Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Los Otros, the new musical from Ellen Fitzhugh and Michael John LaChiusa now onstage at the Center Theater Group’s Mark Taper Forum, attempts to grapple with a number of contemporary struggles including immigration, race relations, sexual politics, and singing in key. And while there’s a lot of battling in this 90 minutes, it’s the audience that is losing the war. In fact, more pointedly Los Otros raises the question of whether or not anyone at Center Theater Group was involved in vetting this material during the development process before it landed on stage in a full-scale production. There’s a lot wrong with Los Otros, and it’s hard to believe that no one thought this show wasn’t going to be anything but dreadful.

The concept is an exploration of the interactions between Anglo and Latin cultures in the personal lives of Southern Californians during the 20th Century. The single act is divided into two parts, each focusing on a lengthy sung monologue by a different character. The show opens with a white woman, performed by Michele Pawk, who recounts how as a young girl, she and her friends fed a family of illegal immigrants living in a nearby cave. If that’s not enough disturbing cross-cultural whimsy for you, don’t worry. It’s just an appetizer for the woman’s drunken seduction of an 18 year-old virgin Mexican day laborer in the 1970s. He’s kind enough to have her damaged car fixed up after the tryst, which is observed by many of his fellow laborers. No, I’m not making this up. Pawk has a free and easy association with pitch, which makes this bit a constant source of surprise. The mildly less offensive second part is told from the perspective of a 75 year-old first generation American son of Mexican immigrants, played by Julio Monge. The man now lives with his white male lover, but he’s got heart-warming childhood fieldwork stories to tell. Still, much of his time onstage is occupied with hand wringing over storage of the couple’s expansive art collection. Monge is more vocally assured with a text that is mostly sung-through with few self-contained songs.

Michael John LaChiusa’s music for Los Otros is pleasant enough. The ambitious long musical arc of each part is impressive. Fitzhugh’s book and lyrics are bewildering at times in their ham-handed dealings with complex real-life cultural issues. All of this transpires on a sand covered set with a junkyard full of chairs, dolls and other debris suspended above the stage and audience for some unknown reason. The desert set is filled with debris that serves as props, but often makes the show look like it transpires in a garbage dump. Director Graciela Daniele shows her choreographer side by giving her performers plenty of graceful movement to perform, but the show is too far gone from the outset for her to be able to accomplish much. Los Otros attempts to connect with the real multi-layered lives of Californians, but few in the audience recognized much that was familiar in this off-kilter blunder of a new musical.

Labels: LA Theater Reviews, Mark Taper Forum

It was a shrewd move on the part of L.A.’s Center Theater Group: providing local audiences a chance to see Lorriane Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun right alongside Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer-Prize winner, Clybourne Park. While Norris’ comedy, which will make its play for a Tony award later this spring on Broadway, is by no means an outright sequel to Hansberry’s masterpiece of American realism, the two plays are unquestionably related. Specifically, Norris follows the story of the unseen white family referred to in Raisin whose former home the Youngers will soon occupy at great personal cost. How that home has come to market is the story at the heart of Clybourne Park and seeing the two plays in close succession, as I did on a recent Sunday, helps highlight the subtle ways in which Norris riffs on Hansberry’s theme from a contemporary perspective. Of course this also invites a more critical look at Norris’ play and points out another relationship between them in their current stagings for CTG: on the one hand Clybourne Park is a great production of a good play, while across town, A Raisin in the Sun proves to be a good production of a great play. And while this may sound like the two experiences are similar, the distinction is a critical one.

