Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Intermittent pleasure

Steal Heaven unrealized, but earnest

Steal Heaven at San Diego Rep - Image by Daren Scott
Steal Heaven at San Diego Rep

Steal Heaven

Earnest intentions, not fully realized. There’s about 35 minutes of solid entertainment and edification in Herbert Siguenza’s 90-plus minute tribute to Abbie Hoffman, activist, co-founder of the Youth International Party (aka. the “Yippies”), and media junky.

There’s also an infectious spirit of Old Time Commitment that links the slow-paced, often under-rehearsed scenes and makes the show an intermittent pleasure — albeit one that needs revising.

Hoffman was the court jester of Sixties radicalism. His antics, like stopping the New York Stock Exchange by spilling money (mostly fake) from the gallery, gained him national attention. As did two books, Revolution for the Hell of It (1968) and Steal This Book (1971), which so many readers did that some bookstores wouldn’t put it on their shelves (the book also increased sales of #14 brass washers: Scotch-tape the hole in the middle and you had dimes for phone calls).

Sponsored
Sponsored

Hoffman was controversial, even among radicals. According to Peter Coyote of the legendary Diggers — and someone should write a tribute about them! — Hoffman “set himself up to be a leader of the counterculture, and he was undone by that. Big mistake.”

Steal Heaven at San Diego Rep

In Siguenza’s world-premiere comedy, Hoffman’s the “St. Peter for radicals” at the Pearly Gates. The “Big Kahuna” has him inspect new arrivals for a potential leader. Trish may be the one. A veteran of the Iraq War, she’s got the call, but needs training. So Hoffman teaches her.

And she him. One of the best parts of Steal Heaven, it looks both ways. Siguenza doesn’t idealize Hoffman (to quote Barbara Babcock, he “includes the hag with the hagiography”). The piece pokes comedic barbs at tactics then and now.

Steal Heaven unfolds in set pieces. Some — like the lunkhead sentry harassing Trish outside the White House, the song “If I Was a One Percent” (to the tune of “If I Were a Rich Man”), the 30 seconds of George Carlin telling the truth in a video, and Trish’s rap version of “Give Peace a Chance” — are gleaming keepers.

Others, like an LSD trip that do go on, need help.

Heaven, it turns out, also resembles a TV talk show. Guests (in Anastasia Pautova’s apt costumes and performed with comic precision by Mark Pinter) make cameos: George Burns, Albert Einstein, Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, among them. Most need better material.

Funny, wooly-haired, and daffy, Siguenza’s right at home as Hoffman, as is Summer Spiro, who showcases her versatility as Trish. And their tandem work is tops.

Steal Heaven is a comedy, the opposite of Sixties agitprop (agitation and propaganda) theater, where the news got printed in pig’s blood. And maybe Siguenza’s soft-pedaling is the right approach for the Facebook-friendly generation “waiting on the world to change” — as if it will, for the better, all by itself.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Reader 1st place writing contest winner gets kudos

2nd place winner not so much
Next Article

2024 continues to impress with yellowfin much closer to San Diego than they should be

New rockfish regulations coming this week as opener approaches
Steal Heaven at San Diego Rep - Image by Daren Scott
Steal Heaven at San Diego Rep

Steal Heaven

Earnest intentions, not fully realized. There’s about 35 minutes of solid entertainment and edification in Herbert Siguenza’s 90-plus minute tribute to Abbie Hoffman, activist, co-founder of the Youth International Party (aka. the “Yippies”), and media junky.

There’s also an infectious spirit of Old Time Commitment that links the slow-paced, often under-rehearsed scenes and makes the show an intermittent pleasure — albeit one that needs revising.

Hoffman was the court jester of Sixties radicalism. His antics, like stopping the New York Stock Exchange by spilling money (mostly fake) from the gallery, gained him national attention. As did two books, Revolution for the Hell of It (1968) and Steal This Book (1971), which so many readers did that some bookstores wouldn’t put it on their shelves (the book also increased sales of #14 brass washers: Scotch-tape the hole in the middle and you had dimes for phone calls).

Sponsored
Sponsored

Hoffman was controversial, even among radicals. According to Peter Coyote of the legendary Diggers — and someone should write a tribute about them! — Hoffman “set himself up to be a leader of the counterculture, and he was undone by that. Big mistake.”

Steal Heaven at San Diego Rep

In Siguenza’s world-premiere comedy, Hoffman’s the “St. Peter for radicals” at the Pearly Gates. The “Big Kahuna” has him inspect new arrivals for a potential leader. Trish may be the one. A veteran of the Iraq War, she’s got the call, but needs training. So Hoffman teaches her.

And she him. One of the best parts of Steal Heaven, it looks both ways. Siguenza doesn’t idealize Hoffman (to quote Barbara Babcock, he “includes the hag with the hagiography”). The piece pokes comedic barbs at tactics then and now.

Steal Heaven unfolds in set pieces. Some — like the lunkhead sentry harassing Trish outside the White House, the song “If I Was a One Percent” (to the tune of “If I Were a Rich Man”), the 30 seconds of George Carlin telling the truth in a video, and Trish’s rap version of “Give Peace a Chance” — are gleaming keepers.

Others, like an LSD trip that do go on, need help.

Heaven, it turns out, also resembles a TV talk show. Guests (in Anastasia Pautova’s apt costumes and performed with comic precision by Mark Pinter) make cameos: George Burns, Albert Einstein, Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, among them. Most need better material.

Funny, wooly-haired, and daffy, Siguenza’s right at home as Hoffman, as is Summer Spiro, who showcases her versatility as Trish. And their tandem work is tops.

Steal Heaven is a comedy, the opposite of Sixties agitprop (agitation and propaganda) theater, where the news got printed in pig’s blood. And maybe Siguenza’s soft-pedaling is the right approach for the Facebook-friendly generation “waiting on the world to change” — as if it will, for the better, all by itself.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Angry Pete’s goes from pop-up to drive-thru

Detroit Pizza sidles into the husk of a shuttered Taco Bell
Next Article

Making Love to Goats, Rachmaninoff, and Elgar

Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.