BLACKBIRD

WOW!
BLACKBIRD

A 30ish woman confronts the 60ish man who had sex with her when she was only 12 in David Harrower’s harrowing Blackbird, now shocking, disturbing, and dare I say entertaining audiences in equal measure in its Los Angeles premiere by Rogue Machine Theatre.

Before I’m accused of giving too much away in my first sentence, let me assure you that this startling bit of information comes out a mere ten minutes into the play, and any attempt to discuss Blackbird without revealing its central conceit would be frustrating at best. In any case, whatever preconceived notions you might have of Blackbird as a staged version of a cable TV revenge melodrama will quickly be dispelled by the playwright’s unclichéd (and even poetic) dialog and unpredictable plot twists, especially as directed to razor-sharp perfection by Robin Larsen and performed by a pair of utterly brilliant actors.

Our first glimpse of Peter (Sam Anderson) and Una (Corryn Cummins) finds them mid-conversation in the trash-strewn break room of an unnamed company, and though we’re at first unaware of the reason for their confrontation, one thing is crystal clear. Peter wants out and Una is not about to let him get away. Peter’s coworkers, whose shadowy figures are glimpsed through the room’s translucent windows, seem as curious as we are about what’s going on between this disparate pair, but we have the advantage of being inside the room with them. Indeed, because Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s scenic design in Theatre/Theatre’s smaller space is so utterly realistic, it seems almost as if chairs and risers had been added to a preexisting factory room, and not the other way around.

Were Blackbird a novel, a writer like Jodi Picoult (whose 400+ page tomes deal with precisely this type of dark, twisted subject matter) would fill us in with every detail of Peter and Una’s past relationship from both points of view, and from the points of view of the people who surrounded them, and quite a compelling novel it would make.

The challenge—and the excitement—of Blackbird as an eighty-minute, two-character play is that whatever we know about the older man and younger woman comes from what they tell each other during their real-time encounter. We hear her story as she remembers it, and his as he does, or at least in the way that each one wants the other to think that he or she remembers it. As for the details of Peter’s current life or Una’s, we have to take their word on it, and do so with a grain of salt, since the potential for prevarication is very real indeed. Thus, playwright Harrower keeps us particularly on our toes, filling in the blanks as best we can, and his play is all the stronger for making its audiences think.

Blackbird is far too complex for clichés, and anyone expecting a black-and-white predator-victim tale will have to search elsewhere. Is Peter the serial molester that child abuse advocates would like him painted as, or was Una (as he insists) only a one-time thing? Is he being honest about the man he claims to have become, or merely describing a life he wants her to see him in? Is Una a grown-up abuse survivor looking simply for closure, or does her visit hide far different urges? Be prepared to hash over these questions with your fellow playgoers as you exit the theater following Blackbird’s disquieting blackout.

One more thing about Harrower’s script as published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. and staged by Rogue Machine. Whoever tweaked it for American audiences deserves major props, as there’s not a moment you’d think that it was written by a Scottish playwright, save the unlikelihood of Una's surname.

Lead performers Anderson and Cummins can now be added to the list of the year’s stunning dramatic duos, which have included Johnny Clark and Michelle Clunie, Mike Farrell and Jim Parrack, and Morlan Higgins and Adolphus Ward.

Anderson, StageSceneLA Award winner for his unforgettable work in The Bird And Mr. Banks, is equally unforgettable here as a man whose seeming harmlessness (he looks to be the last person any parent would worry about leaving their child with) makes his past transgressions all the more shocking, and whose air of sincerity makes his claims of redemption all the more credible should we choose to believe him. It is as tough a role as Anderson has ever undertaken, emotionally and physically draining (credit fight choreographer Edgar Landa for the latter), and he is as on top of it as you’d expect an actor half his age to be.

The remarkable Cummins is equally well cast. There’s a toughness to her that makes you wonder how she could ever have been a victim, yet the lone tear that falls unexpectedly down her cheek reveals the wounded child within. The talented young actress brings a feline fierceness to the role, matching Anderson in power and depth every step of the way, so that when …

I’ll stop myself before giving anything more away. Suffice it to say that Anderson’s and Cummins’ work must surely match the best of any actors who may have tackled these roles in previous productions.

Casey Burke makes a highly effective eleventh hour appearance. Dana Lyn Baron and Alec Tomkiw are seen mostly only as distorted images through frosted glass, but their presence adds significantly to the realism of Larsen’s staging.

Leigh Allen’s lighting design is remarkably varied considering the one-set, real-time nature of Harrower’s script. Christopher Moscatiello’s sound design adds subtly to the suspense. Jocelyn Hublau Parker’s costumes suit each character to a T. Property designer Ilona Piotrowska gets a round of applause for filling Schwartz’s set with fast food detritus like you may never have seen on the legitimate stage. Sasha Sobolevsky is stage manager, David Mauer technical director, Amanda Mauer production manager, and Darryl Johnson assistant director. Blackbird is produced by John Perrin Flynn, Matthew Elkins, and Edward Tournier.

I had avoided Blackbird when it first opened, the darkness of its subject matter suggesting a play that might prove overly disturbing to this somewhat faint-hearted reviewer. Disturbing it is indeed, but (as mentioned in the first paragraph) highly entertaining as well, and well worth seeing for that reason alone. Even amidst the darkness and despair, it is a theatergoing treat to savor the superb work being done by Anderson and Cummins—literally within touching distance. Blackbird gives playgoers one more reason to sample the many treasures of Los Angeles theater.

