Stage Critter

Women Behind Bars. Stages Theater, Fullerton

2009-08-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

21^st Aug, 2009. Stages Theatre, Fullerton, opens the revival of this campy 1975 spoof of earlier Hollywood exploitation moves.

Set in the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village we follow the lives of a varied assembly of kooky characters, over several years, under the masochistic supervision of the outrageous matron and her sidekick Louise.

I saw the play first on opening night when it showed a few creaks and uncertainties. But watching it again on Sunday evening it was lovely to note the whole cast had settled in, and the early jitters had all gone.

I'm glad to say that because I must have been dyspeptic when I penned my first reactions. When red wine is opened it needs to breathe for a while before judgment is passed on its quality. I was too hasty!

The inmates range in their crimes from prostitution to manslaughter. Enter new inmate, Mary Eleanor, very well played by Elizabeth Serra, who is immediately sodomized with a broomstick by the other inmates, and later raped by the matron, whom, we should mention, is played by Jeffrey Rockey in an outrageous drag role. His larger than over-sized portrayal is brash and irrepressible. But wait for surprises. Yes, this has adult language and situations, but all of them have us laughing.

The play is truly a "them and us." The Matron and Louise, backed up by the guards, bully and harass the inmates - some of whom are lifers. Mind you Matron is equally stern with her assistant, played by Andrea Evans, who finds an amazing range of comedic expressions with which to keep us entertained.

The prisoners include the whimsical, dreamy Blanche (Autumn Browne, the writer's wife!) who lives in the permanent delusion that she is Blanche Dubois, to the maniacal Ada (Neda Armstrong) who suddenly believes she can fly, and sets off to do so. Ada rapidly becomes a great favorite with the audience who probably sympathize with her on account of being forever kicked by Matron. Jacqueline Bustamante plays the vivacious, fast-talking Puerto Rican, Guadalupe. She will be the victim of Matron's worst bile.

Bridgette Casales' dyke portrayal is strong and laced with hard-bitten cynicism. Nikki Frohling as prostitute Cheri looks great though she slightly underplays her part. Sherri Askew is Jo-Jo but her character gets rather lost among the other stronger characterizations. I'm not sure I ever see her eyes connect with the audience. That would help.

The guards were a somewhat laid back (Adam Poynter and Wendell Good) and effectively doubled in other cameo roles.

If the story revolves around Mary Eleanor, it is the rip-roaring Matron and her almost equally zany sidekick, Louise (Andrea Evans) who constantly stir the pot and introduce one provocation after another. As the play progresses the hatred of these two will grow. Convicts who have committed the worst of crimes might be forgiven for cherishing the day when revenge might come.

There is a good fight between Blanche and Cheri near the beginning. And the many other face slaps are beginning to connect and make great sounds. The women move easily from one confrontation to another with a few lyrical passages of caring and love. The play has the potential to be very fragmented but director David Campos has woven it together neatly. The scene changes are fast and well supported by the lighting plot.

The theatre staff look after us with great flair - a very nice touch indeed.

A cute little nuance is the way the show is introduced as though were are about to watch a movie (like the movies of which this is a send-up.) Make sure you read the closing credits to the very last line!!

The play is certainly worth the outing. It’s very funny, outrageous, deliciously offensive and raw. It was challenging to stage and the designers did very well in the small space available. The show has started well and will only get better.

Top: Matron and Louise usher Mary into the common room, flanked by the guards.
Left: Elizabeth Serra with her pained innocence.
Right: Autumn Browne in a Belle Rive reverie.
Last, Right: The girls attack the male visitor.

Images from the Stages Theater website

Now for Magnolia

2009-08-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

Friday May 15th - Magnolia High School. The Invisible Friend, by Alan Ayckbourn. If you want the plot, it's here.

Autumn and I arrived to see this show while hundreds of students were on the campus: you could hear the roar coming from the gym. Probably a basketball game. Nearby a small, but intimate theatre space held an audience of about 25 people. The theatre department is tiny - John Napierali has just one class. His wife does sets and costumes. But small though they were those students put on a very fine show. They threw themselves out there with gusto and certainly won our hearts. The scenery and lighting was very good and the lead - who has a huge amount lines - was magnificent. Going just on that performance, I would grade it as an A. But then that hardly compares with the monumental effort put out by Anaheim HS to produce Musketeers, or Loara's Little Shop of Horrors, where teamwork and planning was huge.

Theatre is not doing well in the High Schools of AUHSD. There are many reasons for this which we will get into as the school year gets under way. It is not enough that a drama department merely provides a safe little space for the few who already have acting in them and want to share their art together. Art needs apostles! It needs proponents, preachers, actors who will mix it up in the school environment and become high profile before their peers. It require driving passion from theatre directors not just for their own players but for the creative welfare of the school.

And I felt obliged to write this after going to Magnolia High.

And yet more school plays!

2009-08-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

So we come to Katella High School. The date, May 22nd. I think they bit off more than they could chew: The Producers.

I have to take my hat off to Katella Theatre Department because they have weathered more storms than any theatre department can reasonably be expected to bear. They have some incredibly talented singers, dancers and actors. This is not an exaggeration. They are awesome. But they have suffered from a succession of drama teachers coming and going: some were not very good; others even worse - if I am to believe what I am told. But in this past year they had an angel. And by the end of the year she had been pink slipped! A casualty of district budget cuts policy.

The reason the kids hung together was because in the face of such uncertainty and the pressure of gang culture, they found themselves to be a family. And when Pam Chant came to be their director she soon became Mama Chant to those students; their teacher, role model and counselor.

Katella High School also has an extremely good theatre, but over the years it has been so abused and trashed that it is impossible to mount a production with the sound, lighting and sets the place deserves. See our somewhat abortive attempts to organize a rescue for the space.

Let's get to The Producers - a fine effort calling on the Band and the choir to field performers. As a collaborative effort their spirits soared high. But the Pam got hammered for her choice of material: The Producers is pretty raunchy in places. After the first night she was obliged to cut, cut, cut to reduce the raunchiness. But the night I saw it, it was still pretty, er, raunchy. Now I didn't mind. For God's sake, high school across the States are doing far more risky material.

The musical accompaniment, though willing, was under-rehearsed. It's hard stuff for a High School Band! The singing and dancing was, in the main, very good. And some of the character performances quite amazing. But the technical deficiencies of the theatre made what could have been a very good show somewhat painfully ordinary. Sad to note, the director herself played the part of the raunchy donor who funds the production of Springtime for Hitler and made the mistake of overacting, mugging, pulling focus, and trying to be too funny. Tut tut! Grade B.

Postscript. I believe Pam Chant has now been hired to teach theater at Cypress High, and that the theatre director from Cypress, Stefanie Williamson, is going over to Katella. Maybe we will yet get that theatre renovated!

More School Plays!

2009-08-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

The saga continues ... You have to read prior posts to get the general drift.

May16th: Kennedy High School. I don't remember what this was called, but this was probably the most enthusiastic, and enterprising play of the whole bunch. The plot goes like this: a bunch students want to write a play and direct a play, but they cannot agree on the theme and the genre. Pretty dysfunctional stuff. It needs to be good to work. So Act I is a jolly old romp through all the conflicts both theatrical, relational and emotional. Act II is the play they eventually produced, and, of course, you see the themes laid down in Act I worked out to full, glorious madness in Act II.

The lighting was so good that the student lighting designer got head hunted to go and work for a big production outfit (Disney? not sure.)

The scripts was written by the students, with input and direction from the Theatre Director, John Hoganson. I met a couple of the students in my play writing class at the AUHSD Theatre Festival earlier in the year. I knew then what bright, creative, insightful students they were. It really showed.

Director Hoganson teaches about three subjects in the school, but his passion is theatre. He makes his classes totally experiential. Everyone is put to work in every aspect of theatre production so that when show time comes John has a well-oiled drama machine handling everything from concessions to stage management. The evening was exhilarating.

But guess where they did the show? In their own beautiful, new Kennedy Arts Center? Nope! Because the Theatre Department has no access to the theatre. So they went across the road to their Junior High feeder school, and performed in the cafetorium. It's amazing how District facilities policy is implemented. But in any event, John H. did not even want to stage his play in the Kennedy Arts Center. The space is not good for plays. That's another story, of course. It's best for concerts and dance shows. But NOT plays. What a shame the designers did not think of that in the first place. Grade for the Kennedy play: A+

May 21st, Ball Junior High School. Director Carol Philip, ably assisted by Valeria Orlando (choir). Carol was smart to choose a play that fell within the capabilities of 7th and 8th graders. It was kinda cute, under an hour in length, and had some talented actors and good singers. Yes - there ARE junior high kids who can sing in tune! A few other markers: it, too, was held in the cafetorium (Oh, what gloomy shells they are). They only did ONE performance, and the Principal was delighted to be there. The show was fun, uplifting, well appreciated by the very full house. The students were evidently enthusiatic.

The reason for the one show is that Carol Philip believes that with their demographic they don't think they could get a decent crowd on more than one night. That's a telling commentary! Of course, it is far more fun for the kids to perform three or four times. They can settle into the performances. They can work out the kinks in the first show and come back with greater confidence in the other shows. The succession of plays is something actors like. They NEED it. Maybe this can be addressed for next year. To get drama OUT THERE, impacting parents and friends alike, is hard work that requires imagination and determination. But it can, and must be done. It's probably something that needs collaboration from other schools and support from administration. Well done, Ball JHS. Grade. B+

School Plays

2009-08-10T20:37:00.001-07:00

Now this gets interesting (to me, anyway). I work, with my wife, Autumn Browne, in the Anaheim Union High School District - the AUHSD. We set ourselves the task of attending as many of the Spring Productions as possible just to see what these theatre departments get up to. What a trip!

Loara High School. May 6th, 2009. They staged The Little Shop of Horrors. You've all seen that, haven't you? It was fan-freakin'-tastic. Big Ups to director Vanessa Mongomery. You have to have three really great female singers who form a sort of doo-wap narrative chorus all the way through. They need to look hot, sing great and act pretty good. (Oof - this American English sucks at times - but it's functional.) They DID! Our two leads who played Seymour and Audrey, the bleached blonde, could've come right out of the movie, they were that good. (There was great collaboration with the choir department.)

Now - this is the point. Loara has a very large and somewhat forbidding auditorium. When we went, it was very sparsely filled. Maybe other performances pulled greater crowds. But for a school show to succeed it has to have more that excellent production values - it needs to command audience. This, for reasons I shall adumbrate later, is all important.

Loara: A in my book. Great job.

Next, South Junior High School where we saw the kids' version of Annie on May 13th. And I don't ever need to see Annie again.

We only stayed right through both acts because we have a great fondness for the Drama teacher. But the show itself was pretty grim. The thing is, I'm not sure that the Drama teacher knew it was pretty grim.

Rule #1. Do not do a musical if none of your kids can sing in tune and you (the director) cannot even tell they are out of tune. The kids had enthusiasm, they made sound, but a more dischordant bunch I have never heard.

