| THEATER TIMES REVIEWS APRIL 2007 |
Assassins
Sight Unseen / Meta Theatre
La Mirada Theatre
Laguna Playhouse
South Coast Repertory
South Coast Repertory
Actors' Gang
Sight Unseen / Meta Theatre
La Mirada Theatre
Laguna Playhouse
South Coast Repertory
South Coast Repertory
Actors' Gang
The Master of the House
by Shmuel Hasfari, directed by Richard Stein American Premiere
Laguna Playhouse March 27-April 29 (Opened, reviewed 3/31)
WITH Joseph Cardinale, Stacie Chaiken, Jonathan Goldstein, Barry Alan Levine, Tyler Logan, Brett Ryback,
Elizabeth Tobias, Bryna Weiss, Andrew Ross Wynn PRODUCTION Narelle Sissons, set; Julie Keen,
costumes; Tom Ruzika, lights; David Edwards, sound; Rebecca M. Green, stage management
The floor plan that Shmuel Hasfari has laid out for ‘The Master of the House,’ receiving
its American premiere through April 29 at the Laguna Playhouse) covers a lot of
ground. Set in Tel Aviv, where its premiere would earn the 2003 Israel Theatre
Academy Award for Best Play, it touches on Israel’s history, from its 20th Century
resurrection to the daily threats to destroy it. But the international politics are
merely background for a smaller portrait with more universal resonance. One couple,
whose problems will trace in part to political unrest, is at a crossroads from which
views of aging, marriage, the safety of our children and the sanity of our parents can
be explored. While Richard Stein’s staging does not show the script, translated from
Hebrew by Anthony Berris, successfully balancing the relative weight of its storylines
and themes, one senses a potential for greater power hidden between the lines.
The principal metaphor in ‘The Master of the House’ is renovation. How to balance the conflicting needs for
renewal and for retaining links to the past is the question that underlies all the action and relationships here.
That reflects back on the state of Israel, where age-old traditions are in pitched battle with changing
realities. But it’s the fragile truce between husband and wife Yoel (Jonathan Goldstein) and Nava (Stacie
Chaiken) that is at the center of ‘The Master of the House.’
One of the ironies suggested by the play’s title is that we think of a household as having one person in
charge. Who is in charge of Yoel and Nava’s home seems clear at the beginning, but is then up for grabs
and ultimately decided under new terms. As is common in many households, these adults are only saying
part of what’s on their minds. Yoel does this because he’s completely stopped up as a person. Nava does
it because his blockage gives her nowhere to go. That passive aggressive standoff results in exchanges
that sound like shoot-outs, passing without revealing much. They make the play’s action seem more circular
than it may in fact be. If Hasfari’s multi-level story is going to succeed, as it apparently did in Tel Aviv, it
requires the director and central actors to find an underlying logic to drive these two scattered personalities
from curtain to curtain call. Here where it should feel heartbreakingly real, it merely feels broken.
Goldstein’s Yoel is a scruffy columnist living in the same house he grew up in. He writes about nostalgia
and architecture – which reflect his own reverence for old buildings on one hand and clinging to the past
on the other. Creating a retreating personality is a tough assignment for an actor: he is the thing he is not.
Not surprisingly, it’s Yoel’s moments outside himself –lost in nostalgia or lightened by drink – in which
Goldstein gets to show some of who this man might have been.
Chaiken’s Nava is a dream – his dream – come true. A woman Yoel has loved since grade school, Nava is
now a beautiful, articulate, successful bread-winner who inexplicably overlooks Yoel’s incredible
Farbisener routine: he treats her like a waitress, fails to tell her his plans, doesn't notice his father’s
advancing dementia, doesn't even try to fix the toilet, and on and on and on. That she stays with him may
be more understandable in Israel. It's not translating here. That he calls her the love of his life, yet isn’t
interested in sleeping with her anymore, is a mystery that the script gives mixed answers for, but they need
to be sorted out in the playing.
Not surprisingly, Nava seizes upon a chance to renovate the house when a handyman is called in to
address the ignored commode. The battle lines are drawn when Yoel, childishly, first refuses to budge,
then gives an inch, the refuses to budge, etc. He hides his retentiveness in a transparent reverence for his
father -- portrayed as a great builder of early Tel Aviv (a portrait that is later undercut).
Without a viable answer to why these two are still connected, this vacuum at the center allows the
secondary character of the contractor, Yigal Kadosh (Andrew Ross Wynn, a standout in A Noise Within’s
‘As You Like It’ last year) stands out as such an important figure. Of course, Hasfari has given him what
seems undo dimension here, given some of the things he's glossed over. The pivotal character of Yoel’s
mysterious older brother, for instance, is much too sketchy, given that his actions are ultimately at the core
of the drama. Was he married to Nava? How did Yoel’s obsession with Nava from the age of 9
circumnavigate his older brother’s position? Kadosh arrives on the scene as if to provide comic relief, but
ends up with as much definition as the central characters, thanks in part to a network of subplots that
feature him and his son, Ro’i, also well played by Brett Ryback. This story that has time for side excursions
into Yoel’s younger brother’s exploits (immaterial to the Yoel-Nava relationship) and the nursing home
realities of Yoel’s parents (hardly essential to establishing anything).
The parents have their own tangent about finding buried treasure. It’s not as crazy as it seems when it, like
so many of the messages woven into Hasfari’s script, provides another metaphor: While there is gold in our
pasts, we must be willing to break down our pasts in order to find it.
by Shmuel Hasfari, directed by Richard Stein American Premiere
Laguna Playhouse March 27-April 29 (Opened, reviewed 3/31)
WITH Joseph Cardinale, Stacie Chaiken, Jonathan Goldstein, Barry Alan Levine, Tyler Logan, Brett Ryback,
Elizabeth Tobias, Bryna Weiss, Andrew Ross Wynn PRODUCTION Narelle Sissons, set; Julie Keen,
costumes; Tom Ruzika, lights; David Edwards, sound; Rebecca M. Green, stage management
The floor plan that Shmuel Hasfari has laid out for ‘The Master of the House,’ receiving
its American premiere through April 29 at the Laguna Playhouse) covers a lot of
ground. Set in Tel Aviv, where its premiere would earn the 2003 Israel Theatre
Academy Award for Best Play, it touches on Israel’s history, from its 20th Century
resurrection to the daily threats to destroy it. But the international politics are
merely background for a smaller portrait with more universal resonance. One couple,
whose problems will trace in part to political unrest, is at a crossroads from which
views of aging, marriage, the safety of our children and the sanity of our parents can
be explored. While Richard Stein’s staging does not show the script, translated from
Hebrew by Anthony Berris, successfully balancing the relative weight of its storylines
and themes, one senses a potential for greater power hidden between the lines.
The principal metaphor in ‘The Master of the House’ is renovation. How to balance the conflicting needs for
renewal and for retaining links to the past is the question that underlies all the action and relationships here.
That reflects back on the state of Israel, where age-old traditions are in pitched battle with changing
realities. But it’s the fragile truce between husband and wife Yoel (Jonathan Goldstein) and Nava (Stacie
Chaiken) that is at the center of ‘The Master of the House.’
