THE SWAN
at the Pacific Resident Theatre
Reviewed by Richard Scaffidi
Often lyrical, often satirical, The Swan is simultaneously a romantic fable and a sociopolitical essay. Written early in the century by Hungary's Ferenc Molnar (English text by Benjamin Glazer), the play proves to be a wonderful theatrical rediscovery, one brought smartly to life by director Howard Shangraw and numerous other splendid artists at Pacific Resident Theatre.
Molnar, Shangraw, and co. first draw us cheerfully into a seemingly fairy tale plot in which the faded Princess Beatrice is determined to restore her family's bygone glory by seeing to it that her beautiful daughter Alexandra wins the heart of Europe's most eligible bachelor, Prince Albert. Her plan is to make Albert jealous of a phony rival, namely the brilliant but low-born resident tutor. But the plan backfires when the upstart tutor commences to actually (and effectively) woo Alexandra for himself.
Such an irresistible story brims with both comedic and romantic possibilities, and this texture-rich PRT company fulfills them all. For instance, sleek Shiva Rose is truly alluring as Alexandra, even when the character is at her haughtiest. She fully justifies the audacious risks taken by the love-smitten tutor, a role played by Alexander Enberg with alternating fire and dignity. Completing the amorous triangle is Robert Lee Jacobs as the outwardly dashing but inwardly faltering (and sometimes adorably dim) Prince Albert. Jacobs deftly invokes vivid character comedy that is carried to even more tickling heights by the ever-brilliant Marilyn Fox as conniving Princess Beatrice, and by Susan Dexter as her sweet, ditzy sister.
Add in the choice work of several other PRT players and, top to bottom, The Swan serves up as colorful and delightful a cast as you'll find on any stage in town. Notable among these are William Lithgow as the castle's nearly perfect chief servant; Chris McCabe and Ron E. Dickinson as the prince's absurdly formidable aides; Justin Cowden and Neal McGowan as the tutor's mischievous young students; Diane Hurley as Prince Albert's uproariously imperious mother, and Orson Bean, marvelously wry as the benign and wise Father Hyacinth.
Yet there is even more to enjoy about The Swan than all these amusing characters and the laughter they evoke. And we're not referring to the flair of Audrey Eisner's costuming, the ingenuity of Victoria Profitt's set design, or the magic of Keith Endo's lighting. Those are terrific, too-but what truly makes The Swan remarkable is that it is charming in order to be disarming. You see, at its true core, Molnar's play is a thoughtful, even melancholy, depiction of society grappling to sort out its class distinctions in the first age of world civilization not defined or dominated by monarchy.
That added thematic perspective adds political bite and cultural insight to this 80-year-old gem. After all, the play is largely about royalty desperately scuffling for position, and how its younger generation is increasingly influenced by and competing with commoners. The tutor may or may not win the princess this time around but, in mind and body both, he is the one best equipped to rule the future. Heady stuff for a fairy tale.
"The Swan," presented by and at the Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Oct. 15-Dec. 5. $20-22. (310) 822-8392.
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THE MEMORANDUM
at the Odyssey Theatre
Reviewed by Anne Louise Bannon
The glory of really good social satire comes when it is specific to its roots, yet completely universal. Even without knowing who Vaclav Havel is (former anti-Communist dissident and Czech president, as well as playwright and poet) and his own extraordinary story, one can't help being touched by the wit and lyricism of his tale of a bureaucrat caught in the web of a scheming deputy who knows how to play the system better than he does. It's even better when the players do it really well, as the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble has.
Managing director Josef Gross (John Ross Clark) finds his life spinning out of control when his deputy Mr. Ballas (Michael David Edwards) goes over his head and orders the company to learn a new language, Ptydepe, a purportedly more logical way to communicate than natural human language, with all its ambiguities and imprecision. The only problem is that Ptydepe is impossible to learn. Not only that: Thanks to a bureaucratic snafu, it is impossible to get the papers to authorize the translation office to translate documents either into Ptydepe or out of it.
You don't have to understand the historical context to notice the layer upon layer of ironies within the script. It remains universal simply because it revolves around the sort of nonsense that, to put it in purely American terms, has made Dilbert so popular. Even scarier is the fact that, while Havel was using the ambiguities and vagaries of human language as a cover for his monster slap at Soviet Communism, the play still works well now that communism is more or less history. It really makes you wonder why. Could it be that our corporate culture, and the way its bureaucracy turns us all into little cogs in a huge, impersonal machine, isn't so far off from Soviet-style statist conformity?
(That said, understanding the play's real historical backdrop-it was written between 1961 and 1963, after the Soviets had taken over but before they rolled in the tanks and crushed Czech dissent in 1968-only adds more layers to the script.)
Still, anyone can read a play. Taking it all to a new dimension is the ensemble of players. Clark wrings buckets of pathos out of his role as the manager who can't manage, yet with an incredible economy, giving this poor sap so much dignity you can almost hear the playwright's own voice in his speeches. Edwards plays his dominant note of oiliness with enough variety that while we hate him soundly for it, when he's caught in the trap of his own making we feel a bit sorry for him. David Dionisio's resident sycophant, Mr. Pillar, is among the most expressive actors in the cast-all the more impressive because he doesn't speak throughout the play until near the end.
Nancy Anne Ridder as the hapless Maria, Beth Kennedy as the vapid secretary who knows everything, Alicia Wollerton as the sadistic professor charged with teaching the new language, Gail Godown as the nymphomanic chairman-everybody plays with full-out energy and intention, taking satiric caricatures and breathing life into them.
Director Jessica Kubzansky took the mechanized overtones of the script and went to town. Everyone walks in straight, squared-off lines, turning corners in 90-degree pivots. Michael Marlowe's set of stencilled letters and three platforms on wheels makes scene changes a wonder of choreography, and Audrey Fisher's costumes are a treat.
"The Memorandum," presented by and at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., W. Los Angeles. Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. Oct. 16-Dec. 5. $18.50-22.50. (310) 477-2055.
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SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH
at the Mandell Weiss Theatre
Reviewed by George Weinberg-Harter
In their quest for catharsis, ancient Greek tragic dramatists would employ the most pitiable and terrible themes possible-such surefire shockers as incest, family murder, and that perennial Hellenic bugaboo, the unburied corpse. Grim stuff, guaranteed to give audiences the shudders and bring down the retribution of the gods upon hapless heroes.
