LOS ANGELES - Springtime is obviously murder/mystery/musical time in the L.A. area. Jules Aaron's passionate staging of Peter Shaffer's Equus at The Pasadena Playhouse and Rupert Holmes' nail-biting thriller, Accomplice, at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts are two satisfying evenings of entertainment (both through April 27).
On the musical front, By Jeeves played to mixed reviews at the The Geffen Playhouse, and closed April 19; the Robert Brustein-Hankus Netsky fable Shlemiel the First moves in May 6, for a run through June 8. Billed as "the rollicking new Klezmer musical," Shlemiel is based on a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Seasoned director and Yale faculty member David Chambers returns to South Coast Repertory with his first crack at a Harold Pinter play, staging Old Times through May 18. Old Times joins Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (playing through May ll) for a contemporary classic one-two punch in Orange County.
In Thousand Oaks, the Cabrillo Music Theatre is zipping into the fast lane with Pump Boys and Dinettes (through May 11); Fullerton's Civic Light Opera is celebrating its 25th Anniversary with Lerner and Loewe's Paint Your Wagon (May 9-25); and, in Santa Maria, PCPA Theaterfest is premiering a new musical, Robin Hood, penned by Brad Carroll and Jeremy Mann (April 26-May 17). The show is hailed as "a classic clash of good versus evil." Carroll admits he was "afraid of its becoming merely a history lesson about this great legend," but, with director Frederic Barbour and fight director David L. Boushey on board, the production is in good hands.
This is a golden era for Jack O'Brien, artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. Having just helmed the premiere of Tina Howe's Pride's Crossing at his home theatre, he's off to direct The Little Foxes at Lincoln Center, to check out the Old Globe's transfer of Play On! to Broadway, and to mastermind London's West End mounting of his theatre's Damn Yankees--due this spring, and still starring Jerry Lewis.
--JIM VOLZ
As part of its "New Stages" series, the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. offered the world premiere of When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable) by Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard. An old man, once a great cook, is in jail for poisoning a man he mistook for his cousin; he tells his story to a young reporter, who has her own reasons for wanting to hear it. That, essentially, is the plot of this one-act two-hander. The real interest of the play is in its simple, evocative and elusive language, and in the questions that are raised and allowed to hang in the air unresolved. (Whose daughter is she? Where is the land he claims to come from?) There are also a number of beautiful verbal arias and duets devoted to the subject of food, and the performances of Alvin Epstein and Amie Quigley were first-rate. Chaikin directed the production, which ran from March 26 through April 6.
A. R. Gurney's Later Life is about two middle-aged WASPs (there's a surprise!) who meet at a dinner party 30 years after a one-night almost-fling. Will they seize the second chance for happiness they are offered? Their seemingly interminable conversation is interrupted by a number of colorful caricatures, all of them played broadly, ingeniously, and hilariously in the Merrimack Repertory Theatre (Lowell, Mass.) production by Catherine Jeand'heur and Ed Peed. Unfortunately these characters seem to be in a completely different (albeit more entertaining) play than the two central figures, who are frankly dull. Bob Heitman was smooth but shallow as the Boston banker, and one-time Oscar nominee Valerie Perrine--who still looks and sounds as if she were in her thirties--was terribly miscast as the woman with whom he nearly had an affair. Directed by Robert Walsh, the show ran March 21-April 12.
Another Big Name, Phylicia Rashad (from both Bill Cosby shows), fared much better in the Huntington Theatre (Boston) production of Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky, March 7-April 6. The plot of this basically old-fashioned play about Harlem life during the Depression offers no real surprises, but it keeps you interested in the characters, makes you laugh, and brings a lump to your throat--which is what an old-fashioned play is supposed to do. Once past an unconvincing drunk act at the top of the show, Rashad's performance was strong and heartbreaking, and she was matched by the rest of the cast: Deidrie Henry, John Henry Redwood, Sean Squire and--in the flashiest role--Tyrone Henderson as a gay costume designer who's convinced that Josephine Baker is going to hire him to design for her shows. The play was superbly directed by Kenny Leon.
--DAVID FRIEZE
It's spring, so--naturally--Barrymores are bustin' out all over. Complementing Christopher Plummer's current New York star turn as John Barrymore, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jason Miller (That Championship Season, 1973) just opened his one-man show about the great actor, carouser, and drunk. Once you get past the lack of physical resemblance, Miller spins an engrossing and often funny tale. Barrymore's Ghost plays at the Empty Space Theatre, through May 10.
Marsha Norman's 1984 misfortune, Traveler in the Dark, is at Taproot Theatre, through May 3. This tale of a self-absorbed "genius" surgeon who suffers a crisis of faith is a weak link in the Norman oeuvre. The main character has enjoyed relationships with two women--one his wife, the other his nurse--who have served his every need. The nurse dies because he couldn't save her, and he doesn't know what to do. It's grade "B" television-movie stuff. Screaming in our heads as the pompous doc lays bare his angst: "Get over yourself!"
