Blogcritics Author: Cristofer Gross

Theater Review (LA): Some Kind of Love Story by Arthur Miller

Cristofer Gross — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:18:59 EDT

The West Coast premiere of a play by Arthur Miller - an undiscovered gem? If it sounds too good to be true . . .
By 1982, it had been 30 years since a handful of plays had placed Arthur Miller atop the list of American dramatists and 20 years since divorce from a handful named Marilyn Monroe had ended five years atop America’s all-time female sex icon. On the one hand, Miller was looking to explore new forms of drama. On the other, he was haunted by...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Theater Review (Los Angeles): Cesar & Ruben at NoHo Art Center

Cristofer Gross — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:14:14 EDT

The NoHo Arts Center may have only one entrance, but there are many ways into Ed Begley Jr.'s Cesar & Ruben, a 2003 musical about Chavez and Salazar getting a superb revival through September 16. Whether one approaches it for the relevance of political theater or the escapism of musical theater, to enjoy great Latino theater or honest California history, or just see what Begley can do as a writer-director, Cesar & Ruben rewards on every level. Credit him with integrating history, fantasy, music, drama, humor, pathos, and English and Spanish with a perspective that, regardless of what you thought you were in for, will leave you grateful and optimistic.With occasional use of a Magical Mystery Jukebox, Begley's script weaves existing songs by singer-songwriters from Lalo Guerrero to David Gray and Ruben Blades to Sting into the story of Chavez's life. James Jermias's open set features a projection screen for documentary photos and clips (as well as subtitles for translated Spanish lyrics). A recurring image supports an overarching railroad metaphor - specifically the curious Tehachapi loop - which recalls earlier forms of worker exploitation as it sets up the theme of turning around to see where we've been if we are to rise above and move beyond where we are. With a steely honesty about California politics as backbone and a colorful theatricality for appeal, Cesar & Ruben looks back at, and elevates in stature, two of our state's great crusaders.The play takes place sometime after each man has died. They meet in a way station represented by a simple bar and renew their acquaintance. In order to move on, Chavez needs to review key points in his life and get a better sense of his contribution. Salazar, who has his own post-partum issues, has been sent to make sure Chavez takes an unflinching look. Though that may sound like an overused device, Begley's writing keeps the dialogue spontaneous, and Danny Bolero as Chavez and Mauricio Mendoza as Salazar keep it real. Each song is chosen for lyrics that move the story ahead rather than for popularity, and as each arrives there's a combined sense of the familiar and the totally original. Seeing Cesar Chavez, for example, belt out a pop tune would seem to be enough to drive us screaming into the alley. But the play's aesthetic, and Bolero's naturalness with his assignment, makes it not only passable but inspirational.It is a production brimming with imagination and a talented cast as enthusiastic as it is earnest in its storytelling. Bolero's detailed portrayal of Chavez moves smoothly between the stoicism of a no-nonsense crusader and the warmth and humor of a prolific family man. The handsome, be-suited Mendoza differentiates Salazar from Chavez as a seasoned urban dweller who plays a different, but equally dangerous form of hardball in covering abuses by the metropolitan police.Crissy Guerrero brings her beautiful voice to the role of Helen Chavez, and Gustavo Rex gives dimension to Naylor, the demeaning "boss man" who fills the show's all-bastards-in-one role. There is not a weak link in this cast, which is saying something, given how big it is. Special recognition goes to Jack McGee, who shows particular range in moving from racist cop to thoughtful union organizer with schizophrenic conviction, and young Eli Vargas, who amazes with his solo singing as boy Cesar. Choreographer Frankie Anne also deserves extra credit for allowing a relatively small stage to comfortably sport big production numbers.Among the forms of integration to be celebrated here, an important one is Begley's work as writer-director. The practice, so welcome in independent film-making, will never be common in theater. But when it works, as in this finely honed exhibition, it's great to see.In program notes, Begley describes a chance meeting with Chavez in a diner. That led to a friendship that earned the actor a pallbearer position at the organizer's 1993 funeral. Here, with the help of Bolero's textured performance, Begley lifts his friend up one more time for a better look. If this show gets the audience it deserves, and furnishes better understanding of the contribution both these important Californians made, Begley will have shown off more than his powers of theatrical integration. He could help move down the tracks to social integration. And that should be music to everyone's ears. Let's hope his Magical Jukebox has it programmed at 2-B.CREDITS: written and directed by Ed Begley Jr., choreography by Frankie Anne, musical direction by Ron Nyder, music and lyrics by Ruben Blades, Phil Collins & David Crosby, Control Machete, Peter Gabriel, David Gray, Lalo Guerrero, Don Henley, Enrique Iglesias, Carmen Moreno, Los Pinguos, Guillermo Portabales, Carlos Santana, and Sting. WITH: Danny Bolero, Mauricio Mendoza, Crissy Guerrero and Gustavo Rex; with Danielle Barbosa, Rachelle Carson-Begley, Al Coronel, Reggie de Leon, Dan Domenech, Nicholas Guest, Jack McGee, Josette Owens, Benjamin Perez, Sandra Purpuro, Mario Rocha, Tiffany Ellen Solano, Eli Vargas, Charles Woodruff, and Shane Arenal, Jacqueline Case and Claudia Dolph. PRODUCTION: James Jeremias, set; Shelly Lyn Erdmann/Michelle McKee, costumes; Luke Moyer, lights; Alfonso Calvo, sound; Stephan Szpak-Fleet/Bangbay Siboliban, visual effects; William Coiner, stage management. Produced by Ed Begley and Jarlath Dorney. Rachel Carson-Begley, assoc. prod.NoHo Arts Center • August 10-September 9, 2007 (extended to 9/16)