One of the ironies suggested by the play’s title is that we think of a household as having one person in
charge. Who is in charge of Yoel and Nava’s home seems clear at the beginning, but is then up for grabs
and ultimately decided under new terms. As is common in many households, these adults are only saying
part of what’s on their minds. Yoel does this because he’s completely stopped up as a person. Nava does
it because his blockage gives her nowhere to go. That passive aggressive standoff results in exchanges
that sound like shoot-outs, passing without revealing much. They make the play’s action seem more circular
than it may in fact be. If Hasfari’s multi-level story is going to succeed, as it apparently did in Tel Aviv, it
requires the director and central actors to find an underlying logic to drive these two scattered personalities
from curtain to curtain call. Here where it should feel heartbreakingly real, it merely feels broken.
Goldstein’s Yoel is a scruffy columnist living in the same house he grew up in. He writes about nostalgia
and architecture – which reflect his own reverence for old buildings on one hand and clinging to the past
on the other. Creating a retreating personality is a tough assignment for an actor: he is the thing he is not.
Not surprisingly, it’s Yoel’s moments outside himself –lost in nostalgia or lightened by drink – in which
Goldstein gets to show some of who this man might have been.
Chaiken’s Nava is a dream – his dream – come true. A woman Yoel has loved since grade school, Nava is
now a beautiful, articulate, successful bread-winner who inexplicably overlooks Yoel’s incredible
Farbisener routine: he treats her like a waitress, fails to tell her his plans, doesn't notice his father’s
advancing dementia, doesn't even try to fix the toilet, and on and on and on. That she stays with him may
be more understandable in Israel. It's not translating here. That he calls her the love of his life, yet isn’t
interested in sleeping with her anymore, is a mystery that the script gives mixed answers for, but they need
to be sorted out in the playing.
Not surprisingly, Nava seizes upon a chance to renovate the house when a handyman is called in to
address the ignored commode. The battle lines are drawn when Yoel, childishly, first refuses to budge,
then gives an inch, the refuses to budge, etc. He hides his retentiveness in a transparent reverence for his
father -- portrayed as a great builder of early Tel Aviv (a portrait that is later undercut).
Without a viable answer to why these two are still connected, this vacuum at the center allows the
secondary character of the contractor, Yigal Kadosh (Andrew Ross Wynn, a standout in A Noise Within’s
‘As You Like It’ last year) stands out as such an important figure. Of course, Hasfari has given him what
seems undo dimension here, given some of the things he's glossed over. The pivotal character of Yoel’s
mysterious older brother, for instance, is much too sketchy, given that his actions are ultimately at the core
of the drama. Was he married to Nava? How did Yoel’s obsession with Nava from the age of 9
circumnavigate his older brother’s position? Kadosh arrives on the scene as if to provide comic relief, but
ends up with as much definition as the central characters, thanks in part to a network of subplots that
feature him and his son, Ro’i, also well played by Brett Ryback. This story that has time for side excursions
into Yoel’s younger brother’s exploits (immaterial to the Yoel-Nava relationship) and the nursing home
realities of Yoel’s parents (hardly essential to establishing anything).
The parents have their own tangent about finding buried treasure. It’s not as crazy as it seems when it, like
so many of the messages woven into Hasfari’s script, provides another metaphor: While there is gold in our
pasts, we must be willing to break down our pasts in order to find it.
Stacie Chaiken
Jonathon Goldstein
PHOTO ED KRIEGER
Jonathon Goldstein
PHOTO ED KRIEGER
My Wandering Boy
by Julie Marie Myatt, directed by Bill Rauch World Premiere
South Coast Repertory • March – May 6, 2007 (opened 4/6; reviewed 4/7)’
WITH Purva Bedi, John Cabrera, Richard Doyle, Brent Hinkley, Veralyn Jones, Charlie Robinson, Elizabeth
Ruscio PRODUCTION Christopher Acebo, set; Shigeru Yaji, costumes; Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz, lights; Paul
James Prendergast, sound; Austin Switser, video; Dara Weinberg, asst. director; Megan Monaghan,
dramaturg; Randall K. Lum/Chrissy Church, stage management
'My Wandering Boy' by Julie Marie Myatt, in its world premiere at the commissioning
South Coast Repertory, is intriguing, daring and ultimately satisfying both in its
storytelling and its story. While the text leans toward tracking a particular wanderer,
the production opens up – literally, for a series of film clips by Austin Switser – to
offer a gentle, non-judgmental view of the bedraggled army we once romanticized as
tramps and hoboes but now see simply as homeless. Bill Rauch directs the launch of
this play by his Cornerstone Theater Company colleague. He syncs a fine cast led by
Charlie Robinson to Myatt’s spare, funny dialogue in a way that lets the characters
be both natural and instruments of the writer's poetics. The corrugated upstage
panels of Christopher Acebo’s set open scene by scene like the aperture of a camera
lens to reveal more and more sky. As pieces of living room furniture accumulate the
portal widens; the more objects weigh down a wanderer's home, the greater the lure
of the open road.
Thirty-year-old Emmett Boudin has disappeared. It’s not clear whether he was pulled by freedom or pushed
by responsibility. Emmett had the facile charms that win easy accommodation from others. His father says
he was lazy. Either way, Emmett grew into a man-boy blissfully free of the need to justify his actions to
parent or peer. After his parents (Richard Doyle and Elizabeth Ruscio) learned that Emmett’s late
grandmother left her estate to him, they hired Detective Howard (Mr. Robinson) to find him. Howard’s
sleuthing forms the motion of the play, leading him to three of Emmett’s circle – a best friend (John
Cabrera), a girlfriend (Purva Bedi), and a later girlfriend (Veralyn Jones) with whom he has a baby son.
That son, who becomes the only person Emmett favors with any rationale, reveals Emmett's humanity.
And, while it would be hardly adequate in the real world, here the letter-writing seems to suffice.
However, the stationary letter-reading – while logical – is perhaps too static.
Mr. Robinson has enough of the tough gumshoe to make the mystery engaging and sufficient twinkle to
appear at risk of being seduced by the open road himself. Adding a performances that would be reason
enough to see this production is Ms. Ruscio as the addled but emotional mother. She never falls off the
center divider between character and comedy. Mr. Doyle delivers another nice comic turn, though it's hard
to imagine anyone making sense of his character's shift from wistful nostalgia to irate dad in a single scene
change. As the friend and lovers, Mr. Cabrera, Ms. Jones and Ms. Bedi assemble fully functioning,
engaging people from the kits Ms. Myatt has provided.
Dramaturgically, there is blurring that Ms. Myatt intends but may not want to be as confusing as it is. The
enigmatic character named John (Brent Hinkley), who kicks off the show by stepping into boots he may or
may not have found by the side of the road, looks like a mad prophet of the highway. He’ll surely be likened
to every kind of pedestrian prophet from Jesus to Forrest Gump (whose cross-country jogger the hairy Mr.
