Save Mina's!
Good lord! What is this world coming to? I arrived recently at the Back Stage West offices-it was, perhaps portentously, Apr. 13-already somewhat ruffled with angst because of radio news reports on the state of the world and the apparent dumbing-down of society, to find a petition to sign on my desk. It was a petition urging the landlord to reconsider a corporate decision to terminate the lease of Mina Degifis, the nurturing soul who caters to the breakfast, brunch, lunchtime, and snack needs of the building's employees and other aficionados. Mina's Caf , tucked into a corner on the ground floor of the BPI building at 5055 Wilshire Blvd., is an oasis of taste and quality, a haven for wounded spirits beset by standardization and homogenization on all sides. It is a gourmet's mini-paradise, decorated with taste and care, always fresh flowers, objets d'art, good magazines, and designer tables for patrons' enjoyment
Someone had complained to the property holders that the building's "rank and file" were dissatisfied with Mina's fare-not enough Doritos, tacos, and hot dogs. Well, 7-11 is a few steps away, Subway, a Starbucks, and plenty of fast-food places right across the street, also a McDonald's nearby on La Brea. But there's nothing quite like Mina's anywhere else. The lady is a creative genius chef; she herself prepares the food as though for guests in her home. I asked how and where she learned the art of cooking, and her answer was a surprise. "From the chef in my family's home," Mina replied. "My parents gave me a copper cooking set when I was six. I starting hanging out in the kitchen and cooking with the chef. I have loved food and cooking ever since."
Before the overthrow of the Shah and the Ayatollah's rise to power (a case of "out of the frying pan into the fire," she said), Mina's father, a nuclear physicist, was president of the Free University of Iran. From a family of intellectuals, Mina became an artist, with a background in fine arts, specializing in metals, clay, and fabrics. When the order to vacate her little caf came, "I was in so much shock!" she said. "At first I thought it was an April Fool's joke. Now the reality has sunk in and the physical reaction is overwhelming. I feel ill. To be thrown out because you're too good!"
Friends and fans have rallied, which she finds enormously helpful and heartening. Last Thursday, the little caf was thronged with supporters, including constant habitu Robert Vecchio, who owns a design consultant business in Beverly Hills. He told me, "I come here because I get gourmet food at affordable prices, and because Mina remembers your name. She greets you. That's very rare these days."
She also has a care for the health and well-being of her patrons, which is not too common either. Wearing an exotic and colorul outfit with iconic designer jewelry, Mina looked like an illustration from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. She explained that the beautiful silver and ebony necklace she wore was a talisman-for protection. "This is a conflict on an estoric level," she mused. "Philosophical. It goes beyond what is on the surface." Maybe it has something to do with the ushering in of the Age of Aquarius...
Last-minute All Points Bulletin: Hold everything! Voices have been raised, action has been taken. There is a good chance compromise may save Mina's Caf . Stay tuned.
"Gin" Genesis
Follow-up phone calls to director/producer Don Eitner of the former American Theatre Arts, and to actress Carol Locatell, refreshed my memory of the 1976 world premiere of D.L. Coburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Gin Game at the ATA space on Hollywood Blvd. at Argyle. This was mentioned in my wrap-up of the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival and the concurrent ATCA convention in last week's issue of Back Stage West.
The Humana Festival is credited with staging The Gin Game's world premiere. It didn't. Don Eitner, a longtime friend of the playwright, gave the work its first production at ATA. "We have asked them to put the record straight," said Eitner. "So far they haven't. The two interpretations of his play D.L. loved the most were ours and a production he saw in Denmark. In my opinion, Carol's portrayal of Fonsia was the best I've seen," he added. "Jessica Tandy and Julie Harris. Both were wonderful and I admired them tremendously. But the depth of Carol's interpretation gave a whole new dimension to the play. I loved the way Carol as Fonsia said to Weller, at the end of the play, "You-you... suck!' Not funny, it was shocking and told us this was going to be a battle to the death. The choices made by director Mike Nichols for Tandy, and Charles Nelson Reilly for Harris, added diluting humor to the play, changed its basic approach to it. Our play began-and ended-on an entirely different plane."
