Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

from l-r: Nicole Parker, Josh Grisetti, and Vicki Lewis
Photo: John Ganun/Reprise

Being back in town this weekend, it was time to catch up on some shows before they disappeared entirely. And in most cases, I was glad I did. The Reprise Theater Company wrapped up its 2010 season over the weekend with a revival of Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows’ How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the Freud Playhouse on the UCLA campus. Reprise has had a particularly strong season this year, and it appears the leadership of artistic director Jason Alexander is certainly reaping dividends in terms of the quality of the shows overall since he took over the job. Granted How to Succeed is a little past its relevance in 2010. This afternoon pretty much met my skirt-chasing themed theatrical events quota for the year. But musically you couldn’t want for more and director Marcia Milgrom Dodge runs one tight ship. The cast was exemplary, including the always enjoyable Vicki Lewis as wells as excellent regulars Ruth Williamson and Michael Kosroff. I’d be remiss, though, not to mention the superb performance from Josh Grisetti as J. Pierrepont Finch. Visitors to the Freud Playhouse are often stopped in the theater’s lobby by the mini-gallery of memorabilia donated to the UCLA Musical Theater Program by one of its major benefactors, Ray Bolger. The relevance of these artifacts may have seemed greater than normal during the run of How to Succeed because Grisetti’s talent and appearance recall Bolger so strongly at times it borders on the uncanny. One can only hope that he has a career as important ahead of him as that legend.

from Lionel Popkin's There is an Elephant in This Dance

I also caught one of the performances from Lionel Popkin and his collaborators at REDCAT where they brought one of their recent works There is an Elephant in this Dance to hometown audiences after appearances around the country. The title plays with the same kind of irony Magritte used in claiming that “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” despite all visual evidence to the contrary. Popkin’s piece in fact does not have an elephant despite its title, but is instead structured around an unrealistic multi-piece elephant costume. Dancers don parts of it throughout the hour-long work that is often accompanied by video depicting pre-recorded performance of the dancers in the costume as well. The physical movement of the dancer’s can be blunted by the costume either by obscuring their features, or by acting as comic foil by its presence in the video even when the live dancers are not enmeshed in it. Animal movement is everywhere in the piece, though, including a recurrent gesture where dancers attempt to place their fingers in each others mouths similarly to a horse’s bit. There was something fresh in all this, both in its irreverence and avoidance of a sharper focused physicality so common among contemporary choreographers. Popkin’s Elephant is unconcerned with the blurry edges. The piece does drag a little in the middle, and sometimes the dance becomes totally secondary to the background video, but it does suggest the mind of someone with interesting ideas about dance and movement.

Labels: LA Theater Reviews, REDCAT 09/10, Reprise

Deborah Strang as Bessie in Awake and Sing!
Photo: Craig Schwartz/A Noise Within 2010

It’s unusual for me to have a weekend where I see more than one local theater production here in L.A. and have them both turn out to be really good. But it does happen, and I’d be remiss not to mention these two particular offerings since both are definitely worth seeing. First was a comedy that, believe it or not, actually produced some genuine laughter. I’ve always thought Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was sort of a passé sex comedy with great songs. Like a Benny Hill episode scored by Benjamin Britten perhaps. But I must admit that the current revival being offered by Reprise on the UCLA campus is bright and bawdy even if it is the kind of thing that you could envision yourself enjoying as much at age 12 as you do now. It’s a modest production and director David Lee has cast the show with an eye to performers who don’t so much play the parts as play the actors who originally made the parts famous. Foremost among these are an excellent Lee Wilkof as Pseudolous and Michael Kostroff as Marcus Lycus. But as odd as this may sound, it works quite well. Perhaps a lot of this is due to the strength of Sondheim’s music and lyrics. Still, not even this score is indestructible and there are a few numbers that could use some more punch such as “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid.” But for the most part, the musical performances were well done and a comedy that actually delivers on the promise of laughter is sadly rarer than it should be. Funny Thing will continue through the end of next weekend.

Erich Bergen as Hero and Lee Wilkof as Pseudolus
Photo: John Ganun/Reprise 2010

However, if you’re not in the market for comedy tonight, you might want to consider the surprisingly fresh and tight production of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing! that just opened up at A Noise Within in Glendale. Odets 1935 melodrama trades in the political and social concerns of the period with a Bronx family struggling to get by in tough times. It might seem like Odets’ story of class struggle would be woefully dull and out of date, but the cast at ANW under the direction of Andrew Traister manage to keep the interpersonal intensity so high that the play flies by. Of course, at the center of this great production is Deborah Strang, one of ANW’s most valuable players. It is not unusual for entire productions to hang off her shoulders. What is unusual is that Awake and Sing! is one show in which even the players new to the company have no trouble keeping up with her. Adam Silver ‘s frustrated son Ralph was as real and heartbreaking as Molly Leland’s performance as his sister Hennie. And, although he's not new to ANW, Len Lesser's Jacob was notable for creating real attachment with the audience in a part with the lion's share of the political content. The show has no difficulty finding the human and dramatic elements among the sociopolitical sparring, making the play feel urgent and very contemporary. It’s a super show that runs through May 23 in Glendale. Oh, and congratulations to the company in reaching their $10-million fundraising goal to break ground on their new much swanker space in Pasadena. They deserve a bigger, brighter, and more functional home.

Labels: A Noise Within, LA Theater Reviews, Reprise