While Dan Sullivan slowly rides off into the sunrise--New York, you know--Kurt Beattie, Seattle Repertory Theatre's literary manager and an accomplished actor, has directed Sam Shepard's True West (through May 18) as a "wicked comedy" at the Rep. It's not all that wicked, but it sure is funny--sometimes too funny. Beattie got the nod to lead the production when producers Fran and Barry Weisslers' musical version of The Royal Family (Barrymore again!) failed to materialize. Rep associate Artistic Director David Saint, who was originally scheduled to direct the Shepard play, was shifted to the mainstage's replacement for Royal Family: Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter (opening April 30).
Wallace Shawn's feverish polemic in favor of authoritarianism, Aunt Dan and Lemon, runs at the New City Theater, through April 27. While the sickly Lemon (Sydney Fine) rocks in her chair and quietly explains the rationale for mass extermination, Aunt Dan (Charles Smith) is a sybaritic rocket bursting about subjects from sex to politics, and back again. It's an unsettling experience; but what do you expect from a character who never eats, and drinks only juice? New City ran Shawn's The Fever in Artistic Director John Kazanjian and actress Mary Ewald's home for about six months, and a new production of the playwright's Marie and Bruce opened at Odd Duck Studio on April 24. Wally, they love you out here!
--JEFFREY ERIC JENKINS
Princeton's McCarter Theatre has been nominated for a Computerworld Smithsonian award in recognition of its visionary use--in collaboration with ArtsWeb consortium--of information technology to produce positive social, economic, and economical changes. Nominees will submit materials about their projects, which become a permanent part of the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History collection.
The McCarter-ArtsWeb project links computers of the 11 member organizations to a single network providing state-of-the-art database, ticketing, and fundraising software. Representatives of McCarter will attend the formal presentation at the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C., in June. More information is available through the Computerworld Smithsonian Award website at http://www.innovate.si.edu.
Fri., May 9, marks the ground-breaking ceremony for the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre, the new home of the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, on the campus of Drew University, in Madison. Guests and speakers will include former N.J. governor and Drew U. president Thomas H. Kean, and N.J. Secretary of State Lonna Hooks. The $7.5 million Kirby Theatre will have 304 seats, a lobby showcasing two walls of glass exhibition space, technical facilities, rehearsal studios, elevators, and a green room-VIP guest lounge named for Sir John Gielgud. Construction is scheduled for completion in the spring of 1998.
Meanwhile, NJSF's 1997 season will continue at the Community Theatre of Morristown and at the Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, in Madison, with "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Henry V," "Much Ado About Nothing," Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit," and Brecht-Weill's "The Threepenny Opera" upcoming. Further information is at (201) 408-5600.
The New Jersey Theatre Group presents its ninth annual Applause Awards on April 28, at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick. Winner of the 1997 Star Award is Sharon Harrington, former chair of the New Jersey State Arts Council. The event is to feature entertainment from five of the state's professional theatres: American Stage Company, ArtsPower, Forum Theatre Group, Paper Mill Playhouse, and Pushcart Players. Other award-winners include Crossroads Theatre Company Guild, Merck and Company, Michael Loeb, Panasonic, and General Public Utilities, Inc.
--LARRY LEDFORD
Oregon Shakespeare Festival is among the oldest, largest, and most successful professional regional theatre companies in the United States. The festival's eight-month 1997 season (Feb. 21-Nov. 2), which consists of 11 plays--four by Shakespeare--currently offers King Lear, Death of a Salesman, Tom Stoppard's Rough Crossing, and Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. This is officially the first season under the reign of Libby Appel as artistic director, and it is a most auspicious beginning; all four of the productions are out of the ballpark.
Appel's brilliant concept of King Lear is, in itself, the kind of theatrical triumph that any Shakespeare company might hope to achieve. The minimalist, Beckett-like staging brings into sharp (and painful) focus the universal but still personal tragedy, which is too often obfuscated in overwrought productions. The exceptional cast includes James Edmondson in the title role, Dan Donohue as Edgar, Anthony De Fonte as Kent, and Demetra Pittman as The Fool.
It was Appel's vision to present a season pairing King Lear with Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, and Penny Metropulos has directed a powerful revival of the American classic with a superb cast headed by Douglas Rowe, Dee Maaske, Bill Geisslinger, and Tony DeBruno. Special mention is due the terrific set design, by Ming Cho Lee.
Rough Crossing, a free adaptation of Molnar's Play at the Castle, may not be top-drawer Stoppard, but it is an hilarious, farcical romp with some unbridled (yet appropriate) performances by Linda Alper, Richard Elmore, Mark Murphey, and, especially, Dan Donohue.
Jeffrey Hatcher has adapted The Turn of the Screw for two actors: Vilma Silva as "The Governess" and, in a truly remarkable tour-de-force, Anthony Heald as all of the other characters. Michael Edwards (former artistic director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz) has utilized the intimacy of the Black Swan Theatre to include the audience in the midst of the terrors of this classic ghost story.
The Turn of the Screw plays through June 29; the other three productions mentioned above continue in rotating rep at the Angus Bowmer Theatre through Nov. 2. Seven other plays are scheduled to open later this season. For further information, call (541) 482-4331.
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