Ever mindful of Aristotle's Poetics, Tennessee Williams frequently seemed to be seeking theatrical effects that might work equivalently for modern American audiences-uncomfortable conjunctions of sex, madness, disease, and death. His 1959 play Sweet Bird of Youth fulfills the formula, framing between two castrations (the first fatidic, the second fated) a story that includes doomed and mismatched lovers, venereal infection, and a hysterectomy. Williams' art transcends these sordid details, and-fully enabled by Michael Greif's terrific La Jolla Playhouse production-transforms them into mythic fatalism.
Sweet Bird of Youth is Greif's valedictory production as the Playhouse's artistic director, and he has staged it in superb style on a largely bare stage dressed by set designer Mark Wendland with shifting furniture that includes several cheval glasses, in front of a cyclorama scrim behind which some scenes appear silhouetted or in muted illumination on a hidden elevated catwalk-all lighted to often stunning effect by James F. Ingalls. One of Greif's more inspired strokes is to have appended an initial scene-before the script's actual dialogue commences-showing the pursuit, capture, and brutalization of a blameless black citizen, whom thugs in the employ of the corrupt politician, Boss Finley, have randomly selected for a horrible "lesson" in racial repression.
That appalling first tableau hangs over the show, foreshadowing the outcome, as it becomes ever clearer that the same dire punishment awaits the protagonist, Chance Wayne, as retribution for the disastrous consequences of his love affair with Boss Finley's daughter, Heavenly. With his athletic build and thinning hair, Patrick Wilson physically defines Chance's attenuated youthfulness, and he effectively projects the character's odd mix of cocky ambition and guilty resignation. And at Chance's side for much of the play is the arresting and somewhat mysterious figure known as the Princess Kosmonopolos, or Alexandra Del Lago-an aging movie star on the lam. Incisively played by Pamela Payton-Wright with imperious, strident, raspy command punctuated by flashes of vulnerability and pathos, Princess functions as a kind of lover/mother/guardian angel for Chance.
On one level she is like a goddess traveling incognito who has temporarily taken a mortal man for her consort-yet at the same time she shares with Chance (and with Heavenly) the sorrow and bane of flown youth. And when she finally leaves (returning to Olympus-or to Hollywood), Chance, by his own resigned choice, seems to have forfeited divine protection.
So completely do Princess and Chance dominate the drama that one must recall the 18 other players who excellently help create the play's atmosphere of torrid Gulf Coast corruption, including the estimable M. Emmet Walsh as the vulgar, overbearing Boss Finley; Don Harvey making the Boss' son, Tom Junior, a suitably smug and menacing bully boy; Patricia Gebhard as the Cassandra-like Aunt Nonnie; Elizabeth Reaser, a waifish Heavenly, and Susan Denaker as the Boss' flamboyant mistress, Miss Lucy.
Sweet Bird of Youth, as this excellent production reveals, has a timeless impact and inner resonance that make one feel its possible that audiences and actors will continue to find deeper and deeper meaning in Tennessee Williams' plays for centuries to come. The final image of Chance, kneeling in surrender to fate and to Boss Finley's myrmidons, lingers in the imagination.
"Sweet Bird of Youth," presented by the La Jolla Playhouse in the Mandell Weiss Theatre, UCSD campus, Torrey Pines Rd. & La Jolla Village Dr., La Jolla. Tues.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 7 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 2 p.m. Oct. 17-Nov. 14. $19-39. (619) 550-1010.
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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
at the Luckman Theatre
Reviewed by Polly Warfield
That well-known hellcat Kate, that purposeful hell-raiser Petruchio-it's a mating made in heaven. Divinely matched as well are Deborah Strang and Robertson Dean, the actors who play them, in this most outrageously tempestuous wooing of all dramatic literature. Shakespeare is at the top of his form, Dean and Strang at theirs, in Sabin Epstein's masterful staging of this gloriously boisterous comedy.
The importunate fortune-hunter and the recalcitrant shrew are diamonds in the rough-superior beings, clearly brighter, stronger, smarter than all the rest. To realize their potential, they must claim and tame each other, which takes a bit of doing and provides us with the play. Strang's beauteous Kate is fiery and fierce, a wild falcon much in need of taming. She bellows, roars, threatens, ready with fists and feet to enforce her will but finding small satisfaction in it. Strang's reactions are as eloquent as her actions; this is important, for Kate has a lot of reacting to do.
Petruchio is his own man and Dean his own Petruchio, in whom mind and machismo are of equal portent. Dean's easy stance, cock-of-the-walk gait, the roguish sparkle in his eye, the smile hovering at the corners of his mouth-but perhaps most of all the depth and resonance of his silence-proclaim him. The actor knows the uses of stillness, when and how long to take a pause, and how to fill it with meaning. This Petruchio and his Kate command the stage whenever they're on it, just by being there and knowing how. When from opposite sides of the stage they first clap eyes on each other, it stops them cold; they stand momentarily dumb, not knowing what hit them. He has met his match, she at last has met hers. And they feel it. If it isn't love at first sight, it's something terrific.
Kate's terrible temper is not without cause. Her younger sister, the mild-mannered Bianca, pretty and blonde as a buttercup, gets all the boyfriends, and all their father's affection. Jill Hill's goody-two-shoes mien delightfully cloaks Bianca's inner minx. She skillfully manipulates her competing suitors, while Apollo Dukakis, as her sturdy father Baptista, blatantly auctions her off to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, Papa must get shrewish Katherine married off before he can cash in on Bianca, though swains swarm around her like flies around a honeypot.
Chris Gerson's likely lad Lucentio is her favorite; he masquerades as a Latin tutor to woo her, while Michael McGuiness as his lackey Tranio enthusiastically assumes the master's guise. Jay Bell as senior citizen Gremio is so outmatched in youth, wealth, and his lady's favor he might as well give up. Stephen Rockwell's Hortensio drops out and settles for a raffish widow as second choice.
Director Epstein and set designer Tom Buderwitz with bare boards and a passion put emphasis where it belongs. Crenelated, lightly gilded walls form a triangle and elicit a Venetian-themed atmosphere of elegance and wealth, against which Ken Booth's lighting casts rich textures of light and shade. Many doors set flush within the walls fling open and shut for rhythmically choreographed, farcically paced entrances and exits. Alex Jaeger's delightful costumes reach a pinnacle in Petruchio's audacious wedding garb.