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz

Theater Review: The Deception at La Jolla Playhouse, California

Cristofer Gross — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:05:51 EDT

What begins with the surge and unity of purpose of an uplifting SST levels off quickly for a more modest if colorful vantage of deceitfulness in the La Jolla Playhouse’s world premiere (through August 19) of The Deception, a new adaptation of Marivaux’s La Fausse Suivante. Based on one of the 18th century French dramatist’s lesser-known works, Deception has no shortage of modern relevance – with potential for referencing everything from minor self-deception to cover-ups on a global scale. Here we keep it personal: sexual confusion and duplicitous relationships designed for profit or self-protection.A woman (Merritt Janson), whose name we never learn, was affianced to Lelio (Casey Greig), a charismatic dowry-hound. To determine firsthand his worthiness for the healthy annual stipend her treasury would provide, she poses as a Chevalier to befriend him man to man. She seeks the help of a servant, Trivelin (J.C. Cutler), who is so refreshingly open about his reliance on guile that he quickly sees the woman within the man’s clothing, and rises to the call in hopes of their removal. Chevalier learns that Lelio is previously engaged to a Countess (Emily Gunyou Harris), whose estate would pay only half the allowance hers promises. Lelio woefully confides to his new best friend that a prenup means he stands to lose the handsome signing bonus he received from the Countess, plus pay a devastating penalty if he reneges on his vows to bachelorette number one. The Chevalier offers to win the Countess’s heart away from Lelio so that she will break the contract and free him to reap elsewhere.Line for line, the new adaptation by director Dominique Serrand and Steven Epp is lively and rich. It is played out against a beautiful glass house set (with its inherent warning about people who throw shit), with floor to ceiling panes, each “soaped” in a pastoral palette of spring blues, greens and yellows. There is no further set dressing or props. The weight to keep things interesting and informing falls upon the actors and the text and over the course of the evening the grinding out of all the subterfuge gets a little wearying. J.C. Cutler kicks things off as Trivelin with a presence that promises a production of among the year's finest. There’s the kind of command and attraction one expects to find along the Thames (or, perhaps the Seine). Joined by Janson, believably boyish early on but sensuously womanly after shedding her menswear, the excitement is maintained. Sonya Berlovitz’s costumes – all creams, whites, blacks, and grays to set the players off against the field – adds to the anticipation. The angled hem of Janson's frock suggests her double-sidedness.As the Countess, the one person whose heart is steadfastly in the right place, Halaas is asked to perform with some bipolar comedic business, which she is up to but which removes our link with the romantic and, like pulling the tablecloth out from under the silver service, leaves us staring at harder surfaces. Janson ably picks up the role as emotional touchstone, despite being saddled with active deception of the innocent Countess. For contemporary audiences, all the attraction between men and women – whether extending past the drawers or just based on appearances – becomes the most interesting part of the escapade. True feelings between people, with the sexual component made mysterious, is a dimension that Serrand and his actors delicately tease out of the script. Though Greig is not interesting enough to keep the story as engaging as Cutler’s too-short appearances portend, and the clowning of Nathan Keepers’ Arlequino, while perhaps true to the spirit of Marivaux, fails to take flight, this is a beautiful production that raises timeless questions.Tourettic bursts of profanity from male characters, which may unnerve some, are welcome blasts against classic theater predictability and an enlivening part of the show. There is a great sense of company here, manifest in the a cappella benedictory that brings the production in for a smooth landing at curtain call.CREDITS Adapted by Steven Epp and Dominique Serrand from La Fausse Suivante by Marivaux, directed by Dominique Serrand PRODUCTION David Coggins, set; Sonya Berlovitz, costumes; Marcus Dilliard, lights; Zachary Humes, sound; Mark Adam Rampmeyer, hair/wigs; Benjamin McGovern/Jenifer Morrow, stage management WITH Dorian Christian Baucum, J.C. Cutler, Michelle Diaz, Liz Elkins, Casey Greig, Emily Gunyou Halaas, Larry Herron, Merritt Janson, Nathan Keepers, Brandon D. Taylor La Jolla Playhouse / Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre / July 17-August 19, 2007 World Premiere

