A PERFECT GANESH
at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
Reviewed by Les Spindle
Terrence McNally never ceases to amaze. For more than 30 years, this prolific American playwright has provided us with some of the most invigorating new works in American theatre. His masterful body of work encompasses heartrending tragicomedy (Lisbon Traviata, Love! Valour! Compassion!), scintillating biographical drama (Master Class), delicious farce (The Ritz, It's Only a Play), and prize-winning books for acclaimed musical dramas (Ragtime, Kiss of the Spider Woman). Add to that illustrious list the deeply moving but lesser-known 1993 seriocomedy A Perfect Ganesh. Where has this jewel of a play been hiding?
In the Odyssey Theatre's triumphant production of this inspirational play, director Allan Miller and a superbly talented cast show us a side of McNally we haven't quite seen before. The play is infused with tragedy, but there is a sweetness of tone, a gentle embodiment of spirituality that is far more ethereal than anything McNally has written before. Bringing together the mystical beauty of ancient Hindu religious beliefs with the spiritual crisis of two troubled contemporary women, McNally creates a cathartic experience that is overflowing with lyricism, wit, poignancy, and truth.
Set in 1988, the story tells of two middle-aged Connecticut women who journey to Bombay, India, in search of recreation and meaning in their lives. Both Margaret (Louise Sorel) and Katharine (Lois Nettleton) have suffered grievous tragedies from which they have never recovered, and Margaret is also dealing with the recent discovery of a lump on her breast. Margaret is an uptight, cantankerous woman who initally seems shut off to adventure and self-discovery, while the more optimistic Katharine is anxious to embrace the visceral and life-affirming qualities of the Indian culture.
We also meet the Hindi elephant-head deity Ganesha (or Ganesh), who is empowered with helping mortal souls overcome obstacles and achieve success. The omnipresent Ganesha (Bernard White) is a calming presence who materializes in the flesh as several loving people of various ethnicity whom the women meet during their journey. Likewise, Margaret's son Walter (Christopher Randolph), who was ruthlessly murdered at the hands of gay bashers, not only appears to Margaret as his own spirit, but also to both women as various individuals they meet along the way. The people the women encounter have a profound impact on the healing of their emotional wounds and the significance of their miraculous inner journeys.
Under Miller's eloquent direction, the flawless ensemble is highlighted by Sorel's bravura turn as a woman who slowly learns to shed her bitterness and pent-up despair, which is complemented perfectly by Nettleton's splendid portrait of a human anxiously striving to exorcise her feelings of guilt. Both Randolph and White are impressively versatile in their sterling interpretations of diverse characters who share a spiritual center.
The production design is equally divine: Don Llewyllyn's artfully realized basic grey set of platforms surrounded by a mountainous terrain, lovely costumes by the ever-reliable Anna Wycoff, Kevin McDaniel's splendidly atmospheric sound effects, and Lisa Katz's ravishing lighting. This powerful production is among the finest offerings I have ever seen on a Los Angeles stage.
"A Perfect Ganesh," presented by and at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd,. Los Angeles. July 18-Aug 30. (310) 477-2055.
EVERYMAN IN
THE MALL
at the Santa Monica Place Mall
Reviewed by Richard Scaffidi
"Explore the meaning of existence--and maybe do a little shopping." So says the invitation extended by Cornerstone Theater Company to any and all seeking a night of creative environmental theatre, a thoughtful message--and a workout. Call it good exercise for both body and soul. More exactly, call it Everyman in the Mall, an updated, uptempo, and occasionally uproarious retelling of Everyman, the quintessential Christian morality play written anonymously in Europe, probably during the 15th century.
To give it a 1990s L.A. sensibility, Shishir Kurup and Bill Rauch have jointly adapted and directed the play so that it is conspicuously multicultural, and more universally themed than specifically Christian. For instance, one God has been replaced by the spirited foursome of Kali, Yahweh, Athena, and Ogun. Also, the show's fine cast--four men and four women offering a resplendent array of skin tones, surnames, attitudes, and accents--portrays about 20 vivid characters. This includes the role of Everyman himself/herself being portrayed by a six-actor tag team, and four players rotating as Everyman's inevitable adversary, Death.
It's enough to keep you on your toes--and certainly on your feet--as the audience must chase the show's action throughout a shopping mall (after hours). It's quite a romp, taking us through smoky back corridors, up and down stairways, peering over ledges and up into rafters. There are scenes in elevators, fountains, landings, window displays, you name it. One favorite moment has Everyman's "coat of contrition" accidentally-on-purpose draped over a "Godiva Chocolatier" sign so that what we read is "God." Everyman in the Mall is unusual, audacious, and a kick to behold.
