Capital Stage has a history of delivering funny and clever new plays, and tonight's performance was no exception.  "Erratica: An Academic Farce" written by the precocious Reina Hardy in her late teens is just that and more.  A friend and I went to the opening "Preview" performance on Saturday, July 11th at 7 pm, and enjoyed walking from our parking place in a light warm rain along the Old Town Sacramento waterfront to the Delta King where the theater is located.  We were lucky to get third row center seats, and the baroque music playing before the show was familiar and delightful.  The audience was expectant and cheerful.

Managing Director, Peter Mohrmann gave his usual enthusiastic welcoming remarks covering how a "Preview" functions [it could be interrupted for corrections, and the play will change over the three preview nights], about the play and playwright, encouraging ticket purchases for next season's five plays, and asking for contributions to Capital Stage's 2500 $25 Campaign.  This was a bit long, but his energy and happiness about their new play -- a World Premier -- was infectious, and we soon found out why.

It opened with a rock and roll number, and a stage set of bookcases, an office desk, and doors, all movable. The main character is heady college professor Dr. Samantha Stafford, played by Stephanie Gularte, also Capital Stage Producing Artistic Director.  Reina Hardy describes her character as her ego ideal, "frighteningly smart, cathartically rude.  She was everything a teenage girl wouldn't dare claim," from the Playbill.  With a dark brown bun, a bright red tightly fitted business suit, and gorgeous long legs she enjoyed showing off, Stafford is a college professor of poetry, brilliant, pushy, cold, repressed, and at times a funny caricature of herself.

There is an interesting interplay of teacher-professor dynamics, head and heart, pretentious cautiousness, and hot shadowy animal lust in this play.  The other four characters play off Stafford's lead with strength, and character portrayals that are well acted and larger than life. It is a farce, after all. Talented Danny Webber plays the imagined ghost of Elizabethan author Christopher Marlowe, as a foil for Stafford, who prefers William Shakespeare.  His large presence in a black velvet suit and cherry red satin shirt amusingly dwarfs Stafford's small stature. This well-acted character continues to confound her and brings out the animal dimensions her mind's dominance forces her to hide. 

The opening scene of the second act is a riotous culmination of these male-female tensions between Marlowe’s ghost and Professor Stafford, which brought amazement and belly laughs.  Not to spoil the surprise I won't say who dances in tight jeweled sequined black briefs as an unforgettable Elvis-like lothario.  This was one of the funniest scenes I have ever seen in live theater.  It is a wonderful tour de force. Four other characters, a mousy virginal college student, a raucous manipulative publicist, a scholarly cowboy-styled head librarian, who discovers a rare historical manuscript, and a callow youth never onstage complete the cast.  This play is a must see, bawdy, smart, and unforgettable.  Go and enjoy it!