Worthy of note among the noteworthy are Hill's multi-layered take on deceptively demure Bianca, McGuiness' effervescent Tranio/Lucentio, Anna C. Miller's painted hoyden widow, and Julie Remala's spunky Biondello-definitely a girl in a man's role, for no discernible reason other than that she can.
However exemplary the ensemble support, though, it's the combined firepower of Dean and Strang that earns them star power. Fortune-hunter Petruchio gets more treasure than he bargains for, and so do we. Alchemy is wrought by their true mating. Curst Katherine becomes the merry wench, rough Petruchio the mindful mensch, of their true natures.
"The Taming of the Shrew," presented by A Noise Within at the Luckman Theatre, Cal State L.A. campus. Oct. 22-Nov. 14. $26-30. (818) 546-1924 or (323) 224-6420.
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SONGS AND STORIES FROM MOBY DICK
at Royce Hall
Reviewed by Paul Birchall
Laurie Anderson is the doyenne of latter-day performance artists-at least, from the generation prior to the one that smeared yams on their naked bodies-and her new riff on Melville's novel is less a dramatization of the whale tale than it is a celebration of the ideas and emotional themes the book inspires. And while the show lacks the ferociously imaginative ingenuity which made Anderson's visionary reputation back in the 1980s and early '90s, the show remains a thrillingly moody and colorful tour de force, and Anderson's unrestrained sense of humor and visual acumen create an onstage environment that's energetic, unpredictable, and joyous.
Anderson speaks and acts in theatrical shorthand, but it's a language that elegantly focuses and communicates moods of wistfulness, rage, loss, and mortal fragility. Presenting a series of only tangentially connected vignettes, Anderson simultaneously pokes fun at the idea of "literature," takes us on a theme park ride of thrilling images, and explores what it means to live in a world whose mysteries are never entirely revealed. Along the way, the score slides from classical violin melodies through Dead Can Dance-influenced synthesized riffs to dark, Leonard Cohen-ish ballads.
The piece is at its most effective when it is at its most simple, during the opening scene, in which waves are projected onto a rear screen and we hear Anderson in silhouette playing a haunting melody on her violin, or during the sequence in which her cast of male characters (for unlike many of her shows, Songs and Stories From Moby Dick actually contains an ensemble) groove like whalers while singing a sea shanty.
Other strikingly dynamic moments include Tom Nelis' frighteningly powerful Ahab-portrayed impressionistically in a Goth kid's black longcoat and enormous Cat in the Hat top hat, roaring imprecations against the whale while spinning around on a pair of crutches like a demented whirling dervish. Anderson and the "crew" also "play" a set of harpoons, which have digitized recording material along the stems so that when they're rubbed the right way, they produce Gregorian chant-like singing or whale noises. Skuli Sverrisson's piercing bass accompaniment and Anderson's smooth, gliding choreography combine to create a show that's the quintessential definition of cool.
"Songs and Stories From Moby Dick," presented by UCLA Performing Arts at Royce Hall, on the UCLA campus. Oct. 20-23. (310) 825-2101. Also, presented by Cal Performances at Zellberbach Hall, UC Berkeley campus. Tues.-Sat. 8 p.m. Oct. 26-30. $18-42. (510) 642-9988.
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DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SECRET?
at Theatre East
Reviewed by Les Spindle
The real secret behind the success of Do You Want To Know a Secret? is Playwrights 6, a talented new company of former and current members of the Playwrights Kitchen Ensemble. In their latest anthology, we find the scribes in a lighthearted vein, offering five short comedies chock full of laughs and peppered by moments of sharp insight.
The Recipe by David Boito, directed by Jason Saville, is a tasty farce about a relationship roundelay that seems like fodder for The Jerry Springer Show. As Lauren (Nichole Pelerine) prepares dinner for her new boyfriend, her old beau Gordy (Brian Morri) and his new love Mora (Doreen Calderon) arrive unexpectedly to ask an unusual question. The plot begins to simmer when we discover there's more to Lauren's answer than meets the eye. The buoyant cast makes the most of the zany complications.
Writer/director Laura Black's Karma is a broad comedy set in a travel agency. A couple (Carol Shannon and David Lindstedt), ready to depart on their millennial New Year's holiday, engage in a disagreement with a clerk (Len Kupfer) as to whether or not they paid their fees. Paula Fins appears briefly as another clerk. The players have fun with this slight but amusing piece, and there's a clever twist ending.
Larry Dean Harris' brief sketch The Old Guard revolves around two aging wrestlers (Mike Kimmel and Paul Murray, who also directed) who square off against a self-confident young upstart (Kupfer). It's skillfully acted and makes a simple yet important point about the value of experience vs. youth.
G. Bruce Smith's Final Audition, deftly directed by Tom Seidman, is a finely crafted piece. An unsuccessful actor (Robert Bundy) auditions for his most important role: the part he will play in the afterlife. His all-important reading before the Supreme Director of the Universe will determine whether he becomes a resident of Heaven-or is banished forever to the furry depths of a Cats road company. Initially uproarious, the segment smoothly segues to bittersweet-with a nod to A Chorus Line-as the actor reflects on his past and possible future. Bundy is superb as the befuddled actor, and Gary Anello excels as a sardonic onlooker with a big secret.
The funniest offering of the evening is Monica Trasandes' Big Big Big, a bawdy satire about our obsession with physical attributes. Jack (Bundy) is in the hospital recovering from penis-enlargement surgery. His doubts about what he has done-and whether he should do more-result in some pricelessly funny gags, which are embellished by the zingers delivered by Jack's cheerful hospital roommate (a droll Paul Murray). Bundy delights as the insecure patient, and Cynthia Dane offers solid support as his understanding wife. Ditto David Nathan Schwartz (who also directed) as his tipsy surgeon.
Like the other four short but sweet offerings in this bill, Trasandes' comedy proves that it's not size that matters-it's how you use it.
"Do You Want To Know a Secret?," presented by Playwrights 6 at Theatre East, 12655 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. Wed. 8 p.m. Oct. 13-Nov. 3. $5 donation requested. (323) 666-6086.
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THE FANTASTICKS
at the Crossley Theatre
Reviewed by Les Spindle
The bittersweet musical fable The Fantasticks has continually played at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York since its May, 1960, premiere, and continues to flourish as a popular small-musical staple in international productions. Yet the show has always been somewhat of a love-it-or-hate-it paradox. Reviews for the premiere production were widely divided, and Michael Ritchie's 1996 film adaptation still languishes on the MGM/UA shelf-tagged a monstrosity by some insiders, a masterpiece by others. Controversy aside, it's hard to find anything not to like in the Actors Co-op's lovingly crafted rendition of this timeless favorite.