The one character the two plays have in common, Mr. Linder, is ancillary character in A Raisin in the Sun. He attempts to buy the Youngers out of their contract to purchase a new home in the heretofore all-white neighborhood of Clybourne Park. In the first act of Norris’ play, he arrives with his pregnant wife, at the home of Bev and Russ, played here by an excellent Christina Kirk and Frank Wood, having failed in his attempt to convince the Youngers not to move. Events move tangentially away from Hansberry’s story at that point, and an awareness of the events in A Raisin in the Sun are not necessary to get everything in Clybourne Park. Soon a whole different set of broken promises and the failure of some American dreams unfurls as Mr. Linder tries to persuade Bev and Russ not to move. As the pleasantries of 1950s suburban life soon recede to reveal a more unpleasant underbelly to this suburban Chicago community, the emotional scope of the play deepens. Bev and Russ’ maid, Francine, and her husband, Albert, are also present for much of this brewing confrontation and Norris revisits some of the points about racism and racial politics of the period Hansberry so eloquently laid out over half a century ago. And while the politics of the period may be familiar, the words can still sting and the play can generate a fair amount of discomfort at times. (This is a popular strategy on Broadway right now and viewers may be revisiting Other Desert Cities again over the course of the evening.) But the project is different from Hansberry's, and the African-American characters in Clybourne Park often play a secondary role to the unfolding events in Norris' play.

After an intense and devastating first act, Clybourne Park shifts and the same set of actors now play two different couples. Jeremy Shamos and Annie Parisse who were previously Mr. Linder and his wife, are now Steve and Lindsey, a young, wealthy white couple who have just purchased the same now dilapidated house in Clybourne Park in 2009 and have made plans to tear it down and build a new home on the same lot. A married African-American couple played by Crystal A. Dickinson and Damon Gupton, Lena and Kevin, have come from the local neighborhood group to discuss a petition filled with the city’s planning commission with them. Lena is a great niece to Lena Younger and she expresses objections over the expansive construction plans for the site with an interest in maintaining architectural integrity to a now predominantly black neighborhood undergoing its own gentrification process. Norris revels in the many inversions and parallels between the two scenarios and makes wry use of the recasting of the actors in roles that diverge in ironic and unexpected ways such as when Brendan Griffin who plays the local priest, Jim, in Act I is now a gay community housing advocate in Act II. Soon the conference begins to unravel in a similar fashion to that prior meeting some 60 years ago. And while Norris wraps up the play with a stunner of a conclusion, the second act feels more conversational and unstructured than the first half. The characters hash out the contemporary veneer that disguises the underlying tensions about racism and economic disparities and Norris takes some glee in doing this in a progressively more blunt fashion. But the whole scene feels contrived and reaching with less natural dramatic development than the searing punch in the gut that precedes it.

Norris still takes an optimistic tact at the end though, which is an appropriate homage to a similar sense that ends A Raisin in the Sun. As the Youngers leave for their new home, there is sacrifice ahead, but they have their pride an their family intact. Center Theater Group invited the Ebony Repertory Theater in Los Angeles to revive its recent production of A Raisin in the Sun at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City after a well-received run last year under the direction of Phylicia Rashad. The play is virtually indestructible with poetry that still amazes at nearly every turn. One almost gasps to hear Berneatha proclaim that all the tyranny in the world will never put a God in the heavens. Hansberry's play is filled with so much, and so much that is so well written that one still sits almost agape at the play's quality and working.

But as good as the play is, Rashad and her cast don't always rise to its level. Mostly they do and Kim Staunton's Lena Younger and Deidrie Henry's Ruth provide two formidable anchoring performances that seem to keep the rest of the cast on track when they are around. And much like the characters they play, when they are absent some of the smaller parts veer off into more pedestrian realms. But the show gets the job done, filling these characters with the kind of life that leaves them haunting you while watching Norris' Clybourne Park and seeing the world they are about to step into. Though oddly, despite the quality of CTG's Broadway bound production, Norris' characters don't ever enter the mind when watching A Raisin in the Sun. Clybourne Park is a formidable edifice, but undoubtedly one that is at its best due to the foundations on which it was built.