Hinkley resembles). John may represent the spirit of the drifter or he may in fact be Emmett. A backpack
with contents belonging to Emmett ties these two together, especially the aforementioned video camera that
another character references as belonging to Emmett and that John is seen holding. There is also
Emmett's journal of musings with which John seems a little too familiar.
That John actually is Emmett seems unlikely, for it would mean that Howard is a terrible detective. That
John killed Emmett for his belongings seems unlikely, too, as it would be completely out of tone with this
dreamy play. It's more likely that Emmett has fallen through the cracks and landed in the flattened
cardboard world beneath the urban overpass and that John has stumbled upon the cache left as a final
sign of Emmett's exit. Meanwhile, as those two personalities merge and separate, the boots become the
embodiment of the spirit of the wanderer and give the detective insight after he appropriates them for
himself.
Ms. Myatt understands and accepts the wanderer gene, that historically male phenomenon whose dark
side leads to abandoned jobs, families and selves and whose bright side leads to compulsive exploration of
everything from the universe to the other side of the hill. The old soul in Ms. Myatt portrays her fellows as
traveling at greater risk to themselves than to others. They are tuned to the siren’s song from birth,
struggling to balance the tugs of hearth and highway. Emmett's dad shut her out. John and Emmett gave
in. Detective Howard, in Mr. Robinson's beautifully understated performance, manages to stay strapped to
the mast with his eyes and ears open. As he listens, what we hear is the still-young but already wise
voice of Ms. Myatt echoing great writers like Bob Dylan, in whose words the scratching at the straps can
still be heard: “Cast your dancing spell my way. I promise to go wandering.”
by Julie Marie Myatt, directed by Bill Rauch World Premiere
South Coast Repertory • March – May 6, 2007 (opened 4/6; reviewed 4/7)’
WITH Purva Bedi, John Cabrera, Richard Doyle, Brent Hinkley, Veralyn Jones, Charlie Robinson, Elizabeth
Ruscio PRODUCTION Christopher Acebo, set; Shigeru Yaji, costumes; Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz, lights; Paul
James Prendergast, sound; Austin Switser, video; Dara Weinberg, asst. director; Megan Monaghan,
dramaturg; Randall K. Lum/Chrissy Church, stage management
'My Wandering Boy' by Julie Marie Myatt, in its world premiere at the commissioning
South Coast Repertory, is intriguing, daring and ultimately satisfying both in its
storytelling and its story. While the text leans toward tracking a particular wanderer,
the production opens up – literally, for a series of film clips by Austin Switser – to
offer a gentle, non-judgmental view of the bedraggled army we once romanticized as
tramps and hoboes but now see simply as homeless. Bill Rauch directs the launch of
this play by his Cornerstone Theater Company colleague. He syncs a fine cast led by
Charlie Robinson to Myatt’s spare, funny dialogue in a way that lets the characters
be both natural and instruments of the writer's poetics. The corrugated upstage
panels of Christopher Acebo’s set open scene by scene like the aperture of a camera
lens to reveal more and more sky. As pieces of living room furniture accumulate the
portal widens; the more objects weigh down a wanderer's home, the greater the lure
of the open road.
Thirty-year-old Emmett Boudin has disappeared. It’s not clear whether he was pulled by freedom or pushed
by responsibility. Emmett had the facile charms that win easy accommodation from others. His father says
he was lazy. Either way, Emmett grew into a man-boy blissfully free of the need to justify his actions to
parent or peer. After his parents (Richard Doyle and Elizabeth Ruscio) learned that Emmett’s late
grandmother left her estate to him, they hired Detective Howard (Mr. Robinson) to find him. Howard’s
sleuthing forms the motion of the play, leading him to three of Emmett’s circle – a best friend (John
Cabrera), a girlfriend (Purva Bedi), and a later girlfriend (Veralyn Jones) with whom he has a baby son.
That son, who becomes the only person Emmett favors with any rationale, reveals Emmett's humanity.
And, while it would be hardly adequate in the real world, here the letter-writing seems to suffice.
However, the stationary letter-reading – while logical – is perhaps too static.
Mr. Robinson has enough of the tough gumshoe to make the mystery engaging and sufficient twinkle to
appear at risk of being seduced by the open road himself. Adding a performances that would be reason
enough to see this production is Ms. Ruscio as the addled but emotional mother. She never falls off the
center divider between character and comedy. Mr. Doyle delivers another nice comic turn, though it's hard
to imagine anyone making sense of his character's shift from wistful nostalgia to irate dad in a single scene
change. As the friend and lovers, Mr. Cabrera, Ms. Jones and Ms. Bedi assemble fully functioning,
engaging people from the kits Ms. Myatt has provided.
Dramaturgically, there is blurring that Ms. Myatt intends but may not want to be as confusing as it is. The
enigmatic character named John (Brent Hinkley), who kicks off the show by stepping into boots he may or
may not have found by the side of the road, looks like a mad prophet of the highway. He’ll surely be likened
to every kind of pedestrian prophet from Jesus to Forrest Gump (whose cross-country jogger the hairy Mr.
Hinkley resembles). John may represent the spirit of the drifter or he may in fact be Emmett. A backpack
with contents belonging to Emmett ties these two together, especially the aforementioned video camera that
another character references as belonging to Emmett and that John is seen holding. There is also
Emmett's journal of musings with which John seems a little too familiar.
That John actually is Emmett seems unlikely, for it would mean that Howard is a terrible detective. That
John killed Emmett for his belongings seems unlikely, too, as it would be completely out of tone with this
dreamy play. It's more likely that Emmett has fallen through the cracks and landed in the flattened
cardboard world beneath the urban overpass and that John has stumbled upon the cache left as a final
sign of Emmett's exit. Meanwhile, as those two personalities merge and separate, the boots become the
embodiment of the spirit of the wanderer and give the detective insight after he appropriates them for
himself.
Ms. Myatt understands and accepts the wanderer gene, that historically male phenomenon whose dark
side leads to abandoned jobs, families and selves and whose bright side leads to compulsive exploration of
everything from the universe to the other side of the hill. The old soul in Ms. Myatt portrays her fellows as
traveling at greater risk to themselves than to others. They are tuned to the siren’s song from birth,
struggling to balance the tugs of hearth and highway. Emmett's dad shut her out. John and Emmett gave
in. Detective Howard, in Mr. Robinson's beautifully understated performance, manages to stay strapped to
the mast with his eyes and ears open. As he listens, what we hear is the still-young but already wise
voice of Ms. Myatt echoing great writers like Bob Dylan, in whose words the scratching at the straps can
still be heard: “Cast your dancing spell my way. I promise to go wandering.”
