ON GOLDEN POND

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ON GOLDEN POND

Hal Linden and Christina Pickles as Norman and Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond. What more needs to be said? With stars like these in a play as beloved as Ernest Thompson’s Drama Desk Award-winning Outstanding New Play of 1979, Burbank’s Colony Theatre could well have its biggest hit ever, and justifiably so. Linden and Pickles deliver award-caliber performances in a play that hasn’t lost an iota of its humor or charm, directed to pitch perfect perfection by Cameron Watson, and featuring a supporting cast every bit as wonderful as its two stars.

If ever there were a play that hardly needed synopsizing, it’s On Golden Pond, the reason being of course its 1981 film adaptation, second only that year to Raiders Of The Lost Ark in box office receipts. Is there anyone who hasn’t seen Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn as the long-married Thayers enjoying perhaps their last vacation On (Lake) Golden Pond, accompanied that summer by their daughter Chelsea’s thirteen-year-old stepson-to-be? It’s hard to imagine a Colony theatergoer who doesn’t remember Ethel’s “Don’t be such an old poop” or Norman’s “‘Ethel Thayer.’ It thounds like I'm lithping, doethn't it?,” or teenage Billy’s revelation to Norman that when he and his friends “cruise chicks,” it’s cause they want to “suck face”?

Yes, indeed, On Golden Pond is the kind of play that brings back a flood of memories … to people who may well never have seen it live on stage—all the more reason to not to miss this superb revival.

Diehard movie fans may carp that some of the film’s most famous scenes are missing. You won’t witness Norman’s immediate terror as he finds himself lost in the woods, or Chelsea’s finally managing the back flip she could never do as a child, or the slap Ethel gives Chelsea when she feels her daughter has disparaged her father once too often. Missing too, for obvious reasons, are the film’s many scenes On Golden Pond itself, including those wonderful bonding moments between Norman and his surrogate grandson, fishing poles in hand.

Even in its original one-set form, however, On Golden Pond is about as sure-fire a crowd-pleaser as you’re ever likely to see on stage, and play-to-movie buffs will relish seeing how then thirty-year-old playwright Thompson was able to tell the same story he did in his screenplay without ever leaving the Thayer’s summer living room, and how he explored themes of mortality, marriage, and intergenerational miscommunication with equal depth and finesse.

It takes two powerhouse performers to stand up to memories of Fonda and Hepburn, but Linden and Pickles deliver the goods from delightful start to poignant finish, TV’s Barney Miller and (St. Elsewhere’s) Nurse Helen Rosenthal possessing the requisite charisma and virtuosity to make Norman and Ethel their own. That Linden and Pickles are the ages of the characters they play (and in one case several years older at that, though you’d never guess) adds to the production’s realism—and power. (The original Broadway stars Tom Aldridge and Frances Sternhagen were respectively 29 and 20 years younger than their roles back in 1979.) Not only are Linden and Pickles on top of their parts in a way actors half their age might fail to be, they make us feel almost as if we were discovering these iconic characters for the very first time, the two stars convincing us that this cranky old man and his long-suffering but adoring wife have truly been married for forty-eight years.

Supporting these two virtuosos are four of L.A.’s finest acting talents, beginning with the incandescent Monette Magrath as Chelsea, whose powerful scenes opposite Linden and Pickles reveal decades of a daughter’s built-up hurt and resentment. Brentwood School sophomore-to-be Nicholas Podany is, as they say, a find, bringing to the role of Billy a real-life teenager’s spontaneity, authenticity, and bravado. (It’s a shame the talented newcomer is given less to do than Doug McKeon was in the movie, because who wouldn’t want to spend more time with such a great kid?) As Chelsea’s fiancé Bill, Jonathan Stewart takes a part that might well come across a caricature in less skilled hands and makes the loquacious California dentist a real, sympathetic individual. Last but most definitely not least is Jerry Kernion’s brilliantly achieved featured turn as Charlie, Maine’s jolliest mailman, whom Kernion (so memorable a few years back in Rounding Third) gives a hilariously syncopated six-beat laugh that is only one of multiple reasons his work earns him a spontaneous round of applause on his first exit—and eager anticipation of his next entrance.