What all this action entails is the colorful allegory of Everyman's task to face Death as best he can. See, the gods have decreed that Everyman's "reckoning" is imminent, but they will allow him to improve his prospects for a favorable afterlife by letting him bring along his most defining treasures. One by one, however, these prove to be inadequate: The likes of Fellowship, Kindred, Goods, Strength, and Beauty (all personified by actors) abandon Everyman, because such qualities are useless before Death. Even Knowledge, after leading Everyman to Confession and Penance, cannot stand with him through the end. The only companion who matters at final judgment is Good Deeds.
Peter Howard, who portrays Good Deeds, is particularly effective in that and several other roles. Page Leong is strong, too, with her most memorable scene coming as she embodies worldly Goods in the form of a seductive, mini-skirted, blonde-wigged mannequin. Armando Molina and C.J. Jones also score big as they play Kindred and Cousin, utilizing some particularly clever staging on one of the mall's escalators.
Like the original Everyman, this is Theology Lite--moral instruction theatrically crafted for mass consumption, and presented in a fresh, accessible, enjoyable way: the Cornerstone way.
"Everyman in the Mall," presented by the Cornerstone Theater Company at the Santa Monica Place Mall, July 16-19; Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, July 30-Aug. 2; Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Aug. 6-9. (310) 449-1700.
REQUEST CONCERT
At the Whitefire Theatre
Reviewed by Kevin Salveson
Attending the one-woman virtuoso performance of Franz Kroetz's Request Concert starring Edith Fields is like breaking into your neighbor's apartment when they're not home. Everything's quiet-- too quiet. Here and there you spy the personal effects of the person you often only bid hello to on the street. Within this inner sanctum, however, the minutiae of her life is magnified: Who's in the picture on the bureau? What kind of a person would be working on a needlepoint picture of sunflowers, and why?
We hear a car pull up. It's frumpy Ms. Rasch (Edith Fields), who unlocks the door and enters with a sigh. For the next hour and a half we will observe her as if we had just ducked into the closet seconds before the door swung open. We'll watch her go through her absent-minded cleaning, cooking, and sewing routines, interrupted only by the occasional siren or barking dog emanating from outside her sanctuary in America's suburban night.
Now, our first reaction as an audience may be: We have better things to do with our evening than to watch a woman clip coupons. Yet our fascination never falters. Why? Because Kroetz's theatre is about Rasch's desperation. Her fastidious rituals--like the way she washes her hands compulsively--reveal a character with whom we soon begin to feel intimate. Maybe she's even a bit like us. Watching the routine of her private life is like going to the zoo to see the Human Exhibition, where we find a curious and vaguely unhappy creature within the cage of an unfulfilling suburban domestica. Peering out between the blinds to spy the life outside results only in her displeasure at finding dust on the windowsill.
Obviously, Kroetz's message is that the modern human condition is one of disassociation and anguish in a world in which many live alone and unfulfilled. Fields' brilliantly studied performance captures this without a word. Her ability to be in the moment, carrying out the small tasks of existence, while obviously lost somewhere else in the land of memory paints a portrait of anxiety and disconnection for which we feel empathy. To focus so completely on mundane tasks and yet still revel an inner life is a supreme challenge for an actress. As she explained in a post-performance discussion--clearly showing relief at finally getting a chance to speak--Fields rises to the challenge by following an interior script of thoughts which she associates with the play's "lines" (really just a list of stage directions).
Request Concert may be a solo piece, but the excellent down-to-the-last-detail set by Victoria Profitt and convincing sound design of Bob Blackburn are also essential to giving us the feeling that we're spies in the house of alienation. Kudos to all the people who made this difficult play work, especially veteran director Michael Arabian, whose sure hand clearly helped Fields define the purpose behind her character's every movement.
"Request Concert," presented by Judy Arnold at the Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Apr. 18-Aug. 1. (323) 960-7754.
THE LAST TYCOON
at the Fountain Theatre
Reviewed by J. Brenna Guthrie
In 1939, frustrated by a failing career as a screenwriter, F. Scott Fitzgerald started work on a new novel about Hollywood, loosely based on the life of producer Irving Thalberg. The Last Tycoon was Fitzgerald's most ambitious novel, and was left unfinished when the writer died suddenly of a heart attack in December, 1940. Now, Fountain Theatre producing director and dramaturg Simon Levy has successfully adapted Fitzgerald's compelling story about the fall of Hollywood producer Monroe Stahr for the stage.
This is familiar territory for Levy, whose superb adaptation of another Fitzgerald novel, Tender Is the Night, won him the 1996 PEN West Literary Award for Drama. But while that was a straightforward adaptation, Levy faced substantial problems in working with a story that was never truly complete. While he has made substantial changes to Fitzgerald's work, he has kept the spirit alive in a way that makes this adaptation not only a companion piece to the novel but almost a greater story than Fitzgerald had a chance to imagine, and, in a way, a tribute to this literary legend's own life.