Charlie Robinson
PHOTO HENRY DiROCCO
PHOTO HENRY DiROCCO
Read a Theater Times
Dialogue with
Director Bill Rauch
Dialogue with
Director Bill Rauch
The Women of Lockerbie
by Deborah Brevoort, directed by Brent Hinkley West Coast Premiere
The Actors’ Gang • through May 12, 2007 (reviewed 4/6)
WITH Kate A. Mulligan, Silas Weir Mitchell, Mary Eileen O’Donnell, Terri Lynn Harris, Anna Sommer, Patti
Tippo, Robert Shampain PRODUCTION Sibyl Wickersheimer, set; Ann Closs-Farley, costumes; Bosco
Flanagan, lights; John Zalewski, sound; Amber Koehler, stage management
In 'The Women of Lockerbie,' through May 12 at the Actors’ Gang in Culver City, art
and accuracy have settled their differences to bring an extraordinary story to the
stage. Deborah Brevoort’s one-act, real-time drama imagines that important night
seven years after the 1988 downing of PanAm Flight 103 when a simple act of decency
took on epic proportions. With nods to Greek Tragedy, Shakespearean rants on
Scottish heaths and American dramas about the power of the common people,
Brevoort has created a powerful reminder that air disaster victims include more than
the people who fall from the sky. There are also the people who miss them. And, the
people who find them.
In December 1988, the terrorist bombing aboard a New York-bound PanAm flight out of London turned a
Boeing 747 into a meteor shower over Lockerbie, Scotland. Everyone on board and 11 more on the ground
were killed. Most of the 270 victims were American and the majority of those were residents of New York,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The tragedy faded first from the headlines, then from memory. Even the
airline went out of business and disappeared.
In 1999, interest was renewed when two indictments were handed down against Libyan men charged with
the bombing. The interest continued through the subsequent trial that ended with the sentencing of one
defendant in 2002. During that time, Brevoort’s play, which she had spent five years writing, was
introduced with the support of a 2001 Fund for New American Plays grant.
'The Women of Lockerbie' now gives that historical event a timeless source of revival. It is being produced
around the country, but indications are that this is the Southern California premiere. Director Brent Hinkley
(whose acting is currently on display in SCR’s 'My Wandering Boy') infuses the Actors' Gang staging with a
visceral quality.
The play is set in the open space that was the debris field from the wreckage. In the middle of a December
night, the sky and earth merge in the inky darkness. Flashlight beams and distant voices break the stillness
at rise. A man calls out for his wife. She calls back. But it is her son Adam, a passenger on Flight 103
returning from study abroad, whose name she cries. A dozen passengers seated closest to the explosion
disappeared without a trace. Adam was one of these. Without a physical symbol -- even a bone fragment
or jacket button — for closure, Madeline’s extraordinary grief has continued unabated.
Though the entire cast serves Hinkley well, the center of the production is Kate A. Mulligan, who plays
Adam’s mother Madeline. Her wails and contortions are of Greek proportion, a Munch scream come to life.
Mulligan makes a brave choice in pulling out the stops for this characterization and it will unnerve some.
However, she somehow shapes the hysteria and keeps a real person in sight.
Sibyl Wickersheimer’s entire set is a steeply raked hillside of pitch-black plywood. Bosco Flanagan’s spare
lighting and John Zalewski’s beautifully eerie sound design help turn this play set in Scotland into a modern
Scottish Play. Madeline's dazed wandering of the site bears more than passing resemblance to Lady
Macbeth's sleepwalking. The arrival of three women (Mary Eileen O’Donnell, Terri Lynn Harris, Anna
Sommer), who occasionally move in coven choreography, underscores the sense that these kindly
community women have one foot in a mystical otherworld. The women, some with immediate family killed
by the falling jet, are no strangers to grief. Patti Tippo plays a fourth Lockerbie local.
Brevoort has brought Madeline and Bill Livingston (Silas Weir Mitchell) back to Lockerbie on the anniversary
of the crash. This action by the fictional Livingstons coincides with an historical event. Hundreds of local
women, incensed that the U.S. government still had not released the personal belongings of the dead --
including the bloody clothes they had on -- have chosen this seventh anniversary to raise their voices in
protest.
As backdrop to Madeline's hopeless quest, the women confront the U.S. official (Robert Shampain) in
charge of the warehouse. In a case of real-life improvisation, the women come up with a gesture that will
serve the victims, the survivors and the officials. Their real-life demand, which certainly serves the drama
as well, is that they be allowed to perform a service - a humane act of cleansing, and closure.
The Actors' Gang has given Brevoort’s play a fitting entry into Los Angeles. It’s no surprise that the
production has been extended to May 12.
by Deborah Brevoort, directed by Brent Hinkley West Coast Premiere
The Actors’ Gang • through May 12, 2007 (reviewed 4/6)
WITH Kate A. Mulligan, Silas Weir Mitchell, Mary Eileen O’Donnell, Terri Lynn Harris, Anna Sommer, Patti
Tippo, Robert Shampain PRODUCTION Sibyl Wickersheimer, set; Ann Closs-Farley, costumes; Bosco
Flanagan, lights; John Zalewski, sound; Amber Koehler, stage management
In 'The Women of Lockerbie,' through May 12 at the Actors’ Gang in Culver City, art
and accuracy have settled their differences to bring an extraordinary story to the
stage. Deborah Brevoort’s one-act, real-time drama imagines that important night
seven years after the 1988 downing of PanAm Flight 103 when a simple act of decency
took on epic proportions. With nods to Greek Tragedy, Shakespearean rants on
Scottish heaths and American dramas about the power of the common people,
Brevoort has created a powerful reminder that air disaster victims include more than
the people who fall from the sky. There are also the people who miss them. And, the
people who find them.
In December 1988, the terrorist bombing aboard a New York-bound PanAm flight out of London turned a
Boeing 747 into a meteor shower over Lockerbie, Scotland. Everyone on board and 11 more on the ground
were killed. Most of the 270 victims were American and the majority of those were residents of New York,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The tragedy faded first from the headlines, then from memory. Even the
airline went out of business and disappeared.
In 1999, interest was renewed when two indictments were handed down against Libyan men charged with
the bombing. The interest continued through the subsequent trial that ended with the sentencing of one
defendant in 2002. During that time, Brevoort’s play, which she had spent five years writing, was
introduced with the support of a 2001 Fund for New American Plays grant.
'The Women of Lockerbie' now gives that historical event a timeless source of revival. It is being produced
around the country, but indications are that this is the Southern California premiere. Director Brent Hinkley
(whose acting is currently on display in SCR’s 'My Wandering Boy') infuses the Actors' Gang staging with a
visceral quality.
The play is set in the open space that was the debris field from the wreckage. In the middle of a December
night, the sky and earth merge in the inky darkness. Flashlight beams and distant voices break the stillness
at rise. A man calls out for his wife. She calls back. But it is her son Adam, a passenger on Flight 103
returning from study abroad, whose name she cries. A dozen passengers seated closest to the explosion
disappeared without a trace. Adam was one of these. Without a physical symbol -- even a bone fragment
or jacket button — for closure, Madeline’s extraordinary grief has continued unabated.
Though the entire cast serves Hinkley well, the center of the production is Kate A. Mulligan, who plays
Adam’s mother Madeline. Her wails and contortions are of Greek proportion, a Munch scream come to life.
Mulligan makes a brave choice in pulling out the stops for this characterization and it will unnerve some.
However, she somehow shapes the hysteria and keeps a real person in sight.