As for the sense of place so gorgeously rendered on film three decades ago, the Colony’s crackerjack design team come pretty darned close to matching it without a single exterior scene. Scenic designer John Iacovelli has created a living room set rich in the lived-in look the Thayers’ lakeside home would have had after half a century or more of use, with MacAndME’s marvelously detailed properties design and set dressing aiding immeasurably. (Only a 1990s-style cassette player seems out of place.) Lighting designer Jared A. Sayeg bathes the set in vivid summer hues, with distinctive patterns for each month and time of day, and a gorgeous approximation of the ripples of Golden Pond between scenes. Rebecca Kessin’s excellent sound design situates us smack dab in the middle of lake country, with its haunting loon calls, so integral to Thompson’s script. Ryan Shores’ original music has just the right “watercolored memories” feel to it. Terri A. Lewis costumes the cast in just-right late 1970s garb, with attention paid to each character’s age and personality traits. Alexander Berger is production stage manager.

On Golden Pond harkens back to the plays and productions that made the Colony’s reputation back in its 99-seat plan days, with the bonus of a considerably larger Equity budget. Older subscribers will find this particular Colony offering particularly up their alley, but anyone of any age will discover characters with whom to identify. Many are going to dub this production “Broadway caliber,” however since these days that might not be the compliment it once was, I’ll simply say that the Colony Theatre’s revival of On Golden Pond is Los Angeles theater at its very finest—and that is very fine indeed.

Colony Theatre, 555 North Third Street, Burbank. Through August 28. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00, Saturdays at 3:00 and 8:00 and Sundays at 2:00 and 7:00. Reservations: 818 558-7000X15
www.colonytheatre.org
--Steven Stanley
July 30, 2011
Photos: Michael Lamont

AFTER THE AUTUMN

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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

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

It takes a good deal of chutzpah to chop an hour off the running time of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a great deal of talent to pull it off, a feat which Vanguard Rep has performed to perfection—and to gales of laughter—in an open-air production certain to delight audiences of all ages, and that includes Shakespearephiles-and-phobes alike.

Credit adapters Matthew Kellen Burgos and Sam R. Ross with the inspiration and director Ross with the execution of a ninety-minute Dream that whisks on by in a flash, is as easy to follow as any contemporary comedy, and features a cast of twelve (plus two) that enchant the eyes and ears and tickle the funny bone in equal measure.

Performing at the outdoor Byrnes Amphitheatre on the campus of La Cañada’s Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, Vanguard Rep trumpets their Midsummer Night’s Dream as “an irreverent reconstruction of the classic summer comedy … complete with music, laughter and pure ridiculousness … all told through the eyes of Puck.”

That this is a reconstructed Dream is evident from the get-go. Burgos and Ross have the inspired audacity to flip-flop Scenes One and Two, opening the show with Peter Quince and his madcap band of strolling players readying their adaptation of “The Most Lamentable Comedy And Most Cruel Death Of Pyramus And Thisbe,” one which we’ll later see performed a la Monty Python by this troupe of comedic whizzes.

It’s only now that we meet A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s two mismatched pairs of lovers in a scene which jettisons a good deal of exposition, the better to get the foursome off into the woods in record time.

The relative simplicity of AMND’s plot makes it one of Shakespeare’s most suitable for pruning. All you really need to know is that when Puck (servant to Oberon, King Of The Fairies) dabs a bit of magical flower juice on the eyelids of any of the dramatis personae, he or she will fall instantly in love with the very first person he or she sees upon awakening—a plot “hook” that could work just as well today as it did in Elizabethan England.

To go into a bit more detail:

Hermia (Elisa K. Blandford) and Lysander (Jeramy Felch) are in love, but Hermia’s imperious father Egeus (Clay Wilcox) is forcing her to marry Demetrius (Zach Kraus). Hermia’s bff Helena (Lauren Dobbins Webb) carries a torch for ex-boyfriend Demetrius but he wants nothing more to do with her. When the quartet of mismatched lovers head off to a nearby forest, Puck (Jason Vizza) mistakenly anoints Lysander’s eyelids with magic juice, causing the young man to fall for Helena. Soon after, Demetrius gets the same love juice applied to his eyelids (just before gazing at Helena) and Helena suddenly finds herself with a pair of lovestruck suitors and poor Hermia with none.