Rule #2. Please learn the elements of blocking. It does not follow that simply because you are the drama teacher that you know how to direct a play. This was to become apparent to us on several other school play visits. You can learn how to block a play by going to classes, watching other plays (like, a lot!), reading books, poring over How To videos, etc. But you have to do it. AND, I suggest that if the drama teacher feels a little exposed and incertain about the staging, please ask for collaboration from a respected colleague who knows their stuff. School drama teachers need to help each other like this and not be too proud to work together. Nuff said. Grade: C-.

May 15th. Magnolia Theatre event. That's what the Palm Pilot says. But as for my memory, I guess I was in an inebriated haze all day long! Wait!! Autumn came back and reminded me. This is important. But see the separate post on Magnolia High School.

May 17th. Anaheim High School. The Three Musketeers - the Musical. This was a tour de force. The play has a million scenes and goes on and on. You almost NEED to do some texting just to add interest, but we are too correct to do that! Sharon King, Meg Elder and a bevvy of others did an amazing job with everything from set design, to costumes, to staging, to swordplay, to character development, to sheer gutzy enthusiasm. The lighting - awesome.

This is not an easy play for high school. But they really did it very well. It cost thousands of dollars to produce - but I don't know how much impact it had on the school as a whole. I suppose that plenty of parents came to see their kids on stage, but it is easy to get swallowed up in the sheer size of the Cook Auditorium. Anaheim HS has run a quality drama (and dance) department for many years and we hear they have now developed an in-house Arts Academy. I will have to find out more. It sounds good. With all the talent at this school I am hopeful the arts will begin to make more impact on the student body as a whole. Yeah! AND the staff. Grade: A

More school plays in the next blog.

How far back?

2009-08-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

It's obviously pointless to try and recover all the plays I saw - and forgot. But I can go back a little way and endeavor to encapsulate the vague recollections that still linger like some ghost refusing to lie in its grave and be properly dead. These shall have a moment of retrospection and judgement.

Thank goodness for my Palm Pilot! So what do we have?

May 2009. This is humiliating (and it makes my point). I went to the Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Rep and saw FOUR wonderful new plays:

In a Garden
Dr. Cerberus
Extraordinary Chamber
Circles

I can recall - nothing; except that they made me variously laugh and cry and filled me with awe that any human brain could devise scripts with such ingenuity and depth that I left feeling a total heel as a would-be playwright. Yes, the Festival was personally humbling. I obviously write like crap and have not an ounce of depth, perception, feeling, stickability and determination in my body.

If I find the programs I will revisit this blog and flesh out the details.

For myself - you understand!

Back Sliding!

2009-08-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

It really is true that you can start off with the best intentions and then, owing to pressure, poor organization, and sheer laziness fail to follow through!

Ugh!

So it was some time after I started Stage Critter. The Sloth got me - along with its buddies called Too-tired and Too-busy. I wrote zilch. But during that time I saw plenty of plays - and all of them moved on like driftwood down a river to some netherland of forgetfulness.

Who is the loser? You? Probably not, because you may care not a fig for my opinions. But I lose - because my recall is not so amazing that it matters little if I don't write things down. So I have an ever diminishing memory of brilliant performances, stunning scripts, masterly direction and an experience that touched me. And that is to lose the richness of my life, to me. Hey-ho, get fat and die happy! When I'm gone I will follow the driftwood down river into the collective 'forgetory' of my family and friends.

Today, August 10th, 2009, I am renewing my feeble intention to make some record of the plays and performances I have witnessed.

HMS Pinfore - Huntington Beach Playhouse

2007-08-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

HMS Pinafore - by Gilbert and Sullivan
Directed by Holly Ahlborn

Huntington Beach Central Library Theatre
Playing Thursday-Friday at 8pm. Saturdays at 3 and 8pm. Sunday at 2 and 7pm until August 26th. Final show is matinee only.

Click here for plot summary

I have to declare an interest: I am IN this show! So, of course it's marvellous and wonderful. Right? Not according to Tom Titus' review in the Huntington Beach Independent. He basically keel-hauled the entire cast except the lovely lead soprano, Amanda Lammert (left).

Only five days before the opening I was sitting in the playhouse trying to figure out the technicalities of the set design for a forthcoming production of The Cemetery Club. It was hell week for Pinafore and Amy, the music director, was making set adjustments when we met.

"Oh, I love Pinafore," I said, "but I haven't sung any G&S for several years." Amy was quick; we just had a man drop out of the chorus? You want to join the show? Four days later I was on stage singing and dancing - and doing a fair amount of faking. Come on - I'd only had the score for a few days.

The faking is the problem. I shall explain:

The cast on board their ship, HMS Pinafore. (from Avis Reuweler )

This is now my fourth Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in OC and on every occasion we have performed to a pre-recorded backing track. For some reason these aways sound like carnival calliope music! Of course this is far cheaper than hiring two or three musicians. G&S music contains many passages where recitatives are accompanied only by occasional chords, or the chorus may even sing several measures a capella. But on the tape there is -- silence. The tempo must now be totally and accurately in the minds of the singers or all of a sudden there is a strange disjunction of song and calliope and everyone knows we lost it.

With a strong ensemble of singers this problem is minimal. And usually the soloists will handle this better than the chorus. But when you have a chorus made of up willing but not very strong singers this is a considerable challenge. Here's what happens - It's time for the chorus to hit the first note at a point where there is NO backing (only silent tempo) and half of them chicken out - not exactly sure when to start. So the first couple of words get lost, then slowly, the more timid follow the brave (who had the courge to risk sounding like soloists) and the line picks up. But it sounds - ugh! Since we only have a tape to follow there is no pianist there in the orchestra giving us the nod, or the wave, to bring us in, and we fudge it.

The only solution is endless drilling. But in a 5 or 6 week rehearsal period there is little time for repetitive drilling. And so when we opened we were under-prepared. A week into the show, it's definitely getting better.

It's not that Amy is not a good music director; for she is. And it's not that Holly Ahlborn is not a good director - she is great! But you get who you can get through casting, set your rehearsal schedules and hope (even pray) that by opening night you will be at performance standard. So Holly and Amy smiled at us and said we were doing great - but we were not. We needed more drilling, we knew it, but time had run out.

So what do you do on stage? - you fake it! If you're not sure of the words - and what a mouthful they are - you do empty mouthing, or pretend it's not your turn to be singing. If you don't know your line of music, you sing whatever you can manage, very quietly. And when the whole chorus drifts off the beat and gets out by half a measure, they tend to just dry up. But we all smile and act our socks off like old troopers!

And, men: for some reason I don't understand, we always seem to be so far behind the women in getting the choreography. I know for sure that I am slow; until I have done it multiple times I have problems getting the mouth and the feet to perform at the same time. So we fake it.

I think we have a good show but we have yet to pull it together strongly. Until that time comes ascerbic critics like Tom Titus will hose us down in the scuppers.

As for the cast, directors and crew - they are the most lovely and committed people. The support staff from the theatre: set building, sewing, ironing, cleaning, cooking, publicizing - all function like seasoned professionals.

Should you turn out to see this show? Yes! There are few enough chances to see the wonderful shows written by Gilbert and Sullivan, and this one is a lot of fun. It's part of your education as well as entertainment.

Photography by Avis Reuweler

Beau Jest - Long Beach Playhouse

2007-08-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

Beau Jest by James Sherman
Directed by Elaine Herman
Playing at the Long Beach Playhouse until August 18th.

There are actors at Long Beach who like to feel that the 99-seat, Equity Waiver theater upstairs is the place to be, rather than the main stage. Would they have us believe the quality of theatre is better?

The story opens with the lead character, Sarah Goldman (Debra Wade, pictured left) saying a hurried Goodbye to Chris, her regular boyfriend (played by Rob Kerr) because her parents are coming round for dinner. Chris is to be replaced for the evening by a man from the escort agency who will play the boyfriend. This conundrum is soon explained - she is Jewish as are the parents, but Chris is not. Sarah will therefore avoid the ethnic/religious problems for a while with a substitute. It turns out that although he is called Bob Schroeder and even looks more or less Jewish - he is not. Fortunately he is an actor, a quick study, and once played in Fiddler on the Roof!

This simple, naive subterfuge is the very stuff of comedy. The deception will, of course, become more and more tangled until eventually, somehow, it is bound to unravel with not completely unpredictable consequences

The parents arrive (Ruth and Manny Siegal) and her brother Joel (Tony Cicchetti) and the comedy ratchets up. Bob - who is now 'Dave' to the family - suddenly finds he is a doctor at a nearby hospital and is quite unsure whether he does hearts or brains; both, it turns out! The family performs a perfunctory Seder where the father is quite hilarious and in constant conflict with his devoted wife about exactly how is should be done. They all have their noses in the Seder booklet and Dave stuns Sarah when he asks a blessing over one of the cups and pulls it off in perfect Hebrew. (Remember he was in Fiddler? He learnt it then. Ha!)

The added twist is that soon it becomes clear that the hired boyfriend and Sarah are beginning to to feel URST - unresolved sexual tension. What will happen to Chris? Will the parents ever find out? Well - you just have to see the play.

So much for plot. Now - performance.

Eke! This play is so flat. Time and again the audience should have been rocking with laughter. Perhaps some nights it did.

Rob Kerr plays a small part, but nicely nuanced and edgy.

David Tracq as the surrogate boyfriend looks great, and smiles abundantly as he smoothly copes with one dilemma after another - but he was almost too smooth. His constant angst seldom emerged in his characterization so we were seldom able to enjoy the agony of his predicament.

Ruth and Manny Siegall obviously have no problems being Jewish, but the father could be slow on his cues - like fumbling the ball. And by half way through the unvaried cadence of the mother's shrill voice got to be almost irritating.

Tony Cicchetti plays the intuitive, devoted but concerned brother and does so with subtlely.

The main reason for the play's flatness was Debra Wade as Sarah. As an actor she never appeared to be emotionally in touch with her character. She played at being the character. She was not the character - and the difference is significant. True, she has a very fine knack of deploying a wide range of comedic techniques in her acting, but they were not true. The role needed to be bigger, better commanding the stage, stepping us from moments of deep emotional horror (Oh my God, what have I done?) to exalted relief (Yes!). This begged for valleys and mountains in performance, but all we got were small variations on a flat road.

Apparently only a week before opening both leads were struggling for their lines. And it showed. For a director cannot develop the characters to the potential demanded by the plot when the script is still in the hand.

A word about the set which was a masterful use of the space creating depth, levels, shapes, curves - all the feel of a very upmarket apartment. It then became a little over crowded with the furniture, but that was okay, manageable. The director had the actors use the space pretty well - though long periods when most of the characters sit on and around a sofa are not too exciting.

The story cracks along at a good pace. The ending is satisfying and for the most part the audience appears to have been satisfied.

Hamlet - South Coast Repertory

2007-06-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
Directed by Daniel Sullivan
Playing at South Coast Repertory Theatre until July 1st.
Below, the principal cast, with director Daniel Sullivan seated center.