The fine actor who played Weller, John Terry Bell, is deceased. Locatell, now married to musician, composer, and producer Greg Prestopino and living in the Valley (isn't everyone?) still finds "wonderful ways to connect to creativity and theatre." The Gin Game's first staging at American Theatre Arts was one of those wonderful, unexpected, never-to-be-forgotten theatre experiences. I found it "a modest mini-masterpiece in a minor key." I saw and reviewed Locatell, "a wondrously talented pint-size actress in the Helen Hayes mode," in Gin Game, and later in the world premiere of Coburn's second play, Bluewater Cottage, also at ATA. In it, the author again "examined the gropings, strivings, yearnings and frustrations besetting man/woman relationships."
"That play was about a marriage breaking up, and D.L wrote it with me in mind;" Locatell said. "We always worked well together. I stayed in contact with him; I used to call him in the middle of the night and encourage him to keep on writing. Sometimes success comes too quickly. It might have been better if he had won the Pulitzer with his fourth play instead of his first." After Bluewater, Locatell went to New York, where she played Blanche in the original cast of Broadway Bound, did The Rose Tattoo at Circle in the Square, and starred in other Off-Broadway shows.
"I've been doing TV-Ally McBeal, The Practice, NYPD Blue... I belong to the Ecco Theatre Group and I'm working on the third season of the Ojai Playwrights' Festival, also with the Classical Theatre Lab and Alred Molina, who's so wonderful."
The last time I saw Locatell onstage was 1991 in Triplets in Uniform, a wild and crazy gender-bending frolic directed by David Galligan at the Skylight Theatre. It may have been baffling, but it wasn't boring.
In the overall scheme of things, it's probably not of transcendental importance who gets credit for staging The Gin Game's world premiere. But as an advocate of Los Angeles theatre, I like to see credit given where it's due.
Lifts and Uplifts
I hereby vouch that it is a heady thing to be dubbed "Queen of the Angels" by the theatre staff of L.A. Weekly, which is not a rival publication but a bunch of friends. The handsome plaque with which I was presented by actor extraordinaire Alan Mandell credits me, rather whimsically I think, with "dogged determination" (well, I guess they got that right) and "sustained enthusiasm" (for heaven's sake). "beyond human endurance"...! (Well, I might have a little trouble with that.)
I am grateful beyond expression, especially after a funny thing happened on the way down in the elevator the other night. I stayed rather late at Back Stage West-I'd rather do that than come in early-and I suppose I looked tired, maybe a bit bedraggled (I used to think the word was pronounced bed-raggled; that seemed so wonderfully descriptive of dishevelment). Sharing the ride down was a janitor, who kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. Finally he said, "Um, er... shouldn't you be-retired?" Talk about taking the wind out of your sails! I wasn't talking to a diplomat, obviously, but I want to tell you that although one may be as young as one will ever be, one is also as young as one ever was. That's the way it is. Being crowned "Queen of the Angels" can do nothing but help. Profound and heartfelt thanks to L.A. Weekly, and the energetic, enthusiastic L.A. theatre community in general, and I can't imagine a more beautiful title than Queen of the Angels-deserved or not.
O, Seanie Boy, the Pipes, the Pipes Are Calling...
Among bygone treasures is the Celtic Arts Center Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard and now, alas, also its beautiful Sean Fallon Walsh, who died on Mar. 6 at his family home in Cleveland after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 65.
An Irish wake was held at the Onion ("a pub, but not really a pub") and its adjacent park last Saturday. Unfortunately, we did not get the news in time to announce it earlier, but I will be there and let you know about it, and more about Sean Walsh, the "Stiurthoir," or executive director of Celtic Arts Center, the Gaelic name of which-An Claidheamh Soluis-translates to "Sword of Light." In lieu of flowers or cards, the family has asked friends to make a tax-deductible contribution to the Celtic Arts Center he so loved: The Sean Fallon Walsh Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 950793, Mission Hills, CA 91395-0793.
They hope to have a theatre on their own again.