Elsewhere in the woods, Quince (Matthew Burgos) and his band of strolling craftsmen are busy rehearsing their play about Pyramus and Thisbe. When impish Puck transforms the head of their leader Nick Bottom (David Ross Paterson) into that of an ass, then applies some magic juice to the eyelids of sleeping fairy queen Titania (Kirstin A. Snyder), it’s donkey-eared Bottom who becomes the object of her royal affection.

Soon, Hermia and Helena are cat-fighting, Demetrius and Lysander exchanging blows, the troupe of players donning costumes for their hilarious play-within-a-play, as we in the audience enjoy our very own early summer dream of an evening under the La Cañada Flintridge stars.

Even more than usual, this particular Midsummer Night’s Dream belongs to Puck, the charismatic, multitalented Vizza remaining onstage (or in its proximity) from start to finish while providing a running Flamenco-tinged soundtrack on the acoustic guitar, his facial reactions as worthy of attention as the actions of those foolish mortals performing center stage.

The mismatched lovers couldn’t be in better hands than they are here, beginning with Blandford’s poodle-skirted Hermia who is to Webb’s nerdy Helena what Galinda is to Elphaba in a certain Broadway musical smash, prom queen vs. eternal outsider. By the same token, Felch’s Lysander is a big-man-on-campus Fiyero to Kraus’s unrequitedly lovestruck Boq. (Those unfamiliar with Wicked will just have to take my word for it that these are four absolutely delightful performances with plenty of physical comedy thrown in for good measure.)

Paterson’s sensational Nick Bottom is guilty of comic larceny, stealing every scene he’s in, first as a full-of-himself Master Thespian more than willing to undertake every single Pyramus And Thisbe role himself, then as a black-pompadoured, donkey-eared, hip-swiveling, scream-inducing Elvis of an ass (as in long-eared animal, not body part or verbal putdown).

A marvelous Matthew Burgos plays Peter Quince in auteur mode (think a younger, thinner, handsomer Francis Ford Coppola on set), supported by the equally terrific trio of Walter Wolfe (Francis Flute), Eliza Kiss (Tom Snout), and Sean F. Toohey (Snug), as hilarious a band of strolling players as you’ll see this or any Midsummer Night. (Starvling has been axed as have every one of Puck’s fairy attendants.)

Wilcox and Snyder double splendidly as Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania, the Rubenesque Snyder making for a particularly fabulous romantic comic foil for Paterson’s Bottom (in donkey mode).

A pair of unbilled teen girls serve as Puck’s assistants, and they are every bit the pros that their more seasoned, credited castmates are.

The unbilled abstract scenic design is simple but esthetically pleasing, and made even more so by Ric Zimmerman’s gorgeous Technicolor lighting design. Bethany Richards’ costumes are marvels of fancy and imagination. Kudos go also to Tracey Bonner’s choreography, Jason Knox’s sound design, and Dennis Kull’s props design. Kristen Salacka is stage manager and Brent Mason scenic painter.

Plan to picnic on the hilltop lawn overlooking the San Gabriel Mountains before the show. Bring along a cushion to sit on during the performance and something warm to wear in case the night should be a chilly one (though at the performance reviewed here, my guest and I were comfortable in short sleeves throughout the evening). Mostly, be sure to make room on your summer calendar this year and next and the one after for Vanguard Rep., an exciting addition to the thriving Los Angeles professional theater scene. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is playing in repertory with a pair of original plays (Tragic Women and After The Autumn), to be reviewed here soon. This is ninety minutes of Shakespearean fun and frolic you won’t want to miss.

Byrnes Amphitheater, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, 440 St. Katherine Dr., La Cañada Flintridge.
www.vanguardrep.com
--Steven Stanley
July 1, 2011

1776

WOW!
1776

If you’ve ever wondered what it would have felt like to be a fly on the wall of the Continental Congress of 1776 as our country’s Founding Fathers wrangled over the question of Independence from Great Britain and the writing of our Declaration Of Independence, then wonder no more. Instead, head on over to Glendale Centre Theatre, where a splendid cast of twenty-six under the skilled direction of Todd Nielsen revive the 1969 Broadway musical 1776 in an “all-a-round” terrific in-the-round staging.