Daniel Sullivan (seated) directs the cast of Hamlet (standing left to right) Robert Foxworth, Claudius; Hamish Linklater, Hamlet; Michael Urie, Horatio; Brooke Bloom, Ophelia; Dakin Matthews, Polonius; Graham Hamilton, Laertes, and Linda Gehringer, Gertrude.

You should take a moment with these ==> Slideshow Video Clip

The buzz in the foyer boiled down to this: "Have you seen Hamlet before?" And the audible whisper was - No! SCR has therefore done a huge service to local theatre-goers in bringing not just a brilliant production of Hamlet, but also a carefully cut down version. People SHOULD see this most classic play, this most quoted play. The familiar lines comes swarming round your ears like bees as you think so that's where it comes from!

My small community theatre back in the UK 'did' Hamlet. High school students study him. But for the most part we measure the performances of this tragic hero against such worthies as Olivier, Burton, Geilgud, Jacobi, Branagh and Gibson. Your favorite becomes your archetype. I was captivated by Branagh's 1996 movie version and thought I would never see better. Tosh! I just saw it at SCR!!

Each new production has a right to establish its own ethos, interpretation and validity. That's the beauty of Shakespeare. And Daniel Sullivan evokes for us a dark European mood with his rugged wooden platform stage, hellish medieval backdrop, sparse furnishings and graveled side stage floor.

So we start with the familiar walls of Elsinore castle and the appearance of the ghost of Hamlet's father. But the ghost is so obviously founder member Richard Doyle, with that unmistakable lurching walk, that we have problems seeing him as the ghost. Oh well! (We have to invoke a further act of mental detachment when Scrooge, oops! Hal Landon, come in as a player and gravedigger.) But where would we be without our old familiar faces?

Enter Claudius (Robert Foxworth) whom we don't like; but we're not supposed to like him - murderer! His newly acquired Queen Gertrude (Linda Gehringer, recently of The Piano Teacher) was also unlikeable, but I think more by virtue of her strained looks, anguished voice and lack of depth than the fact that she married her brother in law while Hamlet's father was barely cold in the grave.

We all await Hamlet. This what it's all about. His sonorous voice first projects from stage left, seated, but ere long he assumes centre stage. Hamish Linklater brings dimensions to this role we have never seen before and at first we wonder about his kooky, arms-everywhere, erratic behavior, until we remember Hamlet was not much more than a boy, a deeply disturbed young man with a brilliant mind. At times he presents as though he has Aspergers disease! He flashes through rapid mood transitions, rattles out biting wit and parody. He dominates the stage, mesmerising us with the depth and genius of his performance carving out a new validity in his portrayal of this tortured soul.

Also highly notable was the quirky, hilarious Polonious (Dakin Mathews) who makes you want to rush home to your Complete Works and see if Shakespeare actually wrote it like that. Ophelia (Brooke Bloom) pulls at the heart strings as her progressive madness drives her to her tragic drowning. Her brother, Laertes (Graham Hamilton), also, rightly, not much more than a boy, rises with passion to his role as the fight antagonist of Hamlet. (By the way, those swords were a little too broad in the blade and unsatisfactory in the handle to qualify as rapiers.)

At the end all is death and destruction and I'm not sure the staging was crisp enough. The sword fight could have had a touch more Errol Flynn in the choreography. The poison drops Gertrude while she is off the main platform, poorly lit, stage left, lost amongst lesser characters. The night I was there the killing of Claudius seemed a two-stage, botched affair with the king trying to grab for the tip of Hamlet's poisoned sword and almost not making it before Hamlet finally dispatched him upstage left, in a dramatically weak position for blocking.

But no matter. The play was done, exceptionally and memorably well done, by then. And the audience loved it. Bravo SCR!

Thanks also to SCR for the picture I swiped from the program.

Trela on Hamlet

2007-06-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

I caught South Coast Rep's production of Hamlet last week, and was thoroughly impressed. I've seen a handful of productions of Hamlet over the years, including the memorable Shakespeare Orange County version from 1992 starring Wayne Alexander as the troubled Dane, and while that production remains firmly etched in my mind's eye, this SCR version ranks a close second, due not to a single performance, but to the overall staging itself. The SCR stage has been torn out and replaced with a large wooden platform upon which the actors act out the play. Hamish Linklater is an introspective Hamlet, which suits this production, but the stellar supporting cast (including veterans Dakin Matthews, Robert Foxworth, Richard Doyle, Hal Landon and Linda Gehringer) and the unusual staging (which includes having the actors sit in chairs just offstage until their time to act is upon them) adds up to a very satisfying and often riviting production of what is arguably the greatest play every written.

By Chris Trela

Imagination of the Heart - Long Beach Playhouse

2007-06-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Imagination of the Heart, by Cecilia Fannon
Directed by Caprice Spencer Rothe
June 23rd, 2007

Each year Long Beach Playhouse sponsors a New Works Festival in an ongoing effort to encourage new and established playwrights in their craft. The four winners receive staged readings in the theatre and stand a chance of full production at a later date. This year the Literary Committee read and evaluated 230 full length plays, and the final play to be read this year was by local favorite Cecilia Fannon.

Since Cecilia has been my playwriting tutor and mentor ever since I joined her class at South Coast Rep 11 years ago, to blog her work is to trespass on sacred ground!!

A staged reading is an occasion at which a script is read by capable actors in front of the playwright and an audience as part of the development process on the way to full production. It can be an excellent gauge of the quality of the work and its likely future reception. Staged readings generally require no costuming or blocking, but sometime actors and directors get a little over enthusiastic and begin to add in a visual element, as was the case here.

Since staged readings are about feedback - here goes.

Although capable of high comedy, in recent years Ms. Fannon has written more contemplative works in which the drama of ordinary people in unusual settings provides the canvas for the most delicate and poignant explorations of our common humanity. She never misses an occasion for sizzling wit and writes with a precision and style that is almost poetic.

Imagination of the Heart is set in 1918 New York at the conjunction of two globally shattering events - the end of WWI and the 'flu epidemic, in which between 50-100 million people died worldwide. But as the first scene unwinds we do not quite yet understand this. A procession of nuns winds its way through the Priory and one nun drops with a thud to the ground, a victim of the grippe.

The play unwraps as the scenes swap between public announcements (historically researched and totally accurate) marking the onset of the epidemic, the store of shopkeeper Tine where he is visited by a Jewish jeweller named Nathaniel Altberger, and the nuns of the Priory. The Protestant, Tine, scrubs his floors and poisons the rats with the logic that it matters little whether the flu is borne by the rats or the fleas, for both the carriage and the passengers will die by the same treatment. Altberger gently derides his efforts and their friendship provides for delightful comedy. Meanwhile the flu is worsening. And we learn that Tine's wife is pregnant and Altberger and his wife, Judith, have a son called Sam who regularly writes to them.

News announcements about the ever increasing spread of the flu (shades of Albert Camus: The Plague) continue to percolate through the dialogue giving various assurances and suggested nostrums, thereby heightening the threat level.

Back in the Priory Sister Maria, a novice, comes under the tutelage of Prioress Anunziata who is checking out young Maria's readiness to take her final vows and become a bride of Christ. She glows with pristine religious enthusiasm.

By the Act break we have been charmed by all the characters and faced the worsening flu epidemic through their eyes. But we are unsure about the main dramatic thrust of the play. What is at issue, except survival? And whose play is it? Are we meant to identify the traditional protagonist? And if so, who is it - the storekeeper, the jeweller or the sister? Talking with other writers at the break, we really did not know and wondered if we had missed something.

It may be this is a new thing in playwriting - where you don't really know what the play is about until Act II. We had cases of this during the Pacific Playwrights festival at SCR. If there was foreshadowing, I missed it. Personally, I like to have sense of where we are going after about 20 minutes, but by the intermission will do - at a stretch. Fortunately the sheer delight of the writing and the characterization held me in there.

Okay - Act II and the kettle begins to boil. Sister Maria is to be sent out into the community to assist families suffering in the face of the grippe (an old fashioned word for influenza). She ends up caring for old Mr. Altberger (who is actually only 51 in the script). He is struggling to overcome the flu, as is Mr. Tine. Both of their families have been packed off to Long Island together, much like a wartime evacuation, where they may stand a better chance of being spared the disease.

Nate Altberger's cynical Jewish wit challenges Maria's Catholic certainty almost to the point of hostility, and we finally have dramatic conflict between the characters. Maria refuses to abandon her care of the stubborn man and slowly a deeper mutual respect develops. They visit the park and watch the starlings; he begins to make jewelry for her which, as a nun, she would never be able to wear. Nate's heart is being touched by the novice. And when he suddenly draws her close and kisses her!! and she takes her time before the kiss ends - the audience audibly sucks in its breath!! It may be the only kiss. And we discover that on one occasion Maria lay for the night on the bed next to Altberger. The writer is clever enough not to let us think any impropriety occurred. But Nate is in love (or infatuated) and even offers to convert to Catholicism if she will quit the convent and be with him. Yeah, right.

Let's wrap this up. The public announcements of the flu get progressively worse; the war ends with the November 11th Armistice, Sam dies and Judith is estranged from Altberger. He recovers and makes a very special ring for Maria to wear when she's finally married to Christ (with a jewel hidden on the inside and with the complicity of the Prioress). She takes her vows and lies obediently prostrate on the floor. Altberger meets up with Judith in the park and the ending is - imprecise. Deliberately. The writer wanted to leave us wondering; and that's okay.

Of course, my summary omits other aspects of the play and you will have to await the full production to fill in the blanks. For sure, you will be touched by the story, charmed by the characters, amused by the comedy and impressed with the writing.

This is a play about plain people in crushing circumstances where death lurks at every corner and desperation can make both fools and heros.

I venture to believe this is mostly Maria's journey. She has the greatest inner challenge to overcome. A great deal of money and parental determination lie behind her entrance into monastic life. She is clear enough in her own mind to know she truly wants to become a nun, but also flawed enough almost to have a fling with an older man and has to fight off his desire to keep her. On reflection I have a problem believing what she got herself into with Altberger. It could seemed contrived; it certainly spices up the plot. Maybe we should have eavesdropped on her subsequent confession. In any event, Maria is given every opportunity to walk out of the convent before taking her vows, but finally goes through with them confident in her own faith.

Tine is reunited with his family. Altberger moves off the end of the play with a life blighted by the death of his son and the loss of his wife.

The Magnificat, Mary's canticle of joy at the news of cousin Elizabeth's pregnancy and her own impending delivery of Jesus, contains the line: "He has shown strength with His arm: He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts." This is the logic behind the choice of title for the play.

We can plagiarise another line of the same hymn: "(S)he has filled the hungry with good things." Thank you, Cecilia, for a very satisfying play.

I Ought To Be In Pictures - Long Beach Playhouse

2007-06-22T16:46:00.001-07:00

I Ought To Be In Pictures, by Neil Simon
Directed by Autumn Browne
Plays on the main stage at the Long Beach Playhouse until July 28.

