ringold and Mitchellson friendly again, as Mitchellson was by that time assumed to be at least 3/4 black by most of the Oakenboard Subscribers, who, owing to their advanced age and low pigmentation, are also the majority of the subscribers at LeshleyRep. This is probably why Dottie Hale tottered down the center aisle, tearfully regal in her hip replacement, to embrace Mitchellson opening night as he left his seat to visit the bar again before curtain. Ragtime, as you probably know, has African Americans in it. However, most of the named African American characters die, and the surviving named African American is raised by white people who move to California. This is Very Moving to women like Dottie, who grew up in Piedmont watching Mickey and Judy dance around in blackface. Dottie is desperate to appear Not Racist. Embracing Mitchellson Mitchellson, who, at 6'2" is much taller than Dottie and therefore, in her mind, likely to play basketball, was probably deeply cathartic. He is also blonde with blue eyes and appears perpetually sunburned between March and October. The root of Ringold's rumor and its longevity remain a mystery. But Dottie Hale has her street cred nailed down and she can smile serenely when Somali pirates rape a tourist on the news.

So Ringold is Bill Sykes. Ringold is 5'4" tall and looks like a roly-poly math whiz. He keeps getting these straight leading male roles and it's mystifying -- do directors really think the audience can't tell? I saw him as Jud in Oklahoma at Fairfield Stage and couldn't stop giggling. He has an amazing voice. He is a superb dancer. He is also a jolly little gay Hobbit. So, Jud? No. Curly? Only the hair on his feet. Everything else is waxed weekly, an image forever seared into my memory centers after the tech rehearsal where Ringold "accidentally" walked out of the shower glistening with cocoa butter and nothing else. He looked like a little inflated hippo with nubbins. When he stepped toward me, he slipped on the tile and his body actually squeaked like a wet balloon. Watching him struggle to get up, slipping and squeaking and squealing all over the floor of the locker room, I got trapped on the bench: the floor was so oily I couldn't walk without slipping. The first-year acting student who was sent to find me when I missed an entrance left the program at the end of the semester.

The first scene we worked after the read-through was the one where Bill is threatening to kill Oliver. Before the Fine Life Reprise. Oliver is not that much shorter than Ringold. Oliver is played by a girl, and Ringold spends most of his time smiling at me. He threw a twinkle-kick into the reprise and Mitchellson Mitchellson did not seem to notice. I will not be inviting prospective employers to opening night.