(Note: Blackbird’s current schedule—Saturdays and Sundays at 5:00 and Mondays at 8:00—makes it particularly easy to program into even the busiest theatergoing schedule.)

Rogue Machine, Theatre/Theater, 5041 W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles. Through August 15. Saturdays and Sundays at 5:00, Mondays at 8:00. Reservations: 855 585-5185
www.roguemachinetheatre.com
--Steven Stanley
July 25, 2011
Photos: John Flynn

THE INSIDIOUS IMPACT OF ANTON

WOW!
THE INSIDIOUS IMPACT OF ANTON

You could hardly call Francesca “The Girl Who Has Everything,” but she for one is not complaining. She has a job and a small circle of sort-of friends, and while she doesn't have a husband or a boyfriend, what she does have is a life which includes "people, cable, books on occasion, sex when required. And an apartment that always gets compliments.” And then she meets Anton.

Francesca is the 30something heroine of David Hilder’s highly entertaining romcom The Insidious Impact Of Anton, whose snappy World Premiere production at the El Centro proves a terrific showcase for the New York playwright’s quirky spin on life and a just-right star vehicle for its leading lady Tracy Eliott under Richard Tatum's ingenious direction.

Francesca spends her days not particularly challenged by the office job her uncle Victor offered her when she got tired of retail—and not particularly interested in anything or anyone else. Conversations with co-workers Miranda and Adele rarely go farther than who’s cute on this season’s American Idol. Richard, her ex, still carries an obvious torch for “Chess,” and though the possibility of a roll in the hay for old-time’s sake does exist, it’s unlikely to lead to an honest-to-goodness rekindling of old flames. Gaybor (i.e. gay neighbor) Nate does add a certain sparkle to Francesca’s evenings at home, but unlike Francesca, Nate has a dating life, so his visits tend to be pop-bys that don’t last all that long.

Then comes that meet-cute with Anton in the office kitchen. (“I wish you to move aside when you put milk in your fucking coffee,” she informs him in a sarcastic imitation of his Eastern European syntax which flies right over Anton’s seemingly fresh-off-the-boat noggin.) And that’s just the start of a series of seemingly chance meetings—at the bus stop, at the dry cleaners... You name it, he's there. Before long Francesca has agreed to dinner with the ubiquitous gent, “which is not a date” because she has “absolutely no romantic interest in him, and if he wants to have sex with me, he can fall off the nearest log.”

Dinner does indeed turn out to be just dinner that first time, but before long Anton has turned into considerably more than a mere dinner companion. Having lost her job due to her “halfhearted work ethic and frequent—and on occasion truly stunning—expletives,” Francesca now finds herself working for Anton as his personal assistant. And that’s not all that changes in Chess’s life. Instead of sitting around an office all day with boring coworkers, she’s picking up dry cleaning for a living, and even more surprisingly, she’s starting to use expressions like “for the love of Mike” instead of her habitual “oh for Christ’s sake.”

Who the heck is this Anton (who by the way no one in Francesca’s life has ever seen) and why is he having such an insidious impact on her life?

Far be it for this reviewer to spoil the end-of-Act-One surprise playwright Hilder has in store for you or the many comic delights of Act Two. Suffice it to say that the surprise is probably not what you’re expecting—and there are numerous reasons to return to your seat after intermission, not the least of which are the performances of Insidious Anton’s two leading players, and several delightful supporting turns as well.

The role of Francesca proves a terrific showcase for Eliott, who like Katharine Hepburn before her combines a gift for the acerbic with snappy comic timing and off-center romantic appeal. It’s a huge role, one that has the actress never leaving the stage, frequently addressing the audience, zipping from scene change to scene change, and never missing a beat.

Opposite her, Mikhail Blokh is a foreign-accented, English syntax-mutilating charmer, just the sort to wear a girl’s resistance down in a case of opposites attracting—with sizzle!

Daniel Montgomery is so utterly winning as Francesca’s gayboy-next-door that you wish Hilder would write a spin-off play just for Nate—on condition that Montgomery be guaranteed the role. June Carryl and Patty Jean Robinson provide solid office support for Eliott, with a cast-against-type Carryl particularly funny as flighty flibbertigibbet Adele. Warren Davis is spot-on as Francesca’s all-business, no-charm uncle Victor. As Robert, an amusing John Gale does his best to embody the lovable hetero lug of Hilder’s script.

Hilder’s script requires instantaneous scene changes (“shift to a bus stop,” “shift to a restaurant,” “shift to work,” etc.) that could easily bog down a production less inventively directed and designed than the one the splendid Tatum and his crackerjack team have come up with here. Katie Polebaum’s cleverly off-kilter set cues us in from the get-go that we’ll be in the not-quite-real world, and together with Corwin Evans’ ingenious projections—which show us what’s atop whichever location we’re supposed to be in—make for lickety-split scene changes. (I love the way Victor is pushed on and offstage on his castered office chair.) Christopher Moscatiello’s sound design is a winner too, working in precision tandem with Michelle Stann’s lighting design to create a whimsical, occasionally otherworldly mood, though Stann’s lighting could do a better job at flattering Eliott in her “close-up” moments. Sarah Le Ferber’s costumes are just the character definers they ought to be. Shelley Delayne is scenic painting assistant, Antonina Flowers costume assistant, Stephanie Boltjes stage manager, and Rachel Landis assistant stage manager.