I suppose I ought to declare an interest: the director is my wife, and I designed the set! Does that mean I should recuse myself from comment? Not at all - for I can give you the inside goss, the part the other critics never see, the development process.

Should you see this play? Yes. Is it an excellent script? You bet. Do the actors do a good job? Awesome. Is the set breathtaking? You be the judge when you go. But I have to tell you, I love this play so much I could happily watch it every night for as long as it plays.

Neil Simon is, of course, one of our great modern playwrights and in this, his least produced of plays, he again touches deep themes of love and insecurity, passion and prejudice, longing and fear of commitment. Set in the early 1980s, Herb Tucker (played by Michael Durack), a middle aged and unsuccessful script writer, lives an untidy life out of his untidy bachelor pad. His need for intimate companionship is fulfilled by his make-up artist girlfriend Stephanie Blondell (Della Lisi). Suddenly the bubbly, bouncy Libby arrives (played by Lisa Cirincione) on the front door step and after an opening run-in with Stephanie we discover she is Herb's 19 year old daughter. Herb has not seen her since he walked out on her mother sixteen years previously.

Why is she here? To fulfil her curiosity about her father, to get a leg-up into show business, or to find a relationship she had never known? The unfolding story handles great truths about broken families with great sensitivity and considerable comedy. But that's Neil Simon for you! By the time the play is done we have empathized with all the characters, squirmed with their discomfort, cringed at their arguments, laughed at their wit and wept at the pathos. At the preview night one of the regular ushers confessed she always goes home at the intermission of new shows; this time she felt compelled to stay!

The script is very clever. And in the early stages of rehearsal I wondered where the laughs would be - and whether the actors even "got it". They were each parroting their version of who they thought their characters were. This is where the director comes in, and this is where many so-called directors in Orange County fail to rise to the responsibility of being a director.

Browne will spend hours with her actors dissecting the meaning of the play from the text, discovering the connections, the rhythms, the dramatic highlights, the comedy, the moods and reactions of the characters and their inner thought processes. This is an even harder job when the three actors are not natural comedians and have to learn to find the comedy and hit it! So at times they resisted her direction - until the day she told them she was for five years a Hollywood stand-up comedian! Then they began to listen and slowly they began to push the boundaries of their traditional acting comfort zones.

In this show the actors were off book really quickly - which meant that most of the rehearsal time could be given to real character development and acting; not just blocking - the learning of the main stage movements. This has paid off to produce a play that lives up the to very high standards of Long Beach Playhouse.

Michael Durack's portrayal of Herb, the testy, down at heel writer with an inability to commit, is gritty and convincing. His deep emotions, carefully pulled back, still hit you when you least expect.

Delle Lisi as Stephie has yet to fully relax into her role. At times she can slow the pace with her rather deliberate delivery, especially in her Act II scene in which she drives the argument with Herb. But her character is warm, nuanced, charming and real. She bears the agony of being the woman who wishes the man would just propose and marry her, but never does: a tough assignment.

Lisa Cirincione plays Libby, Herb's daughter, like a huge breath of fresh air blowing in to dispel all the cobwebs of her father's stale life. Intrinsically a straight dramatic actor she carries most of the comedy and responded wonderfully to direction. Her delivery, energy, emotions and physicality are a sheer delight.

Long Beach boasts a very fine and efficient production team headed up by Theatre Manager and Producer Gigi Fusco Meese, and ably borne up by the very talented Jesse GrothOlson - the full time set builder, lighting designer and electrician. Add into the mix a wonderful costumier, Donna Fritche, sound designer Brian Page (for this show), and a huge props department and you have a well-oiled machine that can put one play after another on their main stage without any downtime in between. A truly remarkable performance.

Caligula - Unknown Theater

2007-06-18T22:54:00.000-07:00

“…power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely…”

Under the blithe direction of Chris Covics, the Unknown Theater’s presentation of Albert Camus’ “Caligula,” will find politically-minded audience members asking themselves - what kind of world would exist had George Bush Jr., at the tender age of 26, behaved similarly back in Rome 37 AD?

Certainly reminiscent of various portrayals of disturbed, prehistoric figures (Oliver Stone’s rendition of “Alexander” springs to mind, sans homoerotic overtones), the story of “Caligula” does very little to entice and captivate the audience’s attention, sparing with notable exception the wondrous and stirring portrayal by Jeremy Guskin (previously in SCR’s “Nothing Sacred”). Guskin provides the kind of remarkable, stand-out performance, as well as saving grace, from the moment he enters, trudging through ankle deep water in the public fountain, until the finale where he is (**SPOILER**) stabbed to death by his not-so-loyal entourage of subjects.

We see Caligula in full despot form – ordering (and carrying out) executions, performing off-stage rapes and amusing himself in Hamlet-like fashion during a series of dramatics with a troop of poets and actors. All treachery aside, Caligula does occasionally spouts off a few philosophies, such as not taking life for granted. When asked by one of his followers his greatest wish, the dictator innocently invokes, “…I wish for the moon.

The play is not totally without humor. Clad in toga uniforms, guards stand about and bicker amongst themselves over their predicament. Hopeless enough that the audience would find it a breath of relief for one of them to scream “OUR FEET ARE KILLING US!!!” as if watching Fred Flintstone trapped in a Sartre play. Unfortunately, Guskin’s fellow cast members fail to provide a much-needed sense of humor and desperation.

Camus’ long-winded and flowery prose, though certainly not dialogue-friendly or intended for contemporary audiences, only come to life under Guskin. In this instance, Camus’ material would be better suited and more appropriate in a literary medium rather than theatrical.

However, the moral issues dealt in this production do translate into the modern world we face. If Caligula were indeed to teach the older generation a lesson, this begs the question - what kind of world would have existed had Caligula actually read and absorbed more works by Ovid or other poets and scholars?

More similarly, what kind of world would exist today had George Bush Jr. actually bought and listened to more Bob Dylan records?

Devil Dog Six - The Lyceum, San Diego

2007-06-17T17:36:00.000-07:00

Devil Dog Six
By Mary Fengar Gail
Directed by Esther Emery and Jennifer Eve Thorn for the Moxie Theatre.

Let's get this clear, just so you know, Devil Dog Six is a horse. In a very real sense, he is the star of the show, though his stable girl and jockey, Devon Tramore, is the center of the story.

If you left your imagination behind when you graduated childhood, if you can no longer suspend your disbelief so that you can fly with Peter Pan, or battle the forces of evil in Lord of the Rings; if your dramatic taste can reach no higher than domestic realism with some comedy or tragedy thrown in, then you shouldn't run the risk of seeing Mary Gail's play. (Nor should you ever watch A Midsummer Night's Dream!) Here is a writer who pushes all the normal boundaries of story-telling to produce an effect of sheer delight. Our role is to enjoy the ride.

Gail sets her play in the horse breeding and racing world of the south. She inserts the brilliant little rider, Devon Tramore, into a male dominated jockey world of sex discrimination and sexual innuendo. Then catastrophe strikes as Devon's horse is brought down while racing and she suffers severe head injuries. The plot now splits as on the one hand we follow investigations to see if this was a deliberate cynical ploy to remove Devon from racing and on the other hand to track her recovery. Both plot lines slowly unfold and hold us with a tantalizing uncertainly that keeps us wondering what will happen next.

With Devon in the hospital, barely conscious, we begin a strange journey. She discovers astral projection and in while her body lies inert in her cot she is spending more and more time with her horses learning their language and secrets such that when she finally awakes she begins to acquire equine attributes which become progressively strange to her family!

To say more will spoil the story for you. But it is not just the weirdness of Devon's condition that pulls us into the story but the underlying issues. The writer brings feminism into conflict with the male dominated racing world and ties it up with a very neatly understated resolution; she tackles a still underlying racism with her protagonist dating a black stable boy, though I found that the parents' reaction to the relationship was rather insipid, missing an opportunity to deal with racial prejudice. The writer also has fun as she allows Devon to question the wisdom of a powerful Saudi race horse owner to decide who should ride his horses. She digs into conspiracies that cover up crime. And all with a gentle, comical touch.

Now back to the horses, because without doubt one of the greatest and most daring features of the play is to have the actors play race horses! The race commentary blares out from the track speakers as the horses, feet pounding and nostrils flared, run round the track. You see them whinny and nicker. And at other times the playwright has us follow the race with the actors as jockeys in their racing silks. You wonder how this can be done? Go see the play. You will laugh, and then believe.

The races often form transitions from one scene to another, and as the race stops the actors break away into new characters; between them a mere six actors play 24 characters and the action moves from scene to scene with such fluidity that you have little time to wonder that a moment ago the actor who played a horse trainer is now a voodoo practitioner or a jockey, and is now a horse again!

The theatre is arranged with the audience in two stands facing each other across the the race track. Stable doors at one end face the jockey's locker room at the other. The actors effortlessly bring on props sufficient to suggest each scene and provide brief narrative bridges to move the action along. The set designer and directors have clearly risen to the task to match the writer for sheer ingenuity.

Apart from actor Bill Dunnam who plays the Inspector - who is still fluffing his lines - this is a stellar cast with enormous acting talent. It is almost invidious to single out any special performances but Laurence Brown's portrayal of Devon's black stable boy lover and the proud, majestic horse Devil is quite stunning. And Jo Anne Glover's Devon (when she is not also a horse) is powerful and compelling. It's a great ensemble.

Other theatres have passed up the opportunity to stage this play. It takes a literary manager with some considerable insight (see para 2, above) to appreciate how a script like Devil Dog Six can translate to an amazing stage experience. Congratulations to the Moxie Theatre for realizing this potential.

Since this is the first production of Devil Dog Six tradition has it that we call is a World Premiere. It is my hope that this play will go far. Watch this playwright. She has many more great surprises in store for the theatre going public.

Mary Gail's Credits

2007-06-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

Reproduced from the program of Devil Dog Six:

Mary Fengar Gail (Playwright) Ms. Gail's plays include Carnivals Of Desire, Fuchsia, Jarnbulu, Drink Me, The Garden On F Street and The Breasts Of Fortuna. She has had readings, workshops and productions at various theatres including the Sundance Institute, the New York Stage and Film Company, the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Collaborative Arts Project 21 and Lark Theatres of New York, the InterAct Theatre of Philadelphia, the Attic and Moving, Arts Theatres of Los Angeles, the Fritz Theatre of San Diego, and the Kitchen Dog Theatre of Dallas. She is a recipient of the Arnold Weissberger Award administered by New Dramatists, the Stanley Drama Award sponsored by Wagner College, the TheatreFest Playwriting Competition in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, the National Children's Theatre Festival Award and the Santa Fe Performing Arts Company's Playwriting Competition. Ms. Gail recently received commissions from South Coast Repertory of Costa Mesa and the National New Play Network, as well as a playwriting fellowship from the California Arts Council.

Romeo and Winifred - Brookhurst JHS

2007-05-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

I saw a Junior High School production - so I blog it! This also gives me opportunity to say more about school drama programs.