Simplicity is a virtue in director Mark Henderson's tasteful approach, which makes the most of the show's unpretentious but exhilarating qualities-Tom Jones' whimsical book (based on Edmond Rostand's play Les Romanesques) and gorgeous lyrics and Harvey Schmidt's divine music. There's a potent mythic quality to this captivating parable of innocence lost and regained. The humorous and occasionally poignant story tells of the young neighbors Matt (Rick Marcus) and Luisa (Dorothy Elias Fahn), who believe their mutual love is a secret, not knowing that their fathers (Tim Farmer and Gus Corrado, respectively) have only pretended to discourage their alliance, believing that all children are tempted by the forbidden.
The fathers also stage an elaborate rape/abduction charade, with the aid of a seductive bandit, El Gallo (Kelley Hinman) and two buffonish actors (hilariously played by Richard Jones and Brian Habicht). The ploy works to cement the couple's relationship, and Act One ends on a joyous note. But in a gambit that presages Sondheim's Into the Woods, Act Two shows us what really occurs following happily-ever-after.
Heading an exemplary ensemble, Marcus is superb as the hopeful young hero-virtuous and endearing, but driven by wanderlust and the need to grapple with maturity. His charismatic presence and delightful singing voice are mesmerizing. His efforts are well complemented by Fahn's charming and sweet-voiced performance as the likewise restless-spirited Luisa. As the scheming fathers, Farmer and Corrado capture a superb vaudevillian flair, embellished by choreographer Chris Salmon's amusing soft-shoe style. Hinman delights as the dashing El Gallo, who also narrates and sets the stage, aided by an omnipresent mute assistant (effectively played by Naomi Chan).
Production credits are first-class all the way-including the stark but ambient set by Henderson and Farmer, Kathi O'Donohue's dreamlike lighting, Shon LeBlanc's stylish costumes, and Dana Bisignano's solid musical direction, with lovely accompaniment by Wayne Hinton on piano and Kathleen Moon and Alex Rannie on harp. The most famous song in the delectable Jones/Schmidt score invites us to remember a certain enchanted September, while this production provides magical evenings for local audiences all the way into December.
"The Fantasticks," presented by Actors Co-op at the Crossley Theatre, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2:30 p.m. Oct. 22-Dec. 19. $18-22 (or $5 with Edge of the World Festival passport, Nov. 7-14). (323) 462-8460.
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TERRA NOVA
at the Garvin Theatre
Reviewed by D. L. King
The recent mission to evacuate an American doctor from the South Pole, and the preparations and calculations of risk factors that led up to the actual event, point out the challenges that nature still poses to technology. As the rescue crews waited for the temperature to rise to 61 degrees below zero, the Santa Barbara City College Theatre Group waited for the curtain to rise on its opening weekend of Terra Nova, Ted Tally's thought-provoking probe into the story of Robert Falcon Scott's second attempt to reach the South Pole in the winter of 1910-11.
Scott's trek to the Pole was complicated by threat of Norwegian Roald Amundsen's own quest to be first to the Pole. Amundsen, in Scott's view, resorted to "cheap tricks" and "cruelty to beasts" by employing 97 sled dogs in his effort to reach the pole, and by setting out from a base camp 60 miles closer to his destination. Tally's play begins as Scott and his chosen party of four others man-haul their sledge towards their goal. Director Rick Mokler's well-chosen cast rises to the challenges of the material with admirable boldness and bravery.
Richard Hoag plays the newlywed 41-year-old Scott with compassion and strength, relaying the pride, determination, and ultimate despair of his character with subtle yet calculated precision. He is matched in his efforts by his supporting cast of Robert Olsen ("Birdie" Bowers), Michael Rathbone (Dr. Wilson), Jason Love ("Titus" Oates), and Bill Egan ("Taff" Evans). These five men together convey the growing despair of the party as they realize that they are beaten by the Norwegians and by fate.
Tony Miratti's turn as the triumphant Amundsen disappoints, as he too often relies on volume rather than inflection, emotion, or physicality to relate his character's disdain for the "weakness" of his competitor. Katherine Szyperski, however, has perfect control in her portrayal of sculptress and new mother Kathleen Bruce Scott; her measured restraint and passion are a pleasure.
Theodore Michael Dolas' stark subarctic scenic design, with the assistance of Charles Thomas Garey's lighting, impressively invokes the brutal beauty of the explorers' territory. Mary Gibson's period costumes are inspired, especially Szyperski's gowns. The crew and cast here have undertaken and accomplished a fine mission.
"Terra Nova," presented by the Santa Barbara City College Theatre Group at the Garvin Theatre, 721 Cliff Dr., Santa Barbara. Oct. 15-30. (805) 965-5935.
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LUST AND LUNACY: EVENING RED
at the Los Angeles Theatre Center
Reviewed by Hoyt Hilsman
This evening of three plays from Moving Arts' annual one-act festival is dominated by Matt Pelfrey's funny and poignant Monkey, with fine performances by Richard Ruyle and Cameron McHarg under the deft direction of Mark Kinsey Stephenson. The other one-act offerings, You're Gonna Pass by Peter Sherman and Milk by Michael Hemmingson, are pallid in comparison.
Monkey is set under a freeway underpass where Willard, played with great gusto and compassion by Ruyle, has retreated into his own private sanctuary, living as a kind of urban Iron John. Devastated by the divorce from his wife Kitty (Carol Dougherty), who took not only every penny he had but also his job and his clothes, Willard retreats into a spiritual utopia, setting up a shrine of mud underneath the freeway, trapping stray dogs and cats for food, and making clothes from their pelts.
Into this temple of homelessness stumbles Willard's estranged son Stephen (McHarg), who now goes by the moniker AKA and has abandoned his young wife and their triplets somewhere in the Northwest. In fact, Stephen doesn't stumble into Willard's encampment-he is captured by his father, who doesn't realize at first that he has taken his own son prisoner.
As improbable as Monkey may seem, playwright Pelfrey has transformed the zany setup into a paean to contemporary masculine pain and the mythic estrangement between fathers and sons. The humor is captivating, and the final resolution between the two men heartbreaking. Ruyle and McHarg are marvelous, capturing both the poignancy and the posturing of male relationships, particularly between a father and son.
