"Anything" at Elephant Stage Works

Wonderful, but clumsy.

You walk in to the sizable Elephant Stage Works mainstage and you see this beautifully wrought set: a kitchen and living room with a window upstage, a wall with what is clearly someone else's bedroom behind it, and the living room of the guys *upstairs* fer Pete's sake! There's also a skylight gobo projecting downwards and lots of faux exposed brick. Done with lots of love, I thought....

The play starts and you see some wonderful acting. Playwright Timothy McNeil plays the lead--Early, this nice man from the south who has moved to LA to get a new start and is clearly a little haunted. Louis Jacobs is his drag-queen next door neighbor, Frieda. Mim Drew is Early's dominating, pushy sister trying to get him set up (her husband and son also well played in one scene by David Franco and Jeremy Glazer, respectively). It's all rock-solid and you feel very much like you're watching through that forth wall into their lives. Lovely!

And then you start to think.... Where is that skylight if they have upstairs neighbors? And the upstairs neighbors are musicians whose only job is clearly to cover some short costume changes, and as such add nothing and to some degree become a distraction (are these guys in the script or was this a director's concept?). And where's the bedroom in this realistic apartment? (We see the one next door, after all). And that post that is supposed to separate the kitchen and dining room...isn't that supposed to be a wall?? Why are they walking through it and not using the doorway they built???

And if you're going to use practical lighting on stage...why are you using interior light cues to tell us how we should feel about the scene??

You're left with the question did the set and lighting designer actually read the play before the designer for it???? It just seemed so...oddly sloppy! And worse: NOW I'm thinking about THIS stuff instead of paying attention to the play!!

An otherwise terrific, emotionally absorbing piece of theatre. One of the best-acted I've seen in LA this year, if a little over-written in spots--so why the sabotage when they clearly have the budget to do better? Weird choice but still worth seeing.

Bottom line: B+

Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr.