‘J for J’ Tells a Story of Siblings

Theater lovers can resist the temptation to drive south this week, as Ventura’s young but impressive Rubicon opens its season this week with a world premiere.

Jenny Sullivan’s autobiographical tale, “J for J,” is a tribute to her late father, Barry Sullivan, a stage and screen actor, and is partly based on a journal he kept.

The J’s in question are Jenny and her brother, Johnny, and the work explores familial warmth and tensions. Sullivan appears as herself in the play, along with John Ritter--familiar from “Three’s Company,” a memorable turn in “Slingblade” and recently lauded for his work on Broadway in “The Dinner Game”--and Jeff Kober, seen on the television series “China Beach.” * “J for J,” Laurel Theater, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura. Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. Matinees, 2 p.m.: Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Ends Nov. 4. $23 to $28. (805) 667-2900. https://www.rubicontheatrecompany.org.

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Eastern European Splendor: Although it hails from the Bay Area, the real focus of the all-female group Kitka is on the legacies of traditional vocal music from Eastern Europe. Those impressed by the haunting sonorities of the Bulgarian choral group Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares will recognize the focus of the tight, mesmerizing eight-piece Kitka, which performs Saturday in Ventura.

Their cultural purview is fairly wide, though, touching on various musical traditions from the Slavic region and ancient Greece and into the post-Soviet regions of Georgia and Ukraine. Whatever the region or language, the intentions are pure and the collective talents moving.

* Kitka, Church of Religious Science, 101 S. Laurel St., Ventura, Saturday, 7:30 p.m. $20 to $23. (805) 650-9688.

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Figure, Disfigured: In the two-person show at the Upstairs Gallery of Natalie’s Fine Threads, the human form appears, and disappears, in crafty ways.

Sculptor Michelle Chapin’s sinuous, twining forms, mostly in alabaster, manage to be analogous to figures, natural elements and abstract imagination.

The plot thickens in the unusual photographic work of Sally Weber. She shows photographs from her “Strata Series,” in which cropped images of nudes are streaked and altered by zebra-like stripes of light. Folds of flesh and contours of figure take on a semi-surreal character in this mannered context. It’s as if the linear lighting is a form of ethereal drawing, which happily complicates our response to the work. Saturday’s ArtWalk, taking place all over Ventura, also marks the closing day for the 16th annual Juried Art Competition at the Buenaventura Gallery. This is one of the group exhibitions in this gallery that shed light on a diversity of artistic activity in the area, and this year’s crop features a number of new names.

Among those is Dale Dreling’s “Silent Moment,” a large acrylic painting of a young woman with outstretched arms. Murky atmosphere and high-contrast lighting dramatize the image, conveying a mood of reflection or exultancy or even a sense of her being airborne. The ambiguity is becoming.

Irena Jablowski’s painting “Sun Initiation” dreamily eyes nude sunbathers on a rocky coast, from a half-voyeuristic perspective. Martha Tumicki Gwaltney’s painting “Home” depicts, with loving directness, a suburban tract house. In a setting so plain and lucid as this, we’re tempted to read ulterior motives into the image, one danger of clarity in an art world gone fuzzy.

* “Black, White and Light,” Natalie’s Fine Threads, 596 E. Main St., Ventura. Ends Nov. 10. Gallery hours: Tues.-Sat., 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. (805) 643-8854.* 16th annual Juried Art Competition, Buenaventura Gallery, 700 E. Santa Clara St., Ventura. Ends Saturday. Gallery hours: Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. (805) 648-1235.

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Raised Voices: Voices raised in song have been one of the familiar emblems in the nation during the last few weeks. So it’s only fitting that the first concert of the Ventura Master Chorale’s new season Friday focuses its well-trained, massed voices on a reading of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

It will also perform a Puccini rarity, “Chrysanthemums,” dedicated by director Burns Taft to the victims of and the rescue efforts after the Sept. 11 tragedy.

But the main event of the program is “Messa di Gloria,” a grand choral and orchestral work written by a young Puccini, long before his reputation as an operatic composer began to flourish. Tenor Kenneth Helms and San Diego-based baritone Gregorio Gonzales will be featured soloists.

* Ventura Master Chorale, Our Lady of Assumption Church, 3175 Telegraph Road, Ventura, Friday, 8 p.m. $15 to $18, with a $3 discount for students and seniors. (805) 653-7282.