Ruyle's performance oozes with vulnerability and pain in his portrayal of the middle-aged man who has gone beyond crisis into crucible. As he sits amidst cardboard boxes and skinned cat pelts, he echoes both the empty dream and painful dilemma of all men as he says with pride, "Look at all that I have achieved." McHarg plays the perfect counterpoint to Ruyle, aggressively attacking his father's poignant pomposity while still engaging him as a worthy opponent, here at the literal and metaphorical end of the earth.
Director Stephenson creates a marvelous, balanced tone in the staging, from the dramatic entrance of the main characters to the fanciful yet evocative set. But it is playwright Pelfrey who deserves real praise here: He has balanced humor and pathos to a wrenching degree and deliver a brief but beautifully theatrical work.
The other two pieces in the evening barely hold a candle to Pelfrey's work. You're Gonna Pass is a straightforward if slightly bent depiction of urban angst as a mother (Gladys Hans) whose son killed himself tries to rent his apartment to an unsuspecting tenant (John Duncan). And Milk is a disjointed excursion into marriage and family relationships that never gets off the ground. While Milk features an intriguing performance by the promising Cristopher D'Annunzio, it has little else to recommend it.
"Lust and Lunacy: Evening Red," presented by Moving Arts at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. $15. "Evening Red" runs Oct. 8-10, Oct. 21-24, Nov. 4-7, and Nov. 18, while "Evening Blue" runs Oct. 15-17, Oct. 28-29, Nov. 11-14, and Nov. 19-21. $14 (or $5 with Edge of the World Festival passport, Nov. 7-14). (213) 485-1681.
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VIOLET
at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
Reviewed by Judy Richter
It doesn't take long to figure out that Violet (Kelli Maguire) has pinned her dream on a fraud and that her dream won't come true, yet her quest provides some pleasant surprises in Violet, a musical being given its Northern California premiere by TheatreWorks.
Set in September 1964, shortly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and during the early stages of the Vietnam War, Violet takes its heroine on a bus trip from her North Carolina home to Tulsa, Okla. That's where she believes a televangelist will perform a miracle and remove a terrible scar from her face-the result of an errant axe head that hit her when she was 13. During her journey she is befriended by two soldiers-a white corporal and a black sergeant-headed for Fort Smith, Ark. Their shared adventures and the two men's reactions to her pave the way for her to effect her own healing. Of course, the healing is internal, but she alters the way she presents herself to others by changing her outlook and forgiving her late father, whom she held responsible for her scarring.
Based on the short story The Ugliest Pilgrim by Doris Betts, Violet's book and lyrics are by Brian Crawley, the music by Jeanine Tesori. The two collaborators have created a work that goes beyond the notion that beauty is only skin deep by touching on the psychological pain of feeling different and ugly, and by drawing parallels between Violet's plight and that of her newfound black friend, Flick (Michael Gene Sullivan). Though neither aspect is explored in depth, both add texture and interest. Tesori's music is a tuneful blend of country, blues, rock, and gospel. "On My Way," the ensemble work that sends Violet on her journey, showcases the cast's excellent vocal blend, and Flick's "Let It Sing," powerfully rendered by Sullivan, is a showstopper.
Other songs advance the plot well or give voice to emotions-"You're Different," sung by Monty, the white soldier (Jonathan Rhys Williams), and "Hard To Say Goodbye," sung by Violet, Flick, and Monty.
Director Robert Kelley stages the show well, especially the scenes involving Violet's memories of her younger self (played with skilled assurance by ninth-grader Chelsea Morgan Stock) and her father (Remi Sandri), a decent, well-meaning widower who teaches her such valuable survival skills as playing poker and drinking. Musical director Lita B. Libaek lends her high energy and talent to the orchestra and singers. The cast is excellent, led by Maguire's radiant performance as Violet. Sullivan is a strongly empathetic Flick, while Williams shows some conflicted emotions as his womanizing pal. Sandri creates a tender, loving portrait as Violet's father, and Kevin Blackton is hilarious as the TV preacher who has lost his way. The rest of the cast is strong in a variety of roles.
Tom Langguth's settings are simple, yet they clearly delineate locations. Noteworthy is the use to which he puts a turntable and the backdrop of the road and distant hills for the bus scenes. Pamila Gray's lighting and Christopher Neumeyer's sound design reinforce the settings, while Ardith Ann Gray's costumes help to define the time and characters. The choreography, though not primary in this production, is nicely done by Alex Perez. Fight direction is by Richard Lane.
"Violet," presented by TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View, Tues. 7:30 p.m., Weds.-Sat. 8 p.m. Oct. 20-Nov. 14. $20-37. (650) 903-6000.
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THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS
at Bergamot Station
Reviewed by Claudia Grazioso
The course of true love doth never run smooth-especially in plays set in Venice with feuding families, besotted children, and crafty servants. Especially in The Servant of Two Masters, currently presented by Greenlight Productions in a parking lot at Bergamot Station. Director Beth Milles and her seemingly fearless cast take on Carlo Goldoni's 18th-century commedia dell' art play with a giddy, devil-may-care delight and for the most part succeed. They get through the rockier parts of the production (a first act that drags somewhat) with a combination of theatrical ingenuity (the staging is never dull) and ironic playfulness.
Rheumatic old Pantalone (played to the geezery hilt by Hamilton Camp) has promised his fiery daughter Clarice (Lisa Akey) in marriage to Silvio (Dean Robinson), son of his longtime adversary, the amusingly bombastic Dr. Lombardi (Jeff Michalski). It seems a done deal for, oh, all of two minutes, until Clarice's original intended, Federigo Rasponi (Alison Tatlock), who everyone thinks died in a duel, shows up on the scene. Of course it's not the real Federigo, but rather his sister Beatrice, who is searching for her lover, Florindo (Alastair Duncan). This confusion is compounded by the antics of Truffaldino (the very talented Daniel Passer) as he attempts to act as servant to both Beatrice and Florindo in his never-ending attempt to get a good meal and, eventually, the hand of Clarice's maid, Smeraldina (Regan Forman).
Lending strong support is Douglas Weston in the role of the psychotic, knife-wielding innkeeper Brighella. And if you need a quick primer on the ins and outs of the plot, Oded Gross, seen in several roles, recites a lively, poetic encapsulation at the beginning of the evening.
