DAMES AT SEA
at the Marines
Memorial Theatre
Reviewed by Matthew Surrence
Thirty years after its birth as a Greenwich Village coffeehouse revue (and 29 years after berthing at San Franfisco's Hungry i), Dames at Sea has dropped anchor in its new "port of San Francisco" in a crackerjack production so tight you could bounce a quarter off it.
A 1968 Off-Broadway sensation that launched a fleet of wised-up showbiz takeoffs (Larry Gelbart's Movie Movie and City of Angels, Mel Brooks' myriad cinema send-ups, Steve Silver's Bleach Blanket Babylon, and Gerard Alessandrini's Forbidden Broadway franchise), Dames at Sea is an affectionately parodic salute to 42nd Street, the 1933 film choreographed by Busby Berkeley that floated such immortal clichƒs as the tyrannical director with the secret terminal illness and the chorus girl who "goes out a youngster and comes back a star."
While the movie is a bit plot-heavy, Dames at Sea--with book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller, music by Jim Wise--sails deftly around the shoals of an actual plot, instead simply stringing together a bunch of cute comic songs that suggest various 1930s standards and letting them flap gaily in the breeze. But all hands on deck--director/choreographer Scott Thompson, costume and set designers Michael Bottari and Ronald Case, lighting designer Tony Tucci, sound designer Ken Huncovsky, and especially the ship-shape cast--have given the show such a gleaming a spit-shine that what could have been a shallow exercise in camp becomes a brisk, just-under-two-hour pleasure cruise.
It all starts smartly on an Art Deco proscenium framing a silver-trimmed platform with steps, as '30s-style movie titles are projected on the gray brick wall of a rehearsal hall. Ellen Harvey, whose Mona Kent is classic demonic diva in a glossy black bob, gets the show off with a splash, giving "Wall Street" ("that rise and fall street") great brassy verve. The gangly Harvey, a shameless mugger blessed with a rubbery Martha Raye mug, also scores in Act Two's hilarious "Beguine," a duet with a ship's captain, David Eric, a snappy Red Buttons type.
Of course, the incontrovertible laws of showbiz dictate that just before opening night, Mona will become incapacitated and have to be replaced by kewpie-doll chorine Ruby (as in Keeler, natch), played by the glorious Andrea Chamberlain. This show represents a triumphant homecoming for Chamberlain, who racked up many Bay Area community theatre credits before moving to SoCal. She is splendid in the part that made Bernadette Peters a star, tugging at our emotions in "The Sailor of My Dreams" and "Raining in My Heart," tapping superbly through "Star Tar," and wading into her frothy love duets with Dick (Joel Carlton, a swell cross between namesake Powell and Joe E. Brown).
The third couple in the cast of six (who double as backup for each other, making the company seem bigger and show feel more buoyant) are lanky Paula Leggett Chase (who suggests Marcia Wallace leavened by Georgia Engel), who's funny as a savvy Blondell type who befriends Ruby, and Cleve Asbury (Donald O'Connor by way of Van Johnson) as her good-natured gob/dance partner. These two are delightful as they chug happily through "Choo-Choo Honeymoon" and plunge giddily into the murky waters of Yellow Peril stereotypes in "Singapore Sue."
Also due special honors is the pit band: David Brownell on percussion, Barry Korton on synth, Steven Logoteta on reeds, Terry Miller on bass, and Donald Eldon Westcoat on piano. As led by Westcoat, they sound more like a fleet of musicians than a combo of five. They, along with all involved in this production, cap Dames at Sea's foamy waves of nostalgia with a bright, sunny sparkle.
"Dames at Sea," presented by Charles H. Duggan at the Marines Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco. May 28-July 5. (415) 771-6900.
AS YOU LIKE IT
at the Tracy Roberts Studio Theatre
Reviewed by Wenzel Jones
Some of Shakespeare's plays stand up to time-tweaking far better than others, and As You Like It certainly proves to be one of the more resilient. Set in the waning days of the Nixon regime, this adaptation fits nicely into an era in which hope existed without irony and love was just everywhere. Since this is a romantic comedy, we can ignore those rumblings on the horizon.
Rather than take the rest of this space recounting plot, I must rely on your erudition and will only remind you that this is the one where Rosalind (Marguerite MacIntyre), banished by her uncle, the Nixonesque Duke Frederick (a delightfully paranoid Don Paul), escapes to the Forest of Arden with best friend and cousin Celia (Michele Greene) and the clown Touchstone (Carey Eidel), then dresses like a boy to woo the lusty but wronged Orlando (Hilary Martin Jones). By the end practically any character with more than three lines has fallen in love. No twins, no fairies, no shipwrecks.
Morrison Jackson has done extraordinary work with the costumes, so vital to a period within living memory. They hit all of those early '70s notes, from back-to-the-earth to not-of-this-world, but special mention must be made of Rosalind's wedding-a-go-go ensemble and the various wonders of the petrochemical industry worn by the melancholy Jaques (Brian Rich). Bob Schulenburg's flashback-inducing, Peter Max-inspired set serves the piece well, as does the clever sound design of Stephen Boyd.