Thanks to the inspired vision of composer/lyricist Sherman Edwards and book writer Peter Stone, this musical about a bunch of American Colonials holed up in a hot sweltering room debating independence from Great Britain brings American history to vivid, tuneful life, yet stands apart from most other Broadway musicals in that it could just as easily be considered a straight play with musical interludes. The original cast recording runs less than 42 minutes, including the overture, meaning that 1776 has more “book” than the average musical, and what a book that is! Stone makes history come alive, and even though we know the outcome, there is edge-of-your-seat suspense getting there. There's also comedy, and romance, and a truly fascinating cast of characters.

From the production’s opening sequence, one which treats the audience to a tableau of our Nation's founders looking like something out of a classic American painting in which we are now a part, we know we’re in for something special, even more so when a score of male voices join together to the strains of “For God's Sake, John, Sit Down,” the first of Edwards’ dozen or so memorable songs.

The “John” being asked to sit down is, of course, John Adams (Peter Husmann), who despite a reputation for being “obnoxious and disliked,” is also a devoted husband, a clever politician, and a tireless fighter for American independence. 1776 surrounds him with household names, the foremost of which is Ben Franklin (John Butz), the inventor of the stove and countless clever sayings still quoted today. (“Calling me an Englishman is like calling an ox a bull: he's grateful for the honor, but he'd rather have restored what's rightfully his.” “Revolutions come into this world like bastard children. Half improvised and half compromised.”) Others in 1776’s huge cast of characters include Thomas Jefferson (Jeff Drushal), who wrote the Declaration only to find himself pressured to go against his deepest convictions in order to get it passed unanimously; John Dickenson (Jason W. Webb), the proud delegate from Pennsylvania and Adams’ chief adversary; the very full-of-himself Richard Henry Lee (Bryan Vickery), whose “The Lees Of Old Virginia” comes with its own built-in encore; proud Southern gentleman Edward Rutledge (Joey Zangardi), who rebukes his Northern colleagues for the “aroma of hypocrisy floating down from the North” in “Molasses To Rum”; Abigail Adams (Victoria Strong), who sings long distance duets with her longed-for husband John; Martha Jefferson (Michaelia Leigh), who reveals to Adams and Franklin a little-known tidbit about her laconic spouse (“He Plays The Violin”), and an unnamed Courier (Andrew Wade) who encapsulates the horrors of war in the three heartbreaking minutes that end Act One.

As 1776 unfolds, we hear George Washington’s increasingly depressing reports of British troupes en route and Colonial soldiers on the verge of mutiny. We see the resistance of the Southern delegates to turn against the British crown. We wonder if Caesar Rodney will succumb to cancer before he can cast his vote for Independence. We observe a demoralized Thomas Jefferson delete clause after clause from his beloved Declaration, waiting to see if he will delete the one which means most to him, the one which abolishes slavery. And we wonder if the delegate from New York will ever do something other than abstain, however “courteously.”

Husmann is everything John Adams should be—proud, determined, uncompromising, at times insufferable, and one heck of a decent man. Butz is so uncannily Franklinian that you would swear he stepped off a hundred-dollar bill and onto the GCT stage. Drushal captures all of loner Jefferson’s intensity, intelligence, and idealism. Vickery couldn’t be a more irresistible Lee, Strong a more radiant Abigail, or Leigh a more exquisite Martha. All are superb singers to boot.

“Cool, Cool Considerate Men” provides a great vocal showcase for a standout Webb, as does the heartbreakingly beautiful “Momma Look Sharp” for gorgeous-voiced newcomer Wade. Finally, there is Zangardi’s positively thrilling rendition of “Molasses To Rum,” a wow of a performance which earns the evening’s loudest cheers.