In an all-around talented cast in which everyone contributes to keeping the energy level through the roof (or, as the case may be, to the sky), special notice must be given to the tireless Passer, who, as Truffaldino, keeps the comedy and the confusion fresh and absurd. Tatlock and Duncan, as his demanding, duped, and exasperated masters, give him much off of which to play.
At times in the first act, the actors seem to get lost in the energy of their roles and forget to move the story forward, but this is mostly forgivable, since it's nice to see such good actors stretch their considerable theatricals muscles, not only with well-choreographed staging but with wry asides to the audience that keep the play accessible (Passer complains that Gross is "freaking me out"). Occasionally, this playfulness launches into all-out wackiness, as when Truffaldino is beaten with two gigantic ravioli.
Lastly, the simple, elevated, planked stage and the zippy, updated music (to say nothing of the soup, coffee, cookies, and Patagonia blankets generously available to the audience) make for a cozy communal ambience. The production is admirable, the evening charming. Anyone looking for an enjoyable night of theatre, and a little something more, could do worse than park themselves in the Bergamot lot.
"The Servant of Two Masters," presented by Greenlight Productions at Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica. Thurs.-Sun. 7:30 p.m. Oct. 21-Nov. 21. $28. (310) 289-2999.
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SWEETHEART: A MUSICALE
at the Coast Playhouse
Reviewed by Paul Birchall
Megan Mullally has a beautifully lustrous yet subtle voice, and she uses it to powerful effect in this cabaret-like cycle of songs, which mostly consists of Broadway staples like Rodgers and Hart's "Ten Cents a Dance" and Sondheim's "I Remember." The showcase also offers a few heartfelt surprises, such as Tom Waits' wistful, near-forgotten "Johnsburg, Illinois" and Randy Newman's "Guilty."
The show's atmosphere strives to be irreverent, at least on a surface level: At rise, Mullally and her band break into the theatre, which has been peculiarly decorated to resemble some kind of a Victorian attic, and start tearing the place apart, replacing it with revolutionary posters. While jealous keyboardist Greg Kuehn looks on enraged, Mullally drops to her knees and begins to fellate guitarist Stuart Mathis. Then the songs begin.
Mullally's intrepretation of some of her songs emphasize the bitterness and wistful qualities of romance over any intrinsically happily-ever-after thematics. Thus, some of the numbers are rendered with heavy irony and what can only be called undercurrents of gleeful perversity. Mullally's vaguely disturbing rendition of Sondheim's "Joanna" from Sweeney Todd comes across as a love song of pathological obsession. She also chains herself to the wall and rolls around on the floor like a dog during her more-than-slightly creepy version of the Weill/Brecht sour lemon "Surabaya Johnny." Interspersed with the songs are a series of somewhat cryptic Blair Witch Project-like visual interludes showing Mullally and her band sparring on the street outside the theatre.
Ultimately, though, we find ourselves more bemused than engaged by the touches bracketing the songs, which seem to have no bona fide point other than to pretentiously suggest that Mullally is not like other cabaret performers. And, while Mullally demonstrates technical virtuosity, particularly during the show's impassioned belts and ballads, her performance lacks emotional depth; the songs are precisely executed but her interpretations feel superficial and orthodox, in spite of her attempts to come off as edgy.
It doesn't help matters that many of the songs sound the same and are performed in the same presentational style. In the end, the mood that's created has a faint whiff of self-love as much as it does of the romantic kind.
"Sweetheart: A Musicale," presented by and at the Coast Playhouse, 8325 Santa Monica Blvd., W. Hollywood. Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. Oct. 23-Nov. 20. $20-25. (323) 650-8507.
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WIT
at the Leo K. Theatre
Reviewed by David-Edward Hughes
Though there is wit to spare in Margaret Edson's 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same title, the Seattle Repertory Theatre production, in collaboration with the Houston Alley Theatre seems, at its center, a bit smug and self-satisfied. Director Martin Benson certainly keeps the pace brisk, as the intermissionless piece plays well under two hours, and has a uniformly excellent cast and well nigh perfect technical team aboard. Why then did I feel at the end of the evening as if I had bit into a hot apple pie, only to find the apples inside to be rather chilly?
Edson has skillfully constructed her tale of Vivian Bearing, Ph.D., a literature professor and scholar of the works of 17th-century poet John Donne, who takes us through her odyssey as an ultimately terminal ovarian cancer patient. We see brief flashes back to Vivian's past, but for the most part we see the long, arduous, hospital-bound treatment period. Edson indicts modern hospitals and physicians, save for an isolated humanitarian nurse, pretty severely without losing humor. We want to feel for Vivian Bearing, enduring a regimen of cancer treatments so intense they would break the average person, with nary a friend or family member around to offer any support, thanks to Bearing having warded off all such relationships by her brittle, caustic behavior. When she is nearly resuscitated, against explicit, documented orders after her heart fails, it is a gut-wrenching moment.
But the playwright isn't going after our tearducts here, and Benson's direction and leading lady Megan Cole are determined not to, either. Cole is always interesting and vastly amusing recounting Bearing's journey, but she also seems, apart from a few moments, to be acting very hard, and so we never feel like we get to know the insides of Vivan Bearing. The actress writhes and screams in her agony, but only really affects us in the later scenes, in which, deprived of much dialogue due to the character's advanced illness, she is forced to endure a supposedly comforting visit from one of her mentors. Every look on Cole's face in this scene speaks volumes, as does her rapture in the play's final moments, when Vivian's spirit, finally freed from her mortal coil, embraces the light.
Although veteran actor Peter Silbert is wasted in the thinly written role of Dr. Kelekian, Liz McCarthy offers a vibrant and unclich d turn as the warm, funny nurse Susie, who cracks through Bearing's icy shell, and Jean Burch Falls is memorable and touching as E.M. Ashford, the former professor who makes the hospital visit. Brian Drillinger earns laughs as the increasingly irritating and pompous Dr. Posner. Scott Weldin's set, a spare, cold, and impersonal evocation of a hospital, meshes perfectly with Paulie Jenkins' memorably harsh lighting design. Michael Roth's music and sound design unobtrusively underscore the action. In the end though, more heart and less wit might have helped the play live up to its reputation.