Romeo and Winifred is a very funny spoof of its better known older brother, written for performance by schools. (The musical version, Romeo and Harriet, was staged by Elizabeth King at Savanna High School a few weeks ago.)

The entire play takes no more than an hour. It's set between two department stores, Montagues (think Nordstroms) and Capulets (think Wal-Mart), and all the well known principals translate into this scenario. Nobody gets killed; the nearest thing we have to a fight is with pillows and slap hands, and that is soon broken up by a very funny policeman with a stuffed belly. Juliet's (oops, Winifred's) nurse is dressed like a Red Cross nurse and apart from a stream of jokes has a predilection for bandaging paper cuts.

The plot gets the original story of R&J out of the way quite quickly by having a Family Feud contest between The Montagues and the Capulets on the main features of the story, including who got killed in the Shakespeare version. Then we move into the main business of the star-crossed lovers and an endless stream of old groaner jokes, NEW groaner jokes, horrible puns and cute literary references. For instance one store buyer get confused about whether to purchase the clothes in the 2B line. He thinks: "2B or not 2B, that is the question!" The audience, not well versed, did not get it. Oh well.

Staging. Since director Autumn Browne is an accomplished actress and director with a one time career on stage and the small screen I expected a lot - and got it. The kids transitioned in and out of their scenes with energy and purpose. They formed ever varying stage pictures (this is director blocking) and used the entire stage. Their cues were quick and no lines were flubbed.

The style of characterization in this show should be vastly exaggerated, almost melodramatic. Browne spends hours trying to develop characters with various improv games. By the time this gets filtered through embarrassment and insecurity you got what I saw here, a lot of neat small characters. But to their credit they were acting, not simply reciting the words.

In school drama you cast what you can get, so of course, in a cast of 30+ kids, you will have a few dead fish. "You try, but there's limit to what you can get", explained Browne. That may also go for delivery. Once Junior High kids get the lines down they seem to want to get rid of them as quickly as possible, perhaps as a defense against forgetting them. They are also a little shy about speaking out. As a result we can miss the treasures in the text. Kids, listen, your old granny is in the back row. She does not hear well. Speak up and slow down!

Students also tend to pick up each other's bad habits. Here is character A, who thinks that every time she speaks she must extend her arms, palms faced upwards, as though all she was saying was, "There you are, what more can I add?!" It might also subconsciously mean, "Hello, look at me; I'm the one who's talking, just in case you can't hear me."

Whatever the reason, it's a contagious disease - and the director could not stop the infection in time.

Brookhurst has a drama room with its own stage, lighting bar and a not quite adequate sound system. It's a very neat set up, the envy of many other schools which have to work in echoing cafetoriums, or share a space with the band.

Browne explained that this is the first time she has done a full length show with mostly beginner students. Normally full length shows are reserved for her 8th grade advanced class. More credit to you, Brookhurst. You have a lot of talent to groom next year. Good show.

Special credit goes to Matthew Kopstein - Romeo; Cameo Smith - Winfred; Andrew Stewart - Friar Tuck; Chris Sheets - Officer Escalus; CJ Moore - Tybalt, Jessica Guzman and Amanda Rivera as fashion models, and Carole Anne Jacobs - Stage Manager.

Yeah, yeah, quit bugging me; the crew was great, too!

Jane Eyre - Anaheim High School

2007-05-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

Friday, 18th May.
How does one go about critiquing high school drama? Our expectations cannot be the same as for professional or community theatre, and yet we should take it seriously. A good drama experience at school can be a powerful motivator that propels students into a stage or film career. And for many audience members school drama may be the only drama they every see; so few go to live theatre. So school performances merit discussion. In recent months I have also seen full productions at Loara and Savanna, and snippets of performances from all the Junior High and High Schools of the Anaheim Union HSD at the annual Theatre Festival.

The great thing about school drama, even if it’s not technically very good, is seeing the students in a totally different light from any other time at school. Here all their varied successes or failures, their sporting achievements, their awards or detentions, disappear. They becomes the characters in the play. They hold us in the spell (we hope) of that magic we call theatre. The hours of line-learning and rehearsal, often conflicting with the demands of homework, finally come to fruition.

Anaheim High School has had a strong drama program for many years under the enthusiastic direction of Sharon King. If a drama teacher is lucky enough to get a good handful of naturally talented students they act as a catalyst to the others to strive for better performance.

Last Friday they put a huge effort into a simplified version of the classic, Jane Eyre. With some sets borrowed from Fullerton Light Opera the stage at times was splendid with chandeliers and great furniture for Mr. Rochester’s home. Many other scenes were played flat across the apron or as sub-sets within Rochester’s manor.

Jane Eyre (Yolanda Navarro) often narrates the story while her younger self is played by Giselle Contreras. Both students play with clear diction and fine choices of inflection. Jane Eyre, as a girl, is taken in by a family that could care nothing for her. The elder boy beats her up in a few moments of graphic violence before this callous family lands her in an orphanage. In a charming scene in which the orphans girls neatly line up in their uniforms the headmaster, brimming with the theology of sin and hellfire, stalks among the girls intimidating them with his gravelly voice. This is Mr. Brocklehurst, well portrayed by Erik Perez with huge energy, though the lowering of his pitch made his voice at times indistinct.

Young Jane grows up and becomes a governess (a live-in home tutor). Schools could be pretty grim in those days. Eventually she finds a position in the home of Mr. Rochester whose mad wife is locked away in some hidden garret. But her cries and groans escape the walls and Jane becomes aware of the prisoner.

Of course we are all awaiting the arrival of Mr. Rochester, played by Alex Martinez. Alex naturally sports a fine head of long hair which he wore in a pony tail for this play. I think there were other options (without cutting it off) that would have made his silhouette less striking. He loves drama, but should try to improve his enunciation for his lines were frequently incomprehensible. He also needed a more upright posture.

The play exhibited problems that seem common to most school productions. On cue actors walk on, go to their spot (often in a straight line, ugh!) and say their lines. They do nothing if they have nothing to say, and finally walk off. It looks awful. Directors (the drama teachers as a rule) need to fix this. This is not unique to Anaheim.

Remember, if a character is put on stage by the playwright there is a reason, a motivation, to be there. Both the entrance and exit are to be motivated else why would the character come on or go off? People move at different speeds depending on requirements,; run, bustle, dawdle, walk fast or slow. Actors should never just cover the ground from stage to wings at the same aimless walk.

People seldom stand in straight lines, leaning forward to address each other down the line. So why do so many directors let this happen? Directors must use their imagination to arrange the characters on stage to produce ever-moving stage pictures. People cross, counter cross, move downstage, recede, gather in groups and break up again. When they have no words to say they are still acting, reacting, IN THE SCENE, never just standing there! Directors must fix this.

I grant that there is little enough time to chase students to learn their lines and get the basic blocking right, so actually teaching acting, the art of building and portraying a character other than being themselves, may well be beyond the scope of available time.

So over to the student: you must know who your character is, how he walks, stands, holds her arms and moves her head. No two people do it the same. Look and see. How does your character speak? How does she use her face muscles to create expressions? Does the character’s voice sound just like yours, or should you find a new voice? – one you never knew you could develop.

Now get in front of a full length mirror at home; put on your costume. Become that character. Experiemnt with how you will move and say your lines. Find a physical way to be that other person so that you are always that person on stage, even when you have no lines. Understand how your character will respond to what he sees or hears on the story and let us see your physical reaction. Please, do not just be a bag of potatoes.

And speak up. Project. Trust me, if we can’t hear you, why bother coming on the stage? But you can’t speak loudly? Rubbish. It comes with the will to do it – and practice. Yes practice. Get someone to teach you to breathe properly. Please. You can do it.

Back to Jane Eyre. I think the huge stage gave then as many problems as it did opportunities. The sumptuous drawing room scene took up all the stage. This made it awkward to accommodate subsidiary sets against the background; so Jane’s bed (stage right) was jarring, and Rochester’s bedroom, upstage left, seemed out of place.

When the curtains came down, the actors were left with having to play flat across the front of the stage, which led to blocking problems. The painted wall, which projected higher than the stage itself also blocked visibility when actors played on the floor.

More strange yet was the lighting, which may have been just a bad day for the operators. But we had scenes where half the stage was in darkness and unlit actors were in the scene. Tech rehearsals should solvesthese problems. Another time we had Jane, unlit, stage left, half hidden behind the curtain, mostly with back to the audience. Nuff said. I guess it was not meant to be like that. Hey – it’s school drama and this was an ambitious project for the drama classes. Who’s perfect?

Unfortunately, we had to leave before the show was over, so I never got to see the discovery of Mrs. Rochester, or the great fire.

Anaheim - you worked hard and did a good job. You'll learn from the experience, I'm sure.

One thing school actors find is that the play is always far more demanding that they anticipated in the first place. It seems not to matter how much a director tries to impress on the cast and crew that they must all work further ahead, and give attention to every little detail. The time comes, and everybody is rushing around at the last minute doing what they should have done before.

No wonder exhausted drama teachers finally sink back in an easy chair at home when the last show is done and sigh, “Never again!”

Fortunately for school drama programs, they usually renege – and keep going. Well done.

An Ideal Husband - Long Beach Playhouse

2007-05-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 20th May.
I’m always slightly on edge when I go to see English plays, because as an Englishman, myself, I’ve heard actors massacre the dialects of my home country more often than I care to remember. Having lived here in the USA for 12 years I can convince most Brits that I’m American, but I can’t convince an American. And American actors can convey an impression of sounding English, but they have to be very good to convince me!

Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband has even more complications for the American stage for it reflects a time so far removed from what most people know. It pokes delicious fun at the foppish cultural norms of the late 19th Century when women were not meant to be educated, just well mannered, and love was barely an essential component of marriage. For the aristocracy, that ever widening circle of people who claimed some kind of genealogical connection to royalty or were titled land owners, the Season was the time of the year when you packed up your country home and opened your London rooms replete with servants, fine china and linens, carriages and coachmen. Teenage age girls whose manners had been polished at finishing schools in Switzerland or France were now ready to be formally presented to the Monarch. This was their coming out, to be followed by a giddy round of carefully arranged parties and introductions calculated get people married off! A sophisticated dating game. The men were often hideous bores, bodies and faces twisted by inbreeding. But, by God, they were elegant and they spoke immaculately! The girls should know as little as possible, but be willing vessels for babies, and the more the better. As to marital fidelity, shhh, if it was broken at least we did not discuss it, for Victorian morality dictated the rules of public behavior. This was the society of Wilde’s play.

Suitable careers might be the Church (of England) as a parish incumbent, country farming, running factories, or going into Parliament. Wilde touches on women’s higher education several times – a powerful movement set in place in the 1850s by (amongst other) my great-great Aunt, Frances Mary Buss.

