HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE
at the Mark Taper Forum
Reviewed by Scott Proudfit
Great plays rely on the strengths of the theatrical form‹the give and take of a live public forum, the ability to re-mold time and space in the narration, the explorable divisions between performer and character, text and performance, audience and theatremaker. Many of this century's great Pulitzer Prize-winning plays have used these strengths to examine a single issue, placing it in the context of the ever-changing American family unit, and arriving at a small truth, which we may or may not ratify as a larger truth about our own lives. Paula Vogel's How I Learned To Drive is just such a Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
As Arthur Miller examined infidelity and modernization in 1947's Death of a Saleman, and Eugene O'Neill addiction and denial in 1957's Long Day's Journey Into Night, so now does Paul Vogel examine sexual abuse and pedophilia‹as Miller and O'Neill did, within the context of the American family. Like those before her, Vogel is not the first to take on these issues, but she is the first to do it so fairly, so magically, and so familiarly. The Mark Taper Forum's new production does credit to this archetypal American work.
The play looks back at a series of driving lessons in which the sad-eyed, gracious Uncle Peck teaches his eager neice Li'l Bit about the rules of the road (literally and figuratively) while taking her down a dark path. Li'l Bit is searching for a father, and Peck is searching for the comfort of control‹through sex. The results of their meetings are predictably devastating. But predictable is not a word easily applied to this play: Peck is not simply a lecher, Li'l Bit not simply a victim, and the other family members are not merely blind to this abuse. Vogel infuses these characters with humor and complexity. While never questioning that Peck is absolutely wrong in his actions, Vogel nonetheless shows the smart and strong woman that Li'l Bit becomes despite, and in some ways because of, her uncle.
As Peck, Brian Kerwin's polite Southern gentleman charm does not hide a dark heart underneath‹rather, it masks a weak, terrified child. If Kerwin's Peck is evil, it is evil borne of weakness. Kerwin keeps this character's sadness and self-hatred so close to the surface that when his downfall comes at the end of the play, it's like the inevitable collapse of a house of cards. Ringwald starts off shakily as the precocious Bit, but what she initially lacks in specificity she makes up for in fire, soon winning the audience around. Ringwald's comic sensibility particularly shines in a scene in which her uncle plies her with drink to celebrate her 16th birthday.
The real discoveries of the L.A. production are in the female portion of Vogel's "Greek chorus." Johanna Day steals the show two thirds of the way through with her bitter monologue as Peck's wife. Though Vogel cleverly sets up this great speech by never showing the character onstage until her big moment, Day really delivers what is the creepy yet credible highlight of the evening. Day doubles as Li'l Bit's loving but mistaken mom with equal sensitivity.
And Rona Benson, who primarily acts as L'il Bit's grandma, is delightfully funny and sharp. Her energy helps drive the play, and our eye is frequently drawn to her. In addition, Justin Hagan excels in his numerous roles as the male chorus‹particularly as a geek at a school dance‹though the women chorus members are simply given more chances to shine.
Director Mark Brokaw deserves the most credit here, for allowing the music of Vogel's pedestrian language to soar. His fluid pacing never commits itself so completely to speed that moments are wasted. And a simple, colorful design by Narelle Sissons supports the quick-change, time-leaping text. Mark McCullough's lights are the only squeaky wheel in this smooth production, clumsily spaced so that actors occasionally walk through shadows for no apparent reason.
Paula Vogel's masterpiece will no doubt be produced in various incarnations for years to come, but there's a lot you won't want to miss in this one‹above all Kerwin's sadness, Day's delivery, and Benson's joy.
"How I Learned To Drive," presented by Center Theatre Group/Music Center of Los Angeles County and Mark Taper Forum at the Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. Feb. 13-Apr. 4. (213) 628-2772.
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THE NEW BOZENA
at the Hudson Mainstage
Reviewed by Paul Birchall
For those who think clowning is a quaint art best left cloistered in the big top, suitable only for the least demanding attention spans of dimwitted juveniles, here's an astoundingly talented set of red nose-wearing performers who are just begging to show you different. The clowns in The New Bozena take their activity beyond merely making the audience laugh: During their inspired, jaw-droppingly imaginative, borderline surreal antics, the troupe bring the edginess and the sense of wonder back to "commedia"‹and also artfully walk the fine line between nonsense and deeper meaning. This is a show suitable for the entire family, but with pleasingly edgy undercurrents.
Director Rainn Wilson's strikingly sophisticated production essentially follows a single day in the life of a trio of clowns bedevilled by a world that's unnervingly out of sync with them. What actually transpires during their day defies easy explanation: The clowns are adroit at milking their comic situations until the cow moos in pain‹but somehow any description of the activities is inadequate at conveying the full-bodied, ecstatic weirdness of it all.
At his office, yuppie clown Spiv (Michael Dahlen) battles a bushel of pencils which appear all over his body out of nowhere. Later, baby-faced hospital orderly clown Revhanavaan (Kevin Isola) "accidentally" performs open-heart surgery‹after playing peek-a-boo with the electric shock paddles and taking big, frightening bites out of the patient's heart (which is made of jello, natch). Even a seemingly simple scene in which the trio (the third being David Contable) make breakfast for themselves turns into a dazzling, dervish-like whirl of flying toast and knives‹all crisply executed to cheerfully ironic cha-cha-cha music, or perhaps to the Rosemary Clooney standard "Come On-A-My House."
Director Wilson establishes a mood and pacing that melds the Brothers Karamazov and David Lynch, by way of a mild dose of uppers, and he orchestrates many moments that are as rich in pure, delightful theatricality as anything on view in L.A. this year. The ensemble work is tight and assured: Director and performers combine to create a production that's astonishingly unpredictable and endlessly charming.
"The New Bozena," presented by and at the Hudson Mainstage, 6537 Santa Monica, Hollywood. Jan. 29-Mar. 14. (323) 856-4200.