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz

Theater Review: Can-Can at the Pasadena Playhouse

Cristofer Gross — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:19:42 EDT

What was unacceptable behavior in the 1890s and acceptable dramaturgy in the 1950s may be tame and creaky now, but an updated book and superior lead performances have given David Lee’s lively Pasadena Playhouse staging of Cole Porter’s Can-Can (through August 5) enough engaging immediacy to high-kick it into 21st century respectability. Lee and co-reviser Joel Fields may not have goosed Abe Burrows' script up to the level of the rest of the production, but that doesn't stop this Can-Can from providing a thoroughly entertaining evening, thanks to a break-out lead performance, a cast album-worthy cast, and a kind of frolicsome fourth-wall penetration rooted equally in improv and burlesque. It’s such an integrated affair that rather than being relied upon, the show’s musical tent poles – standards like "I Love Paris", "It’s All Right with Me", and "C’est Magnifique" – flow in as bonuses.The laurels must first be laid before Mr. Lee, who has opted out of the dance halls of Mendes’ Cabaret or Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge and settled into a clean, well-lighted environment where fairly wholesome girls only occasionally offer a glimpse of more than stocking. From Roy Christopher’s colored-pencil postcard set, which pops period character cutouts into the boxes and pit and offers scene titles projected onto a cartoon drop, to Randy Gardell’s beautiful costumes, Michael Gilliam’s rich lighting and Francois Bergeron’s crisp sound design, Mr. Lee brings the atmosphere of Offenbach’s underworld above ground. From conductor Steve Orich’s opening caller-beware warning, to the intermission word-gathering for a show-specific alteration to the finale, there are lots of opportunities for the audience to be drawn into the show. Michelle Duffy emerges as the show’s star, thanks to joint ownership by her and her character of, respectively, the show and the showplace within it. She immediately sets the evening's tone with a teasing welcome flush with personality and showbiz chops. It’s a front-rank star-turn, matched by the thrilling vocals of Kevin Earley as her love interest and great support from a suave David Engel and an innocent Yvette Tucker. The story, a device so pat that only a production this sparkling could stifle our groaning, involves Pistache (Duffy), a single woman who owns the Bal du Paradis nightclub. While it seems a pretty healthy establishment, it actually is in danger of being shut down by the local magistrate because of its reliance on the can-can. This dance is characterized by acrobatic individual work – all beautifully executed here under Patti Colombo’s choreography – and the famous finale. The dancers form a line, hike their skirts, and high-kick their frilly petticoats and panties into a blur that resembles a row of whirling white chrysanthemums, their black-stockinged legs waving like bee-hungry stamina.Hilàre (Engel) is a powerful, pan-discipline-ravaging critic who (despite, or perhaps because of, some late-disclosed problems engorging) uses his influence to gain interest in the Bal du Paradis -- and to leverage interest from its owner and newest dancer, Claudine (Tucker). Meanwhile, the most vocal judge advocating the closure of the club is Aristide (Earley), who just happens to be the only man Pistache really loved, yet whom she never knew was nearby. When they reunite, Pistache invites him back to her office and hints she may still carry a torch. Aristide quickly extinguishes it, but later confesses second thoughts on turning her down. She promptly admits her own change of heart. The tables will turn again, and again, never for any believable reason, until both allow that they match, and can light up simultaneously. A side story about Claudine’s boyfriend, a Bulgarian sculptor named Boris (Amir Talai) and his bohemian friends leads to the only tiresome parts of the show. Talai, whose stage experience runs from the Groundlings to the Vegas Queen tribute, sings well but doesn't have the deftness for a very tricky role. Can-Can ran for nearly 900 performances in its 1953 premiere and was updated by Burrows himself for the 1981 revival. The tolerance of the times had changed and the remounting ran only five performances. While Fields and Lee have given some back story to the teeter-totter romance between Pistache and Aristide, it remains unbelievable. Some of the fault may rest with Duffy and Earley, who despite the enormous gifts they bring, need to wriggle some more subtext into their scenes together. Right now their back and forth has all the intrigue of a game of Capture the Flag. While Duffy and Earley fail to make the romance plot work through dialogue and scene work, their curtain-heralding smacker could vie for MTV's Best Stage Kiss (if MTV were aware the theater existed). And, someone deserves some extra credit for making the production’s mics disappear. Having just seen a musical in which virtually all cast members seemed to have an Indian pendant hanging in the middle of their foreheads, this is an achievement. Whether it’s Lee, Gardell, Bergeron or some nameless tech, they should tape this for an instructional video on what musicals can look like.The play justifies itself by promising to reveal the derivation of the French phrase 'my little cabbage.' When the explanation arrives, it has only the slightest connection with anything. But, like so many other plot points, it is quickly forgiven in the whir of a show that translates to a lot of fun for audiences, and will surely mean a lot of cabbage for the Playhouse.CREDITS music and lyrics by Cole Porter, book by Abe Burrows, revised by Joel Fields and David Lee, choreography by Patti Colombo, arrangements, orchestrations, musical direction by Steve Orich, directed by Mr. Lee WITH Michelle Duffy, Kevin Earley, David Engel, Amir Talai, Yvette Tucker, Jeffrey Landman, Justin Robertson, Robert Yacko, and Shell Bauman, Andrea Beasom, Bonnie Bentley, Robert Alan Clink, Seth Hampton, Alaine Kashian, Jeanine Meyers, Alison Mixon, Justin Roller, Joe Schenck, Jonathan Sharp, Leslie Stevens, Rocklin Thompson, Rebecca Whitehurst PRODUCTION Roy Christopher, sets; Randy Gardell, costumes; Michael Gilliam, lights; Francois Bergeron, sound; Tim Weske, fights; Jill Gold/Lea Chazin, stage management Funding support – Sheila Grether-Marion and Mark Marion, NEA’s “American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius” Pasadena Playhouse • June 29-August 5 (opened, reviewed July 6)