The play puts the high ideals of aristocratic manhood and marriage under the spotlight. What if a fine, upstanding Parliamentarian, Sir Robert Chiltern, with a well-nigh perfect wife (Lady Gertrude), were to be discovered with a dread secret from his past, a secret so awful that a mischievous woman could manipulate it for her own greedy ends, even if it meant his public disgrace? And so the amoral Mrs. Chevely arrives, a one-time school friend of Lady Gertrude and short-lived fiancée of Robert’s best friend, Viscount Arthur Goring. Goring comes over as a nincompoop, a numbskull, who in fact finally saves the day. He is the comedian of the play, a foil to his imperious father, the Earl of Caversham – played with utter conviction by Peter Stone.

I would love to get into the plot – but that’s for you to discover. As it progresses it unfolds with artful twists and turns, and all the loose ends tie up at the end. Director Phyllis Gitlin does a flawless job in blocking the play on this very long thrust stage in Long Beach. And the set well suggests the marble columned splendor of Chiltern’s London home.

Kevin Deegan – as the Ideal Husband, Sir Robert – seldom seems truly sophisticated. His arms and legs forever jerk, restlessly, as though he had ants in his pants. His character requires a wide range of emotion and we know that he’s an orator capable swaying the entire House of Lords, but Deegan’s range was too limited to carry the part convincingly.

His clownish friend, Goring, is played to great effect by Bill Peters whose facial expressions and comedic reactions delight from start to finish. He, most of all, gives an impression of speaking the Queen’s English, but in reality rips it to shreds. And others seemed also to copy his mangling of the oft-used word serious. It is not serry-us, with slightly rolled r’s. Stay American; it’s okay -- sear-i-us.

The first syllable of Berkshire does not rhyme with irk. It’s an idiosyncrasy you have to know – rhyming with bark – barksha. And marry does not rhyme with merry; though I find few actors who can distinguish the vowel sounds of marry merry Mary, making them all sound the same. They are all different! Worst, the O sound in sorry, got, not, etc. has no counterpart in the American vocal palette except possibly in the wash of Washington. It takes a lot of practice to translate this sound well and consistently.

What’s to be done? In a play like this, get your best English speaking actors to coach the less able. Lady Markby’s accent was impeccable – and she was hilariously funny. Copy her. And the maid, Nakisa Aschtinai, sounded as though she had come from a finishing school herself. Caversham, Phipps, the opening ladies, even Mrs. Chevely, for the most part, sounded very true.

But lest the note sound sour, this was a fine cast. They entertained us royally. I wanted to laugh and laugh, but it was not a laughy audience and I had to keep quiet. And the house was barely half full, which is a concern theatre managers are having all over Orange County.

The play runs until June 16th. It deserves good audiences.

Visit the website at Long Beach Playhouse for full details.

Biloxi Blues - The Chance Theatre

2007-05-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

I have watched this little theatre grow from the days when we actors changed under the risers, and ran back stage once the audience was seated, to a wing area almost as small as a shoe box!

In the current venue the one-time barely finished theatre is now a smart, efficiently run, high quality venue providing an imaginative and varied theatrical diet to its regular patrons. It seldom disappoints. Their history is now littered with richly deserved awards, the latest being the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) Polly Warfield Award.

So -- to the current offerings.

Biloxi Blues is Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical continuation of Brighton Beach Memoirs in which the pubescent Eugene Morris Jerome had us in hysterics at his growing curiosity about sex. All of this he recorded in his notebook. Now he has now been conscripted into the US army, is located for training in Biloxi, Mississippi, and soon to be deployed in active service in WWII.

The scene is mostly set in a barrack room where Eugene is billeted with five other raw recruits. The director cleverly makes the army beds and metal trunks double for all and every set piece making the action fluid and uninterrupted. The squad soon finds itself under the rigorous, almost brutal, command of Sgt. Merwin Toomey, played by David Dalton - who although somewhat light of voice was no lightweight with his powers to bully his men into subjection and humiliation.
Through the medium of Eugene's journal we are carried into the characters and complexities of his fellow soldiers as well as stark issues of "prejudice, identity and responsibility" more aggressively than in any other of Neil Simon's works.

I had expected to be laughing all the way. But no; this piece is often too serious for laughter - it's called Biloxi Blues, dammit!

I wanted to be more amused by the character of Eugene, but found A.J. Gutierrez' portrayal too sober. That may have been a production choice; it made him engaging, sensitive, thoughtful, more mature. But for sheer gripping acting I could hardly look away from Michael Irish's characterization of Arnold Epstein, the Jew. Early in the play Sgt. Toomey picks on Epstein and a classic duel develops between ignorant authoritarianism and principled defiance. The resolution of this conflict is almost the conclusion of the play. Irish plays with such disciplined self control that not one movement, one inflection, one flash of his eyes breaks the character he has built in rehearsal. He is almost intimidating in his intensity. But it must be said, the whole show was beautifully cast and melded into a flawless team.

The two girls added their touch delicately; Staci Johnson as Rowena, the prostitute with whom Eugene finally enters his "golden temple of the Himalayas" (from Brighton Beach), and Sarah Moreau - the smart and morally upright (darn it!) Catholic girl with whom Eugene nearly gets it together in love. (Geez, Sophie - I hope you're not really like that!)

Not seen the show? It's a must. The play runs until June 17th.

Full details at the Chance Theatre website.

Bach Concert at the Segerstrom

2007-05-13T17:50:00.000-07:00

Comp. tickets to the new Segerstrom Concert Hall? I jumped at the chance, not least because I had always imagined it would cost more than I could afford to be a regular patron there. But I was wrong. You can get seats high up in the hall for not much over 20 bucks!

The May 11th event was part of the Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation Classics Series.

Last time I went was to the public opening in September 2006. This a sumptuous, impressive venue; but a concert hall is all about the sound. On opening day the sound system (mics, amplifiers, speakers) was not working while I was there; and the mini-concerts I heard, while musically excellent, did not quite fill the hall. So this time I was expecting the best.

The fare was Bach - a couple of Brandenburg Concertos, and three other pieces with soprano Kendra Colton. She looked stunning with her prematurely silver hair and her gold gown. Her voice, rich and nuanced, was a joy.

With his mild Scottish conductor Douglas Brown explained Bach's working demands as a church composer expected to pump out new pieces every week with the same regularity as the church preacher prepares his sermons. He introduced his musicians - a subset of the the Pacific Symphony's orchestra - and we began.

Our comp. tickets had us perched up in the fourth level above and behind the ensemble, gazing right down. Obviously the sound system is not tuned for this part of the hall for the conductor's introduction was an indistinct, echoey mush. If you buy the cheapest tickets, don't sit here! The music rises up, mingling into a monophonic fountain, in which it can be hard to distinguish the softer instruments. There was a harpsichord - I know because I could see Lucinda Carver playing it - but I couldn't hear it. And when Brandenburg 3 finished, in the few moments before the applause, there came - droning like bagpipes - the hum of the air conditioning. Oops!

Later, with the harpsichord moved center stage, and the number of musicians reined in, we could finally hear it. We were also delighted by the solo instruments (Heather Clarke - flute, Raymond Kobler - violin, and the unnamed lady who played bassoon. She deserved a program note!) It was a delightful evening of music. I love Bach, anyway, so it couldn't fail!

At the Intermission we did what many people did - switched seats. It was easy because the hall was barely half full and we wanted to hear the music as it should be. Sliding in somewhere near the back of the orchestra seats (no longer 20 bucks) the lights dimmed for more of the same.

Before I forget, the low aisle lights are far too bright. If you get one of those in your peripheral vision you find yourself trying to move your head so another patron blocks the darned things out.

Yes - the musical definition was far better - you could pick out the harpsichord! But, but, but! Oh, the disappointment. The music from this 20 piece orchestra did not fill the hall. And the soloist seemed so far away. Admittedly, I was just under the balcony overhang, but I expected to be enveloped with sound. Have I just been spoiled by my theatre-sounding hi-fi system at home? Really, the hall, while preserving definition and carrying the sound, was not lively enough to draw me into the event on the stage. I was a spectator, an auditor, from a distance. Yet the hall is essentially intimate.

Then I turned to look at the control booth to see how this was being monitored -- maybe there was a little extra amplification they could give? No such luck. The windows were shut, the operators were on monitors only; not really part of the concert. What did they know? But the concert was going out live over KUSC and maybe the mixing for that was perfect.

This is a pretty hall, stylish, curvy and sexy, ingenious in its design. But I hear it is full of dead spots. Some of the seating is best calculated to give you a pain in the neck as you twist sideways to see the performers. Until I hear a wider variety of music in this place to make me think otherwise I am thinking sound design has been sacrificed to architectural novelty. The hall boasts great actuator driven sound walls that can allegedly make the place echo like the Louvre, or be as intimate and crisp as a sitting room with a string quintet. Cool. But I want to sit back, relax and revel in the sound, not have lean forward and work to listen.

Better luck next time. I want to hear the full Pacific Symphony, and the Pacific Chorale. They should be good wherever we sit!

The PSO website is: http://www.pacificsymphony.org/ You can reach the Subscription Dept. Mon- Friday, 5:30-9:15 at 714-876-2301.

New Bloggers on board

2007-05-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Chris Trela and David Rusiecki who have joined this blog to provide comment and insight on OC shows. If you click Chris's profile - see right - you can read his very impressive Profile.

I'm heading back to The Chance Theatre in Anaheim this evening to see their new production of Frozen, of which more later. Autumn (my wife) is just heading out of the door for her first read through of Neil Simon's I ought to be in Pictures, which she is directing at Long Beach Playhouse.

Later ... I got redirected into going to the Segerstrom Concert Hall!

The Light in the Piazza at OCPAC

2007-05-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

I saw this Tony Award-winning musical on opening night and enjoyed it. It is not a typical Broadway-style musical, but rather a cross between the quirky Sondheim style (where the songs advance the plot or reveal character emotions and motivations) and a Merchant-Ivory movie (Howard’s End, etc). It takes place in Italy, and the lighting and sets do indeed evoke a European flavor. The story is at times funny, whimsical and poignant. It may bring a tear to your eye and a smile to your lips, and will linger in your mind like an enjoyable friend. Not the most stunning or groundbreaking show I've seen, but well worth checking out.

Christopher Trela

RENT at OCPAC

2007-05-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's already closed, and yes, it's played OCPAC several times before, but if you can get tickets to this particular tour for any other city it's playing, buy them!. This is my fifth time seeing RENT, and without a doubt this is the best cast I have seen! I am not a "RENT head," I have seen the show in the course of my duties as the theater writer for OC Metro and Coast Magazine. The difference between this cast and other productions I've seen: enthusiasm and energy. The cast brought a sense of excitement I had not seen before, and made the show seem vital and alive. In fact, seeing this production actually made me go out and buy the original Broadway cast CD, and it validated the fact that RENT deserved to win both the Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

Christopher Trela

The Verdi Girls at Laguna Playhouse

2007-05-10T16:17:00.000-07:00

The Verdi Girls does not open at Laguna Playhouse until June 2, but last week I was at the first read through of the play (it's a World Premiere) with the cast and director. Playwright Bernard Farrell is a well-known figure in Ireland, and this is the fifth play Laguna Playhouse has presented by Farrell (and the first World Premiere). The play can best be described as a farce with serious undertones. The Verdi Girls is about a groups of friends from various countries who reunite every year in Milan to celebrate the life of Verdi (composer of numerous operas), but the adventures they get into rival those of any Verdi opera. At the read through, there was much laughter from both the invited audience and the actors reading the play. I was impressed with the structure of the play, and how Farrell seamlessly wove comedic moments with serious ones. The cast is impressive, and includes Bo Foxworth, whose father, Robert Foxworth, is one of the stars of the upcoming production of Hamlet at SCR. Once The Verdi Girls is in previews (later this month) I'll report back on audience reaction.