The Insidious Impact Of Anton is precisely the kind of under-the-radar production that might easily escape notice in the more theatrically crowded seasons of fall, winter, and spring. Fewer summer offerings give it considerably more of the visibility it richly deserves, and theatergoers in search of romantic comedy with a bite could do no better than to seek it out. Anton’s impact may well be insidious, but it’s pretty darned appealing as well.

El Centro Theatre, 804 North El Centro Avenue, Hollywood. Through August 28. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 7:00. Reservations: 323 230-7261
www.absolutetheatrela.org
--Steven Stanley
July 24, 2011
Photos: Sarah LeFeber

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

Recommended
ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

If America is the land of opportunity, nowhere is this more true than in the world of community theater. There’s probably nowhere else in the world where software developers, college math teachers, office workers, Air Force officers, and children’s book illustrators are offered so many opportunities to take to the stage and enjoy the delights of performing live theater—without having to quit their day jobs.

For an example, check out The Aerospace Players’ revival of perennial community theater favorite Once Upon A Mattress, now providing nearly forty Southern Californians with their moments in the spotlight in a production sure to entertain friends and family members alike.

Mattress shares key elements with its sister show, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Both debuted in the late 1950s, both are based on classic fairy tales (Mattress comes from The Princess And The Pea), both are about royal offspring, and both feature a Rodgers score, though in the case of Once Upon A Mattress, the Rodgers in question is the legendary Broadway composer Richard Rodgers’ daughter Mary—who wrote a supremely catchy bunch of tunes you’re guaranteed to leave the theater humming.

Mattress features an absolutely hilarious book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer. Add to that Barer’s clever lyrics, a scene-stealing leading character originated by Carol Burnett on Broadway, and a supporting cast of fairy tale archetypes tweaked just enough to make them memorable, and you’ve got a family musical which even adults can love.

In “Many Moons Ago,” the Minstrel (Stephen Cathers) recounts the tale we’ve heard time and time again. (“‘I will test her thus,’ the old queen said, ‘I’ll put twenty downy mattresses upon her bed. And beneath those twenty mattresses I’ll place one tiny pea. If that pea disturbs her slumber, then a true princess is she.’”) Once Upon A Mattress then proceeds to tell us “the real story.”

Mattress’s medieval kingdom is ruled by a Queen (Jennifer Pawlikowski) who won’t shut up and a lecherous King (Ken MacFarlane) who is mute. Courtiers of marriageable age are getting antsy because not a one is allowed to walk down the aisle until cute and cuddly Prince Dauntless (Joe Essner) finds a bride, and candidate number twelve has just struck out. (In “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” fashion, she lost on the final question “What’s the middle name of the daughter-in-law of the best friend of the blacksmith who forged the sword that killed the dragon killed by St. George?”, ending up with only a rubber chicken as a consolation prize before being thrown into the moat.)

Particularly peeved are a pregnant Lady Larkin (Erin Callaway) and her bun-in-the-oven’s dad, Prince Harry (Brian Grundy). “Why should we both suffer because you had a moment of weakness,” wonders Harry in a way not likely to win friends amongst medieval women’s-libbers.

Fortunately, though, when all seems doomed, who should climb out of the moat but the brash and brassy Princess Winnifred The Woebegone (Kristin Towers-Rowles), who informs the populace in a voice matching Merman’s in volume that “I'm actually terribly timid and hoooribly shy!” (She’s obviously not.)

Will Winnifred (aka Fred) fail Queen Aggravain’s test of “Sensitivity” by falling fast asleep atop twenty mattresses and a single tiny pea? Will Winnifred and Dauntless live happily ever after or will the Princess end up back in the moat she climbed out of? Will Lady Larkin give birth to a royal bastard?

Anyone not familiar with the answers to these questions must have fallen asleep too quickly at bedtime. Fortunately, in Once Upon A Mattress, the fun is in the getting there, particularly for cast members, who are clearly having a fairytale ball bringing these characters to life.

Michael-Anthony Nozzi’s direction is often clever indeed, adding to the abovementioned characters and supporting players—which also include a Jester (dance captain Drew Fitzsimmons) and a Wizard (Kevin Wheaton)—a number of fairytale and fairytale-adjacent figures not in the Broadway original: the Three Fairies from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, a Notre Dame-style Hunchback, Disney Cinderella’s two ugly stepsisters, Nanny McPhee, and (in a tip of the hat to the original Winnifred) a Charwoman out of the Carol Burnett show.

A number of performances stand out, particularly those of velvet-voiced Cathers, pantomime whiz MacFarlane, Lancelot-like Grundy, and blonde charmer Callaway. Essner is a hoot as the Prince, Fitzsimmons a terrifically soft-shoeing Jester, and Wheaton a suitably mysterious Wizard. Pawlikowski’s Queen has a number of divalicious moments, but this is a case where even bigger and broader would make the role the true scene-stealer it has the potential to be.

Still, all of the above must bow in the presence of Towers-Rowles, who follows Best-Of-Show performances in Kiss Me Kate and Sunday In The Park With George with a Princess Winnifred which pays tribute to the Burnett original, all the while making the part very much her own. “Fred” offers Towers-Rowles the chance to show off tiptop slapstick skills, charisma that belies her petite stature, and one heck of a Broadway belt.