Levy, who also brilliantly serves as the piece's director, has focused the action on the two most important aspects of Stahr's (Lawrence Monoson) life: his fight with studio head Pat Brady (Tony Goodstone) about artistic achievement vs. profit margins, and his growing attraction to an unobtainable woman (Karen Tucker) who is a dead ringer for his late wife. As in the novel, the story is told by Cecelia Brady (Julia Coffey), Brady's college-aged daughter, whose love for Stahr makes her a reverential, if at times unreliable, narrator. While the story is essentially a Greek tragedy, the Depression-era Hollywood setting allows the audience an admiration for Stahr and his ideas, making his downfall less of a matter of hubris than another Hollywood legend in the making.
Monoson is the perfect Monroe Stahr: His good looks and compelling stage presence, not to mention his superb acting chops, give him that indefinable aura that is the hallmark of any great movie star. Coffey and Tucker are fine leading ladies in their own right, and play wonderfully against Monoson (though they seem less comfortable affecting the attitudes and posturing of the era). The supporting cast is as outstanding as the leads--from Goodstone's blustering Brady to Nathan LeGrand's alcoholic Southern screenwriter Wylie White (read: William Faulkner). A trio of actors (Rebecca Roy, Marty Pistone, and Gary Bullock) are called upon to play multiple roles, and do so with such success that at times it's hard to believe the same actor is playing Stahr's mother and secretary (Roy) or Stahr's doctor and a Greek cinematographer (Pistone).
Giving a wonderful finished quality to the piece are the exquisite '30s-era costumes designed by Jeanne Reith Waterman and the versatile and stunning Art Deco sets credited to Sets To Go. Completing the picture is Evan Mower's wonderful film and still photography work, which allows the story to realistically move locations on the simple stage. For anyone who is a fan of the movies, and especially for fans of Fitzgerald's work, this is an evening of theatre not to be missed.
"The Last Tycoon," presented by and at the Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood. July 17-Aug. 16. (213) 663-1525.
BIG HUNK O'
BURNIN' LOVE
at the David Henry Hwang Theatre
Reviewed by Terri Roberts
Talk about being burned out on the single life! Winston's got a real problem here. He's five days shy of his 30th birthday, and has just discovered he may not make it past that landmark date. Seems that generations ago, a jilted bride put a terrible curse on the fiancÆ’ who abandoned her at the altar--and on all his male relatives to come. Since then, every man in Winston's family who's hit the big 3-0 with a naked ring finger has burst into a blazing display of one-man pyrotechnics!
Spontaneous human combustion isn't a subject normally explored as comedy material, but playwright Prince Gomolvilas and director Chay Yew fan the flames of possibilities with mostly delightful results in Big Hunk O' Burnin' Love, the third production in East West Players' inaugural season in its new Downtown home. Not only is this the world premiere of Big Hunk, but the show is also the first non-musical in EWP's new theatre (which opened with the exquisite Pacific Overtures, followed by Robert Lee and Leon Ko's musical history lesson, Heading East), and marks the first time EWP has produced a show by a Thai American playwright.
In Big Hunk, Gomolvilas has the sweet-but-shy and very self-conscious Winston (played to nerdy perfection by Eric Steinberg) and his white ex-girlfriend, Sylvia (Kelly Coffield), simultaneously facing volcanic eruptions in their lives: Winston discovers he needs to marry within five days if he wants to live, and Sylvia discovers she has breast cancer. To complicate things further, Sylvia is now married to Nick (a somewhat stilted Steve Park), Winston's best friend. Winston's parents (the very funny Jeanne Sakata and Dennis Dun) are determined to have their son marry within their culture, and arrange for a young Thai girl named Noi (Kerri Higuchi) to be his bride. But Winston is holding out for love. After all, even if he marries the wrong person, divorce would still turn him into toast. He's gotta get it right the first time out. (No explanation is given, however, of what happens to these men if their wives die or leave them, or if they step outside their vows and have an affair.)
Silently surrounding all this comic catastrophe, but unnoticed by the cast, are the remains of Winston's male relatives. They're under the bright yellow couch, surrounding the big red chair, and lining the cold metal rows of a towering industrial shelf unit--big, clear glass jars filled with the sandy gray ashes of dozens of dead 30-year-old bachelors. It's an imposing sight.
There's considerable lightheartedness and charm in Big Hunk, and that is the show's strength. But there are lengths of seriousness, dealing with Sylvia's breast cancer and her marriage troubles, that stretch out too far. The comedy/drama balance simply needs some readjustment. Joyce Kim Lee's bright costumes and Akeime Mitterlehner's feverish set help keep the hot images of Winston and Sylvia's parallel stories--fire and radiation--burning. Nathan Wang's sound and Lisa Hashimoto's lights have a startling energy of their own.
