by Shirley Lorraine

Santa Paula Stages Full Experience
Theaters are reawakening with offerings that touch at our very souls. The current play at Santa Paula Theater Center, Thing I Know to be True, is one such play. A relatively new work, (2019), the play delves deeply into one family’s connections and disconnections in visually interesting ways.
Written by Andrew Bovell, Things I Know to be True is an exploration into those things in our lives that are revealed and those we try to keep secret that are somehow intuited by those close to us. It bares the struggles many families endure to sustain their emotional connections to each other and tests the limits of each member individually. It made me think – when is enough, enough? When do parents allow their progeny to make their own decisions, to lead their own lives, even when basic principles are at odds?

Directed by Santa Paula Theater Center’s new Artistic Director Jessi May Stevenson, the play evokes myriad emotions and reactions not only through the written words but is also beautifully accented by moments of movement that add a deeper level of meaning to the story. The subtle placement of a hand upon a shoulder, a glance, a distancing or simply standing still becomes integral to the depth of the action.

Fran and Bob Price (Sindy McKay and Richard Kuhlman) are a couple married over 40 years, whose four adult children are trying to cope with their own failures and are struggling with self-seeking while maintaining their family connections. Each worry over their particular struggles while mother and dad do their best to square their expectations with reality. Along the path there are many surprises leading each member of the family to cope (or not) with these revelations in varying ways, revealing their own fears, feelings, and disappointments.

To reveal much of the plot would be to minimize the experience for future audiences. This is a play which must be experienced fully. The creative and visually arresting setting by Mike Carnahan adds a great deal to the controlled, meaningful action. Carefully chosen music and lighting envelope the action for a complete, satisfying piece of theater.

Each of the daughters, played by Julie Fergus, Erin Hollander and Emily Redman Hall, and the one son, James James, all deliver solid and engaging performances. McKay and Kuhlman provide poignant, humorous and significant moments throughout, pulling everything together. All the actors are excellent. They are every family.

The play deals with perceptions, fear of change, desire to maintain status quo, how our choices affect others and inequalities of many kinds. It is life. You should go see it.

Masks and proof of vaccination are required to attend the performance, per current health department mandates.

The run of Things I Know to be True continues with performances Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. through April 3. Book online and choose your seats. www.santapaulatheatrecenter, [email protected] or (805) 525-4645. The Center is located at 125 S. 7th Street, downtown Santa Paula.

Streaming Spotlight by Cindy Summers
Inventing Anna – Netflix

Inventing Anna is based on the true life of Anna Sororkin, aka “Fake German Heiress” Anna Delvey (Julia Garner) who scammed thouands of dollars in gourmet meal, luxury hotels and private jet flights. She posed as a socialite in an attempt to steal millions of dollars from multiple sources including big banks, financial advisors, hedge funds, law firms, real estate developers, philanthropists, galleries, art dealers, all of Fashion Week and half of New York society.

Anna claimed to have a family trust in Germany and gave numerous different reasons why she could not access her money like that she was not old enough to get the money yet or her father is controlling and cuts her off all the time. She also knowingly used bad credit cards, often agressively blaming the service or business, which caused others around her to conveniently step forward and take care of whatever financial issues arose.

Most of Anna’s fradulant activity centered around an exclusive private club she was trying to build she called the Anna Delvey Foundation (ADF). Anna’s vision was for ADF to be a private club and dynamic visual arts center, an exclusive with place for people with taste, a step beyond the VIP room, series of small cozy lounges with butlers, clubs within clubs, with a luxury hotel and three restaurants. She selected a historic New York building at 281 Park Ave. with 6 floors and 45,000 sqft, which with the $4 million a year lease and $35 million for renovations required a total investment of $40 million.

Vivian Kent (Anna Chlumsky) was a reporter for Manahattan Magazine who had been banished to the far corner of the office known as Scriberia with three other long time reporters: Maud, Lou and Barry who all supported each other. Vivian defied her editor and jumped on Anna’s case after reading the enditment and learning that Anna had been extridicted from LA to New York.

Anna was denied bail and remanded to Riker’s Island until trial, so Vivian wrote a letter to Anna and asked to visit her to share her story. Anna called and agreed, though wasn’t willing to give up very much information, implying it would take Vivivian multiple visits to get the whole story. In the meantime, Maud Lou and Barry searched through Anna’s instagram to develop a timeline of her actions and find other people that Vivian to interview that knew or were close to Anna.

In November 2017, the Manahattan District Attorney’s Office announced the New York Supreme Court indictment of Anna Sorokin, alias Delvey, with two counts of attempted grand larceny in the first degree (one guilty verdict), three counts of grand larceny in the second degree (two guilty verdicts), one count of grand larceny third degree (guilty), and theft of services (guilty).

Anna Sorokin was a clever 26 year old white collar criminal who conned Manhattan’s “glitterati” leaving egg on faces of some the the biggest players from the art world, real-estate, fashion and Wall Street. It’s unclear as to the total number of vicitms she left in her wake as many were too embarrassed to come forward and press charges, like Nora Radcliff, who Anna had solen over $400,000 in fraudulant credit card purchases to fund Anna’s luxury wardrobe and lifestyle.

Runtime: 9 – 1hr episodes