San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Allusions to Bard on series set Jay Yamada on path to becoming fixture at amphitheater
Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”oriented show at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley that encompassed his whole career. I was supposed to see Tame Impala at the new Chase Center (in March), but that got canceled.
I also saw Tayla Parx, a singersongwriter, a couple of weeks before that at Cafe du Nord. I saw her open for Lizzo at the Warfield in 2019, and one of the things she sold last year were branded surgical masks, since her first album is
If Jay Yamada is not attending a particular performance at California Shakespeare Theater, something feels off. Company leadership might remark upon it in their curtain speech. Or audience members might ask where he is.
He doesn’t attend every single performance of each show, but Yamada is a superfan by any measure. “If a show’s run is 24 shows — it depends on the show — 18 to 20?” he estimates of his Cal Shakes attendance.
In normal years, Yamada sticks it out on cold nights at the outdoor Bruns Amphitheater in Orinda even when the show is a multihour Shakespeare tragedy, even when the production isn’t one of his favorites. He might go just to see one particular scene again, but he still goes.
“I’m a very bright person, but I don’t learn very quickly,” Yamada says. “Every time I see a live performance, I always see something different. Actors are different. You’re looking at it from a different angle. You have something different for dinner, and you’re in a different mood. called “We Need to Talk.” At the time, I thought, “How quaint and ironic that she would have that as part of her merchandise.” I took a picture with her at the show, and when that memory popped up on Facebook I was reminded that what I thought was so funny and cute at the time is now part of everyday life.
What’s the first thing you want to do postpandemic?
I don’t know how I’ll feel at first being around all those
“Particularly with Shakespeare plays, the language can be complex; it takes a while sometimes to figure things out.”
That’s why his mentality is: “Let’s go see what else I pick up this time.”
Yamada might now familiarly call Shakespeare “Bill” and casually refer to “Macbeth” as “Mackers” when he’s at the Bruns (an effort to avoid the storied curse that supposedly befalls any who should refer to the play by its full name at a theater), but he wasn’t a lifelong Shakespeare fan. He says his high school English teacher in Englewood, N.J., gave uninspired Shakespeare lessons.
Instead, Yamada is a lifelong “Star Trek” fan, and “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry repeatedly alluded to Shakespeare in the show. Yamada points to an episode titled “The Conscience of the King” where the show “starts off with Mackers — he’s bumping off the king — and ends kind of in a ‘Hamlet’ mess.”
He also remembers watching a campfire scene in an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
“I’m staring at this going, ‘OK, this people, so I’ll probably go to an outdoor concert first. I look forward to shows at the Greek and the Hollywood Bowl, and those great Oxbow RiverStage concerts in my backyard that were being copresented by Another Planet and Blue Note Napa.
The person I’m most excited about seeing live is Dua Lipa. I’ve somehow missed her each time she’s played out here, so she would be my top one to see.