"Big Hunk O' Burnin' Love," presented by East West Players at the David Henry Hwang Theatre in the Union Center for the Arts, 120 North Judge John Aiso St., Downtown Los Angeles. July 15-Aug. 2. (800) 233-3123.
OTHELLO
At the Santa Monica Playhouse
Reviewed by Michael Jordan
Director Obi Ndefo, with co-adaptor Daren Rice, has marvelously seized this Shakespearean classic and boldly retold the story as minimalist performance art. While they mean paring down the script to an intermissionless one-act and trimming the company to five actors, Ndefo and Rice's risky notions pale next to the big gamble. The biggest risk is that Othello here is not black--and the effect pays off.
Without "playing the race card," the story focuses more tightly on the brilliant manipulations of Iago. His sinister plans unfold so easily that it chills the heart. Briskly paced and diligently retaining humor, the dark story still entertains. Ndefo and the Attic Room's industrial/organic sound design hypnotically swells the barbaric emotionality of the piece, combining with the handsome but uncredited costumes and lighting design. The set, by Ndefo, Rice, and Karyl Newman, contributes to the cinematic visual creativity, though it does require a few too many blackouts.
Rice smartly plays Iago, meticulously interpreting the treacherous sociopath as an omnipotent, diabolical wizard. Lara Baird breaks out as Emilia, grounding the complex role in heartful realism. Inara George's delicately passionate Desdemona innocently identifies with the audience, and Erik Krisch as Cassio pulls his weight evenly.
Unfortunately, Phillip Moon as Othello himself disappoints. While handsome and charismatic, his scansion falters, rendering the verse as mere word salad. Still, even this is not enough to detract from the effect of a fine, bold production.
"Othello," presented by Open Door TheatreWorks at the Santa Monica Playhouse, 1211 Fourth St., Santa Monica. July 8-Aug. 14. (310) 394-9779.
RICHARD II
at University Theatre
Reviewed by Dianne Zuckerman
A striking Richard II marks an auspicious start for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's planned eight-play series of the Bard's cycle based on the epic War of the Roses. Director James Symons has staged a clear, compelling look at the battle for power between the Houses of Lancaster and York, as Bolingbroke--the future King Henry IV--forces the ordained but ineffectual King Richard II from the English throne.
David Barber's clean-lined scenic design gleams under Richard Devin's subtle lighting. The setting makes a perfect backdrop for Janice Benning's rich costumes and provides a riveting atmosphere for a play that hums with poetry and philosophical insights, all of which get their due as delivered by the strong cast.
Political ambition and the mishandling of power dog the English court as the saga follows Richard II from haughty sovereign, cloaked in blood-red robes and false security, to vulnerable prisoner, shorn of his royal garb and long, regal locks. At the heart of the show, William Westenberg's Richard is both eloquent and intimate, tracing the king's journey of upheaval to where Richard sits on a shadowed stage, personal awareness supplanting lost public support. Randy Howk's noble, charismatic Bolingbroke is every inch the supremely controlled ascending star, whether hollow-eyed with rage as Richard refuses to let him settle a grudge with the steely Thomas Mowbray (good work by Christopher Ferry), or triumphant but restrained as he eyes Richard's waiting crown.
Among many notable performances, Chuck Wilcox makes a touching John of Gaunt, whose impending death parallels his grief for England's looming crisis, and Ray Kemble's Duke of York is as honorable as he is distressed over divided loyalties. In other standout supporting roles, Kaitlin O'Neal is Richard's intensely loyal queen and Jordan Gelber plays the Bishop of Carlisle with grace and presence.
"Richard II," presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival at University Theatre, University of Colorado/Boulder campus. July 5-Aug. 15. (303) 492-0554.
IRS--I WANT YOU
at Santa Fe Bar and Grill
Reviewed by Kerry Reid
If, as Benjamin Franklin observed, nothing is certain in this life but death and taxes, it is indeed strange that the latter has so seldom been the subject of dramatic exploration. Berkeley's Central Works Theater Ensemble, inspired (or horrified?) by last year's Congressional investigations into the heavy-handed tactics of the Internal Revenue Service, have crafted a new work that takes aim at the agency, with decidedly mixed, though often undeniably funny results.
Gary Graves penned IRS--I Want You through a collaborative process ˆ la Britain's Joint Stock company. And while the final product certainly raises chilling questions about the sweeping abuses of power present in the IRS, the play, under Jan Zvaifler's direction, tiptoes around the central conflict surrounding taxation in the United States. That conflict was perhaps best enunciated by humorist Roy Blount Jr., who described the basic American idea of civil services vs. civic duty as, "One: I am entitled to everything. Two: Taxes are bad."