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BROADWAY
at the Actors' Gang
Reviewed by Les Spindle
From the moment we enter the theatre lobby to the sublime strains of "Me and My Shadow" and the sounds of tapping feet emanating from the auditorium, to the production's giddy Hawaiian finale number, director David Schweizer's musical adaptation of Broadway, the 1923 Philip Dunning/George Abbott melodrama, is a triumph of style. This is a pure and invigorating valentine to a vintage theatrical genre and a violent but vibrant era in America's past. Pulsating with character, rich humor, and musical pleasures, Schweizer's affectionate pastiche is a nonstop joy.
Schweizer has raised the musical ante in Abbott and Dunning's original play-with-music, set in a '20s speakeasy surrounded by mobsters and hoofers, by adding several smashing production numbers culled from other sources. Standards of the period occasionally interrupt the complicated storyline about murder, romance, and gang rivalry. Yet Schweizer thankfully avoids parody: The musical sequences and the dramatic scenes are performed with utmost earnestness by a terrific cast, never lapsing into camp or cheap gags. The humor comes from the antiquated theatrical styles, and the show's most impressive accomplishment is Schweizer's unflinching mastery in recreating that stylization. He painstakingly guides the cast, musicians, and design team through an artfully achieved time capsule of the entertainment conventions of yesteryear.
The exemplary cast creates a gallery of expertly delineated characters. Brent Hinkley, as the toplined cabaret hoofer, is a dynamic bundle of energy and charm; his toothy grin and charismatic style suggest a cross between Robert Morse and Al Jolson. The romantic female lead is played with a winning blend of sass and na™vet by Tordy Clark. As a brassy, aging star, padded to exhibit a gigantic bosom and a mammoth behind, Andrea Stein employs Mae West intonations and attitude to hilarious effect. V. J. Foster's portrayal of the blustery club manager is richly detailed, and Jason Reed invests the role of an amoral mobster with style and wit. Kirk Ward is superb as the hardboiled cop, and Keythe Farley delights as a deadpan waiter prone to outbursts of spontaneous tap dance. There's not a weak link among the other assorted portrayals of bickering chorus girls and ruthless but inept gangsters.
Musical director Peter Golub gloriously captures the razzmatazz beat of the Jazz Age, eliciting splendid accompaniment from Brad Laven on piano and Ken Palmer on percussion, and Ken Roht's dazzling choreography adds to the musical delights. Steve Mitchell's sprawling set is meticulously detailed, Salvatore Salamone's costumes are witty and colorful, Kris Sandheinrich's misty lighting effects are masterfully ambient, and Ann Closs-Farley's makeup and hairstyles are impeccable. This intoxicating marriage of the artistic and the commercial has "long-run hit" written all over it.
"Broadway," presented by Tim Robbins and Christopher Lore at the Actors' Gang, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Feb. 26-Apr. 3. (323) 660-8587.
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KINDERTRANSPORT
at Santa Monica Playhouse
Reviewed by Polly Warfield
Diane Samuels' quietly wrenching memory play reduces the horrors of the Holocaust, the epic sacrifice and heroism of World War II, to the more easily comprehended terms of human relationships. Her drama deals specifically with the heartbreak of families ruthlessly shattered, sometimes forever, by kindertransport‹the removal of 10,000 German children, most of them Jewish, to safety before the Nazi takeover. It is devastating to contemplate what pain this survival measure must have cost parents‹and their children, often too young to understand, and who felt, like the play's young Eva, abandoned.
Chris DeCarlo's sensitive and compelling direction realizes all this while conveying the play's emotional impact with a light hand, clearly the playwright's intent. A well-chosen ensemble cast joins in keeping emotion restrained, thus making it more effective. This is not only a memory play, it is a woman's play, as well as a study in contrast: light and dark, good and evil, tender and tough. In the role of Eva's German Jewish mother Helga, Evelyn Rudie resolutely, with tight rein on her feelings, exemplifies tough love as she instructs her daughter in the art of sewing on a button‹young as she is, Eva now must learn to be self-reliant. Only Helga's eyes, fixed so intensely on her child, reveal the mother's anguish.
A double motif is set in this opening scene, as Helga reads a chillingly prescient bedtime story, "The Rat Catcher" (better known to us as "The Pied Piper of Hamelin.") It's a recurring theme with the appearance of John Waroff as various vaguely menacing males‹a Nazi functionary and various gruff Britishers‹all dubbed the Ratcatcher.
In the role of Eva (double cast with Laura Lazarus Frankel) Tamar Shaham, who is 14 and tall for her age, nevertheless makes you believe her every moment. She wins your heart and could move you to tears with her portrayal of a nine-year-old child's innocence and bewilderment. Molly Cheek enacts Eva's young adult self, who now calls herself Evelyn, has rejected her German and Jewish heritage, and, like her mother, has encased herself in an armor of restraint to survive. At an agonizing reunion, she rejects her mother, now a gaunt concentration camp survivor, for having sent her away to safety. (No good deed goes unpunished.)
Dianne Turley Travis, as the peppery, good-hearted Englishwoman who becomes Evelyn's surrogate mother, is wholesome and welcome relief from so much tsouris. Heather Ross is charming as Evelyn's own teenage daughter, who has filial grievances of her own in further generational conflict, and hotly reclaims her lost Jewish heritage. (She shares the role with Leslie Rutberg.)
Lighting and attic set design by Christopher Beyries capture the feel of a place where things are stowed away, as in the attic of the mind. Period costumes by Ashley Hayes are well detailed. Original music by Matt Wrather is haunting, especially the flute solo performed by Bruce Eskovitz. Kindertransport's tragedy, through theatre's alchemy, becomes triumph and tribute to those who survived a cruel but necessary displacement.
"Kindertransport," presented by and at Santa Monica Playhouse, 1211 4th Street, Santa Monica, Feb. 20-June 27. (310) 394-9779.
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THE INSPECTOR GENERAL
at the Hollywood Court Theatre
Reviewed by Wenzel Jones
John Anderson's adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's study of deceit, toadying, and craven social climbing brings to mind Jane Wagner's statement, "No matter how cynical you get, it's never enough." A small town in 19th-century Russia believes it has an Inspector General in its midst, and decides that the bounder with the unpaid bill at the town's hotel must be the government official in disguise. The misunderstanding causes the town to self-destruct in a sickening orgy of finger-pointing and favor-currying, the likes of which you'd have to go to... well, any American corporate office to witness.