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz

Theater Review: A New Carmen Musical at the La Jolla Playhouse

Cristofer Gross — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:24:09 EDT

By merging electronica, exotica, and, for a show in Las Vegas, erotica with tried and true circus acrobatics, French Canada’s Cirque d’ Soleil franchise conquered America in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Carmen, a new musical theater piece directed by one of Cirque’s creative talents, promises in its La Jolla Playhouse premiere (through July 22 in the Mandell Weiss Theatre) to apply some of that magic to Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella of the seductive Gypsy woman. Carmen's life and love can be drawn by adaptors to make her a mere libertine or a ground-breaking liberator. This helped inspire numerous interpretations from the immortal (Bizet's opera) to the inane (an ice skating show), and vehicle's like Beyonce's 2001 Hip Hopera in between.Anyone fearing that visual pyrotechnics and bicycle-riding contortionists willovershadow Mérimée’s story in La Jolla needn’t worry. That actually would be a niceproblem to have. Instead, the visuals, while always appealing, thanks primarily toChristopher Akerlind’s evocative lighting design, are not nearly enough to compensatefor a night of prosaic dialogue, uninspired lyrics, and simplistic music. In fact, the show sadly falls between the genres of musical theater and high-energy Cirque entertainments. One wonders if the creators – Sarah Miles (book and choreography), composer John Ewbank, lyricist AnnMarie Milazzo, and director Franco Dragone – arrived at pre-production with designs for a show that would be filled with the kind of mysterious imagery and effects that bookend the show. Perhaps regional theater realities pruned a lot of great ideas. What remains is left wanting the very element that was never essential to Cirque success: inspired language.Set in Spain, the story’s characters are in three basic groups – soldiers, local women, and the men and women of the gypsy camp. Don José Narvarro (Ryan Silverman) is a happily married man off to become a career soldier. He moves through the ranks exhibiting a gentle goodness that does not compromise his strengths as a leader and fighter. Despite being surrounded by seductive townswomen – and there is a visual feast of physical beauty on stage – José can only think of his wife. Until he encounters Carmen (Janien Valentin). Then he cannot seem to remember her. The room-clearing power of obsessive love is what drives José, the story, and the lingering appeal of this tale 160 years after it was written. Passion will lead to fleeting moments of joy for Jose, but more often to random bouts of violence, jealousy, betrayal, and murder. Ms. Valentin and Mr. Silverman look and sound great. Their voices are powerful and supple enough to occasionally transcend the mundanity of their songs. But their acting is not able to elevate the dialogue to drama. There are highlights. José leads the arrested Carmen by rope until she turns the tether into a seduction cord and a wild Apache dance ensues that turns the table on who is bound and who remains untied. Neal Benarai, as Zuniga, delivers a rock opera moment in “Touch the Sun,” a spirited performance and tune that evokes Superstar’s “Damned for All Time.” And the chorus numbers are occasionally fiery enough to entertain. But for most of the evening the show never rises above the heat and depth of an Ann-Margret routine on The Ed Sullivan Show.It’s hard to fathom this vessel being made see-worthy, with the book, lyrics, and music as intrinsically dull as they are. It may have been built for Broadway, but it may go direct to Vegas, where a trimmed down 90-minute version, with showgirls and boys pounding out dramatic flamenco, will surely help a late-night house of out-of-towners forget their own encounters with seductive fates at the gaming tables.CREDITS book by Sarah Miles, music by John Ewbank, lyrics by AnnMarie Milazzo, directed by Franco Dragone PRODUCTION Klara Zieglerova, set; Suzy Benzinger, costumes; Christopher Akerlind, lights; Francois Bergeron, sound; Sarah Miles, choreography; Omayra Amaya, Flamenco specialist; Roque Banos, Spanish Music Consultant, Phyllis Schray, Justin Mabardi, Jenny Slattery, stage management. WITH Neal Benari, Genson Blimline, Iresol Cardona, Gabriel Croom, Noemi Del Rio,Maria Eberline, Tony Falcon, Jacqui Graziano, Shannon Lewis, Jorge E. Maldonado, Michelle Marmolejo, Rocio Ponce, Caesar Samayoa, Marcos Santana, Carlos Sierra-Lopez, Ryan Silverman, Shelley Thomas, Janien Valentine, Victor Wallace, Natalia ZisaLa Jolla Playhouse June 5-July 22, 2007 (Opened 6/17, Rev. 6/20) World Premiere

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz

Theater Review: Jersey Boys at the Ahmanson Theatre (L.A.)

Cristofer Gross — Fri, 8 Jun 2007 21:42:19 EDT

Before music videos, when pop tunes were audio only, they nested in our imaginations with images and references gathered from the host brain. This heightened the intimacy of the songs and piqued our interest in the singers hidden behind the radio grills and dust jackets. That paradox, and a superbly slick production, help explain the popularity of Jersey Boys: The Story of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons (with its national tour now lodged at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre through August 31). It also explains why this may be a one-generation phenomenon. While millions of Boomers can sing every word of Four Seasons’ hits like "Walk Like a Man," "Big Girls Don’t Cry," "Sherry," "Oh, What a Night" and "Can’t Take My Eyes Off You," few can name every group member. Revealing who they are and how they got where they are keeps this from being a billion-dollar Broadway tribute concert. Book writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice have fun putting the story in a non-threatening environment: Damon Runyon meets the Brill Building rather than Goodfellas hit the Mean Streets (which is probably closer to the truth). Even with the R-rated language it feels kid-friendly, with an appeal to adolescence through projections inspired by comic book panels. A four-part, spring-summer-fall-winter storytelling structure gives each member his own Roshomon voice and overlays their business lifecycle onto the annual cycle of the seasons. We get to see the members as individuals and as parts of a professional family. It’s the ties that bind them that are the group's defining quality, even beyond the music.The first version of the story comes from Tommy De Vito (Deven May), who recalls spotting the young Frankie Valli (Christopher Kale Jones) and bringing him into a bar band with his brother Nick (Miles Aubrey). All three will spend time in jail, reminding us that the Bad Boy roots of rock didn’t begin with rap. (Although it was something the ‘60s stars preferred to hide.) Valli will reform, but Nick will return, and the band will replace him with a talented Nick Massi (Michael Ingersoll) as bass player. They’ll go through what seems an eternity looking for an identity until they find Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), a teenage songwriter who already has a credit for one minor hit. These become the Four Seasons (apparently the drummer wasn't that important), with Valli’s falsetto their signature sound and Gaudio’s songwriting their insurance for success. The final piece in the puzzle will be their association with Bob Crewe, credited as lyricist for all the hits in Jersey Boys, but seen in the show as advisor and producer.Director Des McAnuff, who in some ways started the phenomenon by turning The Who's Tommy into a Broadway money-machine, keeps things spinning throughout Jersey Boys. Even the changing of Klara Zieglerova’s set pieces feel exciting. The performers exhibit great range. The women move from lithe chorines to serviceable actors, providing girlfriends and wives, while the men portray heavies one minute and back-up musicians the next. (Special marks to Jackie Seiden as Valli's first wife, who helps enliven Brickman's sharpest dialogue in a scene when the future spouses meet.)There’s enough staging substance to disguise the fact that it's a show of fairly juvenile AM love songs. The story too, for all its dramatic potential, has been kept safe, never too threatening. The big moment, in which band members uphold a sense of honor to each other even as things are falling apart, is less awe-inspiring than "ah-that's-nice" inspiring. That may be the ultimate tribute to the Jersey boys. The real danger and roughness of what they went through is beyond Broadway. Similarly, the character and uniqueness of Valli’s voice is beyond the pale of a Broadway singer (except for a rarity like Tim Curry). As good as Jones is, and he's very good, he's trained for power and purity, not personality. The Four Seasons' versions still have the edge, and that renews the audio versions' lease in our memories, even now that we've come to know the men behind the music. CREDITS Book by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice, music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crewe. music direction, vocal arrangements and incidental music by Ron Melrose, choreography by Sergio Trujillo, directed by Des McAnuff WITH Erich Bergen, Michael Ingersoll, Christopher Kate Jones, Deven May, and Miles Aubrey, Erik Bates, Douglas Crawford, Sandra DeNise, Jennifer Evans, Rick Faugno, Eric Gutman, Nathan Klau, Brandon Matthieus, Jackie Seiden, Courter Simmons, Taylor Sternberg, Melissa Strom, with John Altieri and Joseph Siravo PRODUCTION Klara Zieglerova, sets; Jess Goldstein, costumes; Howll Binkley, lights; Steve Canyon Kennedy, sound; Michael Clark, projection design; Charles LaPointe, wig/hair; Steve Rankin, fights; Steve Orich, orchestrations, Andrew Wilder, conductor; Tripp Phillips, stage managementAhmanson Theatre • May 25-August 31, 2007 (Opened June 3, rev. 6/3) National tour produced by Dodger Theatricals, Joseoph J. Grano, Tamara and Kevin Kinsella, Pelican Group in association with Latitude Link and Rick Steiner (Visit the tour website.)