To the great credit of Zvaifler and her four actors, the show moves quickly and with enough comic nuance that one doesn't realize its ultimate lack of depth until after it's over. One problem is that, though the plot is structured as a mystery waiting to be unraveled, no new revelations really come out about how the IRS became such a monolithic and hated entity. And let's face it, the IRS, as comic targets go, is about as easy and cheap a shot as televangelists.
Crusading reporter Nick Lansing (Deb Fink, in a performance that is an obvious homage to The Front Page) follows a series of leads that include the Year 2000 bug, anarchists, glory-seeking U. S. Senators, and a cross-section of Americans persecuted by overzealous quota-filling IRS agents and their superiors. While we are treated to a cursory explanation of flat-rate taxes and the like, Graves' script over-explains subjects the audience is probably familiar with (such as the Y2K "virus"), and never really talks about why so many Americans have such vehement distrust of their own government--this despite the heavy-handed symbolism of Lansing meeting one source, a disgruntled IRS agent, across from the bombed-out Federal building in Oklahoma City. Instead, the play feels like an uneasy cross between Civics 101 and Saturday Night Live.
However, when Graves' script departs from pseudo-documentary into the surreal, it works well. Dominic Riley and Calum Grant shine in a running series of Kafka-esque scenes as a befuddled taxpayer and a malevolent IRS bureaucrat, respectively. And the documentary-style presentation of taxpayer horror stories does pay off big-time in one instance: Rica Anderson's beautifully modulated monologue as a middle-aged woman whose life has been turned upside down by the threats and invasions of the IRS.
Zvaifler and the entire cast (all of whom are playing multiple roles) deserve credit for the smooth transitions between scenes in the intimate, but challenging space at the Santa Fe Bar and Grill. And Chad Owens' backdrop of a Jasper Johns-like American flag with lines from the Bill of Rights penned on it works well for suggesting some key points about what it means to be a taxpaying citizen. I just wish Graves' script had gone deeper into exploring some of those issues, instead of re-hashing episodes from Nightline.
"IRS--I Want You," presented by Central Works Theater Ensemble at the Santa Fe Bar and Grill, 1310 University Ave., Berkeley. July 17-Aug. 23. (925) 798-1300.
JACKSON POLLOCK: PAINTING ON THE EDGE
at the Fremont Centre Theatre
reviewed by Brad Schreiber
Bearing the moniker "Jack the Dripper" was one of the great, alcoholism-inducing burdens painter Jackson Pollock had to endure, according to co-playwrights William Mesnik and Stuart Brown in Jackson Pollock: Painting on the Edge. And the creators of this two-hander deserve praise for attempting to step outside theatrical boundaries in this production at South Pasadena's air-conditioned, power substation-like Fremont Centre Theatre.
While Pollock (John Harnagel) is interviewed by a journalist (Cynthia Mace) who alternately morphs into his frustrated artist wife Lee Krasner or his female shrink, tonal shifts jar and the design elements struggle to keep up, marring the surface of this unfulfilled bio. We're slathered with plenty of Pollock's beer-swilling rage, accusing the fawning writer interloper in his Springs, New York seaside barn, "You need a trend to tell you what to think." Harnagel tends to be one color--mad--and it is his agonized, drunken parting with Krasner which brings the most emotional focus to the play.
But it's like Kandinsky slammed onto the same canvas as Klimt: Mesnik and Brown cannot make up their own rules of fluidity, having the actors on all fours like dogs for a minute, then arguing ˆ la the soaps, with Harnagel forced to clumsily cajole, "Just be here and look at your own passions."
The deeper challenge with a play of this subject is to take more chances--to play it considerably more non-naturalistically throughout. Despite Mace's competent work, the transitions hinted at require greater technical skill than an average actress possesses. Better lighting and more of a costume budget would be nice, too. Director Donna Parish has her hands full, and disappointingly does not make the most of displaying her lead character at work. His painting on the floor canvas is surely not visible to the entire house. Sometimes, alas, going outside the lines means going outside of the sightlines.
"Jackson Pollock: Painting on the Edge," presented by the Fremont Centre Theatre and Dripper Productions at the Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., S. Pasadena. July 10-Aug. 2. (888) 441-5979.
BILLY BOB AND
THE GOSPEL
at the Tamarind Theatre
Reviewed by Polly Warfield
It takes nerve to be a playwright, and Peter Wren has it. Some incredible things happen in his play, such as a few 180-degree character switches and a miracle or two; occasional suspension of disbelief is required. Well, miracles have happened before, and what I say is, if a writer can't make his story turn out the way he wants to, why bother with it?
Wren sets Billy Bob and the Gospel in Appalachia, where his roots are, and populates it with characters one might view as archetypes. Preacherman Curtis, descended from a long line of religious hypocrites which includes Tartuffe, breathes fire and brimstone from his revival pulpit, threatening his gullible flock with eternal damnation if they don't cough up for the building fund; at home he's a redneck bully. Pearl, his choir leader at church and housekeeper at home, has big hair, a big smile, and a burning desire to be the next Loretta Lynn. She says a lot of men tell her she looks like Marilyn Monroe. They're wrong: Pearl is more Appalachia's Sophia Loren.