This is decidedly a director's production, and Gregory Cohen's hand is evident in the barely contained effervesence of the show. He's not afraid to let his cast overtalk so that the arguments, of which there are many, sound like real altercations, as opposed to the reasoned discussions so prevalent in productions of anything Slavic. His pacing is impeccable.
As the cad mistaken for the Inspector General, Michael Piscitelli is a grab bag of charm and affectations. His big drunk scene, in which the whole town is trying to vapor-lock on his butt (I speak metaphorically), is fascinating as he plays his insecurity against his need for approval and his general sense of entitlement. I swear, it was like watching Liza. He should also thank Chad and Terry Brook for their lighting, as they have given him a dreamboat special in a scene in which he's lolling on the bed (clothed and talking) that is so flattering you may want these two to illuminate you for the rest of your life.
Todd Patrick Breaugh is a marvelous piece of political vermin as the Mayor, embodying both a hit parade of character flaws along with a camera-ready sensibility that predates the need for such a thing by a good 70 years. Space forbids me singing more than general praises for Jules Mandel, Colleen Wainwright, and Paul L. Arnold as minor municipal functionaries. Linda Garen Smith may have designed more set per square foot than you'll ever see again in a theatre this size.
"The Inspector General," presented by MJP Productions at the Hollywood Court Theatre, 6817 Franklin Blvd., Hollywood. Feb. 19-Mar. 21. (323) 871-2829.
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THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO
at the McClatchy Mainstage
Reviewed by Barry Wisdom
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in 1939 Atlanta, Georgia. Carols are being sung, packages wrapped, and trees trimmed. But, please, Boo Levy reminds, no star on top‹after all, we're Jewish.
Welcome to the home of Dixie Bedding Corp. chief Adolph Freitag (Allan Galli), an estrogen-rich residence he shares with sister Boo (Lynne Soffer), sister-in-law Reba (Jayne Muirhead), and the widowed women's daughters, Lala (Mindy Stover) and Sunny (Julie Ellis). Though thousands of miles from those facing Hitler's "Final Solution," it is more than geography that distances the principals of Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo from their fellow Jews.
As Uhry illustrated in Driving Miss Daisy, even long-suffering subjects of persecution can harbor prejudice. But in Sacramento Theatre Company's wonderfully entertaining production of Ballyhoo, Uhry raises this irony with the introduction of division within the ranks‹between the long-assimilated German Jews and "the other ones," the Eastern European immigrants who followed. The framework on which this often intense but frequently funny look at the loss of identity and Semitic self-loathing is hung on is Atlanta's old tradition of "Ballyhoo"‹a series of social activities culminating in a formal dance.
Apart from the star-studded local premiere of Gone With the Wind, this dance is all Lala can think about. Though she fancies herself the next Margaret Mitchell, the gawky drama queen has been directionless since leaving college following her rejection by the "right" sorority. She has early hopes for an escort in her uncle's new staffer Joe Franks (an effective Christopher Hall), but he's attracted to Sunny, on break from Wellesley. It's Joe, as the plain-speaking Boo says, who causes trouble with every artist. Of Russian descent, he's incredulous not only at Sunny and family's decidedly non-kosher home, but at the old guard's attitude toward those who share his heritage.
Stover's Lala both endears and infuriates, but under Gary Armagnac's direction, she remains real and sympathetic‹no easy feat. It's just one of several strong ensemble performances, including Soffer's as the loud but loving Boo. A victim of her upbringing, Boo is more ignorant than mean, and Soffer does well in conveying that. Excellent, too, is the funny and genuine Galli as the good-natured and sentimental Adolph, the perfect bachelor father.
Less successful is Muirhead, who fails to take advantage of all the comic opportunities Reba presents. Played stern-faced and all too straight, her Reba offers little counterpoint to the no-nonsense Boo. And without evoking the pleasant, loopy dottiness the part cries out for, she and Armagnac sabotage the impact of an otherwise poignant scene with the effectively understated Ellis late in Act Two.
More memorable are John Stark's sets, elaborate and detailed, as are Todd Roehrman's period fashions.
"The Last Night of Ballyhoo," presented by the Sacramento Theatre Company at the McClatchy Mainstage, 1419 H St., Sacramento. Feb. 23-Mar. 21. (888) 478-2849.
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THE OLD SETTLER
at Newmark Theatre
Review by Jeremy Kemp
Portland Center Stage delivers another quality production with this sweet and sentimental period piece written and directed by PCS acting alumnus John Henry Redwood. Drawing on childhood memories of his bickering mother and aunt who lived in vibrant 1940s Harlem, Redwood populates his play with warm characters and razor-sharp dialogue.
Grown sisters Elizabeth and Quilly share a walk-up across from the Harlem Hospital. They've taken a "roomer" to help pay the rent, and older sister Elizabeth falls for the young man newly arrived from South Carolina. The roomer, oddly named Husband, has come into some money and is in town to fetch his childhood sweetheart, Lou Bessie. But since arriving in New York, Lou Bessie has left her Southern roots behind, falling in with Harlem's sordid crowd.
Tamu Gray as older sister Elizabeth delivers a solid performance. Though she misses a few lines, Gray captures the essence of "older woman" in this doomed romance with a much younger man. Gray and Pamela Tucker-White as younger sister Quilly McGrath skillfully craft the hilarious and touching relationship between the two sisters. They are verbal sparring partners‹constantly snapping at each other but always remembering the love between them.
Jeff Obafemi Carr plays bumpkin Husband Witherspoon with a healthily confident air tinged by befuddlement. While Husband is certainly a catfish out of water, the young Southerner in New York City is not a complete fool. Husband realizes Lou Bessie has left him in the dust, so he focuses on Elizabeth, even though she may be twice his age. (The play's title comes from a derogatory term for single women who chase after younger men.)