Director Louis Fantasia makes good use of a not very malleable acting space, sometimes having to stage short scenes behind and above most of the audience. His actors, save for a couple of humorless thespians, are a pleasure to watch, especially the duo of Greene and MacIntyre, who illustrate all you need ever know about relationships between young women. Much, too, is added by the musical stylings of Aaron Angello as a sort of bosky Dylan. Space forbids more personal plaudits, so go see for yourself, but hurry: It must close June 25.
"As You Like It," presented by and at the Tracy Roberts Studio Theatre, 12265 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. June 5-25. (213) 660-8587.
ELEEMOSYNARY
at the Colony Studio Theatre
Reviewed by J. Brenna Guthrie
Mother/daughter relationships are never easy. They get even more complicated when you add a grandmother to the mix--and still more complicated when two generations are only children. Lee Blessing's one-act Eleemosynary creates a compelling look at just how complex these relationships can be.
Blessing's story focuses on Echo (Courtney Danielle Saladino), a girl in her young teens dealing with the two women in her life: Dorothea (Marnie Andrews), the eccentric grandmother who raised her, and Artie (Nancy Learmonth), the absentee mother whose only contact with her daughter is the spelling lessons she conducts over the phone. (The cryptic title is a word Echo correctly spells to win a national spelling bee.) The play's non-linear structure allows Blessing to move around time and relationships with a fluidity that allows the audience the greatest understanding of the dynamics between the three women.
Most remarkable is Blessing's ability to create an honest portrait of how these three women deal with each other. Being the only daughter of an only daughter myself, I found Blessing's piece to be one of the most revealing pieces of fiction ever written on the subject.
The Colony's production is no less than stunning, performed on a bare stage which on other nights houses the company's mainstage production of On the Twentieth Century. Director Carol Newell has elicited such powerful performances from the three actresses that the audience is presented a completed reality without any set and only a minimum of props. Saladino is a gifted young actress who shows enormous range in both character and emotion and is able to hold her own onstage. Andrews handles the dual nature of her character well: While on the surface she seems warm and grandmotherly, we can see the eccentricity and resentment that complicates her relationships.
As in real life, Learmonth as the mother/daughter in the middle has the hardest role: At times unsympathetic, especially in dealing with Echo, Learmonth is able to gain the audience's sympathy in showing the tremendous pain and confusion involved in being stuck in the generation gap.
"Eleemosynary," presented by and at the Colony Studio Theatre, 1944 Riverside Dr., Los Angeles. May 26-July 11. (213) 655-3011.
GROSS INDECENCY:
THE THREE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE
at Intiman Theatre
Reviewed by David-Edward Hughes
The prolific success of Gross Indecency, an Off-Broadway hit of this past season which has already enjoyed smashing success in San Francisco and elsewhere, continues with a rousing production at Intiman Theatre. Playwright Moisƒs Kaufman's inspired refashioning of actual transcripts from Wilde's trials, interspersed with bits from the celebrated author's writings, finds its ideal director in Intiman associate artistic director Victor Pappas. With unflagging pace, sharp casting, and a clear affection for Wilde, Pappas presents the tale with clarity as well as theatrical flourishes.
The trials are presented in a surreal manner, with members of the court suddenly spouting dialogue out of the Wilde plays, and a truly marvelous tableau of Wilde's boys, several of the young men whose highly suspect testimony hastened the judgment against Wilde, lounging seductively in their underwear on an upstage sofa.
Donald Carrier is a most sympathetic and subdued Wilde, the emotional center of the production. In an altogether sterling ensemble which includes Shawn Galloway, Peter Lohnes, Jos Viramontes, Andrew Heffernan, and David Pichette, special kudos are due Christopher Kelly as Lord Alfred Douglas, who shows us glimpses of why Wilde risked his good name for this young man; John Gilbert's strong portrayals of the accusing Queensberry as well as two of Wilde's prosecutors, and a showstopping turn by Mark Anders as a blithering, blustering modern-day Wilde scholar.
The show receives an accomplished physical production thanks to Robert A. Dahlstrom's well-appointed courtroom set, Mary Louise Geigers' impeccable lighting design, and Sarah Nash Gates' stylishly attractive costumes. The Intiman Playhouse itself was recently remodeled to a most complementary effect with a more spacious feeling lobby and more comfortable seating.
"Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde," presented by and at Intiman Playhouse, 201 Mercer St. in Seattle Center, Seattle. June 10-July 5. (206) 269-1900.
