First: sorry to my readers (if any) for the long recess. I have seen a number of plays and just didn’t get that kick in the pants to write about any of them.
Until now.
If I had a dollar for every missed opportunity in It’s the Housewives I would be able to ignore the current economic crisis. Then I would spend that money on a different show.
But to begin: It’s the Housewives –book by Hope Juber and Ellen Guylas, music by Hope Juber and her husband, Wings guitarist Laurence Juber—is a pop musical about the rise of a celebrated musical trio, The Housewives, made of (you guessed it) housewives, apparently based on a “comedy rock group” Ms. Juber had been involved with at one time. The story is told mostly as a big flashback, as one of the Housewives is recognized by her plumber and is cornered into telling the story of the band. The songs—all numbers performed for one reason or another by the trio—are ‘80s-style pop tunes with lyrics on topics like washing, ironing and childcare.
That said, there are oodles of fun directions this set up could take. You have the opportunity here to poke fun at the wide range of ‘80s pop musical styles. You have the opportunity to talk about the real and true nobility of being a stay-at-home mom. You have the opportunity to talk about how times changed to force middle-class families to abandon the single-earner life. You have the potential to parody any number of rock band break-up stories (a Yoko moves them apart, they all pursue solo careers, the drummer keeps exploding…). Unfortunately none of this is dealt with (apart from two songs—one in the style of Devo and one rap ala the Fresh Prince, easily the two most effective in the show) and what you end up with is two hours and one joke. Discounting rim-shot moments ruminating on cutting-edge targets such as Michael Jackson.
They sing at a PTA meeting, move up to a Laundromat, become famous and along the way have a little personal tension. But there’s no real arc to this story, it just moves in a straight line, giving us nothing to root for or even against. There is an attempt in Act II to bring some danger to their lives, as one of the Housewives is struck by an addiction to All My Children. Which she of course sings about (there are 18 songs in this show. There should have been 10.) but even then the dilemma is woefully weak and the lyrics so dated that even my theatre-going Second—an AMC nut for decades (yes, plural)—didn’t get them.
On top of this, the dialog clangs like ‘70s sit-com reject material, with weak puns based on cleaning product names, and dumb sexual innuendo based on cleaning product names. Not really surprising, I suppose, considering the book writers association with a number of ‘70s sit-coms, according to the long, long bios. The jokes are often set up, delivered and then explained. And the reacted to. The horse is crying mercy through most of this show.
Now, despite this, the three leads—Connie Dekker, Jamey Hood and Jayme Lake—have the talent to make the most of it, aided by a respectable supporting cast of Roger Cruz, Anthony DeSantis, Susan Mullen and (the sadly underused) Jed Alexander. Vince Cefalu is charming and effective as the plumber, out-acting the energetic but posy Terri Homberg-Olsen in the present-day scenes. They all make it just this side of bearable, as often does Kelly Ann Ford’s direction and Kay Cole’s fun choreography.
But this brings me to another big weakness of this show: there is mention of time passing, but no real consideration of it. The housewives gain success, go on tour, cut numerous CDs, get pregnant, have these kids and go on to have their own TV show. But along the way their children and husbands are almost never mentioned (one is a character), and the only time they are is when the women have strollers on stage or babies in their arms. So it seems as if the kids never age—as they are only dealt with repeatedly as infants. This is problem in itself, but for my money another huge hole in the commentary of motherhood: dealing with aging children. Or husbands, for that matter. Likewise, it seems they manage to accomplish all this while still in the ‘80s, as the musical styles don’t ever really change (other than become more generic as the show winds on). Nor really do the costuming or the references. And despite The Housewives enormous success, money and influence, it appears they still go home and do chores and complain about it. (And again: another missed opportunity: couldn’t they have gotten all this fame and fortune only to learn that they missed being “just housewives”? Hardly original, but least then there would be a point.)
A further issue: the sound design was awful. All the women were miked when they sang. Fine. But despite the fact that there were effects used on the voices from time to time, there never seemed to be any consideration of these effects to illuminate where they were singing—the Laundromat sounded the same as the TV show as the stadium tour. Except where there seemed to be something “funny” in an echo or whatever. Further, they were body-miked, but they sometimes had hand-held mikes on stage, only they weren’t practical. So when they walked away from hand-held mikes, they sounded the same…and the guy standing right in front of the same “live” mike two seconds later sounded like he was on a small stage in Sherman Oaks. Likewise, the Housewife telling the story in the present was miked while she talked PART of the time. Maybe there was a new sound man in the booth. In any case: lazy, sloppy sound.