Curt Enderle's utilitarian set is period-appropriate and well-used without being flashy. Dawn Chiang's subtle lighting scheme is also perfectly suited to the material, with an early dawn setting coming off very well. Costumes by Myrna Colley-Lee are nicely fitted: Husband's second-act zoot suit, after he too has been lured by the siren song of Harlem night life, and Quilly's church uniform are both fabulous.
"The Old Settler," presented by Portland Center Stage at the Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, Portland. Feb. 13-Mar. 19. (503) 248-6309.
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CARRY THE TIGER TO THE MOUNTAIN
at the David Henry Hwang Theatre
Reviewed by Richard Scaffidi
In the 1980s, anything or anyone Japanese was evil incarnate to disgruntled U.S. auto workers like Donald Evans and Mark Stetz. One night in a Detroit bar, the pair decided that a young Chinese-American man named Vincent Chin looked sufficiently Japanese, so they beat him to death with a good old American baseball bat. The paltry punishment meted out for this revolting hate crime was a $3,780 fine (less than the cost of a car) and zero jail time.
This enraging true story, including the subsequent storm of social protest stirred up by the victim's mother, Lily Chin, makes Carry the Tiger to the Mountain an important and compelling new play, even despite Cherylene Lee's overly expository script. Director Tim Dang beautifully camouflages the flaws by heightening the story's political sizzle and especially by fulfilling the play's highly theatrical devices. Most notably, Dang and choreographer Peter Kwong stylishly integrate some Peking Opera techniques and a running motif of tai chi movements. These riveting poetic effects, aboard E. Junior Usaraga's cinematic set and under Jos Lopez's evocative lighting, make the show visually arresting and often epic in scale.
Where this becomes problematic is in telling the personal tale of the Chin family. Some of the biographical vignettes may be separately interesting (Lily was a "picture bride," her husband developed Alzheimer's, Vincent discovered he was adopted, etc.), but are essentially irrelevant to the play's focal themes and prevailing spectacle. Which is not to diminish the work of actors like Reggie Lee as the sweet-centered, proud Vincent, and especially Beulah Quo as the quietly formidable Lily, this show's gentle hero‹it's just that this play is least effective when it tries to be an internal psychological study. Most of the characters are willfully drawn by playwright Lee more as archetypes than people, and most of the actors perform multiple roles‹all in keeping with the sweeping presentational format.
For instance, the play's chronology is cleverly illustrated via a series of auto commercials in which Robert Greenberg constantly reappears as a timeless car salesman whose perennial bimbo sidekick (voluptuous Kandice Cline) changes her clothes to match the latest car model. Greenberg also surfaces as a bouncer and a couple of judges, Cline as a bar girl and a nurse.
In the end, Carry the Tiger to the Mountain stirs us less with impressions of individual personalities. Rather we are moved by a more universalized social statement. It's a vital political morality tale set in Detroit‹instead of, say, Wyoming or East Texas‹and alas, it speaks to us with vivid, enduring relevance.
"Carry the Tiger to the Mountain," presented by East West Players at the David Henry Hwang Theatre, 120 N. Judge John Aiso St. (formerly San Pedro St.), Los Angeles. Feb. 24-Mar. 14. (800) 233-3123.
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THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WM SHKSPR (ABRIDGED)
at the Globe Playhouse
Reviewed by Anne Louise Bannon
The Bard is either spinning in his grave like wood on a lathe, or bent over in helpless giggles like the rest of us. As most of us know, The Complete Works is what happened after Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield (the, ahem, authors and members of the original Reduced Shakespeare Company) scored a major hit at Renaissance Pleasure Faires across the state with a reduced Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. In this L.A. production, Sean Galuszka, Robert L. Williams, and Harris Dorman do the honors, as directed by Singer.
With shtick like this, one wonders how much of the show's famous success was driven by its original players. True, the conceit is almost funny enough on its own. But it requires actors with super-charged energy, incredible comic timing, and also, paradoxically, the ability to find the real emotions behind the original words. As funny as the script is, there are moments of pure poignancy, in which Shakespeare's words are given their full power and beauty.
Galuszka, Williams, and Dorman are‹thank heaven‹up to the task. They literally run through the evening with so much cheerful energy, you almost can't catch your breath for laughing. We are talking about 37 plays in 90-odd minutes. Dorman, in particular, does more laps (usually screaming) than a track star in training. Ah, but when Galuszka did Hamlet's dying speech, it almost brought tears to my eyes.
The script has obviously been updated‹I don't think they were doing White House intern jokes back in the '80s. It is compact, with a focus on the tragedies because, well, they're more funny. The comedies are amalgamated into a slide show of dressed up Barbie and Ken dolls. The histories are done as a football game (with a penalty for King Lear‹fictional character on the field).
West Hollywood's Globe Playhouse is without question the perfect venue. Rand Ryan's lighting design helps pull everything together. Prop/wardrobe goddess Susan Brook well deserves her title. Sure, it's more like an extended skit than a true play, but it is founded on a profound love of the Bard of Stratford on Avon. What more could you want from three guys in tights?
"The Complete Works of Wm Shkspr (Abridged)," presented by the Dancing Barefoot Productions and Creative Outlet A Theatre Company at the Globe Playhouse, 1107 N. Kings Rd., W. Hollywood. Feb. 20-Apr. 2. (323) 692-9082.
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INDIAN INK
at the Geary Theater
Reviewed by Matthew Surrence
"My painting has no rasa today." That is the aesthetic lament of the Indian artist Nirad Das (Art Malik) in Act One of Tom Stoppard's 1995 drama, which uses the relationship between the artist and a dying, free-spirited English poetess to explore the relationship between India and England at the twilight of the latter's empire. Rasa, as Das describes it, is "juice... taste... essence... the emotion which the artist must arouse in you."