One of the best things about Stone's book is that it allows even the smallest of roles to reveal at least some characteristic that makes the part distinctive, in addition to offering the actor playing it his own stellar moments on stage—all the easier to savor thanks to GCT’s intimate staging. It is only space and time constraints that prevent me from giving each of the following couldn’t-be-better actors the detailed praise he deserves: Nathan Armstrong (Robert Livingston), Aldo Benalcazar (Leather Apron), George Champion (John Hancock), Mario De Gregorio (Col. Thomas McKean), Clay Dzygun (James Wilson), Christopher Gomez (Dr. Lyman Hall), Kyle Kelley (George Read), Jason J. Lewis (Josiah Bartlett), Hisato Masuyama-Ball (Samuel Chase), Patrick McMahon (Roger Sherman), Danny Michaels (Charles Thompson), Peter Miller (Andrew McNair), Jim Molinaro (Joseph Hewes), Michael Shaughnessy (Rev. Jonathan Witherspoon), Scott Strauss (Caesar Rodney), Adam Trent (Lewis Morris), and Don Woodruff (Stephen Hopkins). Though none of these performers get showcase solos, when they blend their voices in harmony, the result is quite glorious.

Glendale Centre Theatre couldn’t have made a more inspired choice to direct and choreograph 1776 than Nielsen, who played John Hancock in Musical Theatre West’s big-stage revival almost exactly a year ago. Though certain characters can’t help but have their backs turned to the audience in their “assigned seating,” Nielsen insures that when they’re up and moving, no one gets shortchanged. Clearly the director has had his actors do their character work, and it shows in each one’s nuanced performance. 1776 offers few chances for a choreographer to strut his stuff, but the delightful “Cool, Cool Considerate Men” minuet does deserve mention.

Musical director Steven Applegate merits kudos for the cast’s fine harmonies. Nathan J. Milisavlejevich’s sound design provides an excellent mix of voices and prerecorded instrumental tracks, though with so many amped speaking voices, it’s hard at times to tell just who’s doing the talking. Angela Wood and Glendale Costumes once again clothe the entire cast to 18th Century perfection. Uncredited set and lighting designs complete an all-around first-rate design package. Paul Reid is stage manager.

Anyone who finds American History the slightest bit dull will likely rethink his or her opinion once under 1776’s spell. It’s the perfect early summer offering, offering enough music and drama and history to keep audiences entertained and educated from powerful start to emotion-packed finish.

Glendale Centre Theatre, 324 N. Orange St., Glendale. Through August 13. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00. Saturdays at 3:00. Reservations: 818 244-8481
www.glendalecentretheatre.com
--Steven Stanley
June 29, 2011

FLEETWOOD MACBETH

WOW!
FLEETWOOD MACBETH

They’ve done As You Like It as “As U2 Like It,” A Winter’s Tale as “A Wither’s Tale,” Much Ado About Nothing as “Much Adoobie Brothers About Nothing,” A Midsummer Night’s Dream as “A Midsummer Saturday Night’s Fever Dream,” and Hamlet as “Hamlet The Artist Formerly Known As Prince Of Denmark.” Now, the Troubadour Theater Company (affectionately nicknamed The Troubies) are back with a revival of their 2004 musical spoof of Macbeth, which they’ve titled “Fleetwood Macbeth.”

As U2, Bill Withers, Doobie Brothers, Saturday Night Fever, and Prince slash Troubies fans can tell you, Fleetwood Macbeth (like its predecessors) finds ways to fit hit songs into Shakespeare plots, with an emphasis on the outrageous and the adlibbed. Though The Scottish Play and The British-American Rock Band might not at first glance seem made for each other, once Lisa Valenzuela as Lady Macbeth has started belting out Stevie Nicks tunes in Nicks' patented flowing robes and batwing sleeves, it’s clear that the Troubies are on to something, and that the audience will be all the more entertained for it.

The show opens with several Troubies trademarks—a one-by-one introduction of each character, audience participation (this time four lucky gents get to be bad guy soldiers and even dance a bit before being slain in battle), and a rousing chorus of “You’re So Late” sung to the unfortunate tardy to the tune of “You’re So Vain.”

