Glenn Hopkins is an American original. Names like Johnny Appleseed, Woody Guthrie, Will Geer, and Walt Whitman come to mind. Hopkins, like them, marches to a different drummer. A longtime theatre person with a lot of irons in the fire, he describes himself thus: "The Other. The oddball. I look around to see what everyone's doing, what they're not doing that needs to be done, and then I do that."
"I work 20 hours a week, mornings, teaching English to the foreign born," he said. "It's enough to live on and I have afternoons and evenings free for theatre, writing plays." He considers himself primarily a playwright, but he's also a Green Party political activist. "The Green movement started in Germany; it's 10 years ahead of us. What began here 20 years ago as a fringe movement is now a party. Ralph Nader got enough votes in the last election to put Bush in the White House." Depending on your point of view, that's good or bad. To Hopkins, it's promising, a harbinger.
Speaking of which, he's at work on a play about frogs as harbingers of world change. Greek playwright Aristophanes beat him to the frog theme, but his is a musical, Mark and Barbara Frog. "On top of the Andes, and every mountain, where there used to be thousands of frogs, now there are 10. Frogs are disappearing from the Earth," said Hopkins. "Frogs are the pioneers who brought life to the land from the oceans. In the American Indians' cosmology, based on 30,000 years of observation, the frog predicts the future."
Hmmm, depressing. But Hopkins promised his play will "sparkle." Its music, which he composed, is "very froggy. With bassoons." Harris Smith would like to stage Hopkins' frog show at his Masquers' Cabaret in October. But it was unfinished as we spoke, and its playwright didn't know when it would be, or if.
Hopkins' Venice Mootney Theatre Company, at its zenith in the '80s, in July celebrated 25 years of theatre in L.A. with a staging in Venice of his play …All in the Same Boat. Critics have described it as "intriguing," "outrageous," "Brechtian." His play Surrogates won praise for "best dialogue this side of Shepard." Kathleen Foley, reviewing White Bread for Drama-Logue, hailed Hopkins for "writing from the heart, rather than the pocketbook." The late Quentin Crisp was featured narrator in Hopkins' Robin Hood, which, someone wrote, "looks like it's being done by the Marx Brothers, Benny Hill, and Monty Python all at once." Hopkins' Animal Husbandry won praise at London's Royal Court Theatre for being "fluent, detailed, complex, and intriguing."
A big man, 6'l'', with a round, benign visage, and brown eyes at once quizzical, kindly, and keenly discerning, Hopkins' focused, lively mind is more concerned with planetary than sartorial matters. He was casual in T-shirt, jeans, and red canvas sneakers when we met at MOCA to get acquainted and talk about theatre. We viewed Rodin sculptures on the terrace, heading for the Edward Hopper exhibit, but, talking all the way, ended up somewhere else, like leaves in the wind, viewing the "Road to Aztlan" (an exhibit since closed). Listening to Hopkins is an experience, as his concepts, pronouncements, and opinions pop, crackle, and jostle one another like popcorn over a high flame. At lunch at MOCA's outdoor café, I learned that West Los Angeles' University High School, where Hopkins teaches adult classes, sits on "the springs," a sacred Indian site for 6,000 years. "Twenty-seven thousand gallons of pure, delicious water go down the drain to the ocean every day. Wasted! In a world that needs water. What we do is crazy! Uni should be a business high school," Hopkins declared. "Uni students should be in the bottled-water business!"
I learned that Hopkins and his Korean wife, concert pianist Christine, have a "wonderful" 4-year-old daughter, named Choice. (You were expecting an ordinary name?) And that his 28-year-old son, Buckminster, from his first marriage, is named, of course, for Buckminster Fuller, visionary inventor of the geodesic dome. I heard Hopkins' opinion that we'd be wise to choose the president's cabinet before we choose the president. That what the world needs now is "feminine energy." ("I am so sick of this macho thing!" he said.) He told me life on Earth comes from the moon, rhythms of life from the tide pools—and majorities are often wrong.
A phone call has informed me that Hopkins finished his frog play, now scheduled for an October premiere at Masquers'. I confess I missed all Hopkins' Venice Mootney plays—I admit it, fearing blatant leftist bias and agitprop. Obviously I was wrong. I won't miss Mark and Barbara Frog.