GOOD
at Theatre West
Reviewed by Madeleine Shaner
C.P. Taylor's play, based in the reality of the 1930s when Hitler was coming to power, is a morality play for the ages, illustrating Edmund Burke's warning that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Dr. Halder, one such "good" man, poignantly played by Steve O'Connor, finds himself torn between the demands of his blind and suicidal mother (Margaret Muse, in a killer performance), his manic-depressive wife, Helen (a pathetically lovable Ursula Martin), his best friend, a Jewish psychiatrist (Ivan Cury as an increasingly frantic Maurice), and a regime on the rise that promises order in his increasingly chaotic world.
As his struggle to do the right thing becomes more and more difficult, Halder falls for a female student, Anne (Elizabeth Du Vall), who seems to offer the uncomplicated way out of his problematic existence: a house in the woods, a love without co-dependence, the freedom to follow his dream. The charismatic Hitler and his blackshirts offer a similar kind of adoration and empowerment. The views expressed in Dr. Halder's book, in which he seems to espouse euthanasia for the elderly and undesirables, make him a prime candidate to head up implementation of the impending "Final Solution."
Seduced by the power vested in him, and by Anne's unconditional love, Halder finds it increasingly easy to rationalize book burnings and the destruction of Jewish businesses: It's all for the good of the State, and the end will quickly justify the means, eliminating the need for "ethnic cleansing" and other obviously nonsensical Nazi policies.
The quirk that makes Halder human, and relieves Taylor's play from being a catalogue of horror, is the music he hears in his head while hell is unfolding before him. A three-piece band (Graham Jackson, Christina Dalton, Adrian Paskowitz) performs familiar numbers, cabaret-style, as Hitler (Andrew Parks) sings his version of "September Song" and Arden Teresa Lewis performs a Dietrich-inspired "Falling in Love Again," complete with chair and sexy legwork. The totally unexpected song breaks are a ludicrous hiatus from the blood-curdling horror of the good professor's gradual emotional downfall--comedy lined with tragedy, a deranged counterpart to a psychotic moment in history. Jim Beaver, David Brandt, Andrew Parks, and Bruce Liberty are authentically scary as Nazis on the rise.
Director Norman Cohen succeeds in making the unpalatable into a combination platter of dread, horror, and musical comedy--initially surprising, increasingly disturbing, and ultimately devastating.
"Good," presented by and at Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Los Angeles. June 5-July 19. (213) 851-7977.
SKIN
at the Los Angeles Playhouse
Reviewed by Terri Roberts
Sometimes the only protection we have in life is what we were born with, a warning system of instincts: five guiding senses and skin. Yes, skin. For without that tissue barrier, we would be little more than defenseless, bloody blobs of organs, muscle, and bone. Spilling your guts would become something grossly literal rather than metaphorical, as would such images as "opening your heart" and "losing your mind."
Still, protection is never a guarantee of safety. And in the case of Sean Jones, even developing the thickest skin in the world can't keep his poetic mind from snapping or his open heart from breaking in two. Jones is the downtrodden protagonist in Naomi Iizuka's Skin, an adaptation of 19th-century German playwright Georg B†chner's Woyzeck, now in its L.A. premiere in a production by the Relentless Theatre Company.
B†chner died young in the mid-1830s, and Woyzeck was left as an abstract collection of scenes sketching the story of a man used in medical experiments who later commits a horrible murder. Iizuka has preserved the basic storyline but drastically changed and updated the characters and situations. Jones (Alex Fernandez) is a blue-collar worker who seems to find nothing but trouble around every corner: He's harassed by bad-attitude cops (Oscar Arguello and Ajgie Kirkland) and an anal-retentive factory boss (Cliff Weissman). His friend Angel (Brent Roam) doesn't understand his profound observations of life, and his girlfriend, Mary (Rachel Malkenhorst), with whom he has a daughter (Wendy Johnson), has taken up with a hunky sailor (Christian Svensson). Eventually, the pressures of disillusionment build to a critical mass and Jones sees only one desperate means of escape.
Fernandez carries off the unwieldy load of Skin's language particularly well. Lines like, "The air is moving something is shimmering," and, "You'd lose your mind listening to the inside of you. How can there be so much inside one body?" do not fall easily from the tongue. Malkenhorst (an easy double for Minnie Driver) does well once she gets past her first awkward monologue. She does best when she's dancing; her body is more at ease, and she relaxes into the language. Andrea Portes also has some good moments as Mary's punky girlfriend, Lisa, and her druggie attitude provides most of the show's humor.
Fans of linear storytelling and happy endings won't like it here. Olivia Honegger directs in braids, with time and story elements overlapping themselves. But it serves a point if you're willing to see it, sit with it, and let it sink in. Told in a single long act without intermission, Skin is an intriguing look at the disintegration of a man who feels differently inside his skin than the people around him.
"Skin," presented by the Relentless Theatre Company at the Los Angeles Playhouse, 1625 1/2 La Brea Blvd., Hollywood. June 12-July 18. (310) 289-2287.