Christopher Trela

Thank you, SCR

2007-05-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

South Coast Rep's three day festival of new plays (May 4-6) seems to have been a great success.

If you were part of the inner core of the Festival - writers, actors, theatre directors, agents, dramaturgs - you will have enjoyed rare opportunities to network, do deals, relish the wash of new work and feast in private parties. However exhausting for SCR administration, they also did a magnificent job.

For the paying theatre goers there was time to meet old friends, exchange views on the productions and glow with the fun of being in at the beginning of new plays.

Great job, SCR! Thank you.

PPF: An Italian Straw Hat at SCR

2007-05-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

An Italian Straw Hat
Book and lyrics by John Strand
Music by Dennis McCarthy
Director: Stefan Novinski
Actors: Melissa van der Schyff, John Vickery, PatrickKerr, Daniel Blinkoff, Daniel T Parker, Michelle Duffy, Dan Butler, Katrina Lenk, Matt McGrath

Musicals put butts on seats, they pay the bills – if they’re good. And with what appears to be a trend of falling theatre audiences at SCR it might be smart for this theatre to test out “An Italian Straw Hat” and bring it back in its full glory.

It is 1906, New York City, and young Fadley’s wedding day. He, the handsome ladies’ man, will soon abandon his freedom in favor of a pretty but otherwise flimsy and inadequate creature whose frightful father and colorless cousin make up a banal, low-class trio. Taking the morning air in Central Park Fadley’s horse bolts and is eventually apprehended by its owner in the final munching of a straw hat which the beast has found on a nearby bush. The story would never have begun were it not that under the same bushes a wealthy baroness was having an illicit fling with an army corporal. Aha! The inciting incident.

Before long Fadley finds the baroness and the soldier in his apartment, refusing to leave until the hat is recovered or replaced – this on top of Fadley’s trying to get married and the in-laws-to-be alternately calling the wedding off and on as the ever more flustered groom jumps through innumerable hoops to solve each successive problem.

It is script is funny and very cleverly constructed. The characters are surprising and hilarious; and the actors in this staged reading did them full justice. The script is actually an adaptation of an older French farce, so we can bear with the plot being light, frothy, and inconsequential. No great writer’s purpose oozes through with any moral or contemporary message. It is, like Coward, Wilde and Sullivan, simply fun. Cute.

The second act is way too short compared with the first. The action unpacks with such surprising speed that all of a sudden we charge through the closing action -- and we’re done!

So it is up to the music to make the play distinctive. The score is adequate. That is to say, the songs are pretty, lyrical, accessible. This is no mean feat, for it cannot be easy to score a musical. There are some reflective ballads, two rousing full company numbers, and many musical flourishes to embellish the action. But I found the songs mostly lacking; they were generally too short, or fizzled out with no satisfactory kick to rouse the audience to great applause. No deep love song touches the core of every lover. I heard no number that would resemble that big Broadway sound, that song and dance pizazz, that leaves you breathless. The music is just not big enough. I need more than these songs to persuade me to buy the Original Cast Album.Then maybe it doesn’t need that for it is not that kind of musical. But I think it could be, given work. And that is what the Pacific Playwright’s Festival is about – spotting the winners which will emerge on the other side of further development.

PPF: System Wonderland - SCR

2007-05-05T14:21:00.001-07:00

System Wonderland, by David Weiner
Director: David Emmes
May 5th, full production on the Argyros Stage
Starring: Robert Desiderio, Shannon Cochran and John Sloan

Plays and movies about the internal machinations of Hollywood are not everybody's cup of tea, though they are always fascinating for people in the business. The play however addresses a more universal theme - a world in which older people become less relevant as bright, younger things start overtaking from behind.

Jerry, a one time Oscar winning writer is now bogged down with his latest script. His tall, willowy wife, Evelyn, while still beautiful has become a more aged beauty, less in demand for leading roles. The studio knows Jerry has a problem and sends along a kid, almost fresh out of film school, to help type the script. Get this; type it on an old portable typewriter, not on a computer.

So Aaron arrives at the plainly furnished though sophisticated home overlooking the Pacific Ocean -- where the entire action is set. From the moment of Aaron's enthusiastic arrival (he adores both Jerry and Evelyn) the writer's deep seated resentments and impending sense of failure make him attack Aaron almost mercilessly. The complexity of this conflict weaves its way through the whole play as it becomes apparent that the kid is extremely talented and probably has the key to solving the roadblocks in Jerry's script. Of course, Evelyn is in and out of the action, assisting by acting out scenarios, wondering if she will ever get another great role and functioning as both protagonist and antagonist in the duel between the two men. Whenever Jerry is out of the room the old familiar standby, URST (unresolved sexual tension), comes creeps in. We constantly wonder when she will jump into bed with the wunderkind!

If you think about it you know that since Jerry's trajectory starts from the bottom he probably has to make it before the play ends, or we will have a tragedy. It's also apparent that the kid has to be the solution to the problem, but not without everyone being nearly broken in the process. And so it is. It would spoil the fun to say more.

Fun? There are few laughs. But this is a compelling drama in which Jerry's insecurities combined with a deep inside knowledge of the way the movie industry works makes him toy with Aaron as a cat would play with a mouse. And eventually Evelyn had to unleash her power play on both of the men. The play is often fraught with such danger and unpredictability that you cannot take your eyes off the action for one moment.

The script is masterful. Its dialogue is at times both terse and soaring. The action never flags as it moves through its varying moods. The actors amply complement the script. And the direction is flawless. Add to this SCR's usual reputation for stunning sets and you have all the ingredients of a fine play. It will still not be everyone's cuppa tea, but that's really beside the point.

It is not a tragedy!

PPF: Po' Boy Tango - SCR

2007-05-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

Po’ Boy Tango, by Kenneth Lin
Director: Chay Yew
Actors: Nelson Mashita, Jeanne Sakata, Kimberly Scott

This was a workshop production; the actors carried their scripts, but with the addition of a provisional set, lighting and sound cues, the experience becomes more vivid than a staged reading. And the actors gave a mesmerizing performance.

Po’ Boy Tango presents many conundrums, most of which arise as we try to understand the play’s outpouring of rich, oriental culture. Richie Po, an ex-pat Taiwanese man, longs to recreate for his soon to be married daughter (I think) the Grand Banquet which his mother prepared many years ago back in Taiwan. Now she is dead; but he has the tastes in his memory, and with recipes and video tapes from his Mama he has the technical knowledge. He lacks the culinary skill, however, to pull it together. It is his driving passion to prepare this Banquet. So he sends for Gloria, a well-rounded African American (as required by the script) who duly arrives during a thunderstorm. When she enters Po’s house there is an immediate hostility, a freeze – which only slowly thaws. We do not know why but suspect that since it’s ten years since the two of them were on speaking terms something pretty dire must have happened.

After the thaw, and much persuasion, Richie enlists Gloria in his grand banquet scheme. Then we are treated to the Cooking Channel for Taiwanese Cuisine for the rest of Act I. It is quite interesting if you love cooking (as I do) and also quite extraordinary. The only other hint of a problem is the moment when Gloria takes Richie’s keys so she can get back in the house, when there is another frozen, and momentary, stand-off. There is an obvious problem under the surface.

At the intermission we wondered what this was all about. The forshadowings gave us nothing to go on. There was no compelling reason other than curiosity to go back for Act II -- though I should mention that in the second act the impending storm between Richie and Gloria finally bursts with emotional arguments over race, ethnicity, what it means now to live in America, and the sufferings both people endured in the past to get to this present moment.

The play ends after all this with Gloria and Richie seated hand in hand front center stage with tears running down their faces. (You have to see this to find out why.) I was only 5 feet in front of them in the audience and in the light spillage Po had me fixed in the eye; and I was in tears as well. Yea, they got me!

But I have to tell you, the revelations of Act II probably did not do justice to what the playwright had hoped for. Yes, there is a message - the pointlessness of trying to re-live the glories of the past, even though the past was fraught with sufferings we would rather forget.

This was not good playwriting -- let me explain. A writer has an unwritten contract with his audience to entertain them, whether by the catharsis of tragedy and tears or the release of laughter. And he must do it with an unfolding story that gives the audience good reason to get engaged, drawn into the thickening action as scene spins plot points into scene. By the end of Act we still did not know what was at stake for Po except he would be very upset if he did not recreate the Banquet. Big deal. We needed to get some sense of the odds after 15 minutes, or so. The explosions with Gloria needed to begin before the act break. How otherwise would we know the second act would not be Part II of the Chinese Cooking Channel?

I have read many scripts in which the writers write what they know best, and it seems playwrights know about cooking and eating – yes, and drinking. I now know how to prepare Jewish food for Hannukah from multiple scripts, how to make tamales on Tamale Sunday, how sophisticated Americans cook beans, barbeque and choose the best wines, and so on, until I wonder do you not have anything else to tell us? Please!

Admittedly Kenneth Lin’s accounts of Taiwanese cooking was fascinating – even more so when he found a very neat theatrical device for us to see Mamma Po doing cooking programs in Chinese. But there was just too much it. It did not provide a satisfactory metaphor for the relationship issues that would emerge. It was not the frame in which the portrait was set. And if the more subtle of us who have read the script want to insist otherwise, remember that the ordinary punter has not read the script beforehand. They get the fare that’s dished up at the time and must make of it what they will in the moment. If the message does not communicate properly then the writer must do what all we playwrights have to do; re-write. It’s a wonderful collaborative process.

I long to see this play again when the kinks have been ironed out. Let me know when it’s playing. I'll be there.

PPF: Boleros for the Disenchanted - SCR

2007-05-05T14:19:00.001-07:00

Boleros for the Disenchanted, by Jose Rivera
May 4 -- Staged reading, on the Segerstrom Stage
Director: Octavio Solis
Actors: Gary Perez, Jonathan Nichols, Isabelle Ortega, Joe Quintero, Adriana Sevan, Sonya Tatoyan.
It was VERY long!

Act I opens in the small town of Miraflores, Puerto Rico in 1953. A strict Catholic family with a bullying father and endlessly patient mother long for their daughter, Flora, to be married off to local boy Manuel. Flora espouses the very highest and purest desires for the perfect man and the perfect marriage until she learns that Manuel had felt obliged to exercise his pent up manliness while waiting to expend it on his true love; for the wedding day is yet two years away. The bride to be will have no thought of losing her virginity before then.

