at the Hayworth Theatre
The phrase "Meisner-trained" in an actor's program bio can make a critic sit back in her seat and relax, having ventured an educated guess that said actor will have chops. Sanford Meisner had detractors among the pantheon of his fellow teachers—in particular, Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. But he had a huge share of devotees, especially those interested in truthful behavior onstage.
In Meisner, writer-performer Jim Jarrett takes a relatively loving look at the man with whom—according to Jarrett's program bio—he studied and for whom he served as teacher-in-training. Jarrett sets the evening in Meisner's classes. The audience members are students; some are "planted," the rest are encouraged to ask a question or two. But ingeniously, Jarrett and his director, Michael Sanville Schoenholt, use video to show each working pair of students as they present their scenes, coached by the onstage Meisner as he interacts with the videos from behind his desk.
The nearly two-hour first act centers on the teacher in his 50s. Jarrett is good but not great here, seeming to ignore Meisner's cornerstone of truthful behavior, instead focusing on Meisner's gestures and other idiosyncrasies. But in the second act—which finds Meisner in his 80s and 90s, reportedly having undergone three throat-cancer surgeries and now struggling to speak—Jarrett vividly fills his character with an immensely paradoxical love for teaching and perennial impatience with the students. Will they ever learn? When Meisner asks about the behavioral, subtextual, fundamental crux of a scene, the students—even the "advanced" ones—invariably answer with a summary of a minor plot point. It's amazing the irascible Meisner wasn't even crankier. Here, Jarrett lets go of gesture, of all superficial mimicry, and allows us to watch the raw genius—his and Meisner's—at work. And that's Meisner for you.
Presented by and at the Hayworth Theatre, 2509 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. Jun. 30-Aug. 26. (800) 838-3006. www.thehayworth.com.
Reviewed by Dany Margolies