In its American premiere production at the American Conservatory Theater, Indian Ink's rasa bubbles promisingly during that first act, as Das and his model, poet Flora Crewe (Susan Gibney), engage in an intellectual romance in 1930 in the Indian village of Jammapur, to which she has come to address the local theosophical society. The unsolved mysteries of their relationship will become, 50 years later, fuel for the political sparring between his son (Firdous Bamji) and her sister (Jean Stapleton), as well as the investigations of Crewe's American biographer (Ken Grantham). But the juice evaporates after intermission, as the flavors in Stoppard's mulligatawny stewpot fail to meld into compelling drama.
A.C.T. artistic director Carey Perloff's production looks good. Scenery designer Loy Arcenas suggests a vibrant Indian countryside with richly colored flats and screens that slide and fly in, creating a canopy of tree leaves with green papier-mach squares, or a gold-stippled stucco cottage that reveals a mosquito-netted bed where a nude Flora will writhe in pain following a tuberculosis attack. But like Stoppard's earlier, similarly structured Arcadia, which also loses steam at its climax, Indian Ink is long on showy erudition, short on dramatic urgency.
Despite a tendency to encourage her leads to push, Perloff's cinematic staging keeps Act One flowing, efficiently blending 1930s and 1980s scenes, many of which occur onstage together, as in Arcadia, although the juxtapositions are less effective here. But Perloff and her designers are unable to distract us from the stasis of Act Two, and her firm grip on the three-hour production slackens toward the end.
Still, for the most part she has done well casting and directing her cast. Gibney luxuriates in her deeply inflected intonations up to, but never past, the point of self-indulgence. Malik, who played Das in the show's London premiere, could go further in revealing the dignity beneath the Indian version of Uncle Tomism, but his sensitivity and emotionalism register strongly. Stapleton is the least audible of the leads, but when she musters up her energy to project a glowering sarcasm in defense of English imperialism, she earns her laugh. As the son, Bamji delivers the dignity that was lacking in the father. Dashing in his jodhpurs, David Conrad has nonchalant, complacent charm as an unsuccessful suitor of Flora's; Shelly Desai is sly as a rajah and serious as his grandson.
Only Grantham's author seems more like a collection of tics and grimaces than a characterization. His constant mispronunciation of "Modigliani" comes across as spurious Yank-bashing‹since unlike the English, who are casually arrogant about foreign pronunciations, American academics are scrupulous to the point of affectation about getting them right.
"Indian Ink," presented by the American Conservatory Theater at the Geary Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Feb. 18-Mar. 21. (415) 749-2228.
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GROUNDLING LIKE IT'S 1999
at the Groundling Theatre
Reviewed by Lesley Solmonson
Over the years, the Groundlings have given us a rich talent pool, with members peppering TV shows like Saturday Night Live, Mad TV, and its own cable improv show, Instant Comedy With the Groundlings. One glance at their newest production and one can see why: They're full of energy and blessed with wonderful insight into creating characters. Indeed, this is where their newest show, Groundling Like It's 1999, really soars.
The entire cast works together well, allowing each player to showcase his or her standout character creations. Holly Mandel's monologue as a former hooker in "Hate Crime" is right on the money, while Amy Von Freymann has us laughing out loud in "Step Into My Parlor," her wonderfully written send-up of Cosmopolitan magazine.
Other highlights include "Message to My Girl" (written by and featuring Michael Lo Prete), in which a man sends his girlfriend a nasty singing telegram to break up, and the perfectly crafted "Don't Cry For Me," in which a bored Argentinean rich girl (again Holly Mandel, who also scripted) is seduced by a sensual cad played to the teeth by Brian Palermo. The rest of the cast‹Maggie Baird, Jennifer Coolidge, and John Crane‹are also top-notch, putting themselves out there, souls laid bare.
At times the troupe falls a bit short in its writing skills, with some skits ending abruptly without a strong enough punch line or dragging on without much motivation. As for the few improvs within the body of the show, they seem awkwardly placed and somewhat uninspired in their focus, as if they're included simply because the audience expects it. In both cases, director Tony Sepulveda could use a tighter rein.
Despite these weaknesses, what's impressive is the level of commitment these actor/comedians bring to their work. As such, while the show lacks a central theme and is a bit weak on delivering actual laughs at times, it rides on the sheer guts of the company.
"Groundling Like It's 1999," presented by and at the Groundling Theatre, 7307 Melrose Ave., W. Hollywood. Feb. 12-indefinitely. (323) 934-9700.
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THE SHADOW OF A GUNMAN
at the Colony Studio Theatre
Reviewed by Terri Roberts
Perception is a fascinating thing. What people think of a man‹what they believe him to be‹can sometimes overshadow who the man really is. And as Donald Davoren comes to discover, choosing to live in that shadow can be dangerous indeed.
Davoren is the soft-spined center of Sean O'Casey's 1923 tragedy, The Shadow of a Gunman, the first in a trio of plays often referred to as "The Dublin Trilogy" (the others being Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars) because they were written while O'Casey still lived there. (He relocated to England in 1927.) Shadow is set in 1920 Dublin, in the middle of the Anglo-Irish war. Davoren (Jason Cole) is a poet trying to find a quiet place to live and write. He shares a room in a boarding house with peddler Seumus Shields (Kurt Boesen). Though Davoren is at first stunned to hear from Shields that most of the tenants and locals believe he is an IRA gunman on the run, he starts to play along with the misperception, since it turns on Minnie Powell (Maura Knowles), a pretty working girl, and earns the respect of his neighbors.
Davoren carefully answers their questions in a noncommittal way, leaving the impression that he is what they take him to be, but the game turns deadly during a frightening midnight raid on the boarding house by British auxiliary soldiers ("auxies"). When it's all over, there will be a much darker shadow left behind for Davoren to live with.
Knowles is luminous as the eager young Minnie. Her round, open face shines with every possibility, including the blushing joy of seeing the man she loves appear to others as the hero she thinks he is. Cole clearly enjoys playing Davoren's game, but he loses credibility in the aftermath of the raid. His confusion and crushed spirit are not rooted in horrific realization and fail to make it past the stage.