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz

Theater Review: The Verdi Girls by Bernard Farrell, Laguna Playhouse

Cristofer Gross — Mon, 4 Jun 2007 08:27:03 EDT

Bernard Farrell has written his first play to be set, and open, outside his native Ireland. It’s not, however, dislodging that has undone this journeyman playwright’s latest work. He just seems to have packed too light. Set in Milan and premiering at the commissioning Laguna Playhouse in Orange County, California, The Verdi Girls is a bloated romp in need of a spine. One sees splinters of marrow in there, but Farrell will have his work cut out for him getting to it, and building upon it. In its premiere staging, Artistic Director Andrew Barnicle goes after broad laughs, which is really all he’s got to rely upon, and gets what there are of them. However, his fine cast can milk for only so long jokes that are not only meager but based in side stories that are not that interesting. It’s not that a play built for laughs isn't welcome relief these days. The play just needs to feel supported by more than a mechanic’s creeper, ready to roll in any direction to catch a drop of punch line. It’s doubly painful when a rich backdrop and a decent ensemble feel squandered under those wheels.In a nutshell: an annual convention of Verdi aficionados has become a reunion of sorts for two couples – Linda (Elyse Mirto) and Steve; Patricia (Traci L. Crouch) and Peter (Bo Foxworth) – and the event’s pompous director, Oliver (Gregory North), and his dotty wheelchair-bound mother (Patricia Cullen). During the past year, Steve, who was by all accounts any man's better and any woman's bedder, died in a car accident. Linda appears determined to carry on the special tradition in his honor. In his stead is an Irish Verdi fan, Breda (Katharine McEwan), whom she and Steve befriended in a Verdi online chat room. Linda has since convinced Breda to attend her first festival as Linda's roommate. Another important tradition is Oliver's Verdi quiz, which Peter has always finished as runner-up to the superior Steve. Oliver, a site gag in his Verdi top hat and cape, promises these questions will be tougher than ever. He also promises that his 83-year-old mother will not disrupt the events as she has in the past. On reprieve from her dreaded senior day care, she might be expected to behave in a way that keeps her out. Mario (Vasili Bogazianos), who provides both hotel security and bellman duties for these fifth floor rooms, rounds out the cast of characters.Isolating some of the creakier plot devices and character contrivances from the building blocks for rewrites is not hard. Breda introduces herself as a chiropodist before the too-convenient disclosure by Oliver that he is a proud foot fetishist. This, after Mario has mangled his English to good effect in a funny first scene, and before he then memorizes the difficult quiz questions and answers in English. Oliver’s mother, an off-stage, out of control lunatic in Act I, arrives in Act II as a caring woman with an irrepressible impish side, simply out to help her son enjoy life. The logic behind helping him by ruining his event in front of his friends seems to go unchallenged by the others in the play. And, though Linda routinely turned a blind eye to Steve's regular philandering, it is the verification of one affair that leads to the play's climactic showdown. This curve ball is inserted by Farrell as a last-minute stent to save his wobbly parade balloon and keep it from going all whoopie cushion over us bystanders. But it’s too little too late. And it begs the question why the Breda-Linda relationship wasn't more of a cat-and-mouse game from the beginning, perhaps with those operatic overtones that seem to be waiting for something to do. Instead, more than half the play is filled with Pete's irritating need to prove himself better than Steve and mom’s rolling sociopath routine.Healing the play, and getting to its heart, might begin by leaving mom offstage and saving the theater one salary. (If we need to steal the trophy in front of the audience, let the rainstorm send a power-disrupting bolt at the hotel and send a PA into the darkened room in the wheelchair.) Her air horn can still get laughs, as can her catcalls from the gallery. Though hopefully less will be more when they’re crowded out by more exchanges between Linda and Breda. (And getting more out of Mario than his one joke about women sharing a room, which gets run into ground.)And, though it pains me to say it about the actor arguably doing the best work, McEwan is miscast. It would help the play and the Linda-Breda denouement, if Breda was not so sexy, not a challenge to Linda in the looks department. Here's the one place the production undercuts Farrell where he wrote it right. He has written Breda to be a woman we can believe men have always passed by. McEwan is not such a woman. The casting choice was made to have all the Verdi Girls be attractive. Great for posters, but not for plotting. Giving Farrell what the script calls for would better explain her time spent in chat rooms, her solo ventures to New York and Milan, and her all-important desire to meet Linda and talk about Steve's importance to her. It would also help explain her ultimate inability to fulfill that desire until it is yanked from her.Then, as music swells, they both can grieve, and embrace, and then go resurrect that broken good luck charm that's waiting at the bottom of the wastebasket. CREDITS: by Bernard Farrell, directed by Andrew Barnicle WITH Vasili Bogazianos, Traci L. Crouch, Patricia Cullen, Bo Foxworth, Katharine McEwan, Elyse Mirto, Gregory North PRODUCTION Dwight Richard Odle, set; Julie Keen, costumes; Paulie Jenkins, lights; David Edwards, sound; Rebecca Green, stage management World Premiere Commissioned by Laguna Playhouse/Suzanne and James Mellor Laguna Playhouse • May 29-July 1 (Opened June 2; rev. 6/2)