The cast is completed by José Acain, Nancy Arnold, Shari Bennett, Crystal Boyer, Susane Button, Mark Bruce-Casares, Conna Condon, Lisa Golden, Kathleen Hart, dance captain Laura Hecht, Michael Heidner, Jacob Helfgott, Brittany Hooper, Mary Kay, Arthur “Bud” Krause, Amparo Lomas, Tony McQuilkin, Ida Miller-Krause, Bib Minnichelli, Joey Minnichelli, Flora Morin, Katie Neagle, Ryan Raleigh, Cynthia Reyes, Jason Stout, Lisa Stout, Tim Wade, Rachel Claire Willenbring, and Robin Wohlman, all of whom perform with high energy and dedication.

As choreographer, Nozzi has astutely designed moves which fit an ensemble with few trained dancers, e.g. the jitterbug fingers in “Opening For A Princess.” Particularly inventive is “Spanish Panic,” which the Queen hopes will make Winnifred dance until she drops, a production number to which Nozzi has added salutes to Saturday Night Fever, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Madonna’s “Vogue,” and even a bit of Beyoncé. The show’s liveliest production number, “Song Of Love,” gives Towers-Rowles the evening’s biggest weightlifting, drinking, wrestling, and playing the lute as courtiers and cheerleaders sing, “I’m in love with a girl named Fred. She wrestles like a Greek. You will clap your hands in wonder at her fabulous technique. With an F and an R and an E and a D and a F-R-E-D Fred YEAH!”

With a running time of nearly three hours, this Once Upon A Mattress could definitely benefit from snappier pacing. As is, it runs twenty or so minutes longer than the 1996 Sarah Jessica Parker Broadway revival, far too long for a musical as frothy as this one. Scene/scenery changes drag, despite some clever mini-skits added to keep the audience entertained while set pieces get moved behind a curtain—again and again—throughout the production. Perhaps because of the slow pace, several numbers, including “The Swamps Of Home” and “Very Soft Shoes,” end up making a long show feel even longer, despite the talents of their performers.

Singers are music directed by (Bob) Minnichelli and accompanied by a twenty-four piece orchestra under the baton of Joseph Derthick. The uncredited sound design needs to up the volume of vocal performances to insure that they are heard loud and clear over musical instruments.

By far the finest design elements are Maria Cohen’s imaginative, colorful fairytale costumes and Arlene Cohen’s equally fanciful hats. Kudos go too to Miller-Krause’s properties design and to an uncredited lighting design. Nozzi’s set design is a strong one considering the size of the stage to be filled and a budget which must have been considerably less than a professional production’s.

While Once Upon A Mattress does not reach the heights of a CLO revival or National Tour, it offers many entertaining moments, a stellar lead performance, a good number of laughs, and one of the most tuneful scores of the 1950s. Audience members are sure to be cheering friends and family through the end of the production’s limited two weekend run.

James Armstrong Theatre, 3330 Civic Center Drive, Torrance.
www.aeaclubs.com/theater
--Steven Stanley
July 23, 2011
Photos: Kris Maine

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

WOW!
THE SOUND OF MUSIC

The hills of Thousand Oaks are alive with _____.

If anyone reading this is incapable of filling in the blank, this reviewer can only wonder where you’ve been during the half century since The Sound Of Music made its Broadway debut. Is there anyone in America who hasn’t seen either the 1964 movie adaptation—the third biggest moneymaker in film history when adjusted for inflation—or any one of a gazillion regional, community, or school productions of the Rodgers And Hammerstein classic?

It’s no wonder then that the Fred Kavli Theatre for the Performing Arts was jam packed for last night’s gala opening of the gazillion-and-oneth revival of the Tony-winning smash—one so impeccably staged and performed that it might even sway those who’ve suffered through a mediocre amateur production or two and vowed never to see another.

Yes, there are still moments in The Sound Of Music that will prove too sugary for theater sophisticates. Yes, a stageful of singing nuns can still at times be about a dozen too many. And yes, historical purists still have every right to carp about the show’s factually inaccuracies. (How’s this for fudging with geography? An escape over Maria’s beloved mountains would have taken her and the von Trapp Family Singers smack dab into Nazi Germany and not into Switzerland, 200 miles away.)

Still, with performances as rich and layered as those of Shannon Warne and Tom Schmid (who also happen to have some of the Broadway-readiest pipes around), direction as spot-on as Lewis Wilkenfeld’s, a terrific supporting cast of theater pros and relative newbies, and a Broadway caliber orchestra under the impeccable direction of Darryl Archibald, even the grumpiest theatergoer may fall under this Sound Of Music’s spell.

I’ll forgo the usual synopsizing (for obvious reasons) and simply list the five best reasons not to miss Cabrillo Music Theatre’s smashing Sound Of Music revival.

Reason #1: Warne, whose starring roles over the past five years or so have taken her to the top echelon of L.A.-based musical theater stars. Few can match Warne’s blend of captivating stage presence, bona fide acting chops, and an instantly recognizable voice that can slide imperceptibly from pop to legit and back again. Needless to say, Warne makes the future Baroness von Trapp so feisty, fun, and fantastically her own that you’ll likely forget any previous Marias—at least for the duration of the show.

Reason #2: Schmid, whose performance captures all of the Captain’s complex mixture of coldness, repressed pain, military bearing, and fatherly adoration, and whose golden pipes make his Captain von Trapp one of the best sung ever.