Sibyl Wickersheimer’s entire set is a steeply raked hillside of pitch-black plywood. Bosco Flanagan’s spare
lighting and John Zalewski’s beautifully eerie sound design help turn this play set in Scotland into a modern
Scottish Play. Madeline's dazed wandering of the site bears more than passing resemblance to Lady
Macbeth's sleepwalking. The arrival of three women (Mary Eileen O’Donnell, Terri Lynn Harris, Anna
Sommer), who occasionally move in coven choreography, underscores the sense that these kindly
community women have one foot in a mystical otherworld. The women, some with immediate family killed
by the falling jet, are no strangers to grief. Patti Tippo plays a fourth Lockerbie local.
Brevoort has brought Madeline and Bill Livingston (Silas Weir Mitchell) back to Lockerbie on the anniversary
of the crash. This action by the fictional Livingstons coincides with an historical event. Hundreds of local
women, incensed that the U.S. government still had not released the personal belongings of the dead --
including the bloody clothes they had on -- have chosen this seventh anniversary to raise their voices in
protest.
As backdrop to Madeline's hopeless quest, the women confront the U.S. official (Robert Shampain) in
charge of the warehouse. In a case of real-life improvisation, the women come up with a gesture that will
serve the victims, the survivors and the officials. Their real-life demand, which certainly serves the drama
as well, is that they be allowed to perform a service - a humane act of cleansing, and closure.
The Actors' Gang has given Brevoort’s play a fitting entry into Los Angeles. It’s no surprise that the
production has been extended to May 12.
Kate A. Mulligan
PHOTO JEAN-LOUIS DARVILLE
PHOTO JEAN-LOUIS DARVILLE
Greater Tuna
by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard, directed by Mr. Howard
La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts April 13-29 (reviewed 4/14)
WITH Jaston Williams and Joe Sears PRODUCTION Kevin Rupnik, set; Linda Fisher, costumes; Ken
Huncovsky, sound; Root Choyce, lights/stage management
For anyone with a soft spot for the history of American show business and
especially the years of practiced Vaudevillians, the theatrical team of Jaston
Williams and Joe Sears, purveying their shtick in Greater Tuna at the La Mirada
Theatre for the Performing Arts through April 29, will warm the heart as it loosens
the laughs. Legend has it that Greater Tuna began in 1981 when its three creators –
Williams, Sears and director Ed Howard – began ad-libbing on a political cartoon at a
party. In a couple of years they had a long-running Off Broadway hit. The show
would spin off two sequels, merit an HBO taping with Norman Lear directing, and
earn a command performance at the White House and an overseas run.
After more than 25 years, Sears and Williams give no indication that they are running out of gas or need
their timing adjusted. If they are aging further out of the youngest roles, it’s only to slide more gracefully
into the older ones. The quick changes never snag, allowing a seamless flow of 20 odd characters with
names like Arles Struvie, Petey Fisk, Phinas Blye, R.R. Snavely and Thurston Wheelis to introduce another
generation to “the third smallest town in Texas.”
The show roughly follows one day in the life of Greater Tuna as experienced by its most colorful
citizens. From sign-on to sign-off at the local radio station, we eavesdrop on men and women, boys and
girls and the pious and profane.
Every character gets special care to appear both real and real funny. The smaller Williams provides the
most range, playing all the children and a diversity of adults. The larger Sears, however, reveals himself
as a master comedic actor. Most impressive are two matrons who Sears keeps rooted in character. His
Bertha Bumille and Aunt Pearl Burras are all the more hilarious because of the naturalness Sears brings
to them. These are not camp female impersonations or exaggerations like Monty Python's bedraggled
bitties. This is just good acting. A century ago these stage personas would have ranked him with Fields,
Lahr, Wynn, and of course Oliver Hardy, whom he recalls without ever imitating.
In a world now familiar more with the humor of Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy and the gloss of
New Country music, and less with the authentic corn of Hee Haw and Minnie Pearl, this script may seem
a bit dated. It also hints that there will be some bigger pay off from the various storylines that are vaguely
followed during the two-hour, two-act performance. However, it does not add up to more than a lot of
vignettes.
The flirtation with the wholly unfunny world of racism and high school censorship, coming through the
mouths of people we are ready to embrace, makes for some discomfiture. Nevertheless, these two
performers keep it light and funny. They are masters of an important slice of stage comedy. A quarter
century out of the can, this Tuna retains its freshness and Williams and Sears their spot in theater history.
by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard, directed by Mr. Howard
La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts April 13-29 (reviewed 4/14)
WITH Jaston Williams and Joe Sears PRODUCTION Kevin Rupnik, set; Linda Fisher, costumes; Ken
Huncovsky, sound; Root Choyce, lights/stage management
For anyone with a soft spot for the history of American show business and
especially the years of practiced Vaudevillians, the theatrical team of Jaston
Williams and Joe Sears, purveying their shtick in Greater Tuna at the La Mirada
Theatre for the Performing Arts through April 29, will warm the heart as it loosens
the laughs. Legend has it that Greater Tuna began in 1981 when its three creators –
Williams, Sears and director Ed Howard – began ad-libbing on a political cartoon at a
party. In a couple of years they had a long-running Off Broadway hit. The show
would spin off two sequels, merit an HBO taping with Norman Lear directing, and
earn a command performance at the White House and an overseas run.
After more than 25 years, Sears and Williams give no indication that they are running out of gas or need
their timing adjusted. If they are aging further out of the youngest roles, it’s only to slide more gracefully
into the older ones. The quick changes never snag, allowing a seamless flow of 20 odd characters with
names like Arles Struvie, Petey Fisk, Phinas Blye, R.R. Snavely and Thurston Wheelis to introduce another
generation to “the third smallest town in Texas.”
The show roughly follows one day in the life of Greater Tuna as experienced by its most colorful
citizens. From sign-on to sign-off at the local radio station, we eavesdrop on men and women, boys and
girls and the pious and profane.
Every character gets special care to appear both real and real funny. The smaller Williams provides the
most range, playing all the children and a diversity of adults. The larger Sears, however, reveals himself
as a master comedic actor. Most impressive are two matrons who Sears keeps rooted in character. His
Bertha Bumille and Aunt Pearl Burras are all the more hilarious because of the naturalness Sears brings
to them. These are not camp female impersonations or exaggerations like Monty Python's bedraggled
bitties. This is just good acting. A century ago these stage personas would have ranked him with Fields,
Lahr, Wynn, and of course Oliver Hardy, whom he recalls without ever imitating.
In a world now familiar more with the humor of Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy and the gloss of
New Country music, and less with the authentic corn of Hee Haw and Minnie Pearl, this script may seem
a bit dated. It also hints that there will be some bigger pay off from the various storylines that are vaguely
followed during the two-hour, two-act performance. However, it does not add up to more than a lot of
vignettes.
The flirtation with the wholly unfunny world of racism and high school censorship, coming through the
mouths of people we are ready to embrace, makes for some discomfiture. Nevertheless, these two
performers keep it light and funny. They are masters of an important slice of stage comedy. A quarter
century out of the can, this Tuna retains its freshness and Williams and Sears their spot in theater history.