It comes as no surprise to find Pearl and Curtis indulging in some pretty kinky hanky-panky. His wife Ruth, blind from a suspicious hit in the head by a heavy object, sees and suspects nothing. But she's only human; since her husband hasn't laid a hand on her (except maybe in anger) since Pearl moved in, Ruth is beginning to feel neglected. When Curtis' brother Billy Bob arrives from jail, we expect complications and are not disappointed. Billy Bob, you see, was serving time for accidentally killing a man while trying to do a good deed. Life having dealt him such a dirty deal--including being cheated out of his rightful inheritance by Curtis, the rat--it's no wonder Billy Bob drinks to excess. At heart, though, he's a hero and Ruth knows it. After those one or two miracles, she and Billy Bob are looking forward to bliss on a fishing boat somewhere around Chesapeake Bay.
The actors are uniformly strong, especially in the showy roles. Wayne Duvall as Curtis is all bluster and swagger, and all mush inside when the chips are down. Jane George as Pearl sashays seductively in her Victoria's Secret negligee, but she has a kind of innate innocence, like the girl can't help it if she's sexy. Willowy Kirsten Gentile's Madonna-faced Ruth is sweetness and light incarnate. John K. Linton's flawed hero Billy Bob is a beat-up Orpheus descending into this hellhole of a household.
Director Ray Cochran moves the plentiful action right along. Candice Cain designed the appropriate costumes and Bryan Hornbeck created a lived-in-looking set, illumined by Bryan Hornbeck, to fit the Tamarind's broad, shallow stage.
"Billy Bob and the Gospel," presented by Shiloh Entertainment at the Tamarind Theatre, 5915 Franklin Blvd., Hollywood. (213) 660-8587.
LIVING QUARTERS:
AFTER HIPPOLYTUS
At the New Conservatory Theatre
Reviewed by Matthew Surrence
Brian Friel's 1977 memory play has one father--Euripides--and many godfathers: Brecht, Wilder, Pirandello, O'Neill, and Williams. Friel has incorporated some of those playwrights' experiments in form and content in his adaptation of Euripides's version of the ancient Greek story of Phaedra and Hippolytus, a tragic love triangle involving an absent older husband, his young wife, and his grown son.
In this mildly engaging DEO Ireland Theatre Company production, the characters of the drama enter, take their places, and mingle before the black-suited, script-toting narrator, Sir (Stephen Daly), begins to try to sort out and direct the onstage action, assuming a manner not unlike the nonchalant command of the stage manager in Our Town. But Sir's version of events is slightly challenged by some of the characters who, in quasi-Brechtian fashion, argue with him about the meaning of events and in somewhat Pirandellian fashion argue with him about their parts.
In director/designer Douglas H. Dildine's cozy-bordering-on-cramped set, bedroom, living room, and patio appear as one self-contained, slightly stacked space, bracketed by red-flecked black-and-white blowups of ancestral castles. For the first five minutes of the two-hour play, characters come onstage and take their positions: Barefooted young Ben (Nick Sholley) enters and lies down on an upstage center single bed, and is soon joined there by Anna (Mary Nitschke), his slim, pretty blonde stepmother, who lies with and embraces him.
Another couple, Charlie (Ciaran Holahan) and Miriam Donnelly (Oonagh Kavanagh), sit in a centerstage living room loveseat and chat quietly. Miriam, one of Ben's sisters, is a boisterous redhead; Charlie is an over-eager spear carrier in a three-piece suit. Ben's two other sisters, Helen (Bernadette McCarthy) and Tina (Karolyn Maureen Cable), sit on downstage patio furniture, in a tripartite stage picture that subtly elucidates one of Friel's themes: the blurring of boundaries between past, present, and future. Or, as Sir puts it in a quintessentially Irish phrase, "Endlessly raking over those dead episodes that can't be let in peace."
The tragedy's inevitable arc is set in motion with the triumphal homecoming of the clan's patriarch, Commandant Frank Butler (Mikel O'Riordan), and by the vain protestations by a priest (John Anthony Nolan), who tries to get the narrator to forestall the foretold end. But Friel's themes don't set off the visceral charge here that they do in, say, his luminous Dancing at Lughnasa. It all feels more like an intellectual exercise than a drama about the colliding passions that destroy lives.
That might also be due to the absence of compelling lead performances. There's not much military bearing in Frank, who is kept at a remove by the introspective, opaque O'Riordan; neither can we get a purchase on Sholley's genial but formless Ben; Nitschke only registers when she lards melodrama over Ana's final agony.