Reason #3: The von Trapp children (Alison Woods, Michael Kennedy, Lyrissa Leininger, Mason Purece, Audrey Miller, Natalie Esposito, and Kristina Van Horst), who perform with professionalism, harmonize to perfection, and for the most part avoid child actor precocity. Woods makes for an absolutely enchanting Leisl, and Tyler Matthew Burk (Rolf) displays triple-threat talents to match his song-and-dance partner's.

Reason #4: The nuns, whose exquisite harmonies are the closest thing to heavenly Cabrillo audiences have likely heard since the CLO’s 2001 revival, with Mother Abbess Marilyn Anderson’s “Climb Every Mountain” every bit the inspirational showstopper it’s supposed to be. Along with Anderson, the delightful trio of Farley Cadena (Sister Margaretta), Becca Cornelius (Sister Sophia), and Karen Sonnenschein (Sister Berthe) join voices (and opposing viewpoints) in a futile but very funny attempt to "solve a problem like Maria" in song.

Reason #5: The musical numbers, including the now standard “The Sound of Music”, “Edelweiss”, “My Favorite Things”, and “Do-Re-Mi,” backed by Cabrillo’s Broadway-caliber Music Theatre Orchestra and vocalized to perfection by a cast of thirty-nine. Add to that “Sixteen Going On Seventeen,” a charming showcase for Woods and Burk—and for choreographer Heather Castillo, whose Agnes DeMille-inspired dance moves give the iconic puppy-love duet added beauty and depth. “I Have Confidence” and “Something Good,” written for the movie adaptation, have shrewdly been inserted into the Cabrillo revival. “How Can Love Survive” and “No Way To Stop It,” sung by von Trapp family friends Max and Elsa, were cut from the movie but not in Cabrillo's staging, providing here a needed dose of tartness amidst the sweetness around them.

Michael G. Hawkins and Laura Cable furnish dandy support as the acerbic duo, though why Cable should be the only major player with vaguely foreign diction is anyone’s guess. Gloria Bennett, John McCool Bowers, David Gilchrist, Patrick J. Saxon, and Robert Weibezahl do first-rate work in smaller roles.

Ronni Coleen Ashley, Carol-Lynn Cambell, Carolyn Freeman Champ, Judi Domroy, Lori Merkle Ford, Heidi Goodspeed, Stephanie Hayslip, Julie Jones, Laura Leininger, Maegan Mandarino, Jacqueline Elyse Rosenthal, Christanna Rowader, Catherine Wallet, and Emily Works are marvelous as singing nuns and other assorted female characters. The male contingent is brought up by David Kennedy, Mark David Lackey, Bart Leninger, and Jesse Test.

The production looks great, with sets originally created in the early 1970s for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera and provided by Musical Theatre West, and costumes provided by FCLO Music Theatre and supervised by Christine Gibson, all of the above lit to perfection by Rand Ryan. Jonathan Burke’s sound design is one of his best, filling the Kavli with as celestial a blend of voices as might be heard in a Salzburg cathedral. Thumbs up too to hair and makeup designer Mark Travis Hoyer, production stage manager Allie Roy, assistant stage managers Taylor Ruge and Jessie Standifer, technical director Tim Schoepfer, and crew captain Char Brister.

The Sound Of Music may never end up on every Rodgers And Hammerstein fan’s list of their “Favorite Things.” Still, even those who prefer Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, or The King And I will likely concur that you’d be hard-pressed to find a better TSOM than the one currently on stage in Thousand Oaks. I defy any heart not to melt when the Captain’s own is thawed by his children’s voices raised in song, or any theatergoer not to be moved as the von Trapps begin to ascend that mountain towards whatever destiny awaits them on the other side.

Cabrillo Music Theatre, Kavli Theatre, Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Thousand Oaks.
www.cabrillomusictheatre.com
--Steven Stanley
July 22, 2011
Photos: Ed Krieger

I'M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY

WOW!
I’M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY

Take an 1892 British farce that broke records with its 1466-performance London run. Add to it nearly two-dozen song hits from the 1900s, ‘10s, and early ‘20s. Cast it with a terrific bunch of actors who can also sing and dance. Add to the mix a director, musical director, choreographer, and trio of designers, each of whom is blessed with ingenuity and flair. Do all of the above and the result is I’m Just Wild About Harry, Gary Lamb and William A. Reilly’s delightful jukebox musical now playing at the duo’s Crown City Theatre Co.

The British farce in question is Brandon Thomas’s classic Charlie’s Aunt, originally adapted for the musical stage by Frank Loesser in 1948 as Where’s Charlie, a show which has mostly disappeared into musical theater limbo and whose songs (other than “Once In Love With Amy”) have largely gone unremembered.

I’m Just Wild About Harry takes the same rollickingly farcical plot but makes sure that its songs ring musical bells (in addition to being in pre-1923 public domain). The result is a show which doesn’t cost its creators a dime in royalties—both a savvy business decision and one that yields considerable artistic rewards.

Lamb and Reilly’s adaptation sticks close to the original’s plot, though it switches the setting from 1890 Oxford to 1910 Old Milwaukee U., and changes co-protagonist Charley Wyckeham’s name to the more American-sounding Harry Whitman, the better to match the show’s (and its title song’s) title. The rechristened Harry still has a roommate Jack Chesney, but the duo’s girlfriends are now named Margie and Katy. (Three guesses why.)