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz

Theater Review: David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face at the Mark Taper Forum

Cristofer Gross — Thu, 24 May 2007 21:57:07 EDT

One of the most satisfying scenes in David Henry Hwang’s new Yellow Face, a play full of satisfying scenes, is the face-off between a playwright named David Henry Hwang and an unnamed New York Times reporter. The playwright has taken the unusual step of making himself the protagonist in this cracked-lens look at identity, cultural loyalties, and the relative reliability of commercial theater vs. commercial journalism. The meeting between the writers ends after each gets his story: an exposé of Hwang’s father for the two-faced journalist, and a final chapter for Hwang in the saga that will become Yellow Face (continuing its world premiere through July 1 at the Mark Taper Forum, in a co-production by L.A.’s Center Theatre Group and New York’s Public Theater in association with L.A.’s East West Players). To both ape and undercut the media’s claim of objectivity, Yellow Face employs the scattershot quoting of headlines, bylines, and datelines to identify its events and characters. Rather than reflecting on history – as set designer David Korin’s wood deck and massive gold-framed mirror suggest – Hwang at first seems to be transcribing it. The more these citations punctuate the script, however, the more holes they produce in it. Soon, we are in a limbo where fact and fantasy, whether on stage or front page, are indistinguishable. As Hwang told Sylvie Drake in LA Stage, “Some of the stuff in the play is true and some of it isn’t and I hope it’s hard to tell the difference.”The seesawing between drama and documentary serves Hwang’s larger goal of revealing the cost of prejudice in real terms while showing its utter absurdity through farce. He does this through his own powerful writing and the strong yet playful direction of Leigh Silverman. Silverman holds the tonal teeter-totter for her Asian and Caucasian cast, who balance their alternately scary or silly performances upon it. Future productions of this play, however, will only be this good if they can rest on the kind of sharp-yet-solid fulcrum provided by Hoon Lee's performance as Hwang. In one of the region's best stage performances so far this year, Lee makes simultaneously getting the laughs and landing the punches look easy. Ironically, Hwang credits stories in The New York Times with inspiring his M. Butterfly, the take on the Puccini opera that became a landmark Broadway hit in 1988 and made the 31-year-old the first Asian American playwright to win a Tony for Best Play. Whatever political capital came with his success was immediately tested when mega-producer Cameron Macintosh announced that Miss Saigon, which had opened its record-breaking London premiere in 1989, was heading to Broadway. Lead Broadway roles for Asian Americans was a dream come true for the underappreciated theater community that Hwang found himself providing a public face. When Macintosh announced that he would bring his London stars, including Caucasian Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian “Engineer,” to America, there were protests. The producer justified it by saying he could not find an Asian American good enough for the role. That just compounded the indignity, much like Attorney General Gonzalez did this year in attempting to soothe the feelings of fired U.S. attorneys by attributing his actions to their poor performance. It was just the latest in a long list of show-business slights for Asian Americans. And in his newfound prominence, Hwang was faced with a lose-lose decision. He could be loyal to the commercial theater that had helped make him a star, or be an advocate for the community that had helped make him a man. What transpired is both reported and satirized in Yellow Face, which incorporates Face Value, Hwang's failed mid-'90s spoof of these issues. As Spike Lee did with the hypocrisy of blackface in Bamboozled, Face Value did with yellowface, a performance style in which Caucasian actors tinted their skin and pulled their eyelids to evoke an Asian look. As bizarre as it sounds now, stars as big as Marlon Brando, Katherine Hepburn, and Mickey Rooney joined the ruse.Like Bamboozled, Face Value could not work its brilliant satire into sustainable drama, and famously closed its Broadway run after previews. But, thanks to Yellow Face, it is now part of this hysterical history lesson.(Hwang, who would also protest the depiction of the woman in Miss Saigon, gave a lecture in 1994, which provides additional context.) Among the stand-outs in the cast are Tzi Ma in numerous roles including Hwang’s father, and Peter Scanavino, as the white man who becomes a leading Asian personality based on some resumé tinkering. (By putting him in The King and I, Hwang reminds us of Lou Diamond Phillips, who starred in a recent tour of that warhorse after gaining fame in La Bamba, directed by the same Luis Valdez who had his own casting nightmare with a Frida Kahlo biopic.) Others who give multiple dimensions to multiple personalities are Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Lucas Caleb Rooney, Tony Torn, and Kathryn A. Layng, the real-life wife of the playwright who, despite Yellow Face's careful blurring, knows exactly where the newspaper ends and the fish-wrapper begins. This world premiere is a co-production between Center Theatre Group in L.A. and The Public Theater in Manhattan. At press time, the Public’s press office confirmed that the play would be produced in its 2007-08 Season, but the exact slot was yet to be announced. The production is also made in association with East West Players, which America’s paper of record called “the nation’s pre-eminent Asian American theater troupe.” There will not be a separate run at East West – whose main stage is named for this playwright, and whose health is in part owed to his father. So that 10% of the ticket price will benefit East West, order tickets online and use code 8873. CREDITS by David Henry Hwang, directed by Leigh Silverman, with Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Kathryn A. Layng, Hoon Lee, Tzi Ma, Lucas Caleb Rooney, Peter Scanavino, Tony Torn. David Korins, set; Myung Hee Cho, costumes; Donald Holder, lights; Darron L. West, sound; James T. McDermott/Elizabeth Atkinson, stage management.World Premiere Mark Taper Forum, May 10-July 1, 2007, produced by Center Theatre Group and The Public Theater in association with East West Players.

