No pussyfooting around theatrical niceties

It was Thursday afternoon, June 6, and if the Marin Center had been a person, she would have been wringing her hands and shuddering in shame.

“Dear Patrons,” began an email from Director of Cultural Services Gabriella Calicchio, “This morning an email was sent out promoting a show at the Marin Center, the title being ‘The Great American Sh*t Show.’ ” The show features Brian Copeland and Charlie Varon, directed by Dave Ford, talking about the not-so-great state of the nation. “This title,” said the email, “contained a curse word. While we were clear with the rental clients producing this show that they must replace the ‘i’ with an asterisk (*), unfortunately the subject line of the email contained the whole curse word. We take full responsibility . ... New safeguards are in place so that nothing like this occurs again.”

But, h*ll, in this case, is shi* really a curse or just an adjective (deployed even from the White House to describe countries without Trump name-brand hotels)? Has any recipient of that email not seen worse words scrawled on a wall? The Chronicle has printed the word dozens of times, mostly in quotes. Even the august New York Times has used it, by accident (in typos) and on purpose (for example, in a story about an Italian environmentalist’s “S**t Museum”).

No harm done, Ms. Calicchio. We’re all in it together.

And also bearing a naughty title, “Kiss My Aztec!” opened Thursday at Berkeley Rep. It’s a rollicking show, written by Tony Taccone and John Leguizamo, that looks, in sideways fashion, at Spain’s conquests in the New World, making Latino theatrical hay with music, dance, ribald jokes and lots of laughs.

As a fan of vulgarity (may I refer you to the first item?) I was taken with it, as was Charlie Jarrett, who is the Rossmoor News’ theater correspondent and will be reviewing it. Talking in the courtyard during intermission, he said he’d tell his readers that “This is for adults. And the language is plus, plus.”

Of course, however, not every theatergoer was amused by this lighthearted look at a difficult and bloody history of conquest, and such elements as a penisshaped sequined golden codpiece with flip-top cocaine compartment didn’t leave some giggling. “It’s the Mime Troupe without the politics and the wit,” said Mexico-born and Chicana-identified filmmaker Lourdes Portillo.

One night later, Berkeley Rep’s Ovation fundraiser, at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, was a rollicking tribute to Taccone, the artistic director who is leaving the post he’s held since 1997. Jonathan Moscone, who’s worked closely with Taccone over the years, was emcee, and when I ran into him on our way into the party, I asked if he could think of any anecdote that would sum up Taccone’s personality.

“One night when we were making the play ‘Ghost Light,’ about my dad,” said Moscone, recalling the evening they were together in Ashland, Ore., and Moscone went to Taccone’s apartment to take notes on the production. “He opened the door wearing nothing but BVDs,” and although Moscone begged him to put on some clothes, he was “unmoved . ... He does what he wants.” When it was time for Moscone’s emceeing duties, he began by telling the audience, “Welcome to the last gala Tony Taccone ever has to go to in his life.”

New York Public Theater director Oskar Eustis and playwright Tony Kushner, who had worked with Taccone on the Eureka Theater’s first-ever production of “Angels in America” and become lifelong pals as well as comrades, had flown out for the occasion to toast and roast Taccone, as did Rita Moreno. Eustis dug back beyond the long friendship to quote Gen. Sherman on Gen. Grant: “I stood by him when he was drunk and he stood by me when I was crazy, and now we stand together always.”

In rapid-fire machine-gun style — he was worried about the length of his talk — Kushner hilariously described the “New Jersey je ne sais quoi” of his “ever so slightly elfin ... wise and silly” friend. When it was Taccone’s turn to speak, he read a list of oft-heard warnings from Berkeley Rep managing director Susie Medak (“We are hemorrhaging money ...”) “but the phrase I heard most was, ‘If you really want to do this, we’ll find a way.’ ”

His aim, he said, was to “create places ... where art can come and have at it, and not know what’s going to come out at the other end.” And more than a million bucks were raised.

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING “I don’t fight with my men, my food or my underwear.” Woman to woman, overheard at Susie’s Bar in Calistoga by Catherine Prevost