From Register Staff

Over the course of this past year, Solano College Theater has continually brought to the Bay Area some of the finest small theater productions offered in the region. Tackling many of drama's most popular and often difficult productions like "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," "The Winter's Tale," "West Side Story" and others to numerous to list here, each production has lifted the mark a little higher for the next cast and crew to try and better.Solano College Theater's current and final production of the season, "Forever Plaid," breaks from this pattern by not raising the mark, but by smashing it to pieces.What's right about this production is simply everything. The story tells the tale of four high school friends and their love of 1950s music. Their driving desire is to make it big on the popular music scene and someday join the ranks of their heroes The Four Aces, The Four Freshmen, The Hi-Los and The Crew Cuts.Unfortunately, tragedy strikes the group as they are on the way to their first gig. A bus load of teenagers collides with the group's car, killing all four instantly. The opening scene finds our would-be carooners "awakening" to the fact something very strange has happened.The rest of the evening is filled with some of the best music ever written for four-part harmony and laughter galore. As the group comes to grip with their own mortality, or in this case, lack thereof, their journey to enlightenment is cross between The Ed Sullivan Show and a funky lounge singer's idea of heaven.Joey Costello (Frankie), Timm Danska (Smudge), Nick Dothée (Jinx) and Jeremiah Lowder (Sparky) are four very talented young men. They sing, dance and smooze their way into the hearts of the audience as gag after gag tumbles from the stage, interspersed with liberal helpings of some of the 1950s most memorable songs. There are so many excellent moments in this production it's difficult to pinpoint any one without leaving out several others that are just as good. Lowder's rendition of "Prefidia" is a riot. The Spanish segment of the song is not to be missed. Dothée's "It's Only Make Believe" is a comic, yet wholly believable, performance that will have you laughing and crying at once. Mr. Dothée will be leaving us next year for North Carolina and greener thespian pastures. One piece of advice should go with Dothée when he departs. If you ever fall on hard times, remember, there's not a lounge owner on the Vegas strip that wouldn't put his mother into slave chains to sign you up for a four-week run.Danska and Costello team up for one of the most enjoyable moments of the evening with a medley of "Sixteen Tons" and "Chain Gang." The number brought surprise performances from both Danska with his deep, bass carooning voice and Costello's seamless take-over of the mike with the first bars of "Chain Gang." Kudos to all four members for excellent performances throughout the show.Several sight gags during the show act as a side bar for laughter throughout the performance. To reveal any of these ongoing pithy pieces of mirth would destroy their effectiveness and steal from the Plaids some very understated comedy. Suffice it to say there are so many levels of humor in this show, you have to constantly pay attention to keep from missing any of the gems that wash over the audience. The Plaid ones deliver their lines, sing their songs and revel in this truly campy and thoroughly enjoyable story. The only thing wrong with the production is the limited number of seats still available for patrons to gobble up. Fortunately, the powers that be in the drama department at Solano College have extended the production run, so if you hurry, you may be one of the lucky ones who gets to see the show before it ends on July 21.In the words of the cast, "you'll love them plaidly.""Forever Plaid" plays the Nove Studio in the rear of the Harbor Theater in downtown Suisun. Showtimes are June 7, 13, 14, 21, 27 and 28 at 7:30 p.m.; June 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29 and 30 at 8 p.m.; and June 10, 17 and 24 at 2 p.m. Extended dates are July 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20 and 21. Call the box office at 707 864-7100 for available seats for all shows. Ticket prices range from $15 - $22 for adults and $10 for students and children.Gary Brady-Herndon can be reached at 256-2219 or at gherndon@napanews.com

David Duchovny is still fighting aliens in his new movie "Evolution," but he's a far cry from the droll, subdued Fox Mulder on "The X-Files."Would the alien-obsessed Mulder grab his crotch to mock government agents studying visitors from outer space? Would Mulder drop his drawers and moon the feds through the windshield of a Jeep?While Duchovny initially was not thrilled at the prospect of a flick about extraterrestrials, he decided the outrageous tone of "Evolution" was a good departure from "The X-Files," the series he recently left last month after eight seasons.The fact that "Evolution" was directed by "Ghostbusters" creator Ivan Reitman didn't hurt, either."When I read the script and realized it was about aliens, my first response was, you know, a sinking feeling," Duchovny said in an interview at a health-food restaurant where he is a regular. "I thought, I want to work with Ivan, I want to do a comedy, but does it have to be about aliens?"After reading it, I realized it really didn't have anything to do with the kind of work I'd been doing the last eight years. It's a coincidence that it's aliens. If I could draw it up on the blackboard how I want the first movie after 'The X-Files' to be, I wouldn't particularly say aliens. But that's the way it happened."In "Evolution," Duchovny plays biology teacher Ira Kane, who battles alien spores that develop at lightning pace, quickly evolving into lifeforms that threaten humanity. Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones and Seann William Scott co-star as members of Ira's brilliantly bumbling band of alien fighters.Though "The X-Files" often strayed into comedy, it was dark and creepy humor that's nothing like the zaniness of Duchovny's new movie. "Evolution" features goofy creatures, slapstick and some gross-out humor.The crotch-grabbing and mooning were unscripted additions Duchovny tossed in as Ira storms away from Army brass that takes over the alien landing site."About the second or third take of his doing his exit, I suddenly looked up as I was watching the monitor, and I was saying, 'Gee, did he just drop his pants?"' Reitman said. "I went up to him and said, 'Are you serious, or is this for the outtake reel?"'Duchovny was serious, and Reitman encouraged him to moon the Army leaders with a little more gusto on subsequent takes.Reitman -- who produced "Beethoven," in which Duchovny co-starred -- said he felt the actor had comedic talent beyond Mulder's dry sense of humor."Here's this really witty, funny guy who also happens to be very handsome," Reitman said. "I thought he had the chops to be a movie comedy star, but he'd never had the opportunity to present much of that."Duchovny's evolution from stoic FBI man to madcap alien hunter mirrors the development of "Evolution" itself. The script first came to Reitman as a straight science fiction thriller.Working with original screenwriter Don Jakoby and two other writers, Reitman retooled "Evolution" into a comedy.Had the film remained a drama, Duchovny might have been a liability, because "with him associated with that kind of role, it could have been easy for it to slip over into just a giant version of 'The X-Files,"' Jakoby said."Now, the problem in selling it is for audiences to make the disconnect. Yes, it is David Duchovny, but it's not Duchovny as you normally have seen him," Jakoby said. "You have to get across that what we're doing is Duchovny-plus."Duchovny, 40, got a late start in acting, taking it up when he was pursuing a doctorate in literature at Yale. He scrapped plans to become a teacher and writer and came to Hollywood in the late 1980s.Bit parts in films such as "Working Girl" led to bigger roles in "Chaplin" and "Beethoven." On TV, Duchovny had a recurring role as a cross-dressing FBI agent in "Twin Peaks," was narrator for Showtime's "Red Shoe Diaries" and played himself in several episodes of his friend Garry Shandling's "The Larry Sanders Show."In 1993, Duchovny signed on for "The X-Files" figuring it easily could be a short-lived gig. Instead, the series grew from cult show to critically acclaimed hit, expanding to a film franchise in 1998."You never really think that something is going to last more than a season," Duchovny said. "You never think something's going to become a cultural phenomenon. Then the next thing you know, people are asking if you're worried about being typecast for a show you never thought would be around so long. Everything just snowballs. I saw it as just a job back in the spring of 1993, and from there it kind of took control of me."