Although some of his staging on the New Conservatory's tiny black box is stiff, director Dildine does well with Nolan and Holahan, who handle their parts with aplomb, and with the three actresses, who are charming and convincing as the sisters. Indeed, Living Quarters comes most alive in the scenes that feature interaction among McCarthy's depressed, lovelorn Helen; Kavanagh's gossipy, obstinate Miriam, and Cable's needy, agreeable Tina.
A sweetly melancholic note is struck by black-turtlenecked Patrick Francis, the show's music director, whose discreet, Chekhovian guitar strumming underscores the overriding elegiac mood.
"Living Quarters: After Hippolytus," presented by DEO Ireland at the New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. July 16-Aug. 22. (415) 861-8972.
PRESENT LAUGHTER
at the Pasadena Playhouse
Reviewed by Polly Warfield
Everybody's favorite leading man Garry Essendine will grow old if he has to, kicking and screaming all the way, but he refuses to grow up. It's such fun being Peter Pan, and since everyone, including himself, is mad about the boy, why should he? No'l Coward, who created him, understood. He once told the BBC, "Of course Garry Essendine is me." So this is a roman ˆ clef, a delicious little inside joke on oneself.
Design-wise, this new Pasadena Playhouse Production is a visual delight. John Iacovelli's richly detailed multi-level set, depicting the sumptuous Mayfair digs of a reigning matinee idol, is a confection for the eyes in luscious hues of heliotrope and lilac, made more so by Monique L'Heureux's lighting. Randy Gardel's costumes, keyed to Dior's 1949 "New Look," are eye-filling and beautifully becoming.
But director Richard Seyd emphasizes the play's farcical aspects at the expense of its requisite airy nonchalance. Men in the cast especially push too hard, shouting louder and more often than necessary. Robert Curtis Brown's voice shows signs of strain, and his portrayal of everyone's favorite West End leading man is more early Jack Lemmon than vintage No'l Coward. Onstage, his unfurrowed face could be taken for a youth barely out of his teens, not fortysomething, and certainly not looking "95," as Essendine hyperbolically wails. Having seen Brown portray another type of Brit, and very well, too, in SCR's How the Other Half Loves, we conclude that the actor is miscast here.
As Liz, the spouse he can't do without, Finola Hughes is the wife every man needs: She's lovely and has one of those special voices that caress the ear with flute tones. (She also has her Private Lives' Amanda moments.) Essendine's other indispensible woman, his secretary, Monica (Audrey Neenan), is fit and trim after 17 years of serving her boss. Pretty blonde Kellie Waymire represents all the smitten young things who "loose their latchkeys" to fall at Essendine's feet in helpless adoration. Kaitlin Hopkins is movie-star gorgeous as Joanna, the predatory wife of Garry's associate. In her seduction scene of "provocative skirmishes," wearing a smashing gown that complements the room's dÆ’cor, she goes after Garry with the unerring aim of Diana the huntress.
Gloria Dotson is vivid in two contrasting roles, as Essendine's "Swedish spiritualist" housekeeper and as Daphne's aunt, a high-born dowager who might have inspired Coward's ditty, "Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs. Worthington" (or vice versa). Charles Levin plays Joanna's urbane, oft-cuckolded husband Henry Lyppiatt. As his associate and his wife's secret lover, Keith Langsdale appears deceptively suave until he cracks under the strain of jealousy and passion. Scott Lowell is over the top as Maule, a nervous, nerdy young playwright who comes to excoriate Essendine and swiftly becomes his worshipful convert. As the valet Fred, Gerald Emerick is jaunty and happily carrying on with that Swedish housekeeper.
Coward's point through all this is that finally the actor's mask has become fixed on Essendine; it won't come off, and he's stuck with it and his flock of hangers-on. Well, when the going gets tough, he can always sit down at the baby grand and warble a tune.
"Present Laughter," presented by and at the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. (800) 233-3123.
COLLECTED STORIES
at the Allen Theatre
Reviewed by David-Edward Hughes
The story told in Donald Margulies' play Collected Stories is hardly a new one: Crusty, set-in-his-ways older artist grudgingly takes on younger protÆ’gÆ’, whom, after some initial clashes, becomes a close companion and confidante. The ending is usually sad or at least bittersweet. This sort of tale has served film and theatre well, from Going My Way and The Corn Is Green through to Mass Appeal and Old Wicked Songs. Margulies unfortunately forgot to make either of his ladies very likable, though, and this bothered me throughout the current production at A Contemporary Theatre.
Ruth Steiner (Linda Stephens) is a famous middle-aged New York author, who invites an over-eager yet promising young student, Lisa Morrison (Kate Goehring), to her home to go over a class assignment. In slow-moving, episodic fashion, the relationship develops to a caring friendship, and reaches its zenith with the successful publication of Lisa's first collection of short stories. Later, hard pressed to find a follow-up for her first full-length novel, Lisa borrows the story outline from a long-ago romance her mentor had with a much older man. Ruth, by this point in declining health, feels this is a violation of the friendship and threatens a lawsuit. The friendship is damaged beyond repair.