Labels: Kirk Douglas Theater, LA Theater Reviews, Mark Taper Forum

When I was a child, I used to love watching the Carol Burnett Show on CBS. However, one thing I never understood was why the recurring skits where Carol played the chronically unhappy Eunice constantly at war with her mother and various family members were so popular. I never found the endless arguments and shouting funny, but obviously others did. And to this day I find that corner of the humor world difficult to relate to. Thus I went into the world premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s latest play Poor Behavior now on stage at the Mark Taper Forum with some trepidation. The title alone suggests the kind of thing that happens when people stop being polite and start getting…well, you know. And when the play opens in the middle of an all out verbal brawl between Ian, played by Reg Rogers, and his friend’s wife Ella, played by Johanna Day, I was wondering what I was in for. But to my surprise, Poor Behavior actually turned out to be a clever, well-written and surprisingly provocative adult play.

Certainly the word is the thing in Rebeck’s world, and her two couples unleash barrages of sharply witty dialog at one another. Ian is married to the somewhat mentally unstable Maureen, here a hysterical Sharon Lawrence. The two have come to the country home of Ella and her husband Peter, a likable Christopher Evan Welch, for the weekend, and soon Ian and Ella are in a row over morality and religion that seems to irritate their spouses with its palpable sexual energy. There are some misconstrued gestures and sidelong glances that soon drive Maureen to suspect Ian has cheated on her with Ella. Slowly all four of the characters are drawn into the speculative affair which Ian refuses to deny in a way that forces Ella closer to him. Rogers and Day are superb in generating tension between the two characters amidst some eloquent verbal bantering that pressures the audience to keep up with them. Rebeck masterfully keeps the story aloft with a series of unfolding complications that manage to avoid becoming just another thriller or succumbing to some easy, pat position on the moral issues in the work. That isn’t to say that she avoids painting herself into a bit of a corer in the end of the show. But I don’t want to spoil the fun. There is an honesty to Poor Behavior as well that is both charming and thoughtful. And in a play that is always in the midst of another argument, that is a good thing. The show runs downtown through October 16.

Labels: LA Theater Reviews, Mark Taper Forum

John Lithgow Photo: Craig Schwartz 2011

The rough economic waters have been tough on many performing arts organizations here in L.A., and each one has been forced to respond in its own way. Center Theater Group is no exception to this rule, and L.A.’s biggest theater organization has gone from the ambitious production of Kingsley‘s Dead End complete with a flooded orchestra pit that announced the arrival of artistic director Michael Ritchie in 2005 to a remarkably lean 2010 season. CTG is still in business, which is good news in and of itself, but the writing is on the wall with shows that have small casts, big name movie stars, and/or recognizable touring musical properties especially at the Ahmanson and Mark Taper Forum at the music center downtown. It is a testament to the company that despite the inevitable adjustments of ambition, the productions themselves have continued to be surprisingly good in quality overall including a wonderful recent run of Next to Normal at the Ahmanson and Judith Ivey’s spectacular turn in William’s The Glass Menagerie just last Fall.

This year, the Mark Taper Forum will host only four productions with an additional offering included for the venue’s subscribers: Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations at the Ahmanson that will kick off later this month with Jane Fonda. Before that, however, the first of this year’s Taper shows, Stories by Heart is now on stage this month. The show meets two of the three necessary criteria in the current environment, it has a big movie star in its author and performer, John Lithgow, and it has a small cast in that it’s a one-man show. It’s a somewhat slight, but enjoyable production, which consists of dramatic readings of two short stories, P.G. Wodehouse’s “Uncle Fred Flits By” and the more obscure Ring Lardner’s “Haircut”. Lithgow, of course, is a remarkable actor and he delivers the stories with expert skill as promised in the title, by heart. But this literary-inspired endeavor is no Gatz. Each story is wrapped in a small amount of personal, sentimental context from Lithgow, who explains the personal significance of the story-telling project and the development of Stories by Heart.