It would be hard to count the newsmakers referenced in the show’s scripted and unscripted lines, but Schwarzenegger’s love child, drug-addled Charlie Sheen, the Palin otherwise known as Sarah, the impending 405 closure (aka Carmageddon), and Weiner’s online wiener all make cameo appearances, and there are numerous SoCalcentric jokes, e.g. “Silverlake, the New Echo Park.” There’s also a more-than-hilarious “Is this a dagger I see before me” dream sequence which features quite possibly the longest series of puns in Troubies history: “Is this a gagger (Mick Jagger, lollygagger, swagger, on-the-ragger) I see before me?”

Still, Fleetwood Macbeth (you can say the word in a theater if it’s part of the play) doesn’t forget its Shakespearean roots, with King Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, Malcolm, Ross, Seyton, and Hecate all central figures alongside the titular Thane of Glamis and Cawdor and his evil, plotting spouse.

On the other hand, these abovementioned characters may not be quite what you remember from your favorite high school, community theater, or Free Shakespeare In The Park production, and not simply because of their humungous prosthetic Hobbits feet. Duncan (Rob Nagle) is a gargantuanly bare-and-barrel-chested Sean Connery wannabe; Banquo none other than Troubie’s head honcho Matt Walker in Scottish brogue (‘nuff said); Macduff an Afroed noble who doubles as his two-foot-tall baby self; Malcolm (Joseph Keane) a fey surfer with shoulder-length blond hair and a thing for big beefy soldiers; Lennox (Andy Lopez) a loveable lug of a nobleman; Ross (Evan Arnold); an occasionally wig-challenged messenger; Seyton (Brandon Breault) a 1980s heavy metal skater with an evil glint in the eye to match his name’s devilish homonym; and Hecate (Beth Kennedy) the sole non-babelicious witch amongst eight sultry bustiered and fishnetted glamazons. Each deserves a paragraph of praise for his (or her) terrific work here.

Director Walker and his band of uniquely gifted triple-threats fit in a fair number of Fleetwood Mac hits, including “Go Your Own Way,” “Landslide,” “Chain,” “Tusk,” and “Gold Dust Woman” with lyrics tweaked to fit the onstage action, but there seem to be fewer than usual. (I counted only one song in the first half hour or so of the show.) The best are those performed by the dazzling vocal powerhouse that is Valenzuela, and the ones that turn into great big production numbers choreographed by Nadine Ellis, Christine Lakin, and Monica Scheider and performed by the hottest eight-witch coven you’ve likely ever seen: Annalea Rawicz Arnold, Heidi Brucker, Marissa Ingrasci, Erin Matthews, Tammy Minoff, Darrin Revitz, Schneider, and Jan Seifert, with Margaret Hamilton-lookalike Hecate (the always game Kennedy) making it nine.

If I’ve left the title character for last, it’s simply that Morgan Rusler ends up being the best in just about any show he’s in, whether in dramatic mode in Driving Miss Daisy and All My Sons, in comedic mode in The Foreigner, or in Troubies mode in The First Jo-el and It’s A Stevie Wonderful Life. Not surprisingly, Rusler’s sad sack of a Macbeth gets his fair share of laughs, but equally unsurprising, his soliloquizing to “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time” would not be out of place in any summer Shakespeare festival.

Troubies musical director/drummer extraordinaire Eric Heinly is once again masterfully in charge of the four-piece onstage band. Vocal director Rachael Lawrence gets the entire cast harmonizing to perfection. Mike Jespersen’s set design is the usual simple-but-functional one you expect at a Troubadour show, where it’s the lighting (sensational as always from Jeremy Pivnick) and costumes (big thumbs up to Sharon McGunigle) that dazzle. Julie Ferrin’s sound design is another terrific one. Corey Womack does double duty as producer and stage manager.

Troubies shows are always big-ticket draws at the Falcon, and with mid-week shows nixed this time around, ticket-buyers this late in the game may well hear their own version of “You’re So Late” at the ticket window. I had a blast on Opening Night. It goes without saying that those lucky enough to have their tickets in hand or at Will Call will be having an equally Troubadourtastic time!

Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank. Through August 14. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00, Saturdays and Sundays at 4:00. Reservations: 818 955-8101
www.falcontheatre.com
--Steven Stanley
July 8, 2011
Photos: Chelsea Sutton