Joe Sears
Jaston Williams (front)
PHOTO BURDETTE PARKS
Jaston Williams (front)
PHOTO BURDETTE PARKS
Assassins
music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman, directed by Cindy Jenkins,
Musical Direction by Andy Mitton
Sight Unseen Theatre Company / at Meta Theatre April 20-May 20 (Reviewed 4/20)
WITH Kyle Nudo, Michael Laurino, Philip D’Amore, Jason Decker, Salvatore Vassallo, Corey Pepper,
Juliana Johnson, Gina Torrecilla, Lance Kramer, James Sheldon, Patrick Seitz, Rachel Payne, Rachel
Jendrezejewski, Joaquin Nunez, and Andy Mitton, keyboards/conductor; Clark Freeman, percussion;
Sheila Gonzalez, winds; Brian Bunker, strings; Daren Burns/Ruben Ramos, bass PRODUCTION Dan
Jenkins/Sam Roberts, set/lights; Valerie Rothenberg, costumes; Ellen Juhlin, sound; Nancy Dobbs Owen,
musical staging; Casey Clark, stage management/fights
The vaporous America dream is often distilled into motivational bromides. They
inspire the best in some and the worst in others. The one that defines this as a
country where anyone can grow up to become President underscores how far removed
from power some feel. In Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s 'Assassins,' in a
Sight Unseen Theatre Company production at L.A.’s Meta Theatre through May 20, the
composer-lyricist and his 'Pacific Overtures' book-writer explore nine lowly
Americans who sought to – and in four cases did – overpower the man who embodied
this aspect of the American dream.
The 60-seat Meta provides an appropriately claustrophobic environment in which to meet Sondheim’s
assassins. The wonderful cast, under brisk direction by Cindy Jenkins and the musical stewardship of
Andy Mitton and Nancy Dobbs Owen, creates two required dimensions: that these be loners and that they
form a strange historical collective. Both chronologically and artistically, the obvious starting point is John
Wilkes Booth (Michael Laurino), the actor who killed Abraham Lincoln in a theater. From Booth to John
Hinkley (Lance Kramer), the actors connect these misfits to their era, to their bizarre motivations and to
each other.
'Assassins' is a black comedy clubhouse the way the Righteous Brothers' "Rock and Roll Heaven" is a Top
40 gathering spot for deceased pop stars. A Balladeer (the outstanding Kyle Nudo) and a "Proprietor"
(Patrick Seitz, prone to mugging) alternate major domo functions to introduce and interact with the would-be
executioners. In addition to Booth and Hinkley there are Charles Giteau (Philip D'Amore), who killed James
A. Garfield; Leon Czolgosz (Jason Decker), who killed William McKinley; Guiseppe Zangara (Salvatore
Vassallo), who attempted to kill FDR, but killed the Mayor of Chicago beside him; Samuel Byck (Corey
Pepper), who plotted to kill Richard Nixon; Sara Jane Moore (Gina Torrecilla) and Lynette Fromme (Juliana
Johnson), who attempted to shoot Gerald Ford; and Lee Harvey Oswald (James Sheldon), who killed JFK.
Ms. Jenkins guides the big musical into the small space so that ensemble numbers fit as comfortably as the
important two-actor scenes. Three of these two-handers are particularly noteworthy. Rachel Payne as
Emma Goldman and Mr. Decker as Czolgosz carve out lovely emotional space for the anarchist author to
innocently encourage her acolyte’s actions, creating that imagined meeting and setting up Hinkley’s similarly
inspired but utterly apolitical shot a century later. Mr. Laurino and Mr. Sheldon also connected beautifully
for the imagined brainwashing of America's last successful assassin by its first. And, the delightful Ms.
Johnson and Ms. Torrecilla provide comic relief without sacrificing their characters’ convictions. (Agent
alert: The program bio says that the Witherspoonesque Ms. Johnson needs representation.) Mr. Kramer's
Hinkley is always engaging, as are the two ensemble players, Rachel Jendrezejewski and Joaquin Nunez.
Only demerits at this performance were in the Gordian knot that tied the canvas strap to Oswald’s rifle
(kudos to Mr. Sheldon for not missing a bead) and the lighting cue for Byck’s second solo scene. Perhaps
the actor missed his spike. If not, there’s just too much shadow from the car door. On the subject of Byck,
Mr. Pepper benefits from comedic gifts, but they occasionally push his character past definition.
Sondheim does not intend to explain the assassination phenomenon as much as lay it out with a unifying
principle of theatricality. As is his wont, his music here has a thematic tie-in, sounding the music of each
historical era. Though such nuance would be better served by a full orchestra, the five musicians on stage
evoke the styles and promote the essential sense of smallness and withdrawal that fits these characters.
Still, as is happily the case with Sondheim, one hears him in his music as well: a hint of Pirelli in "How I
Saved Roosevelt," ensemble cadences from Company or Sweeney in the final "Everybody’s Got the Right."
As is also often the case with Sondheim productions (even the merely average), they will sell out. With
one this good, "just look around," to paraphrase the pop song about fallen leaders, "and it'll be gone."
(For the record, this production returns to the original Broadway song list, omitting the subsequently added
"Something Just Broke," the roundelay of people recalling where they were when they heard JFK had died.
There is also an added in coda from that horrific weekend in 1963.)
ON THE REAL SIDE: Seeing Assassins four days after the worst mass murder on a U.S. campus,
connections were inevitable. During the week, commentators tried to sort out the killer’s personal alienation
and possible motives from the messages – both intentional and inadvertent – that he left behind. Other
commentators – a man on PBS’s NewsHour and a woman at a political rally aired on C-SPAN – leaned this
tragic loss of 32 citizens as a yardstick against the casualty figures from Iraq, where such loss is a daily
occurrence. Was that meant to dilute the grief of Americans across the country? Quite the contrary. It is
to remind Americans of the impact those deaths should be having there and here.
Assassins, the Iraq war, and the campus murders do fit together. Was the student in Virginia not an
assassin? Was he not a suicide bomber? While grieving our loss is essential, devaluing foreign lives and
adopting a lower threshold for senselessness sets the stage for a kind of international alienation. Just as
we need to watch for warning signs that fellow Americans are becoming isolated and misunderstood by
their peers, we must be vigilante, as a nation, for signs that we may be internalizing alienation from the
international theater.