As in Thomas’s original, our two heroes are aiming to propose to their ladies fair, but there’s a hitch: Neither girl is willing to visit Harry and Jack’s campus digs without a female chaperone on hand. Fortunately Harry receives word that his wealthy widowed aunt, Donna Lucia d'Alvadorez, is arriving from Brazil just in time to be of assistance. Unfortunately Donna Lucia is delayed. Fortunately their music professor Benjamin Babberey (aka Babbs) happens to be appearing as Lady Bracknell in The Importance Of Being Earnest, and has shown up at Harry and Jack’s door, costume in suitcase in hand. Fortunately too, Babbs has just put on his costume to run lines when Margie and Katy return, and Harry and Jack, clever chaps that they are, introduce him/her as Aunt Lucia.

Adding to the madcap mix are Katy’s uncle (aka Old Spettigue), Jack’s father Frank, Babbs’ sweetheart Ida Delahay, and the real Donna Lucia d'Alvadorez, giving the boys a pair of dueling Aunt Lucias to juggle as they make their way towards the happy ending any farce fan worth his or her salt can see coming from lights up.

Lamb and Reilly open the show with a series of deliberately corny jokes to set the farcical mood (A: Where can you find a one-legged dog? B: I don’t know, where? C: Right where you left it.) blended into a song-and-dance number featuring the entire cast warbling and tapping their feet to “I Love A Musical Comedy Show,” a song so fresh and new sounding that it comes as a surprise to learn that it was written way back in 1919.

Under Joanne McGee’s snappy direction, I’m Just Wild About Harry never stops entertaining with its razor-sharp timing, clever running gags, and the one of the funniest cross-dressing leading men (leading ladies?) ever. It is sophisticated enough to please your most Broadway-savvy musical theater queen and sufficiently family-friendly to charm your churchgoing maiden aunt.

Among the musical chestnuts which fit so nicely into I’m Just Wild About Harry’s deliciously convoluted plot are “Look For The Silver Lining” (Harry’s and Jack’s advice to Babbs when they learn that the girl he loves skipped town before he got a chance to propose), “Runnin’ Wild” (the fake Donna Lucia’s done-with-love mantra), “Abba Dabba Honeymoon” (which has Margie and Katy attempting to explain love in simian terms to Lucia, who comes from “a veritable monkey, nut banana land”), “Spanish Love” (one of Donna Lucia’s late husband’s favorites—even though he was Portuguese); and “You Made Me Love You” (Ida’s second chance at declaring her love to Babbs). “Margie” is Jack’s way of proposing to his intended (no wonder they changed her name from Kitty) and “K-K-K-Katy” serves the same purpose for Harry, who has conveniently revealed in an early scene that the very idea of p-p-p-popping the question to his b-b-b-beloved makes him stutter.

Director McGee has made sure that her entire cast remain on the same page stylistically, playing their roles (relatively) straight yet just heightened (and campy) enough to give a wink to the show’s present-day audience. Mikhail Roberts (Jack) and Matthew Thompson (Harry) make for an utterly delightful pair of leads, with Sarah French (Margie) and Melanie Taylor (Katy) matching them in adorableness and charm. Louis Silvers makes the part of Mr. Spettigue uniquely, outrageously his own, Dave Berges (Frank) and Carol Jones (Donna Lucia) are a terrific pair of “older” lovers, and Lisaun Whittingham is not only lovely as Ida but the evening’s vocal standout. Finally, there’s the stellar Douglas Thornton doing Milton Berle, Harvey Korman, and Flip Wilson proud as both Babbs and Donna Lucia.

Stephanie Pease’s choreography pays tribute to early 20th Century dance steps while giving them a contemporary, campy pizzazz. Musical director/arranger Reilly provides splendid live piano accompaniment (with occasional help from Roberts on percussion). Keiko Moreno’s set design (a cleverly detailed 1910 campus apartment) is a winner as are costume designer Tanya Apuya’s early 20th Century fashions and Zad Potter’s lighting design. I’m Just Wild About Harry features additional lyrics by Reilly. Potter and Moreno serve as stage managers.

I’m Just Wild About Harry proves yet another winner from North Hollywood’s Crown City Theatre Co., a company that never fails to surprise and impress with its varied assortment of offerings. A definite crowd-pleaser, their latest is not only a thoroughly entertaining evening of Los Angeles musical theater, but one that ought to prove attractive to community, college, and regional theaters nationwide. Hats will be eaten if you’re not wild about it too.

Crown City Theater, St. Matthew’s Church, 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood. Through August 14. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 3:00. Reservations: 818 605-5685
www.crowncitytheatre.com
--Steven Stanley
June 10, 2010
Photos: Ben Rovner

AFTER THE AUTUMN

WOW!
AFTER THE AUTUMN

If horse-blinder Alan Strang was a tough nut for psychiatrist Martin Dysart to crack in Peter Shaffer’s Equus, then the nameless Army Captain in Matthew Kellen Burgos’ engrossing new dramatic one-act After The Autumn proves an even greater challenge to the doctor assigned to his case.

Now getting its World Premiere production by Vanguard Rep under the La Canada Flintridge stars, After The Autumn takes us on a non-linear journey, introducing us in flashback to the Doctor (Sam R. Ross), his patient (Clay Wilcox), two nurses (Alice McFarland and Adam Burch) charged with the Captain's daily care, and the officer’s former subordinate (David Ross Paterson), as the actors recite from a redacted (i.e. heavily censored) report from the Doctor’s malpractice hearing. (We hear only beeps whenever a name is mentioned.)