"Wit," presented by the Seattle Repertory Theatre at the Leo K. Theatre, Seattle Center, Seattle. Tues.-Sun. 7:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 2:00 p.m. Oct. 11-Nov. 20. $39-42. (206) 443-2222.
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ACTS OF GRACE 3: KITCHENS
at the Egyptian Arena Theatre
Reviewed by Madeleine Shaner
Natalija Nogulich and the Grace Players continue their three evenings of specifically themed works in Acts of Grace 3: Theatres, Kitchens, and Train Stations. Thursday's plays, supposedly set in kitchens, stay generally within the theme, although L.O.L. (Laughing Out Loud) and a rough adaptation of Chekhov's The Bear, here called The Brute, stretch the concept somewhat. But, as always, the Grace Players suit their productions to their moniker, achieving wit, charm, and, yes, grace with minimal ambience and little help from settings or lighting.
L.O.L. (Laughing Out Loud), written by Travis Michael Holder and directed by Scott Cheek, is a nicely slick, cleanly written and directed piece that relies for its effect on the blithe, modern shorthand of the Internet set. Fast-paced and funny, it features Cary (Melissa Swazey) and Terry (Christopher Crabb) on duelling computers, building up to a virtual love affair. Both fair specimens of breezy pre-millennial youth, they've never met, but of course they must. Credit the playwright with having conquered the essence of an increasingly isolated society, in which communication depends on quick-witted fingers doing the walking in a dot.com world. Surprise, surprise-things aren't always what they seem, as Billy (Darwin Alton) and Tony (Holder) can attest.
Valentine's Day, written by Paul Jordan and directed by Nogulich, makes a few lighthearted comments about man/woman, mother/son relationships in a situation that could have called for melodrama but instead snacks on small insights. Tom (Earl Carroll), Mitch (Paul DiPaola, also known as playwright Paul Jordan), and Davey (Don Durrell) are in the collection business. Their target, even though it's Valentine's Day, is restaurant owner Lou, who's run out on his debt and his wife, also called Lou (Maria Vitulli). These gentle gangsters need Angie (Francine Markow), Tom's feisty mother, to guide them in the difficult task of shaking down a woman, a beautiful one at that, who holds considerable appeal for the young Mitch. Cute and funny, intelligently resisting clich , Jordan's play is a well-rounded piece of fluff, lightweight but entertaining, with fine performances.
Sandwiched between these two is a rather stuffy piece of ersatz Chekhov, The Brute, poorly adapted by little-known Riccardo Borserini from the Russian modernist's The Bear and directed by Nogulich. Jan Cobler is Popova, the grieving widow, confronted with a boorish Smirnov (Avner Garbi), who seeks repayment of a debt owed by Popova's dead husband. The drunken Smirnov challenges the fiery widow to a duel, only to discover she's more than a match for him, which makes her a lot more attractive. While the acting is fair, especially in light of a translation bristling with anachronisms, the piece is so out of keeping with the other plays that it's hard to keep it in focus.
"Acts of Grace 3: Theatres, Kitchens, and Trains," presented by the Grace Players Theatre Company and Natalija Nogulich at the Egyptian Arena Theatre, 1625 Las Palmas Ave., Hollywood. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m. ("Kitchen" plays on Thurs., "Train Station" plays on Fri., "Theatre" plays on Sat.). Oct. 21-Nov. 20. $10. (323) 464-1222.
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ACTS OF GRACE 3: THEATRES
at the Egyptian Arena Theatre
Reviewed by Madeleine Shaner
The theme of Saturday evening's plays in the Grace Players' one-act festival is theatre itself. Frederic Hunter's Concertina, directed by Natalija Nogulich, takes place in a concert hall where old friends Jean and Roger Vogel (Susan Damante Shaw and Travis Michael Holder) and Peter and Cinthy Douglas (Jon Bruno and Kathleen Walker), socialite symphony-goers, await the arrival of old pal Scott (A.V. Tosh), who's done the unspeakable-left his wife, smashed all the windows in her dress shop, and taken up with a young girl.
The husbands aren't that interested in the subject of the women's gossip until Scott arrives with his new bird in tow. The sexy Karen (Misty Carlisle, who's a tad too close in age to the older women to be a convincing bimbette) turns all heads, setting a number of fantasies in motion. Whereas music is obviously not the reason they're all there, gossip, lust, and curiosity are.
Each of the characters acts out his or her fantasy as they sit in a tight row of seats, totally oblivious to the concert. Roger is working on a marketing plan for a new candy bar called "Eat-ums"; Cinthy is writing a play in her head about six people going to the symphony; Peter is swinging high with Scott's little cupcake, while the cupcake herself is mightily concerned with world politics. There are some wildly funny scenes in which the whole group goes into a song and dance routine they remembered from a college production of Swan Lake: The Musical, a highly successful show that should have made it to the Great White Way had it not been so awful.
Despite the necessarily static set-up, Nogulich keeps the action lively, and swell performances and fairly adult humor make this an entertaining souffl that threatens to fall only when it begins to overstay its welcome.
Chekhov's Swan Song, in a long-winded adaptation by Riccardo Borserini, directed by Avner Garbi, is virtually a solo piece for veteran actor John Ryan. The old actor, Vassily Vassilytich (Ryan), drunk with age and vodka, is bemoaning his sore head, his age, and his life after a hefty celebration that has left him surveying his mortality. In the middle of the night, when all but aged servant Nikita Ivanitch (Darwin Alton) are fast abed, Vassily is intent on summing up his life. For the first few minutes of the drunken soliloquy, his words are unintelligible-intentionally or not, it's not clear. After the initial lack of clarity, Ryan seems to find his stride. But though Ryan is a sure and capable actor, the monologue drags along on one note for far too long.
"Acts of Grace 3: Theatres, Kitchens, and Trains," presented by the Grace Players Theatre Company and Natalija Nogulich at the Egyptian Arena Theatre, 1625 Las Palmas Ave., Hollywood. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m. ("Kitchen" plays on Thurs., "Train Station" plays on Fri., "Theatre" plays on Sat.). Oct. 21-Nov. 20. $10. (323) 464-1222.
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THE FALL FROM PRECIOUS
at the Third Street Theatre
Reviewed by Anne Louise Bannon
The writing in this one-woman exploration of innocence lost and innocence found again is witty and on the refreshing side. However, based on the performance on the night reviewed, one gets the feeling that the one woman, Rena Malin, has been down this specific road too many times, and yet has not gone far enough.