C'est Sa Vie
Nor do I intend to miss Norwegian enchantress Torill's appearance with another of her reincarnations of extraordinary singers. Mono-monikered Torill conjured up a sassy, classy Dietrich ("more Marlene than Marlene") in her Rendezvous With Marlene, directed by Jules Aaron, at the Melrose Theatre in 1994. Sleek, seductive, every tendril of blonde hair perfectly in place, superbly gowned (or tuxedoed), outrageous and androgynous, Torill was part Lorelei, part hausfrau, part Gauleiter, and totally fascinating. She'll have a different guise as the little sparrow, Edith Piaf, in Sa Vie en Rose, Torill's one-woman musical about the legendary French chanteuse (and five other women important in Piaf's life). Torill, a street gamine, sans haute couture? We shall see. The diva at 16 won a national singing contest in her native Norway. She has starred as Cabaret's Sally Bowles in Berlin's 3,000-seat Friedrich-Stadt Palast, and later made her U.S. debut in San Francisco singing Piaf's "La Vie en Rose." Jules Aaron will direct. Sa Vie en Rose opens at the Court Theatre on Sept. 21.
Vintage 2001
Half over, 2001 is already a very good year in Los Angeles theatre. At the Ahmanson through Sept. 1, Susan Stroman's delightful Contact, a paean to the power of the dance, offers a tour-de-force performance by Meg Howrey. In the final scene of the segment "Did You Move?," sitting motionless at a café table, she conveys the full impact of tragic realization that she's trapped in a terrible marriage, through facial expression alone. Acting at the highest level, its eloquence fills the theatre and proves Howrey a consummate actress as well as dancer. And Contact's "Girl in the Yellow Dress" finale profits greatly from the effortless appeal of Alan Campbell, as did Sunset Boulevard at the Shubert in 1993.
Many thanks to Paula Holt for catching Austin Pendleton's elegant Orson's Shadow on its closing night at the Black Dahlia theatre, deciding it was too good to let go, and bringing it to her Tiffany Theatre for another go-round (through Sept. 2). What a boon for those of us who missed it the first time, and those who longed to see it again.
Conceived by Judith Auberjonois (wife of actor René), brilliantly directed by Matt Shakman, and splendidly enacted, this gem of theatrical history is a sad reminder of a giant's fall from grace. Robert Machray, with the magnificent voice, stature, and acting chops to play Orson Welles, is the lion in winter, brought low but noble still. Remarkably accurate look-alikes of these glitterati summoned from beyond include silver-haired Jeff Sugarman's handsome Sir Laurence Olivier, as well as Geraldine Hughes' fragile, lovely Vivien Leigh (a likeness that's breathtaking at times). Andrew Ableson's neurasthenic, chain-smoking Kenneth Tynan, with hacking cough and hidden agenda, has an English accent that's authentic. Mina Dillard, as Olivier's new love Joan Plowright, and Hughes, piteous as his cast-aside Vivien, bring vibrant subtext to their scenes together. Steven Klein gives the self-effacing role of Welles' loyal lackey, Sean, true star quality and adds grace notes to ensemble perfection.
Joe Pintauro's drama The Dead Boy, wrenching and riveting at the Laurelgrove Theatre through Sept. 30, is another example of ensemble excellence and theatrical elegance. In part based on the Covenant House/Catholic priests scandal of several years ago, Pintauro's play wrestles with questions of guilt and anguish, loyalty and betrayal, faith and despair. In striking synchronicity, as if underlining the play's timeless relevance, local papers last week headlined the latest story of sexual abuse charges involving a popular Orange County priest, and subsequent plans by L.A. and Orange County dioceses to create a victim-assistance program for allegedly molested youths.
The play's power lies in the emotional honesty, compassion, and courage with which playwright Pintauro, himself a Catholic and former priest, confronts his knotty subject, in its verity of expression, and in the total commitment of its director, Jack Heller, and his excellent cast: Lorry Goldman, Travis Michael Holder, Stephen Nichols, Cyril O'Reilly, and Derek Sitter, Powerful and compelling, The Dead Boy is déjà vu and the devil in the flesh all over again.