The Captain’s day nurse fills us in on the facts. The officer has recently been transferred to the Ascension Military Recovery Clinic, “where they send the ‘ghosts,’” his symptoms including, “but not limited to insomnia, lasting depression, disturbing nightmares, difficulty in social settings, and anger management issues.” And if that weren’t already enough, the Captain appears virtually mute, that is except for outbursts of anger during which words emerge from his mouth that seem to make little or no sense.

We learn that the Doctor has been given the Captain’s case by the Medical Licensing Board as a probationary assignment to be fulfilled while attempting to recover from an addiction to sleeping pills and pain relievers. Should he not be able to kick the habit, the Doctor’s medical license will be permanently revoked.

In words eerily reminiscent of Dr. Dysart’s in Equus, the Doctor recalls his initial reaction to his troubled patient: “I have to get closer. Just a little closer. Just as I’m close enough to hear what he’s saying, suddenly his mouth opens wide. Impossibly wide. He screams with many voices all at once. God, the noise. Loud. So loud.”

As the Doctor begins his attempts at therapy, he discovers that the Captain has been so heavily sedated as to make communication virtually impossible. Vowing to wean his patient from his overprescribed meds, the Doctor is surprised one day when the Captain speaks words that seem far too formal for an Army officer. “Better be with the dead whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,” begins the officer, “than on the torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy.” Though the words mean nothing to the man of medicine, the Captain’s night nurse recognizes them. “Crazy bastard’s rehearsing a one-man Macbeth.”

Somehow, the Doctor now realizes, the Captain is using the words and themes of Shakespeare’s Scottish Play to express some secret inner torment, and feeling inspired for the first time in a good long while, the Doctor vows to root out the cause of the Captain’s trauma before his patient is committed to spending the rest of his life as a sedated vegetable. What he does not initially realize is that this may mean uncovering secrets the military would do anything not to see made public.

Playwright Burgos takes considerable risks in having his Army Captain speak only in the words of Shakespeare, courting protests that something like this would never happen in real life. Still, as a theatrical conceit we go with it, particularly since Burgos has come up with that rarity, a World Premiere play which proves absolutely apt for a Shakespearean season. As for the performances director Burgos has elicited from his stellar cast, they simply could not be better.

Ross, StageSceneLA Award winner for his Dramatic Performance Of The Year in Breaking The Code is utterly compelling as a man charged with healing a wounded soul, all the while dealing with inner demons virtually as relentless as those of his patient. Wilcox matches Ross every step of the way as the Captain, his eyes at once hollow and filled with pain, a shell of a man still possessed of the strength to do violence, though perhaps not enough strength to face life once again among the living.

The elegant Paterson disappears inside the Sergeant’s considerably coarser skin in a performance that transcends stereotype. McFarland gives the day nurse an Upper Midwest accent you could slice with a knife and layers of caring and warmth. Burch is terrific too as the night nurse with a junior college minor in theater and little tolerance for the Doctor’s efforts to save a patient he thinks would be best left to vegetate.

Ric Zimmerman’s lighting is as striking as Jason Knox’s sound design, with its censorship beeps and tape rewind whirs. Bethany Richards gets high marks for well chosen costumes. Elisa K. Blandford is stage manager.

Opening the evening is a brief performance piece, Tragic Women, adapted from Shakespeare by Ross, who directs it as well. The short one-act has the spirits of Ophelia (Eliza Kiss) and Desdemona (Kirstin A. Snyder) mentoring suicidal neophyte Juliet (Chelsea Taylor) entirely in words from Hamlet, Othello, and R+J. It features graceful choreography by Elizabeth Ross set to Nino Rota’s theme from Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo And Juliet. A worthy experiment, Tragic Women offers its three actresses the chance to do first rate work, with Kiss exhibiting a fine singing voice as well. Vocal arrangements are by Kathryn Gallagher and piano arrangement by Ben Coria. Richards costumes Tragic Women as well.

Still, the evening belongs to After The Autumn, a play that stands on its own and deserves future stagings. You will likely admire the imagination that went into Tragic Women, but it is the powerful After The Autumn that will stay with you long after the lights have dimmed.

Byrnes Amphitheater, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, 440 St. Katherine Dr., La Cañada Flintridge.
www.vanguardrep.com
--Steven Stanley
July 17, 2011

DOUBTING THOMASON

WOW!
DOUBTING THOMASON

Los Angeles theater buffs may recall one of the biggest Ovation Award upsets ever, when the under-the-radar West Coast Premiere of Tracy Letts’ Killer Joe went on to win four crystal statuettes, including Best Production, Best Ensemble, and Best Direction. Far fewer will be aware that, at about the very same time as that production was set to open, another group of L.A. actors were rehearsing the very same play, only to discover a week before their own opening that someone else (the future Ovation winners) had the rights to Killer Joe—and they didn’t.

Writer/actor Christopher Brewster was part of that ill-fated second production, but in a storybook example of turning lemons into lemonade, a brand new script was written to fit the five-actor cast in one frenzied week.

Doubting Thomason is playwright Brewster’s look back at that experience, and a more hilarious comedy could not have been come out of near disaster than the one now provoking gales of laughter at North Hollywood’s Avery Schreiber Theatre.