This rather chilly and self-absorbed pair of women are not the type one wants to spend more than two and a half hours with, despite able direction by Kyle Donnelly, and some quite remarkable acting by Stephens and Goehring. Stephens plays Ruth brittle and acerbic as written, but also makes us feel for the character in the final scene, when both her health and her protÆ’gÆ’ are abandoning her. Goehring manages to convey her character's growth from gawky, hero-worshipping student to confident professional author quite well, and is especially good in the scene celebrating her book's good review in The Times. The pair also bring an undeclared sexual chemistry to the relationship, but the playwright has not chosen to flesh out this possible twist, and more's the pity.
The cluttered urban apartment dwelling set by Hugh Landwehr is well detailed and complemented by Scott Zielinski's muted lighting design.
"Collected Stories," presented by and at A Contemporary Theatre's Allen Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle. July 16-Aug. 9. (206) 292-7676.
ALL THE ANSWERS
at the Raven Playhouse
Reviewed by Anne Louise Bannon
Gentle readers, All the Answers is a pleasant little conceit, even if it takes the sobriquet "a comedy of manners" a tad too literally. A musical satire of Judith Martin's "Miss Manners" column, Terry Miller's play has matriarch Miss Demeanor (Candyce Columbus) leading her six fellow cast members through the tribulations of finding just the right thing to say or do to the bliss of correctness, a state in which those who behave kindly and properly achieve their goals.
The script is charming--even the point at which Miss Demeanor helps the scurrilous slimeball Artie Rudesby (Tom Metcalf) proposition his all-too-eager secretary Penelope Gaffe (Fran Maddocks) in a way that leaves her every opportunity to turn him down. Alas, the same cannot be said for Tim Price and Mike Dana's music, which sounds like at least three other shows. (It would seem discourteous to call attention to such flaws, but your reporter is called upon to do just that.) Two numbers do work, largely on the strength of playwright Miller's lyrics: The well-bred Helen Upscale (Karyn O'Bryant) defends herself against all kinds of disgusting personal revelations with "How Nice for You," presenting instruction as well as amusement. "Please Take No for an Answer" is similar, albeit this time it is the put-upon Kathy Cope (Melissa Malone) who finds a way to politely decline at last.
Both Ms. Malone and Ms. O'Bryant put in two of the better performances in the cast, with delightful energy and interest. Sadly, Ms. Columbus, who co-produced and directed with Ms. Malone, appears to have lacked the focus to lead with any real authority. The set seems to be something of an afterthought in terms of what must be a very tight budget. Happily, some money or at least forethought has gone into the costuming, credited to Lisa Herbert. Not only are the characters appropriately dressed, but should your reporter be one to stoop to coveting, she would covet Miss Demeanor's simple yet elegant dress.
"All the Answers," presented by Goddess Productions at the Raven Playhouse, 5233 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. July 11-Aug. 2. (626) 440-1571.
THE BAD SMILE
at Lee Strasberg Creative Center
Reviewed by Ken Pfeil
Playwright Ryan Michael Teller delivers two stories, The Bad Smile and Fear of , under one bill. Both are witty and fairly engaging pieces, and illustrate Teller's all-inclusive perceptions of a phobia- and fetish-laden urban culture, but the former is the weaker of the two, while the shorter latter play resonates better as a well-crafted, darkly comic, absurdist performance.
Bad Smile opens with brothers Howard (Brian Farley) and Greg (Rob Maitner) sitting down to dinner. Their attempts to eat are immediately thwarted by petty bickering, which quickly dissolves into defensiveness and accusation between the two. What follows is a mix-up/double-cross involving the promiscuous Molly (Julie Trumbour) and her equally promiscuous mother (Caerthan Banks), which has a few brilliantly ludicrous moments but unfortunately tames itself by relying on convention to explain the absurdity, i.e., "It's my parents' fault I'm so screwed up--I was fat as a child." The acting is a bit hurried in The Bad Smile, which leaves little room for the punchline effect.
Fear of uses a slide projector as an interesting and appropriate technological device in the story of Sonny (Brian Farley) and Beth (Julie Trombour), an estranged couple whose individual paranoias keep them looking over their shoulders. Hyperbolic in its social portrayals, Fear of gives a sort of bloated glimpse of the future, easy enough to laugh at, not so easy to dismiss.
Both are directed by Rob Maitner and are driven by well-developed and strangely sympathetic characterizations. But the half-way Smile takes away from the program's punch.
"The Bad Smile," presented by This Is IT at the Lee Strasberg Theatre, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd., W. Hollywood. July 10-Aug. 16. (323) 660-8587.