But wait, as the commercial says, there’s more! The night I went started nearly 20-minutes late. The house was about 99% full (it’s amazing what heavy advertising can do, I guess), so by any standard this was insulting to those of us who bothered to show up on time. During the wait a parody of The Who’s landmark Tommy was played, with the lyrics swapped out to be about kids, cleaning products, etc. Quite funny for about 5 minutes, if you bothered to listen. After 10 it was wearing. After 20 you wanted to find Pete Townshend and ask him if he knew and could he please sue them to never do it again. So, basically it was a prefect preface for the evening. I hope they don’t do that every night. It’s cruel.
The final insult for me was the last number in the show, called “(Ain’t No) T.V. Housewife,” where the trio sings about how they’re real people and not those moms you see on T.V. …um…dammit! The things is, for two hours all we saw of these three women was just that: them being shallow, silly, often stupid representations of middle-class moms. Maybe that’s how they’re not T.V. housewives – the ones on T.V. are usually the bright ones in the family.
There were a few real laughs in the show. But even more yawns –and not just from me. It’s a cute idea, really, but a better skit or one-act than full-blown show. So, to borrow a phrasing likely to be found in this show: divorce yourself from “It’s the Housewives”.
Bottom line: C- …because the performers bring the score up.
Til next time!
HDSQ, Jr.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
"Dog Sees God" from Havok Theatre Company at the Hudson Backstage Theatre
Bert V. Royal's "Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead" was first produced in 2004 as part of the New York Fringe Festival, where apparently it was very well received. Then it moved to off-Broadway, where it tanked. Seeing Havok Theatre Company's expensive-looking production here in Los Angeles, my first response is: yeah, I can see that.
It's a clever concept: the "Peanuts" kids spun forward to be angry, confused adolescents, with the Schultz characters' names shifted to initials or nicknames to (mostly) avoid copyright issues. And while there are some lovely moments in the show, ultimately it isn't a play, so much as it is a long, self-aware piece of competent sketch comedy...you know, with "meaningful" parts to make it a Piece of Theatre.
Havok Theatre's production has a lot going for it, not the least of which is an excellent (and gorgeous!) cast, featuring a number of TV/Film up-n'-comers and some really superior "unknowns". Nick DeGruccio's direction is smart and lively, and all the technical elements are rock-solid. All of which is terrific and certainly gets the audiences in. But the thing is, once you get past these elements...you need something to hold you there, that drives your interest forward, but the writing ultimately just isn't there. There's not much plot, rather a lot of character-revealing conversation. All of which is well-written and entertaining enough, but with not much at stake and no real spine to the story it's tough to care. Further, some of the young-adult versions of the original characters simply don't track from their cartoon origins (sorry: Peppermint Patty as a party girl slut? Nope.). And there's another of my pet peeves in evidence, seen in a number of first-time playwright's works: when one character comes out of the closet (and good for him)...we find out that nearly *everyone* in the show is secretly gay! Seriously...? Moments like these when I can see the playwright's personal issues--instead of the play--just annoy me as an audience member. Pulls me right out of the experience. And there's a moment at the end of the play when we find out who "CB"'s pen pal is, which I think is sweet but also left me feeling that it was a (forgive the expression) "royal" cop-out as to why the play's characters aren't *exactly* the "Peanuts" characters.
It's a fun night, all in all, and there's a lot worth liking. But much like the play's title--a cute palindrome that really has little to do with the story--it sets you up for greatness and smarts, but then doesn't satisfy.
Bottom line: B.
Til Next Time!
--HDSQ, Jr.
It's a clever concept: the "Peanuts" kids spun forward to be angry, confused adolescents, with the Schultz characters' names shifted to initials or nicknames to (mostly) avoid copyright issues. And while there are some lovely moments in the show, ultimately it isn't a play, so much as it is a long, self-aware piece of competent sketch comedy...you know, with "meaningful" parts to make it a Piece of Theatre.