Then a young soldier chances by and is instantly attracted to Flora. After some negotiation with a father who would happily cut of his (Eusebio's) nuts with his machete, the soldier wins her heart and her hand and Manuel becomes history.

After the intermission, and thirty-eight years later, Act II opens in Daleville, Alabama. The transition to the USA has not been successful. Tragically, Eusebio's drinking has contributed to diabetes and as a result of gangrene progressively killing off his feet and legs, he is now permanently in a bed, or a wheelchair. He is a terse, broken, angry old man, sitting in his stench, yet tended to by a wife who knows nothing other than total fidelity to her husband.

It's a play about love and marriage, about high aspirations and dreams that turn to nightmares. The language is beautiful and elegant, exquisitely capturing an old world Hispanic life and culture of which most of us would be ignorant. We are there for the ride. The shock is to make the jump into the second act, 38 years on. And the writer covers the intervening years by means of a device which just about rings true. It appears that Flora has agreed to do pre-marraige counselling on behalf of the local Catholic Church. Eusebio protests, but a young couple arrive and are introduced into the squalor and smell of Eusebio's room. By the time Flora has finished giving warning of what bright-eyed marriage can lead to the fiancee is all set to abandon the prospect of marriage!

Now we learn that Eusebio, whose passion is the Mets, even though they only ever lose, has had a dream in which an angel has told him he will die on Friday night. He calls for the priest to deliver the last rites and during his confession shocking revelations emerge.

When the play finally ends we are in tears; we have a vision of an enduring love that runs counter to the cheap, easily trashed relationships of our modern life.

The play is too long. Jose Rivera, who wrote The Motorcycle Diaries, will need great courage with the scissors to sacrifice such quality dialogue. It is at times both hilariously funny and profoundly dramatic. It contains rich insights into love and marriage in the face of cruel fate and infidelity. The visiting priest delivers a speech of such fresh, originality that his homily could almost stand alone as a piece of pastoral counsel.

I suppose I should not have been surprised that some play punters did not like it. Hey - what did they know?!

This play deserves a wide audience in years to come.

PPF: Our Mother's Brief Affair - SCR

2007-05-05T14:18:00.002-07:00

Our Mother's Brief Affair, by Richard Greenberg
May 5 -- Staged reading, on the Segerstrom stage
Director: Pam McKinnon
Actors: Ayre Gross, Jill Clayburgh, Valerie Mahaffey, Adam Arkin
The play ran 90 minutes with no intermission.

The play opens with an elderly mother and her middle aged son (Anna and Seth) alternating brief monologues to the audience. It's not a device I like; but we are soon drawn into a scene in which Seth is visiting his mother upon what may prove to be her death bed. She has, in fact, been on her death bed on multiple previous occasions -- and who know how final this event will be?

Richard Greenberg does not disappoint us with his writing. He is insightful, dramatic and, most of all, extremely funny. His one-line ripostes come at us like successive plates of verbal canapes, delicious and satisfying. But there is problem with this play that Greenberg will need to fix: marks for story telling- 100; marks for dramatic action - 10!!

So - to the story. Seth is an obit. writer. He hovers in the wake of death as his trade. Wonderfully cast for the part Ayre Gross brings all the angst of Jewish comedy to full brightness while merely sitting on a plastic chair with a music stand in front of him. He slowly learns that his mother, his acerbic, biting, ordinary, ill-read mother has a secret she should reveal before she dies: she once had an affair when he, the son, was a mere 15-year old viola student. He is twin to Abby, who shortly appears. Both of them are gay, not quite to Anna's liking. After all, since Seth has not has sex for many years, why doesn't he just call himself straight? The whole lesbian/gay scenario gives us some quite original amusement without being in the least bit crass

The love interest, Bill, appears and the scenes fluidly switch between the trysts in the park and Anna's room. Slowly Greenberg peels away the layers of misunderstanding between mother and her children, between fact and ignorance, to reveal the most meaningful relationship of the aged mother's life. Even more shocking, at just the right point in the play, is the revelation of the identity of the lover - the eleven week consort. Not to spoil the story, he is an identifiable historical character in an episode which, shocked and appalled the American people!! And if you thought that this was enough of a dramatic surprise, there is yet more to come before the play reaches an ending when we finally see the old lady as she really is.

Back to the action - or lack of it. Drama is action. It is the now, driving forward. The backtracking, the memory play, is okay to a point. But drama requires conflict, decision-making, problem solving; it's rather basic.

The subsidiary or flashback settings in this play do contain action inasmuch as characters get up and move, or even dance. But for the most part they sit, and talk and argue, and banter and reveal the past. As story telling, it is beautifully crafted. As comedy, the pathos and humor are inextricably and skillfully woven together; but as action? There is almost no business; props would be mere set dressing. In fact, a set, though pretty, might not be a necessity.

Maybe audiences are now ready for a new trend; animated story-telling. If so we will have little left with which to spur on new playwrights for whom the tendency, anyway, is just to talk!! All right - maybe Richard Greenberg can get away with it on account of his brilliance, but the rest of us has better let our audiences SEE something HAPPEN.

PPF: My Wandering Boy - SCR

2007-05-05T14:18:00.001-07:00

My Wandering Boy, by Julie Marie Myatt
March 30 - May 6, on the Segerstrom Stage
Director, Bill Rauch

Yes - I have seen this. Hmmm!

Y'know, Frietag invented his famous triangle for good reason. Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denoument. We do well not to stray too far from it; or at least know what we are doing if we do!

This play has no rising action -- unless you want to be very subtle about it. It follows a detective trying to find the missing Emmet on behalf of his distraught parents. The set up of the play is sufficiently confusing that you can make the mistake of thinking that the walking boots that open the play really do belong to this dreadlocked street-guy and that he in fact is the missing Emmett. But he is NOT. Get that clear.

I suppose the writer is wanting to say something about the perennial character of the wanderer. In the old time Moody revival meetings, Ira Sankey could reduce people to tears as he sang "Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight?" Then he was the waistrel, the lost soul. Now he is the figure of American pop-culture, the free man, the railcar jumper, the traveler, refusing to be confined by the rat-race, a pawn in the illusory madness of materialism. But we never see him. Should the detective not have caught up with him just once, to get the face-to-cafe story? We could have had a climax of sorts. But perhaps that is emblematic of the character the writer wants to portray; the unseen 'many', lost from view; neither assuredly alive or dead.

It can only be the detective's story. He occupies the stage most of the time and finds that Emmet loves and visits several women, bears their children and refuses to be tied down by anyone, anything or any convention. Maybe he was killed by the street bum? We never see Emmet. We get no proper conclusion. We watch some projected film to spice up the story. There is no rising action, no climax, no falling action, no denoument; no arcs; no triangles.

It flat-lines.

The 2007 Pacific Playwright's Festival - SCR

2007-05-05T14:17:00.001-07:00

This is the tenth year in which South Coast Repertory Theatre has produced its festival of new works which, it believes, are the next hot plays to hit the stage. A mix of new and returning writers have their scripts displayed in varying degrees of completeness over the course of three days -- hectic and wonderful days -- in which writers, drectors, actors, agents, critics and, of course, the play-going public, mingle, plan and trade opinions.

Here's the link: http://www.scr.org/season/06-07season/ppf.html

In the following blogs I venture my own opinions on the productions I saw.

The O'Connor Girls - Orange Curtain Theatre

2007-05-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

The O'Connor Girls, by Katie Forgette
Director: Trina Flossing
April 28, 2007
Actors: Barbara Barkley, Elizabeth Hall, Leslie Williams, Ruth Kurisu and Anthony Yuro

The Orange Curtain Theatre leases a small space at the rear of the San Capistrano Playhouse, just across the way from the famous Mission. This was my first visit to its space.

We (by which I mean my wife and I) went to see this show because our dear friend Liz Hall was in the cast. So, it turns out, was also Leslie Williams with whom I have worked as playwright and director in the past.

In brief, the story comes in the immediate aftermath of the death of the patriarch of the family, Tom O'Connor. Funerals are the stuff of both grief and comedy and you would expect to see both tension and grief intertwined with celebration and fulfilment.

If the script were a good script - which I am not sure about - it was certainly masked by the production itself. Sure, the review in the LA Times and Backstage West rated it quite highly, which is always a comfort to a cast looking for a good write-up.

The problem starts on stage with the bereaved wife, Sara, played by Barbara Barkley. I have seen too many families just after the death of the man of the house to believe Barkley's characterless acting. This made it almost impossible for the two girls (Hall and Williams) to bounce off her mood with the force they needed for their roles; but they acquitted themselves valiantly, nonetheless with many moments when they were either powerful or poignant.

Martha (Williams) has looked after mother for the past year. Surely now, she argues, she should have a break. It must be time for Liz (Hall) to carry the burden of responsibility. Aunt Margie, played enthusiastically by Ruth Kurisu, bustles in and out to add her energy to the sorting of Tom's stuff - most of which will go to the dump. Dr David Stevens (Anthony Yuro) comes on the scene as a long time friend of the family, unexpectedly hits on Martha and takes the trash to the tip in his truck. He looks nervous and stiff the whole time. There is not much more to the story!! I've decided - it is not a good script!

Bless them - the actors did their best and there were times when the relationship between the two sisters was electric. But they were let down seriously by director Trina Flossing. The blocking (by which we mean the major movements and use of the stage) was devoid of all imagination. Much of the play space was never used, especially stage right where a small set piece of table and a couple of chairs would have provided so many more acting choices. The family sat on the damned couch, almost interminably! The doctor's entrance, and his following scene, made him look more like a bellhop awaiting a tip for his services than a dear, intimate family friend. His romantic hit on Martha was unconvincing. The array of cardboard boxes which festooned the stage for the first half of the show were so obviously NOT full of the old man's paraphernalia as to make the job of sorting out his stuff a mere five minute task easily accomplished in the duration of a couple of commercial breaks on TV.

It did not help that the set, whilst essentially a mere suggestion inside a black box (which can be strong and suggestive) was neither one thing nor another. It was an incomprehensible blend of blue and black walls with slight reference to baseball, President Kennedy and the family's Catholic beliefs by the use of poorly chosen pictures hung unattractively on the stage left wall.

I hear that some nights the audiences laughed the whole way through; I am glad for the actors. On my visit we were intense, or uncomfortable.

Hmm - in small community theatre we need better theatrical choices to keep audiences returning.

The OC Stage - an Introduction

2007-05-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

Nobody in his right mind ventures to be a critic of plays without knowing full well he will inevitably call down upon his head paeans of praise from some and cascades of contumely from others. For whereas we may like to believe there is some canon of judgment by which the worth of a play may be rightly calculated few would agree as to what that rule is. We all tend to believe our own opinions are the best. So be it!

This blog is my personal view on what I see in theatres, large and small, in and around Orange County, California. But my views, far from being totally random and subjective, are an attempt to bring certain basic principles of writing and stage production to bear on what I see. These will become apparent as we proceed.

Maybe nobody else cares. At least I'll have a record of what I've seen. And I wish I had started years ago.

Read on. Share my blog. And if you don't like it - write your own. Above all, have fun.