A QUESTION OF MERCY
at the Magic Theatre
Reviewed by Kerry Reid
Full disclosure time: David Rabe has always struck me as one of the more overrated of contemporary American playwrights. Now that that's out of the way, I must say that I was surprised and moved by his latest work, now receiving its West Coast premiere at the Magic under the direction of Benny Sato Ambush.
In A Question of Mercy, inspired by a 1991 New York Times Magazine article on assisted suicide by Dr. Richard Selzer, Rabe attains a stateliness and clarity I find lacking in his earlier works. While the show, at nearly three hours, is entirely too long (and long-winded) for its own good, Ambush's direction allows the actors ample opportunity to get underneath the density of the text and find many startling moments of emotional truth.
Dr. Robert Chapman (L. Peter Callender), the character based on Selzer, is a middle-aged physician effectively retired from medical practice. He receives a phone call from Thomas (Francis Jue), the lover of Anthony (Rudy Guerrero), who is dying of AIDS. Anthony wants to end his painful existence, and he wants Dr. Chapman to help him.
Thankfully, Rabe's script goes far beyond merely updating Whose Life Is It Anyway? for the age of AIDS. The conflict in the play is not whether or not Dr. Chapman will accede to Anthony's request. The moral debate over whether assisted suicide is right or not takes secondary importance to the question of how one moves from intellectual and moral acceptance of the need for it in extreme circumstance to an emotional awareness of its implications. The drama comes not from will-he-or-won't-he--Rabe's script has Dr. Chapman reach his decision rather quickly--but in showing the unforeseen, sometimes barely acknowledged impact of that decision on Dr. Chapman, Anthony, Thomas, and the lovers' friend Susanah (Valerie de Josƒ).
The latter character, the script's weakest by far, is the one who finally puts the kibosh on the carefully laid plans for Anthony's suicide. While she may be based on a real person, Rabe's script and de Josƒ's deadpan reading make her more a plot device than a textured character acting from complex motivations.
Fortunately, the performances of Callender, Jue, and newcomer Guerrero are so compelling and moving that this weakness doesn't impede the play's impact. Guerrero in particular impresses with his skillful playing of the vitality still present in Anthony's ravaged physical self. "The body is a single-minded bore--live, live, live," Guerrero's Anthony observes with a finely honed blend of rage and humor. Jue also does well with what is by contrast a less interesting part, conjuring up the petulance, grief, love, and anger that drive Thomas.
But it is Callender who provides the glue that holds the show together. His Dr. Chapman moves from the "consoling formality" of a well-ordered life to confusion, humility, and despair as he tries to adjust to Anthony's request and his own lingering doubts about the rightness of that request. Callender's beautifully on-target performance makes him the perfect guide for the audience into this thorny yet tender and elegant story.
"A Question of Mercy," presented by and at the Magic Theatre, Bldg. D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. June 2-28. (415) 441-3687.
A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY
at Castelar School
Reviewed by Scott Proudfit
Chay Yew wrestles with the multiplicity of the Asian-American experience in the U.S. over the past 150 years in Cornerstone Theater Company's production of a beautiful country. The center of the piece, the story of an immigrant drag queen called Miss Visa Denied (Reggie Lee), doesn't quite hold, but the power and beauty of the individual historical scenes, which strain against the constriction of the central metaphor, are not to be denied. It makes for a vital, if not consistently invigorating, night of theatre.
Two of the most successful sections of the evening take their lines directly from the racist texts The Chinese Must Go by Henry Grimm and "How to Tell Your Friends From the Japs," a 1941 article from Time magazine. The Grimm section is played like slapstick melodrama, the Time article like a contemporary fashion show. The darkly comic aspect of both, which causes the audience to laugh in horror, seems the most successful method of social commentary. Page Leong and Chris Wells are particularly strong in these sections, striking a balance between outrageous parody and actor's commentary beneath.
But Yew also demonstrates the ability to shock and enlighten by writing and directing it straight. Corresponding monologues between Lily Chin (whose son was killed in a racist incident in 1982) and Gunner Lindberg (who killed young Thien Minh Ly at Tustin High School in 1996) are brutally poignant. As Chin, Leong draws tears through her obvious pain, particularly in contrast to Wells' medically cold description of his abominations.
Other standout scenes include a three-monologue scene about Laos, with Leong as a Laotian girl losing touch with her culture at a Midwestern university, Nancy Yee as an older Laotian woman who fears the cultural void of Americanization, and Jeanne Sakata as a Laotian man who longs for his native land. Yew's ability to physicalize his themes is particularly strong here, as the man carefully arranges an armada of small paper boats on stage, symbolizing the exodus.
The testimonial monologues interspersed throughout, using real people and their experiences, are also quite effective (Yee, Josƒ Casas, and Gwendoline Yeo), as are the fan dancers and singers Yew includes in the show (Chi Kiet Au and John Lung Wen). In fact, when Lee, as Miss Visa Denied, does his own "testimony" (written by Yew) at the end of the play, he is wonderful. Unfortunately, the character is not as neccessary or interesting in his other scenes. But the material is strong enough and interrelated enough to create an powerful evening without a central character. As it stands, it's still a fascinating, if occasionally flawed, piece of theatre.