Boesen's Shields adds some humor to the proceedings, as does Lori Thimsen's chatty landlady, Mrs. Henderson. And Darin Anthony is a happy surprise in a double role as Irish patriot Tommy Owens and a brutal auxie. Dialectician Bill Dearth and dialect coach Ivy Bethune are to be credited for their capable work; the Irish working-class accents are believable, though some dialogue gets lost during rushes of emotion.
Brian Howe's sound design is ineffectual; it sounds like the tape it is, and has the unfortunate effect of taking us out of the moment rather than pulling us in. Director Tim O'Hare also did the set adaptation, which fits nicely onto John Patrick's original set design for The Living (Gunman is the Colony's second stage).
"Shadow of a Gunman," presented at and by the Colony Studio Theatre, 1944 Riverside Drive, Silverlake. Feb. 21-Apr. 3. (323) 665-3011.
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BLOODY POETRY
at the Jewel Theatre
Reviewed by Kerry Reid
As we were queued up for the loo at intermission, I noted to a fellow critic that we've been blessed‹or cursed, depending on one's perspective‹with many plays about writers and biography in the Bay Area lately, from Donald Margulies' flaccid Collected Stories at Berkeley Rep to Tom Stoppard's near-brilliant Indian Ink at American Conservatory Theater. Bloody Poetry, British playwright Howard Brenton's 1984 meditation on the lives of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron (and their female companions, Mary Godwin Shelley and Claire Clairemont), now being revived by the Everyman company, falls somewhere between those poles.
Of course, Brenton, unlike Margulies or Stoppard, has the dubious advantage of working with characters obviously drawn from history. So it's appropriate that much of the two-act play concerns Shelley and Byron's debates about what one artist can do to revolutionize society and change the course of history. Shelley (played by Clark Huggins with wide-eyed, ruddy-cheeked innocence that occasionally becomes squishy) agonizes about having chosen poetry over revolution: "We haunt ourselves with the knowledge of what we could be if we were truly free," he declares. Meanwhile, the cynical Byron recognizes the insoluble dichotomies of their expatriate, pansexual, free-love existence. "We shall all go communist," he declares drunkenly. "We are all upper-class renegades‹we can afford it."
As directed by Kristine McIntyre, this production largely succeeds at laying out the twisted contradictions of this tortured quartet, and McIntyre wisely understands that Brenton's intent is not to set up these Romantic icons as... well, Romantic icons; we leave without feeling that the playwright wishes us to pass definitive judgment on these flawed but fascinating characters. Unfortunately, given the unevenness of skill in the cast, we also leave feeling that some of the characters are simply more fascinating than others, and frankly wondering why they waste their time hanging out with their insipid peers.
Brendan Averett's dissipated Byron is almost always interesting to watch, as is Cambron Williamson's steely yet vulnerable Mary Shelley. But Jess Phillips' Claire, the teenager Byron impregnates and abandons (but not without first claiming custody of their daughter), is so pouty and flat that I found Byron's decision to cast her aside perfectly understandable. Likewise, Joanne Brooks, as Shelley's first wife, Harriet Westbrook (who appears mostly as a ghost figure after her suicide-by-drowning), is stiff and unconvincing as a grief-stricken jilted lover.
The larger problem is that McIntyre too often falls into the trap of directing her cast to play self-indulgent characters with self-indulgent acting tics. Huggins' Shelley is the primary offender, but all of the cast sinks into static, declamatory vocal patterns from time to time, which render them as nothing more than soulless talking tableaux about art. (The sole exception is Darin Wilson as Dr. Polidori, the Salieri of the bunch, who dines out on his tales of the foursome's bohemian exploits yet cannot hide his bitterness that they have attained greater success than he.)
This is an intelligent script which, paradoxically, needs a lighter tone to plumb its depths. That lighter touch is, thankfully, apparent in the uncredited set design, consisting solely of a white floor covered with scrawls of ink. And Maja E. White's luminous lighting design works beautifully in the tiny and challenging environment of the Jewel.
"Bloody Poetry," presented by everyman: a theatre company at the Jewel Theatre, 655 Geary St., San Francisco. Feb. 26-Mar. 29. (415) 567-3005.
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HEDDA GABLER
at the Alley Theatre
Reviewed by Holly Hildebrand
Is Hedda Gabler in love with death? The Alley Theatre's new production answers with a resounding yes (an affirmation accompanied often by annoying sound effects). This is a Hedda so imbued with atmosphere that it hurts‹though perhaps not always in the ways intended.
In his program notes, director Gerald Freedman says that while working on Henrik Ibsen's classic, he became haunted by images from the work of Edvard Munch. "The paintings," Freedman says, "took on a life of their own." And so figures from Munch's Death and the Maiden have been invited into the production. Sometimes they appear directly onstage; other times the portrait of General Gabler that dominates Hugh Landwehr's set dissolves into a fragile scrim that reveals either a ghoulish Death (David Bell) or a Woman in various poses of bondage (Kristina Short). The effect is at first startling, sometimes erotic, occasionally effective, and more often intrusive.
It is intrusive because no matter what anybody does to Hedda Gabler, the power of Ibsen's words remains. In addition, the Alley is using a new translation by Christopher Hampton, who showed quite well his gift for portraying psychological manipulation in his adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. When two such writers are teamed up across the century, the effect is engrossing. How irritating, then, to have lurking death's-heads thrust upon you while you're getting caught up in the conversation onstage.
Yet nothing in the visual design is as vexing as Tom Mardikes' overdone sound design: The loud, scratchy ticking of a clock mars the otherwise effective beginning, and snatches of lugubrious music made me think I had landed in one of Vincent Price's haunted palaces, not the Tesmans' high-toned villa. Only one sound effect was truly effective: the shutting of the doors sounded like the clanging of a prison gate.