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz

Theater Review: W. Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife

Cristofer Gross — Wed, 16 May 2007 05:43:24 EDT

After a year, W. Somerset Maugham’s enduring Constant Wife is back on stage in Southern California. As an Old Globe staging suggested last year, Maugham’s literary powers were in full-enough flower in 1926 that this message comedy rings true 80 years later. What might have been dismissed when it premiered as a prescription for infidelity can now be seen as a primer on how best to insure a shared marriage yoke.A script this well crafted should work with any cast capable of staying out of the story’s way. However, the cast that director Art Manke has assembled at the Pasadena Playhouse through June 10 makes this an especially good night for Mr. Maugham. Only an imposing and oddly garish set, which will be addressed, undressed, and redressed later, earns the production any demerits.Chief among the acting assets is Megan Gallagher as Constance, the titular spouse. Before Ms. Gallagher’s first entrance, Mr. Maugham prepares us for a pitiable woman who is unaware that her husband is cheating with her best friend. From her gait to her gaze, Ms. Gallagher quickly dispels such notions and establishes Constance as a study in steadiness – a woman unlikely to be victimized.Ethel Barrymore created this character on Broadway and enjoyed a 300-performance run. Mr. Maugham is quoted as saying her performance was the best he had seen in any play he had written. She set the bar high, but Ms. Gallagher serves the tradition well. Here, Constance looks to be comfortable with early middle age, dressing and coiffing without need to deceive, yet maintaining a beauty that will reward the constancy of still-smitten Bernard Kersal (Kaleo Griffith), who last saw her 15 years before, following her rejection of his marriage proposal.Mr. Maugham gives mixed signals as to whether or not Constance is able to leave her husband John (Stephen Caffrey), or even wants to. When another friend (Ann Marie Lee) offers the chance for her to get out of the house and enter business, she confesses she is happy at home. Is it a case of the emptiness she knows being preferable to the one she doesn’t? Ms. Gallagher’s performance seems to project a woman who has lived a life of her choosing.She chose John over Bernard because he seemed the less devoted. After an initial five years of passionate love, theirs eased into the love between devoted friends. When John's affair with Marie Louise (Libby West) is disclosed, Constance reveals she knew about it but saw no percentage in exposing it and risking divorce. “I never understood why a woman should give up her home, a considerable part of her income and having a man around the house to take care of all the tiresome chores.”The extramarital outing occurs in the presence of the still-obsessed Kersal – who Mr. Griffith gives a winning blend of matinee idol looks and mid-level intelligence. In her mind, John’s philandering and the public humiliation it brought has earned Constance a Free Affair Coupon. With the debonair Kersal at the ready, she sets in motion a plan to gain financial equality, sample passion one last time, and afford John the bitter taste of the cuckold’s medicine.A large gilded birdcage, with its own special, supports the production’s metaphor of constant confinement. So, too, does the floor-to-ceiling grid of upstage windows. Long diaphanous drapes of focus-yanking blue laze against those windows, and some ugly, pedestal-borne sculpture further force the set and actors towards the apron. The company's downstage confinement will be explained. Until then, our attention is drawn to the drapes, a garish chandelier, and this odd wall of sitting room windows. (It’s especially ironic that when a set design is actually attributed to a character on stage – and a character, Constance, whose independence will be dependent on her decorating – it looks so tacky.)Of the rest of the cast, Mr. Caffrey, a favorite for his recent turn in SCR’s Bach at Leipzig, creates a blustery Dr. John, a bit of a blowhard beneath a constantly knitted brow. West earns her laughs as Constance's conscienceless pal. Monette Magrath keeps younger sister Martha animated, if perhaps too young. John-David Keller, Andrew Borba, and Carolyn Seymour round out the cast.In a beautiful directorial coda that shows Constance in Italy (and explains the windows and the crowded stage), Mr. Manke sets Constance free. It's a fine, hard-won stage moment suggesting that freedom is its own reward. The fact that she is heading back into a different kind of marriage seems to make this lovely flourish a bit beside the point. The triumph to relish is not John’s defeat, but in forcing him to accept her as his true equal. That actor final face off, which normally signals lights out, should be just desserts enough.CREDITS by W. Somerset Maugham, directed by Art Manke; Angela Balogh Calin, sets/costumes; Peter Maradudin, lights; Steven Cahill, sound; Lea Chazin/Hethyr Verhoef, stage management WITH Andrew Borba, Stephen Caffrey, Megan Gallagher, Kaleo Griffith, John-David Keller, Ann Marie Lee, Monette Magrath, Carolyn Seymour, Libby WestPasadena Playhouse May 4-June 10, 2007 (opened May 12, reviewed 5/12)