"A beautiful country," presented by Cornerstone Theater Company in association with the Mark Taper Forum's Asian Theater Workshop and East West Players at Castelar School, 829 Yale St., Chinatown, Los Angeles. June 5-21. (310) 449-1700.
BECKETT'S WOMEN
at the Saint Ambrose Arts Center
Reviewed by Ken Pfeil
What is so very striking about Beckett is that one need no familiarity with his work to be able to cull from it many different perspectives. And actively cull an audience is compelled to do; it must assume a large shared responsibility in shaping the world of his plays, since no particular time or setting other than often sparse elements of the immediate environs are detailed. The San Quentin Drama Workshop's presentation of three short Beckett plays--Come and Go, Eh Joe, and Footfalls--succeeds in bringing to the fore the playwright's provocative characterizations and dialogue in the midst of infinite and barren landscapes.
In Come and Go, three women--Vi (Akemi Royer), Ru (Nora Masterson), and Flo (Jennifer Rebecca Bailey)--sit on and move about a narrow bench, their eyes shadowed by wide-brimmed hats, bodies and hands covered in long, drab dresses and gloves. The viewer's responsibility then lies in reading the women's precise movements and nostalgic, equivocal, protracted dialogue. Eh Joe directs our attention right of centerstage to a tight crop of Joe's (Rick Cluchey, who co-directed the program with R.S. Bailey) aged face as he sits in a large chair and listens as an erstwhile woman's voice in his head chastises him for past indiscretions. Cluchey's expressions change subtly and fully with the narration, like the hands sweeping a clock's face.
Footfalls, like Come and Go, uses precise action as May (Bailey again) paces back and forth in the confines of a light cast on the stage, delivering accounts of her peripatetic life while the voice of her invalid mother (Masterson) counters from offstage. As the sets (by Lynn Johnson) and sound (Terry Hagerty) are concise and uncluttered, matched by the discourse and movements of the actors, Beckett's Women instills a sort of interior agoraphobia, with a far-reaching emptiness beyond the action. The attention thus paid to the performance is that much more intense and ultimately rewarding.
"Beckett's Women," presented by the San Quentin Drama Workshop at the St. Ambrose Arts Center, 1261 N. Fairfax Ave., W. Hollywood. June 11-Aug. 29.
ONCE UPON A MATTRESS
at the Festival Theatre
Reviewed by D.L. King
It could have been a formula for disaster: a composer/playwright and two librettists are asked to write a musical tailored to fit the variable talents of a pampered Poconos resort's staff and guests. But the author was Mary Rodgers, the lyricists were Marshall Barer and Jay Thompson, and the result eventually turned up on Broadway as the delightful family favorite, Once Upon a Mattress.
As Solvang celebrates its silver anniversary season of Theaterfest productions by PCPA, the company revives Mattress for a repeat run under the expert tutelage of director/choreographer Brad Carroll. This revival showcases Carroll's gifts for precisely timed comedy and eye-pleasing choreography, demonstrating why he has been a favorite with theatre fans for so many years.
Another of Carroll's gifts must have to do with casting, and/or he's a genius at bringing out the best in his crew. Of course, when you have talents like Jack Greenman and Jonathan Gillard Daly in your ensemble, you have a great head start. As Sir Harry, Greenman is lovably heroic, and the audience joins the knight in his admiration of himself. Indeed, his portrayal is more than a little tongue-in-cheek, but he manages to keep the tongue in check while he mixes humor and romance in his delivery of "In a Little While" and "Yesterday I Loved You." The ever-talking, ever-doting Queen Aggravain aggravates and humiliates, but Daly-in-drag makes her overbearing overprotection of her beloved son palatable. Daly's deliberately long-winded speeches and priceless expressions create quite a memorable character.
Snaring guest artist Mary Jo Agresta for Princess Winnifred, the role Carol Burnett made famous, is another bit of keen casting. Agresta resembles Burnett physically and in her sense of comedy. And she's a remarkably gifted physical comedienne: The way she flops around on top of 20 mattresses is delightfully nerve-wracking.
The quality casting extends to the ensembles, with a great chorus singing and dancing in such a way as to make 10 voices seem like 30. And strong performances by Jason Michael Spelbring, Eric Bishop, Tim Castro, and David Huber, along with first-rate acting by Lauren Creager, Morgan Brown, and Holli Thenhaus (as the wonderfully ditzy Princess #12) round out a great show. Kudos, too, to Jeremy Mann's gifted music direction, R. Eric Stone's funny and fanciful sets, and Judith Ryerson's colorful costuming.
"Once Upon a Mattress," presented by the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts at the Solvang Festival Theatre, Solvang. June 11-July 4. (805) 922-8313.