Doubting Thomason opens with two of its actors pummeling a third to shouts of “Kill her! Kill her, Joe!”—only to have company member Thomason (Brewster) read aloud this blurb from The Acting Thespian: “New this week at the Sacred Tostada Theater is our Pick of the Week, Killer Joe, by Tracy Letts.”

Six weeks into rehearsals with only a week remaining before their first performance, five desperate actors suggest possible substitutions (including Sexual Perversity In Chicago, Love! Valor! Compassion!, 12 Angry Men, Key Exchange, and Beyond Therapy), but none of the above has exactly three male and two female roles, and as one of the thesps comments, “Even if we think of a play we still have to get the stupid rights.”

Blonde bimbo Kate (Kelly Kemp) is in near hysterics; after all, Days Of Our Lives casting director Marnie Siatta is coming to see her. Pseudo-Brit Teddy (Paul Storiale) refuses to jeopardize his “Equity-eligible” status by doing a show illegally. Stoner dude Jake (Artie Ahr) finds their situation a “serious buzz kill,” and contemplates making his move to Hawaii a few months ahead of schedule.

When Thomason announces his plan to save the day (“I will write a play this week. We will rehearse it as I write it and we’ll perform it on opening night!”), skeptics Kate and director/cast member Lynette (Bree Pavey) remind the would-be playwright that his last opus took him two years to write (“and you didn’t even finish it”). Still, Thomason is bound and determined to put his plan into action since, unbeknownst to the others, he’s used Teddy’s $1000 investment to buy his unsupportive parents a pair of first-class plane tickets to Opening Night.

In the immortal words of whoever first said them, “The Show Must Go On,” and go on it does, though Teddy has provisions. “I will agree to proceed with this theatrical carrion on one condition,” he informs the playwright, “that you include a man-man kissing scene,” then goes on to add, “Don’t forget the nudity. That auspicious little disclaimer on an ad that reads, ‘Warning: This Play Contains Violence And Nudity’ is good for at least half a house per night.”

The storyline that Thomason comes up with bears a certain resemblance to Killer Joe’s, though instead of having a down-on-his-luck drug dealer plot his mother’s murder with the help of his father and his mother-in-law, “Murderin’ Ted” has trailer trash lovers Bonnie and Lee hiring the titular hit man to bump off Bonnie’s hubby Robert, who unbeknownst to them is having an affair with Lee’s wife Blake. Got that?

Avid L.A. theatergoers will relish Doubting Thomason’s tongue-in-cheek look at our local stage scene, where “Equity-eligible” divas like Teddy insist on their 99-seat plan stipends (a grand total of $108 to be paid in addition to reimbursement of his $1000 investment) and TV-star wannabes like Kate break the “No Cell Phones” rule because “it’s a business call. It’s about a seminar at Actors Acting in Action with someone who knows a casting director really well.” (In the interest of accuracy, it should be noted that this does not reflect the Best-Of-L.A. productions spotlighted here on StageSceneLA.)

Thomason’s clever script alternates between behind-the-scenes looks at a production in chaos and the equally chaotic script they are rehearsing, giving each of the company’s actors two very different roles to play … and play quite dandily, credit shared with director Pavey (who starred in both previous productions of Doubting Thomason) and co-director Steve Jarrard (who directed those earlier stagings).

The evening’s standout performance belongs to Ahr, StageSceneLA Award winner for his devastating work in the original production of The Columbine Project. Looking like a cross between a young Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey, the charismatic Ahr makes for the most hilarious dazed-and-confused stoner since “Dudes” Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott went looking for their car, then turns things around to downright scary effect as Murderin’ Ted, a cold-hearted killer who could give Arnold in Terminator a run for his money.

Brewster merits four rounds of applause for a) creating Doubting Thomason in a moment of crisis, b) playing quite niftily both harried Thomason and self-described “stallion” Robert, c) producing the whole kit and caboodle, and d) being quite a looker both in and out of his clothes. Kemp, who provided some of the few bright moments in a recent Three Sisters, is a delicious hoot as a) an actress more interested in booking a soap gig than in honing her craft and as b) trashy-but-sweet sexpot Blake. A delightfully droll Storiale has tremendous fun with both Teddy’s pretentions and Lee’s dimwittedness. Pavey, in a 180 degree turn from her dramatic roles in The Columbine Project, proves herself an deft comedienne as both Lynette and Bonnie, the latter role providing her with the opportunity to strut her dramatic stuff as well.

Doubting Thomason does indeed deliver on its promise of a man-man kissing scene. There are in fact two of them, though not perhaps what Teddy had in mind when he made his stipulation. There is also blink-and-you-miss-it full frontal male nudity from Thomason and Storiale, though Kemp and Pavey are considerably less coy than the men in their topless scenes.

The production’s uncredited set and costume designs are precisely what you might expect from the ragtag group of actors putting on Murderin’ Ted. In other words, they are just right for Doubting Thomason. Cory Price gets thumbs up for equally bare-bones but entirely appropriate lights and sound. Behind-the-scenes personnel do not receive program credit.

Doubting Thomason is precisely the kind of play to inspire the oft-quoted refrain, “It ain’t Shakespeare,” and the equally oft-quoted response of “So what?” I laughed out loud from start to finish, as did Saturday’s nearly sold-out house, and in the words of another oft-quoted remark, “What more can you ask for?”

The Avery-Schrieber Theater, 11050 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Through August 13. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Reservations: 818 795-0690
www.doubtingthomason.ticketleap.com
--Steven Stanley
July 16, 2011