Despite these drawbacks, Hedda Gabler is involving, and the Alley has assembled a good cast. In the title role, Alley veteran Annalee Jefferies warms to the complexities of her character as the night wears on; hers is a constricted Hedda seething with jealousy. Both Kevin Waldron as Hedda's husband, George, and Lillian Evans as his Aunt Julia bring a glowing professionalism to their roles. Elizabeth Heflin is sweetly na™ve as the vulnerable Mrs. Elvsted, and as Judge Brack, John LaGioia grows more wonderfully sinister as the drama unfolds. Rufus Collins as Eilert Lovberg could have shown a bit more sexual magnetism, but his is nonetheless a respectable performance. Special applause goes to Bettye Fitzpatrick (Berte), who valiantly took the place of the ailing Marjorie Carroll at the last moment.
In all, it remains a production to savor‹when possible.
"Hedda Gabler," presented by and at the Alley Theatre, 615 Texas Ave., Houston, Texas. Feb. 19-Mar. 20. (713) 228-8421.
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GUANTANAMERA
at the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts
Reviewed by Rob Kendt
Is it too soon to laugh about Cuba? With Castro still in power and the U.S. embargo holding fast‹but, all things considered, a kind of tentative thaw in the works‹is it really time for a "black comedy" about its corrupt, inefficient statist bureacracy? I say bring on the laughs. Laughter, like free trade, may be the best medicine for shaking up the last remains of Cuban socialist rigidity on the one hand and the overweening dogma of the anti-Castro lobby on the other.
Eliseo Alberto Diego, Tomas Gutierrez Alea, and Juan Carlos Tabio are credited as authors of a screenplay upon which the play is based (apparently no screenplay is worth writing that can be thought up by just one writer anymore), and it's been adapted by Lina Montalvo and director Margarita Galban and translated by Eugenia Cross, who also stars in the English-language cast. If that sounds like play-making by committee, the result feels accordingly disjointed and chaotic, and even when that's the point of the play‹as in the absurd emergencies that climax each act‹Guantanamera comes off as an intermittently engaging mishmash of telenovela and sitcom. And while the social realities of contemporary life in Cuba drive the plot conflict and provide much of the play's droll, occasionally stinging humor, they feel more like a backdrop for a romping farce than an integral part of a satiric critique.
The tellingly named Adolfo (Ernesto Miyares) is the anal-retentive head of a state agency in charge of all funeral arrangements‹he's the people's undertaker, except that he thinks of his subjects less as people than as numbers on a statistical chart that can make or break his career in the socialist hierarchy. It doesn't even matter to Adolfo if the corpse is his wife's aunt Yoyita, a popular singing star‹he's got gasoline rations and mathematical formulae to meet. His wife, Gina (Eugenia Cross), a formerly outspoken college professor, tags along with her aunt's remains on the absurd cross-country journey mandated by Adolfo's convoluted bureacratic logic, along with one of Yoyita's still-smitten admirers (Agust"n Coppola). Along the way, Gina catches up with some unfinished business, Mariano (John Paul), a hunky workman who was inspired to more than mere educative ecstasy by her former teaching, while Adolfo's trek is fraught with a sketchy gallery of collectivist ironies‹the frauds, bribes, and petty squabbling over privilege that result when all things belong to everyone.
Cross and Miyares are both effective, if a bit broad, in their characterizations. Faring better is a supporting cast whose timing and subtlety mines the full comedy of the situations: Armando D'Lorenzo as a sunnily cynical taxi driver, who also narrates the show with customized verses of "Guantanamera," Antonio Nesme as various functionaries and flunkies, Raul Avila as a persistently indignant mourner (among several roles), and Coppola, whose sweet-old-man shtick is perfectly calibrated to help us see Candido's dignity and decency‹perhaps the play's most hopeful sign that a human spirit can survive degradations and political upheaval with some integrity intact.
Estela Scarlata and Ramon Mendoza's versatile storybook set and Jennifer L. Davis' lighting take us fleetly along the cross-country journey, though the script seems to call for a more fluid and, yes, cinematic rendering. Whether we have to wait until things between Cuba and the U.S. really thaw to see the script filmed, for the time being we can find a few laughs in this stage version.
"Guantanamera," presented by and at the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts, 421 N. Avenue 19, Lincoln Heights. Feb. 10-Mar. 28. (323) 225-4044.
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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
at Edison Theatre
Reveiwed by Kristina Mannion
Ripe with double entendres, romantic entanglements, and slapstick situations, Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew has a comedic formula that, on many levels, almost never fails no matter what form it takes on the stage. And seemingly‹with its universally appealing, satiric poke at love and gender battles‹this is one of the more favored of the Bard's bawdy comedies for modernization, transformation, and general freewheeling adaptation.
Indeed, it is apparently difficult to obliterate the humor inherent in this tale about a motley group of suitors intent on wooing two sisters: lovely, sweet-tempered Bianca and defiantly shrewish Kate. Bearing out this supposition is California Repertory Company's current production of the play at its new Edison Theatre venue in downtown Long Beach. Liberally adapted by director Ashley Carr Jr., this Shrew is an ambitious production with a contemporary setting and some cleverly modern tweaks and twists. It is also a rough-around-the-edges staging characterized by some uneven direction and a lack of tight comedic control. Still, these misfires notwithstanding, Carr and her energetic cast offer an enjoyable, unique interpretation, and ultimately prove that the fundamental, albeit broad, entertainment value of Shakespeare's characters and contrivances cannot be diminished.
Carr's first conceit in this production is to transport the primary action of the play from Padua to present-day Long Beach, where Baptista (Linda Van Dine) is the wealthy owner of a gymnasium and mother to the two young ladies being courted by various cunning and bumbling suitors from the far reaches of such places as Malibu and Venice. This setting understandably opens the door for a variety of inside jokes and humorous takes on modern dress, speech, and the many unusual personalities found in today's urban communities. For example, Kate (Jennifer Fowler) is a tough, Lycra-clad gym queen, with a lean body and a mean personality to match; her suitor Petruchio (Baron Kelly) is a street-wise macho guy, whose sidekick Grumio (April Hall) speaks in rap while gliding around the stage in rollerblades; Bianca (Dawn Flood) is a petulant and air-headed Beverly Hills 90210 wannabe, and Bianca's suitors are a hodgepodge of nerds, greasy golddiggers, and arrogant losers.