INCORRUPTIBLE
at Artists Repertory Theatre's Reiersgaard Theatre
Reviewed by Jeremy Kemp
Played out in a second-rate monastery in 13th-century France, Michael Hollinger's broadly played macabre farce titters at both greedy monks and their modern-day counterparts in the theatre business. The monastery's main attraction is St. Foy, a dusty pile of holy bones that long ago performed miracles, curing the bald and blind. But receipts are down now that St. Foy is old hat, while the neighboring abbey has a hot new act with a major patron, the Pope.
Desperate to raise the funds both to do good works and to compete with the abbey, the monks stumble on a dark and brilliant plan: They'll enter the holy relic business by emptying their graveyard, boiling the bones and pawning off the pieces as miracle-producing artifacts. In one hilarious scene (and there are many), Keith Scales as the Abbot stands over a dead body, gives last rites in Latin, and announces summarily: "All right, now cut him up."
In another funny scene, Scales and Brenda Philips as Agatha duel about unholy matters while circling round the stage and launching Latin invectives. And Philips goes over the top with a Southern Baptist spin on Sister Agatha, swaying and hollering psalms before exiting in a huff. Jim Caputo plays a wandering minstrel who is blackmailed into raiding the parish cemetery and processing the "relics." Ironically, his portrayal of the hapless thespian provides the moral center of the play, in stark contrast to David Meyers' excellently fiendish Brother Martin, who will do just about anything for a penny, up to and including murder. Marilyn Stacey plays a typically haggish Peasant Woman, and Linda Hayden turns in a well-crafted portrayal of Marie, a prostitute and singer.
Jack O'Brien's set is drab and utilitarian--ratty piles of books sitting on rough-hewn stone under cracked windows of uncolored glass. But lighting by Jeff Forbes sets the stage well with a blue wash accented by bright cathedral-glass patterns splashing down from imaginary windows and giving the smallish set a feeling of grand dimension. And Caputo's miracle is nicely spot-lit with hot orange.
In all, ART's season finale, under director Allen Nause, finds the troupe in full stride, using the new space well and entertaining the masses while serving the craft with good works.
"Incorruptible," presented by Artists Repertory Theatre at the Reiersgaard Theatre, 1516 SW Alder St., Portland. June 9-July 19. (503) 241-9807.
THE THREE CUCKOLDS
at Theatre 40
Reviewed by Zach Udko
Theatre 40's current production of The Three Cuckolds and the hungry Harlequin at the play's center share one glaring similarity: They both lack meat. Still, an overabundance of talent drives this commedia dell'artƒ (reworked by Leon Katz from an anonymous 16th-century play) toward something beguiling and uniquely enjoyable.
As far as the plot is concerned, trust me: It's far too complicated to go into details. Like most works of the period, the action surrounds several mismatched marriages and lovers on the sly in search of bedroom bliss. This combination of three husbands, three wives, and an outside suitor gives even Marivaux a run for his money in the confusion department. To save the day, the androgynous prankster Arlecchino (Barbara Keegan) finds himself sorting out all of the romantic quagmires while hoping to get a bite to eat in the process.
Director Howard Teichman makes us care about the trivialities of the couples with the help of music, masks (one in particular that turns a nose into a phallus), A. Jeffrey Schoenberg's vivid costumes, and Evan Bartoletti's whimsical set. But it is Keegan's performance that turns the banal into brilliance: Her mockery of the fools that surround her is hilarious, while a monologue given as she contemplates suicide a la Hamlet almost breaks our hearts.
Other notable performances include Charlie Dell's pathetic yet lovable Coviello and Amy Tolsky's pushy, ballsy, and shrill Franceschina. Jennifer Williams' big-bosomed Flaminia also commands the stage with droll results; in fact, there's not one weak link in the entire ensemble.
Teichman delivers nothing less than one helluva bawdy romp. Of course, there's only so many ways to stage the old mirror scene made famous by the Marx Brothers, but he does his best to throw in clever embellishments. Yes, there is repetition, bland and obvious moments, and unlikely plot twists, but as one of the characters asks, "Is this Aristotle or commedia?" Indeed, there's nothing wrong with frivolous indulgence from time to time.
"The Three Cuckolds," presented by and at Theatre 40, 241 Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills. May 30-July 12. (818) 789-8499.
OTHER THAN MY HEALTH I HAVE NOTHING
AND TODAY I DON'T FEEL SO GOOD
at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
Reviewed by Sally Johnson
Fate has been less than kind to standup comic Bruce Smirnoff. His numerous big breaks all went sour. An attractive blond girlfriend left him (he shows a glowing blow-up of her taken in 1986), his big chance on TV lasted all of one day, and from the look on his mother's face (another blow-up photo sight gag), she's none too happy with his line of work. So what's a nice 41-year-old Jewish boy to do? In Smirnoff's case, turn rejection into laughs in a spate of pure Borscht Belt humor.
