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From beach books to blockbuster movies, summertime entertainment has gotten a reputation as rather fluffy stuff, but for its Summer Rep season, California Theatre Center (CTC) presents a slate of thought-provoking shows that prove that your mind doesn't always have to go on vacation to have a good time. The Sunnyvale-based company presents three plays in rotating schedules throughout June and July.
The Summer Rep gets under way on June 11 with Proof, a drama in which the machinations of higher math turn out to be the least of life's mindbenders—it's finding the formulas for happy family and romantic relationships, and understanding the balance between madness and genius, that are the real head-scratchers. The play, written by David Auburn, garnered both the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award in 2001.
Proof tells the story of Catherine, a troubled twentysomething, who has spent many years as caretaker for her father, a famous mathematician plagued by a mental disorder. Following his death, Catherine must not only deal with her estrangement from her older, successful sister, but with a controversy stirred up by her father's protégé over the authorship of what promises to be one of her father's most brilliant mathematical proofs—but one that Catherine herself may have written. Proof opens June 11 (previews on June 10) and runs through July 24.
A play about superpowers negotiating over nuclear weapons proliferation may now sound like a quaint throwback to simpler times, but A Walk in the Woods, opening June 18, reminds audiences that world affairs have never been simple. The play also broaches subjects still very relevant in today's chaotic climate of international relations, such as the importance of intercultural understanding.
A Walk in the Woods, written by Lee Blessing, is based on the true story of two negotiators, one from the Soviet Union and one from the United States, who, through informal meetings held in Geneva, eventually devised a plan to reduce the presence of both nations' missiles in Europe. In the play, an experienced Soviet diplomat and a young American negotiator overcome personal as well as cultural divisions to hammer out the groundbreaking accord.
This Cold War tale of an unlikely meeting of the minds on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain was nominated for both a Pulitzer and Tony in the late '80s. A Walk in the Woods opens June 18 (previews June 17) and runs through July 24.
International relations couldn't get any more personal than sibling rivalry among state leaders, such as that which sets events in tumultuous motion in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, which rounds out CTC's Summer Rep season with an opening on July 3.
Prospero, the rightful duke of Milan, has been usurped by his own brother, Antonio, whose conspiracy with Alonso, the king of Naples, helped him to nab Prospero's throne. So it seems like karma that a ship carrying the conspirators, along with some friends and family, sails close to the shores of the enchanted island now inhabited by the exiled Prospero—who also happens to be a powerful sorcerer. Prospero whips up a storm, wrecks the ship on his island and gets a little bit of harmless magical revenge on Antonio, Alonso and company.
Shakespeare's last comedy, The Tempest dabbles in themes of illusion versus reality. Also, like A Walk in the Woods, the play suggests that good diplomacy is as timeless as it is invaluable. The Tempest opens July 3 (previews July 2) and runs through July 25.
California Theatre Center presents CTC Summer Rep, June 10July 25 at tSunnyvale Community Center Theatre, 550 E. Remington Drive, Sunnyvale. For information, call 408.720.0873.
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