Postscript. After writing about these connections between assassinations and school shootings, I sat
down to a "60 Minutes" lead-off piece about the connection between assassinations and school
shootings. Apparently studies are ongoing that the same forms of alienation that drive Presidential
assassins drive the loners who kill their fellow students.
music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman, directed by Cindy Jenkins,
Musical Direction by Andy Mitton
Sight Unseen Theatre Company / at Meta Theatre April 20-May 20 (Reviewed 4/20)
WITH Kyle Nudo, Michael Laurino, Philip D’Amore, Jason Decker, Salvatore Vassallo, Corey Pepper,
Juliana Johnson, Gina Torrecilla, Lance Kramer, James Sheldon, Patrick Seitz, Rachel Payne, Rachel
Jendrezejewski, Joaquin Nunez, and Andy Mitton, keyboards/conductor; Clark Freeman, percussion;
Sheila Gonzalez, winds; Brian Bunker, strings; Daren Burns/Ruben Ramos, bass PRODUCTION Dan
Jenkins/Sam Roberts, set/lights; Valerie Rothenberg, costumes; Ellen Juhlin, sound; Nancy Dobbs Owen,
musical staging; Casey Clark, stage management/fights
The vaporous America dream is often distilled into motivational bromides. They
inspire the best in some and the worst in others. The one that defines this as a
country where anyone can grow up to become President underscores how far removed
from power some feel. In Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s 'Assassins,' in a
Sight Unseen Theatre Company production at L.A.’s Meta Theatre through May 20, the
composer-lyricist and his 'Pacific Overtures' book-writer explore nine lowly
Americans who sought to – and in four cases did – overpower the man who embodied
this aspect of the American dream.
The 60-seat Meta provides an appropriately claustrophobic environment in which to meet Sondheim’s
assassins. The wonderful cast, under brisk direction by Cindy Jenkins and the musical stewardship of
Andy Mitton and Nancy Dobbs Owen, creates two required dimensions: that these be loners and that they
form a strange historical collective. Both chronologically and artistically, the obvious starting point is John
Wilkes Booth (Michael Laurino), the actor who killed Abraham Lincoln in a theater. From Booth to John
Hinkley (Lance Kramer), the actors connect these misfits to their era, to their bizarre motivations and to
each other.
'Assassins' is a black comedy clubhouse the way the Righteous Brothers' "Rock and Roll Heaven" is a Top
40 gathering spot for deceased pop stars. A Balladeer (the outstanding Kyle Nudo) and a "Proprietor"
(Patrick Seitz, prone to mugging) alternate major domo functions to introduce and interact with the would-be
executioners. In addition to Booth and Hinkley there are Charles Giteau (Philip D'Amore), who killed James
A. Garfield; Leon Czolgosz (Jason Decker), who killed William McKinley; Guiseppe Zangara (Salvatore
Vassallo), who attempted to kill FDR, but killed the Mayor of Chicago beside him; Samuel Byck (Corey
Pepper), who plotted to kill Richard Nixon; Sara Jane Moore (Gina Torrecilla) and Lynette Fromme (Juliana
Johnson), who attempted to shoot Gerald Ford; and Lee Harvey Oswald (James Sheldon), who killed JFK.
Ms. Jenkins guides the big musical into the small space so that ensemble numbers fit as comfortably as the
important two-actor scenes. Three of these two-handers are particularly noteworthy. Rachel Payne as
Emma Goldman and Mr. Decker as Czolgosz carve out lovely emotional space for the anarchist author to
innocently encourage her acolyte’s actions, creating that imagined meeting and setting up Hinkley’s similarly
inspired but utterly apolitical shot a century later. Mr. Laurino and Mr. Sheldon also connected beautifully
for the imagined brainwashing of America's last successful assassin by its first. And, the delightful Ms.
Johnson and Ms. Torrecilla provide comic relief without sacrificing their characters’ convictions. (Agent
alert: The program bio says that the Witherspoonesque Ms. Johnson needs representation.) Mr. Kramer's
Hinkley is always engaging, as are the two ensemble players, Rachel Jendrezejewski and Joaquin Nunez.
Only demerits at this performance were in the Gordian knot that tied the canvas strap to Oswald’s rifle
(kudos to Mr. Sheldon for not missing a bead) and the lighting cue for Byck’s second solo scene. Perhaps
the actor missed his spike. If not, there’s just too much shadow from the car door. On the subject of Byck,
Mr. Pepper benefits from comedic gifts, but they occasionally push his character past definition.
Sondheim does not intend to explain the assassination phenomenon as much as lay it out with a unifying
principle of theatricality. As is his wont, his music here has a thematic tie-in, sounding the music of each
historical era. Though such nuance would be better served by a full orchestra, the five musicians on stage
evoke the styles and promote the essential sense of smallness and withdrawal that fits these characters.
Still, as is happily the case with Sondheim, one hears him in his music as well: a hint of Pirelli in "How I
Saved Roosevelt," ensemble cadences from Company or Sweeney in the final "Everybody’s Got the Right."
As is also often the case with Sondheim productions (even the merely average), they will sell out. With
one this good, "just look around," to paraphrase the pop song about fallen leaders, "and it'll be gone."
(For the record, this production returns to the original Broadway song list, omitting the subsequently added
"Something Just Broke," the roundelay of people recalling where they were when they heard JFK had died.
There is also an added in coda from that horrific weekend in 1963.)
ON THE REAL SIDE: Seeing Assassins four days after the worst mass murder on a U.S. campus,
connections were inevitable. During the week, commentators tried to sort out the killer’s personal alienation
and possible motives from the messages – both intentional and inadvertent – that he left behind. Other
commentators – a man on PBS’s NewsHour and a woman at a political rally aired on C-SPAN – leaned this
tragic loss of 32 citizens as a yardstick against the casualty figures from Iraq, where such loss is a daily
occurrence. Was that meant to dilute the grief of Americans across the country? Quite the contrary. It is
to remind Americans of the impact those deaths should be having there and here.
Assassins, the Iraq war, and the campus murders do fit together. Was the student in Virginia not an
assassin? Was he not a suicide bomber? While grieving our loss is essential, devaluing foreign lives and
adopting a lower threshold for senselessness sets the stage for a kind of international alienation. Just as
we need to watch for warning signs that fellow Americans are becoming isolated and misunderstood by
their peers, we must be vigilante, as a nation, for signs that we may be internalizing alienation from the
international theater.
Postscript. After writing about these connections between assassinations and school shootings, I sat
down to a "60 Minutes" lead-off piece about the connection between assassinations and school
shootings. Apparently studies are ongoing that the same forms of alienation that drive Presidential
assassins drive the loners who kill their fellow students.
Lance Kramer
Juliana Johnson
PHOTO ED KRIEGER
Juliana Johnson
PHOTO ED KRIEGER
System Wonderland
by David Wiener, directed by David Emmes World Premiere
South Coast Repertory • April 20-May 13, 2007 (rev. 4/29)
WITH Shannon Cochran, Robert Desiderio, John Sloan PRODUCTION Myung Hee Cho, sets/costumes;
Lap-Chi Chu, lights; Tom Cavnar, sound; Victor Mouledoux/Chip Tompkins, video; Martin Noyes, fights;
Erin Nelson, stage management. Commissioned by SCR
With echoes of several masterworks, especially the Billy Wilder film with the
similarly metered title, Sunset Boulevard, David Wiener’s new System Wonderland
takes us into rich, if charted, waters. But whether it’s Wiener’s dramaturgy, a
central performance, or both, the journey ends with the feeling that there has been
some drifting along the way.
The three-member cast in South Coast Repertory’s world premiere, directed by David Emmes from a
script commissioned by the theater, must triangulate a story that wants to explore several conflicting
issues: pursuit of artistic integrity in a Hollywood system that eschews it; creative collaboration and
mentoring between characters out to exploit those relationships; and, perhaps most importantly, a love
affair whose protection is paramount despite little evidence of it.