Having been in the comedy business for 20 years, Smirnoff has plenty of material to draw from. From a disastrous two-month gig at Caesar's Atlantic City to the cutthroat comedy clubs of Los Angeles, he exposes some of the softer and darker sides of life in the "industry." Highlights include a chance to work opposite Carroll O'Connor on Archie Bunker's Place. Naturally, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity evaporates when O'Connor flips his lid after Smirnoff steals a line in Day One of dress rehearsals. An unexpected Holocaust documentary opens for his comedy routine at a Bnai B'rith fundraiser. And a chance encounter with Tonight Show host Johnny Carson quickly goes from being the chance of a lifetime to a complete nightmare.
Smirnoff explains the frustrations of his chosen profession in self-deprecating tones delivered directly to the audience: "What's your name? Ida? I have an aunt named Ida. So Ida, listen to this " He feels rejected by everyone, from industry bigwigs to unappreciative audiences, from Hollywood bimbos looking for sugar daddies to old friends who've hit the big time just in time to forget he exists. Of course, underlying the stark humor is the implication that people should just be decent and give him the break he deserves--if only for his persistence.
The outrageous, pathetic, and unfair experiences he recalls, in a piece co-written with Hiram Kasten, have the ring of authenticity, and are the best part of this very original and frequently amusing show under Dan Cohen's direction. Smirnoff's physical presence, on the other hand, feels a little off-the-mark: He often looks like he's loitering on a street corner rather than speaking from his mod apartment. (Set design is by Irving Simon.)
Comedy is like a gambling addiction to this guy. "I would never quit this business," Smirnoff says after all the dust has settled. And, while the job has its own rewards, who knows? Maybe fate is secretly smiling on him--or at him.
"Other Than My Health I Have Nothing and Today I Don't Feel So Good," presented by Scott Schneider, Billy Riback, and the West Coast Jewish Theatre at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. June 4-July 12. (310) 477-2055.
EVIL LEGACY
at Theatre 40
Reviewed by Sally Johnson
Mini-madonnas, flickering candles, and crimson furnishings dot Lucretia Borgia's Vatican apartments in this one-woman 15th-century history lesson co-written by Ted Lange and Kathrine Bates. Lucretia (Bates) is, we learn, guilty of little more than having been born into a fabulously wealthy and powerful family--and of having loved too much. Speaking to an unseen new chambermaid, she gossips confidentially about family matters, about her powerful father, Pope Alexander VI, whose lover is the young Giulia Farnese, and her brothers, most notably Cesare, a wicked charmer whose ambition knows no bounds. She recounts how family intrigues very nearly killed her first husband, Giovanni Sforza. But Lucretia moves ever forward, and here we encounter her preparing for her second marriage.
By Act Two, Lucretia's fortitude flounders and her inner harmony wanes. She appears wearing weeds. All those closest to her either have disappeared, have been tossed into the Tiber and drowned (including her unfortunate brother Juan and her lover Pedro), or, as was the case with her beloved husband Alfonso d'Aragon, brutally strangled. She suspects Cesare, whom she reviles, admires, and fears, though her attachment to him runs deep. "Oh Cesare, Cesare!" she repeatedly moans in a thick Italian accent. By play's end we're made to understand how she could possibly forgive such a political monster. Bates distinguishes between Lucretia and several other characters by giving them different accents--a device which works to varying effect.
As Lucretia, Bates presents a woman who is innocent yet yielding, able to hold her own but generally unable to prevent disaster from befalling others. Most of her speeches involve past events, confidences, and betrayals; they are delivered with careful inflection and innuendo, but do have a tendency to dissipate into the corners rather than growing into a thoroughly dramatic impression. A distractingly wide stage and diffuse lighting effects (by Debra Garcia Lockwood) tend to blur Bates' efforts. Those moments when she is surrounded in darkness provide the most visually forceful impressions of a fascinating woman ringed in by extinguished passion, grief, and centuries of condemnation fueled by rumor and fragmented testimony. Ted Lange directed.
"Evil Legacy," presented by and at Theatre 40, located on the Beverly Hills High School Campus, 241 Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills. June 8-July 8. (213) 876-8980.
SEND CHOCOLATE AND MARLBOROS
at the Road Theatre
Reviewed by Les Spindle
A year and a half in reform school is an experience that is bound to either make or break the spirit of a troubled 16-year-old Midwestern girl, especially when she ultimately finds herself accused of serious crimes she didn't commit. That is the ordeal that writer/performer Pamela Hayden relates in her autobiographical solo show, Send Chocolates and Marlboros. Hayden is a capable actress who intermittently engages our attention, but her thin script is far too glib and incohesive, achieving scant humor and even less poignancy.