Malin wrote the show. This is its second incarnation, the first being a production in Chicago four years ago. It's a deeply personal series of stories about her fairly short life in which she progressively grows more and more wise to the ways of the world.
Precious here is that sweet, little-girl innocence-as in "Isn't she precious!" That Malin finds it again with a new, more mature understanding of innocence and wonder in a squalid, dangerous world should bring the evening full circle. But it doesn't. The show's throughlines are weak-the stories follow one another in roughly chronological order and without a clear progression of ideas. Also, Malin herself isn't exactly in the crone stage of life. Virginity aside, she's still pretty much a fresh young maid, and her observations, though astute for someone so young, ring a little shallow to those of us facing the end of our childbearing years.
For all Malin may be lacking in the maturity department, she certainly has an intimacy with this show few performers can claim. Yet on the night reviewed, she stumbled several times over words she not only wrote but obviously knows from her deepest self, which suggests that her concentration was not all it could have been. Perhaps she's done this a few too many times?
Director Meredith A. Patt has Malin working at a decent pace. Patt also puts Malin's ballet training to good use, with stage pictures only a dancer could present. Jonathan Klein's lighting helps move the evening along, and Ross' exquisitely simple set is a literally a perfect frame for the storytelling.
But this is Malin's show from start to finish, and she's pretty cute. In fact, Malin still hasn't fallen from precious-at most, she's stumbled.
"The Fall From Precious," presented by Ola Productions at the Third Street Theatre, 8140 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m. Oct. 15-Nov. 20. $12. (818) 380-1576.
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DAMN YANKEES
at Plummer Auditorium
Reviewed by Terri Roberts
There's a scene early in Fullerton Civic Light Opera's production of that rousing crowd pleaser Damn Yankees (music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, book by George Abbott and Douglas Wallop) in which baseball hopeful Joe Hardy is out on the field demonstrating his long-hit prowess to the coach and players of the struggling Washington Senators. What should be a hefty crack of the bat as Joe sends 'em flying sounds more like an anemic pair of drumsticks being rapped together. The effect is weak, and doesn't carry the weight necessary for the moment.
It's a feeling that carries through the rest of the show as well. Though there's a lot of splendid singing to be heard (most notably John Holder as Joe, who not only possesses a gorgeous, full-throated voice, but, God bless him, has wonderfully clear, crisp diction as well), the acting and choreography are often on par with those drumsticks-a little lightweight.
Director/choreographer Rob Barron generally seems to have gone for the most simplistic approach possible. This is fine at times, but there are moments of decision and realization-such as when senior citizen Joe Boyd (Pat Hanrahan) accepts Applegate's (a.k.a. the Devil, slyly played by David Allen Jones) offer to trade his soul for a chance to be a young ballplayer with the Senators and help them beat the Yankees in the pennant race, or when young Joe Hardy starts to understand what he's given up when he sees his beloved wife, Meg (Lisa Robinson) again-moments which fly by unrecognized. Too bad. Such moments are what lend a level of poignancy to the show, and that level is entirely missing here.
In the choreography department, "Shoeless Joe From Hannibal, Mo" and "Two Lost Souls" are enthusiastic exceptions to what is otherwise a lot of low-energy strutting and posing. Maria Eberline, beautiful in both looks and voice, is a bit young for temptress Lola, but she still pulls off the role in commendable fashion. Her strip routine in "Whatever Lola Wants" falls a bit flat at the end, but she's more than redeemed in the jazzy "Two Lost Souls" duet between her and Joe.
Jones' Applegate has a Bing Crosby-like charm and is quick of smile and deft of hand with the old cigarette trick. But whose idea was it to dress him in a red-and-black checkered coat for his showstopper ode to deceit and corruption, "Those Were the Good Old Days," when the set is painted in fiery flames of red, black, and gold? In a number where the Devil should be a standout, he actually becomes hard to distinguish from the set.
All told, while this Damn Yankees may not be the home run hit Fullerton CLO hoped for, it's a pleasant enough diversion for an evening's entertainment.
"Damn Yankees," presented by Fullerton Civic Light Opera at Plummer Auditorium, 201 East Chapman Ave., Fullerton. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m. Oct. 15-31. $14-35. (714) 879-1732.
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CRIMES OF THE HEART
at the Falcon Theatre
Reviewed by Wenzel Jones
Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning script, which pretty much set the standard for Southern Gothic estrogen fests when it opened in New York in 1980, is offered up by Garry Marshall as the opening production of his inaugural season at the Falcon Theatre in an almost sedated state. His flair for women's films has not, alas, translated to the stage.
In a pecan shell, Babe (Crystal Bernard, in a bushel of hair and anklets) has shot her husband, her sister Lenny (Faith Ford) despairs of ever finding one, and their sister Meg (Stephanie Niznik), the one who left town for the bright lights of Hollywood, is back in Hazelhurst, Miss., with her tail between her easily spread legs. Parents, dead; Grandma, dead; Grandpa, dying offstage. The preternaturally beautiful Morgan Fairchild has been cast as cousin Chick, the relative who has deemed it her responsibility to stop by and micromanage the girls' lives. The rest of her time is apparently spent at home being further airbrushed.
Marshall shows a tin ear for Southern speech patterns, so pretty much what you hear is what they're saying, with none of that wicked nuance for which the region and its women are famous. And his pacing is deadly; the scenes play out with the regularity of beads on a very long string. Even when Babe offers to make lemonade at uncomfortable moments, it always plays as if the issue is thirst and nothing more. Ford, quite winningly, does her best to bind the show with her performance but, absent a sure directorial hand, the characters exist unto themselves, with little connection actually taking place.
This is unfortunate in a play the whole point of which is sisterly bonds; it would appear the only thing these women ever shared was a rehearsal period. Jake Wall is quite wonderful as Babe's boyish defense lawyer.
Akeime Mitterlehner's set is a lovely if inconsistent thing: There's grime on the realistic cupboards, yet the walls are pristine white lace (of the girdle panel variety) lit from behind. There's not just a nicely lit kitchen but a back porch, which Dan Weingarten keeps dark, as if it's eternally nine p.m. out there, even though characters enter wearing sunglasses. The notion of placing a phone jack beneath the kitchen sink is intriguing.
"Crimes of the Heart," presented by Garry Marshall at the Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Dr., Burbank. Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3:30 p.m. Oct. 19-Nov. 28. $22-30. (818) 955-8101.