The biggest challenge in all of this falls to Robert Desiderio, who as Oscar® Winner Jerry Wolfe appears
to be Max to the neo-Norma Desmond of Shannon Cochran’s Evelyn Kinkade. But Jerry soon throws off
any yoke of subservience. In fact, after many dry years, he is himself in need of getting back in the
good graces of the studio. After submitting a new treatment to a production exec, he is sent a young
film school grad to help him with his typing. Aaron, played John Sloan, back after his debut in SCR’s
wonderful production of The Retreat from Moscow, has the backstory of Jay Gatsby and the moves of
John Guare's Paul in Six Degrees.
Wiener has given this three-sided story strong legs: reasons that they stay connected yet are propelled
in pursuit of their own interests. Emmes serves him well with pacing and spacing that allow the story to
breath as it powers forward. He also has an appreciation for what makes both the art and business of
filmmaking endlessly fascinating. Still, as Jerry appears more and more to be the key to the balance he
also feels increasingly one-dimensional. Consequently, Wiener's story begins to sink.
Whether it's murkiness in Wiener’s script or a lead actor out of his depth, the character is not navigating
these conflicting demands. And, when the play ends with sacrifice as the only explanation for what has
gone down, we must send our memory back down the play's plotlines to determine was Jerry being
loving or controlling.
In one exchange Jerry is haranguing Aaron about how to read the script. Two or three times he stops
him, each time admonishing him: “No, read the words.” Eventually Aaron satisfies him, but it's doubtful
anyone in the theater, including Aaron, knows what he was after. It's an investment Wiener has made
to show this man’s conflicting side. But he doesn't get the pay-off. All we heard is brow-beating.
We believe his wife loves him, even before she says so. But on three different occasions, when she
shares a memory in hopes of eliciting affection, Jerry does not recall them. In an opening scene that
shows him worried about his appearance for an imminent meeting, he immediately begins bullying the
guest without any interest in him. And finally, though his ego, reputation and perhaps marriage hinge on
getting a script accepted, he sends an inexperienced and potentially untrustworthy proxy off to do his
bidding. All of these conflicting aspects can be sorted out from hints in the script. But it takes some
doing because they're not evident in the playing.
Ultimately, however, the historical marker that buoys this South Coast Repertory premiere may be the
debut not of the writer but of Cochran. A popular actress in Chicago and winner of an Obie for the
sensational Bug a few years back, her only noted Southern California credit is Tina Landau’s Space, at
the Taper in 1999. As she displayed in the reading of this play at the theater’s 2006 Playwrights Festival,
her performance is in touch with her character's core at all times. As if keeping her foot on her third rail,
she stays connected to that submerged source. Not only are her actions always understandable, she
gives Evelyn the full dimension: tragic, hopeful, playful and dangerous. Wiener, Emmes and Desiderio
need to see if Jerry really deserves to live with her.
by David Wiener, directed by David Emmes World Premiere
South Coast Repertory • April 20-May 13, 2007 (rev. 4/29)
WITH Shannon Cochran, Robert Desiderio, John Sloan PRODUCTION Myung Hee Cho, sets/costumes;
Lap-Chi Chu, lights; Tom Cavnar, sound; Victor Mouledoux/Chip Tompkins, video; Martin Noyes, fights;
Erin Nelson, stage management. Commissioned by SCR
With echoes of several masterworks, especially the Billy Wilder film with the
similarly metered title, Sunset Boulevard, David Wiener’s new System Wonderland
takes us into rich, if charted, waters. But whether it’s Wiener’s dramaturgy, a
central performance, or both, the journey ends with the feeling that there has been
some drifting along the way.
The three-member cast in South Coast Repertory’s world premiere, directed by David Emmes from a
script commissioned by the theater, must triangulate a story that wants to explore several conflicting
issues: pursuit of artistic integrity in a Hollywood system that eschews it; creative collaboration and
mentoring between characters out to exploit those relationships; and, perhaps most importantly, a love
affair whose protection is paramount despite little evidence of it.
The biggest challenge in all of this falls to Robert Desiderio, who as Oscar® Winner Jerry Wolfe appears
to be Max to the neo-Norma Desmond of Shannon Cochran’s Evelyn Kinkade. But Jerry soon throws off
any yoke of subservience. In fact, after many dry years, he is himself in need of getting back in the
good graces of the studio. After submitting a new treatment to a production exec, he is sent a young
film school grad to help him with his typing. Aaron, played John Sloan, back after his debut in SCR’s
wonderful production of The Retreat from Moscow, has the backstory of Jay Gatsby and the moves of
John Guare's Paul in Six Degrees.
Wiener has given this three-sided story strong legs: reasons that they stay connected yet are propelled
in pursuit of their own interests. Emmes serves him well with pacing and spacing that allow the story to
breath as it powers forward. He also has an appreciation for what makes both the art and business of
filmmaking endlessly fascinating. Still, as Jerry appears more and more to be the key to the balance he
also feels increasingly one-dimensional. Consequently, Wiener's story begins to sink.
Whether it's murkiness in Wiener’s script or a lead actor out of his depth, the character is not navigating
these conflicting demands. And, when the play ends with sacrifice as the only explanation for what has
gone down, we must send our memory back down the play's plotlines to determine was Jerry being
loving or controlling.
In one exchange Jerry is haranguing Aaron about how to read the script. Two or three times he stops
him, each time admonishing him: “No, read the words.” Eventually Aaron satisfies him, but it's doubtful
anyone in the theater, including Aaron, knows what he was after. It's an investment Wiener has made
to show this man’s conflicting side. But he doesn't get the pay-off. All we heard is brow-beating.
We believe his wife loves him, even before she says so. But on three different occasions, when she
shares a memory in hopes of eliciting affection, Jerry does not recall them. In an opening scene that
shows him worried about his appearance for an imminent meeting, he immediately begins bullying the
guest without any interest in him. And finally, though his ego, reputation and perhaps marriage hinge on
getting a script accepted, he sends an inexperienced and potentially untrustworthy proxy off to do his
bidding. All of these conflicting aspects can be sorted out from hints in the script. But it takes some
doing because they're not evident in the playing.
Ultimately, however, the historical marker that buoys this South Coast Repertory premiere may be the
debut not of the writer but of Cochran. A popular actress in Chicago and winner of an Obie for the
sensational Bug a few years back, her only noted Southern California credit is Tina Landau’s Space, at
the Taper in 1999. As she displayed in the reading of this play at the theater’s 2006 Playwrights Festival,
her performance is in touch with her character's core at all times. As if keeping her foot on her third rail,
she stays connected to that submerged source. Not only are her actions always understandable, she
gives Evelyn the full dimension: tragic, hopeful, playful and dangerous. Wiener, Emmes and Desiderio
need to see if Jerry really deserves to live with her.
Shannon Cochran
PHOTO HENRY DiROCCO
PHOTO HENRY DiROCCO