Director Alyson Reed, an accomplished actress herself (recently a member of the Blank Theatre Co.'s brilliant Hello Again ensemble), provides Hayden with enough variety in movement and speech to keep the 80-minute show moving at an agreeable pace. But far too much of the material dwells on innocuous and vaguely connected details that apparently mean something to Hayden but have little cumulative impact for us. There is also a need for stronger exposition: What compelled Pamela to be a rebellious teen in the first place? What was her relationship with her parents? Her years of confinement are supposed to evoke a rite of passage, but we know too little of her past experiences for the transformation to have much meaning.
Hayden achieves her best moments when she deftly impersonates the various adults and children with whom she interacted at the school, cleverly identifying them by the cigarettes they smoked. But too many of the anecdotes have little purpose beyond mild amusement, such as horror stories about the abominable food and the tale of raiding the kitchen for Spaghetti-Os. The play strives for emotional resonance in its final scenes, but the hodgepodge of trivial episodes that have preceded it dissipate any possibility of genuine catharsis. Russell Pyle's superbly fluid lighting deserves a nod.
"Send Chocolate and Marlboros," presented by Bill Kerr and Suzanne Tara in association with the Other Side of the Hill Productions Inc. at the Road Theatre, Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., N. Hollywood. June 11-July 17. (213) 660-8587.
20 QUESTIONS
at the Coast Playhouse
Reviewed by Wenzel Jones
There's comfort to be found in a production like this--primarily in that no situation is going to be too terribly challenging and that the gay characters are all inoffensively bland. It is the narrative of wholesome college boy Andrew (John Stevenson), generally out of sorts over coming to grips with his homosexuality, who spots Idaho (Reed Grudin) at a coffeehouse and is enchanted because, of course, this character is stunning.
But Idaho, as scripted, is utterly charmless, which makes Andrew's ongoing fascination a bit hard to fathom, especially since our hero has a far more inviting option in Mark (the appealing if occasionally histrionic Steve Callahan). Other men's stories are elicited by Andrew's professor (David Organisak, covering for the temporary absence of Nic Arnzen, who also directed), who is conducting a sexuality survey and affords the young lads their own opportunities to spout forth. The decided ickiness of a professor using his own students in a sexual study is left unexplored by playwright Joseph Brouillette.
Brouillette's language was probably lovely on the printed page but is a great deal more awkward when spoken. The only two who really succeed in putting it across are Nic Garcia and Cutter Mitchell. Garcia essays three character roles, among them James, a transvestite demimondaine who can actually carry off the line, "It was a menage a trois and the third party was death." Mitchell is masterful in the most flamboyant, witty performance of the evening as Jack, the straight man (which should tell you something). His lines evoke the worst of the Rat Pack milieu--his pejorative term for a gay man is "fagmo"--but his timing is impeccable.
Arnzen has allowed the others to make very safe and easy choices which, in conjunction with Lee Harris' serviceable costumes and the uncredited non-set (neutral wood blocks and flats), might make for a perfectly innocuous pre-coming-out date with the folks.
"20 Questions," presented by Boys Room Productions at the Coast Playhouse, 8325 Santa Monica Blvd., W. Hollywood. May 29-July 5. (213) 660-8587.
FORTY DEUCE
at the Actors Circle Theatre
Reviewed by Paul Birchall
Few plays are more thematically unpleasant than Alan Bowne's disturbing and thoroughly repellent "exposƒ" of the dark underbelly of male prostitution (as though there's a lighter underbelly somewhere). Director Arthur Mendoza's crisply staged and emotionally charged production gives the weakly written piece a better rendering than perhaps it deserves. Should you feel inclined, you can search for deeper meaning--but it's quite possible the play is just as empty and as miserable as its male prostitute characters' lives.
A group of young male hustlers residing in a filthy Times Square apartment agree to sell $5,000 bucks worth of crack, but then greedily smoke it all, resulting in one of the lads (Mark Cirillo) dying from an overdose. Hard-boiled Ricky (Rene Rigal), his ambitious rival Blow (Jamie Gannon), vulnerable Mitchell (Alan Marx), and Crank (John Bohne) desperately fend off frequent beatings from their monstrous pimp (Victor Rivers) as they try to figure out what to do.
If this were an episode of Spin and Marty, the boys would put on a show in a barn. However, since the play takes place on the mean streets--just before Disney bought them up and prettified them--Ricky (Rene Rigal) hatches a preposterous plot to trick depraved john Mr. Roper (Joseph Petrie) into buying the dead boy for his disreputable purposes.
The mostly youthful cast members offer edgy performances, but all too often substitute urgency and intensity for comprehensibility. Much of the play is reduced to spurts of bawling, making the plot at times maddeningly hard to follow. Occasionally the play provokes a genuine reaction, but it's often just a gut response that's the result of having something distasteful shoved in our face. Still, harrowing turns are offered by Rigal's pragmatic Ricky, Gannon's seductive Blow, Rivers' comic-book monstrous pimp, and Petrie's jaw-droppingly skanky john.
"Forty Deuce," presented by and at Actors Circle Theatre, 7313 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. June 4-July 25. (213) 660-8587.