If anything, the show is more of a testament to the skills of Wodehouse and Lardner than anything else and both works do lend themselves well to this dramatic treatment. But Stories by Heart even at over two hours is still an insubstantial wisp of a show. Lithgow makes a play to underpin his readings with some requisite big questions he asks the audience directly regarding why we, as humans, like to tell and hear tales. He posits that all theater is about storytelling early on and that actors are, by definition, storytellers. I’m not so sure about that contention; though, I’d agree most of the time it is true. I think there are plenty of other reasons people go to the theater besides stories such as visual spectacle, and emotional response, both of which can happen in the most non-narrative of theatrical events. In fact, if there is anything unusual about Stories by Heart, it is how old-fashioned it is. Narrative is far less crucial to the stage now than it has been at perhaps anytime and the tightly-plotted stories of Lithgow’s monologues seem out-of-place and overly neat despite their many fine qualities. The show is not unpleasant, though, and continues at the Mark Taper Forum through Feb 13. A word of advice, though. Although the text for both of these stories is readily available on line, go unprepared, its better to experience them told live.

Labels: LA Theater Reviews, Mark Taper Forum

Judith Ivey and Patch Darragh Photo: Craig Schwartz/CTG 2010

You couldn’t be blamed for thinking that you were somewhere else when faced with the veritable embarrassment of riches on L.A.’s major stages this month. With a great version of Lynn Nottage’s Ruined playing at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, the Center Theater Group has scored a major success by importing the superb Long Wharf Theater revival of Williams’ The Glass Menagerie nearly perfectly intact to the Mark Taper Forum. This will undoubtedly be one of the best shows of the year here in L.A. and I can’t recommend it highly enough. The most publicized reason for the show's success to date has been the master class performance of Judith Ivey as Amanda Wingfield. She deserves every accolade she can get for this performance. It is tough, nuanced and swims in complexity for a part notorious for its pitfalls. Yes, Amanda is suffocating, interfering and pathologically charming. The surprise is that she is frequently funny, warm and just as often painfully right in her assessments of her fractured family. Ivey’s Amanda Wingfield is brilliant not simply because she can be both sympathetic and repulsive at the same time. It is a great performance because of Ivey’s ability to point out exactly what her character understands – that her children are in serious trouble and this family’s sinking ship needs some desperate bailing whether or not she's going about it the right way.

But let me talk about what else is so right about this production. Patch Darragh’s Tom is beleaguered but not much nicer than his mother. He is able to bring out the autobiographical overtones of Willimas’ play without overwhelming it. Meanwhile, the restrained physicality of Keira Keeley’s Laura almost steals the entire second act. The only newcomer to the production fromn its East Coast run is Ben McKenzie who is excellent as the Wingfields’ gentleman caller Jim. But equally good to these stellar performances is the beautiful and very smart set design by Michael Yeargen under the direction of Gordon Edelstein. The dark, brown shabby set doubles as both hotel room and family apartment reinforcing the memory aspects of the play, often blurring the line between the temporal narrative and Tom’s later recollection of them as if they might be stream of consciousness. Lighting designer Jennifer Tipton deserves special mention here for a performance that is equally as remarkable as Ivey or anyone else on stage. Tipton is working overtime in L.A. this fall where she is lighting not only this play, but a dance piece from Sardono Dance Theater that opens the REDCAT season on Thursday the 16th as well as L.A. Opera’s world premiere of Catan’s Il Postino starting on the 23rd. I can’t recall the last time I saw such effective and profoundly understated lighting for a stage performance. The Wingfields’ rooms are dark and hazy in an evocative memory-referenced way. It is always too dark for them, but never in a way that the action cannot clearly be seen. And with the final scene proceeding largely in candlelight there is a beautiful lyricism to the whole mise en scène. This is a masterful production that takes on the frequent and real laughs of Williams’ play honestly without ever shorting the audience on the real heartbreak of this unraveling family. Don’t miss it at The Mark Taper Forum through October 17.

Labels: LA Theater Reviews, Mark Taper Forum