Despite a few obvious jokes here and there, and some over-the-top performances, many of these character modernizations work out well. Wringing the most from their roles are Kelly as sly Petruchio, Flood as flighty Bianca, Brian Kapell and Pete Uribe as clumsy wooers Hortensio and Lucentio, and Patric Taylor as the oily suitor Gremio (complete with New Yawk accent and Diceman attitude). These players do the best at handling Carr's mix of original language (with a few slangy, hilarious asides) and modern manners. Set designer Franny Smith and costumer Nancy Jo Smith also lend an apt modern appearance, with a clever boxing arena set and some smart costume choices.
Overall, however, Carr's direction is a bit bumpy, and a lack of tight scene transitions and fluid staging gives the play a slightly unrehearsed air. Additionally, some lines are stepped on and some language gets lost‹missteps that further detract from the play's smoothness and momentum. Fortunately, the comedy of the material speaks for itself and helps to mitigate some of these flaws. In the end, Carr and her cast still manage to successfully convey the comedy of romance and marriage.
"The Taming of the Shrew," produced by California Repertory Company at Edison Theatre, 213 E. Broadway, Long Beach, Feb. 19-Mar. 20. (562) 432-1818.
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NORTH STREET
at Printers Devil Theatre
Reviewed by David-Edward Hughes
The typically cold, rainy, and gloomy Seattle winter is like a week in Palm Springs compared to the emotional and environmental climate of North Street, a new play by Seattle playwright Aaron Thomas set amongst semi-downtrodden twentysomethings living in a seedy Burlington, Vermont neighborhood.
Thomas' play, the pick of Printer's Devil's annual "new works bonanza," is populated with intriguing characters in search of a plot. The two male characters are Randy, a self-absorbed musician who takes the whole first scene to notice that his pal Jerry has been badly beaten in a random attack. Randy is camping out at Jerry's since being dumped by his fed-up girlfriend Fern, who has taken in her surly friend Linda. Randy's idol, a never seen musician named Cassidy, has died, and Linda sees Cassidy's daughter Cary as a ticket out of vile Vermont to arid Arizona. By play's end, none of these people has learned anything, or gotten anywhere. Thomas has created quirky characters and given them some deft dialogue, but without a journey to take them on, North Street wears out its welcome several scenes before it ends.
Kip Fagan's spirited direction and a stalwart cast help considerably. Deron Bos is electric as the raw nerve ending that is Randy, and Matt Ford's Jerry‹amiable, spacy, and likely to survive all life's cruelties‹is his perfect counterpart. Similarly, Mara Hesed's used and abused Fern and Tina Kunz's chip-on-her-shoulder Linda strike a nice balance. Sarah Gunnell makes a strong impression in the one-scene role of Cary Cassidy, and Peggy Gannon makes her two brief roles count as well.
The single most outstanding element of the production is Jeffrey T. Cook's stark setting, with its cracked-ice walls and spare furnishings, and the appropriately harsh lighting by A.J. Epstein. Hilary Ketchum's costumes suit the character's tastes and budgets convincingly, and Chris Martin wrote and performs (offstage) Randy's loud, atonal music.
"North Street," by the Printer's Devil Theatre at Theatre Off Jackson, 409 7th Ave. South, Seattle. Feb. 19-Mar. 13. (206) 860-7163.
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WANT'S UNWISHED WORK or A BIRTHDAY PLAY
at Sacred Fools Theatre
Reviewed by Madeleine Shaner
The Fools prove to be more profane than sacred in Kirk Wood Bromley's charmless adult comic strip onstage, Want's Unwished Work or A Birthday Play, loosely directed by Alexander Yannis Stephano. The play's concept is even more obscure than its title, but we'll hazard a guess that Want, a character not identified in the cast list, is the writer (Kurt Carley) who decides to give his wife a play as a birthday gift. Fortunately, his wife (Nicole Gallie) falls asleep at the start of the play and doesn't waken until it's over. Would that this reviewer could have followed her example, because translating this tasteless excuse for a play into anything resembling coherence is as great a task as watching it was.
Succinctly, the play within the play follows the shenanigans of three young residents of a Women's Studies Institute (Amy Bryson, Shirley Roeca, and Lauren Daniels) who are being held in a gingerbread cottage with restricted access to men. According to Dr. Kling (Christopher Paul Hart), a lecherous spouter of pseudo-psychological jabberwocky, men are the enemy. Also in the cottage, and involved in the brainwashing when they're not playing show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine, are Kling's assistant, Erad (Dallas Dickinson), Dr. Bertha Lerner (Caroline Gray Andres), his lusty paramour, and, for some unknown reason, Want, now dressed as blazing transvestite Vazoline (she has the best costumes).
Apart from that, what's onstage is open to interpretation. There are two ravenous boyfriends, Scott McShane and Michael Houston King, who want to get at the girls, so naturally they have to humorously don women's clothes (pointy Madonna bras, etc.) to do it. And a band of pirates‹Rob Brink, Dick Skills, Joe Hernandez-Kolski, Bryan Bellomo, and Graham McAnn‹who exult in a putrid, unspeakably self-indulgent retreat into adolescent sight gags and "naughty boy" language. To be fair, you can't hear the words above the yelling, which is probably a blessing in disguise. As icing on the cake, four "actors" (Charles Michael Edmonds, Dan Etheridge, Sacha Vaughn, and Paul Plunkett) show up in the second act to deliver a "Birthdaygram" to a dead girl and cast aspersions on Actors' Equity.
In short, attitude takes the place of acting here. Anyone who's ever heard a baby carry on whole conversations with all the right gestures and intonations and not a single coherent word has already seen this play. While Bromley's words are perfectly good ones (when you can decipher them), they're strung together as if they're relatives who've never met. They're also mainly in verse, or worse‹presumably to echo the themes the playwright has borrowed from A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Popeye.
"Want's Unwished Work or A Birthday Play," presented by and at Sacred Fools Theater, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive, Hollywood. Feb. 25-Mar. 27. (310) 281-8337.