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz

Theater Review: Neil LaBute's Fat Pig

Cristofer Gross — Mon, 14 May 2007 10:09:20 EDT

The need to overcome low self-image and to be thick-skinned enough to overlook demeaning opinions of others is at the heart of Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig, now in its West Coast premiere (through June 10) at the Geffen Playhouse’s Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater in Los Angeles. The title suggests a much nastier piece of work than this 90-minute, intermission-less script from the smart and fearless author of such plays as The Shape of Things, Autobahn, and Bash and the films In the Company of Men, Nurse Betty, and Your Friends and Neighbors.Instead, Fat Pig seems to settle in more like a contemporary television dramedy with a single story line and stock characters from hit shows. There's a further dimension of familiarity in the attracted opposites at its core, who give it a Disney fable quality: like a reverse anthropomorphizing of incompatible cartoon animals out to set an example for the rest of the forest. Yet the kind of menace that LaBute previously employed in his unsettling comedies shadows this story beneath the surface, waiting until the final curtain to rise up and make us pay for our laughs.Obesity in this country is, of course, no joke. There’s no question that it is dangerous to be greatly overweight and/or the victim of compulsive overeating, yet LaBute manages to have his cake and eat it, too. His characters divide between master purveyors of fat jokes and heart-breaking targets of them. We are early on given permission to laugh when the character referenced by the mean-spirited title reveals that she is quite comfortable in her own skin. Fat Pig is in fact not about how or why one becomes obese, but about the more universal issue of how groups treat the "other," and what happens when people try to see past those definitions.LaBute and director Jo Bonney push the question of how audience members will react when the title character first appears to the forefront. They immediately turn the tables by stationing Helen (Kirsten Vangsness) on stage for pre-show. Standing at a high table, eating what looks to be a starchy lunch from a cafeteria tray, she occasionally looks up from Walter Isaacson’s hefty new Einstein biography (she's a librarian and voracious reader) and looks around the lunchroom at the audience without making eye contact. Accustomed to eating alone, she has spread her gear over the two-person tabletop, which forces Tom (Scott Wolf) to make eye contact and conversation with her when he needs a spot.Tom Sullivan (the name also belongs to a real-life blind entertainer) discovers over the course of a quippy chat that Helen also tips the scale in the personality department. The twentysomething Tom, at sixes and sevens regarding his life direction after another lack-luster relationship, ventures a cautious request to see Helen sometime.His parents might have said about ordering off the menu, “Don’t take a bite of something you can’t finish” but Tom appears to be blind to Helen’s weight. He wants to test his mettle and probe for a deeper connection with someone. He may also, given his boyish Michael J. Fox irresistibility, subconsciously believe that even a brief affair with a hunk would be a net gain for Helen. However, foreseeing the ridicule a relationship with her will heap upon him from friends and co-workers, he quickly closets their get-togethers.Bonney keeps the depth of the inner turmoil in these two from surfacing for most of the play. It's a measured strategy to provide greater impact later on, but it does make the bulk of the play seem lighter than it otherwise might. LaBute has kept his stage tidy with only two additional characters, both from Tom‘s world.Without a friend of her own, Helen can't let her hair down and show the mix of euphoria and dread that accompany suddenly becoming the object of desire of a truly cute guy. We only glimpse how she’s feeling through her carefully monitored interaction with Tom, where she must keep the lid on her feelings so as not to freak him out. Structurally, therefore, Vangsness is prohibited from making this show her own, but she gives us glimpses into her true feelings as much as she can, and sounds the plea we should all heed: "Just be honest with me."Instead, Tom and Helen's relationship is reflected in the cool, cruel world of Tom’s office, where the people are incapable of looking unattractive, and of looking at the "unattractive" with anything but contempt or pity. Ironically, they appear incapable of engaging in healthy relationships of their own. Jeannie (Andrea Anders), a sexy 28-year-old from the accounting department who has been dating Tom, has to wring from him the fact that he isn’t interested anymore.Wisecracking co-worker Drew Carter (Chris Pine) is given a breadbasket of assorted roles: confidante, nemesis, blockhead, and clear-eyed seer (with his own shameful story of an obese loved one). To his credit, Pine keeps all these facets within his acting wheelhouse and makes this grab-bag character feel real. It's also a very entertaining performance.The jilted Jeannie also gives us the embodiment of that funny-painful experience of knowing you’re in a go-nowhere relationship, but becoming incensed when the other person pulls the plug. At a crap table, however, the real-life odds against the most highly compatible Helen being chosen over even a high-maintenance Jeannie could fatten any bankroll into the GNP of Kuwait.Still, in the world of literature, anything is possible. At one point, there’s a slight evocation that, like Huck, Tom has escaped the real world and now floats in harmony with the person he freed, and who has freed him in return. Twain’s raft ride through race relations will have a happier ending. If Tom tosses Helen overboard, she likely will not make it back to the healthy spot she had reached in her life. Instead, she could sink under the weight of a rejection she had allowed herself to believe the world had moved beyond.Bonney has an excellent design team with costumes by Christina Haatainen Jones, lights by Lap-Chi Chu, a sleek and versatile multi-location unit set by Louisa Thompson, and a tough, engaging soundtrack by Colbert S. Davis IV.CREDITS by Neil LaBute, directed by Jo Bonney, Louisa Thompson, set; Tina Haatainen Jones, costumes; Lap-Chi Chu, lights; Colbert S. Davis IV, sound; Frankie Ocasio, stage management WITH Andrea Anders, Chris Pine, Scott Wolf, Kirsten Vangsness West Coast Premiere Geffen Playhouse / Audrey Skirball Theatre May 5-June 10 (Opened May 11, rev. 5/10)

Cristofer Gross is a free lance writer on theater and jazz