Havok Theatre's production has a lot going for it, not the least of which is an excellent (and gorgeous!) cast, featuring a number of TV/Film up-n'-comers and some really superior "unknowns". Nick DeGruccio's direction is smart and lively, and all the technical elements are rock-solid. All of which is terrific and certainly gets the audiences in. But the thing is, once you get past these elements...you need something to hold you there, that drives your interest forward, but the writing ultimately just isn't there. There's not much plot, rather a lot of character-revealing conversation. All of which is well-written and entertaining enough, but with not much at stake and no real spine to the story it's tough to care. Further, some of the young-adult versions of the original characters simply don't track from their cartoon origins (sorry: Peppermint Patty as a party girl slut? Nope.). And there's another of my pet peeves in evidence, seen in a number of first-time playwright's works: when one character comes out of the closet (and good for him)...we find out that nearly *everyone* in the show is secretly gay! Seriously...? Moments like these when I can see the playwright's personal issues--instead of the play--just annoy me as an audience member. Pulls me right out of the experience. And there's a moment at the end of the play when we find out who "CB"'s pen pal is, which I think is sweet but also left me feeling that it was a (forgive the expression) "royal" cop-out as to why the play's characters aren't *exactly* the "Peanuts" characters.
It's a fun night, all in all, and there's a lot worth liking. But much like the play's title--a cute palindrome that really has little to do with the story--it sets you up for greatness and smarts, but then doesn't satisfy.
Bottom line: B.
Til Next Time!
--HDSQ, Jr.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
"Compleat Female Stage Beauty" from Rogue Machine at Theatre/Theater
Jeffery Hatcher's play "Compleat Female Stage Beauty" is the first show produced by fledgling theatre company Rogue Machine, a troupe made up largely of PRT talent who were looking to do their own thing. And as solid as PRT work can be, all I can say is "lucky us!"
Rogue Machine has taken the somewhat ungainly Theatre/Theater space and turned it into an intimate uneven 3/4 thrust. Under the sharp direction of John Perrin Flynn, Hatcher's play of the last days of men playing women's roles during the English Restoration is a riveting look at artists who must change with the times or die. The tight, no-weak-links ensemble is lead by the exceptional Micheal Traynor as Ned Kynaston, the last of the male actors to specialize in playing female roles. I can't imagine an actor alive who doesn't see something of himself in Traynor's Kynaston -- one part star, one part whore, one part expert, and all-parts child forced to grow up. He is both delicate and fierce, much as the women who come to replace him are. But really everyone on stage is pitch-perfect, with special kudos to the foppish, but edgy performance turned in by Jaxon Gwillam as King Charles II. (And may I add *everyone* nailed the British accents--thank you!)
In this particular production the director and design team decided to turn this period piece into a work that is set in its own universe of the 17th Century by way of today's runway. Mostly the costumes look like something out of a "Vogue" shoot, with an emphasis on a 21st-C. retro-high-fashion feel, down-selling to jeans only once our hero has hit bottom. This is a bold choice, which I understood was to make the audience understand that the story is as fresh as this week's "Variety" (and with TV actors losing jobs to movie stars and "reality" "celebrities", and voice over artists losing work to TV stars these days, seems utterly on the money). But even while well-intentioned, I found this a little distracting, as the concept was not quite as solidified as it might have been: is this a look only sported by the rich? And if so, then at what financial point is the look abandoned to a lack of cash-flow, since everyone--no matter what their status--seems to be sporting some version of it most of the time, but not always? But I applaud the bigness and bravery of the choice, whereas so many companies would have done half-assed period clothing.
The show also had a single live musician in back and above the house, who played guitar and recorder during the scene breaks. Her singing and playing were lovely and the pieces appropriate, and I always love live musicians in a theatre setting, but truth be told I found a lone musician too small a sound to really fill the space. Not for volume so much as scale--this piece of theatre seemed larger than any one musician could balance. But this is a minor consideration considering the achievement of this new company in this, their debut production.
They have extended the run two weeks to June 15, by popular demand. I highly recommend you catch these folks while you can.
Bottom line: a solid A.
'Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr
Rogue Machine has taken the somewhat ungainly Theatre/Theater space and turned it into an intimate uneven 3/4 thrust. Under the sharp direction of John Perrin Flynn, Hatcher's play of the last days of men playing women's roles during the English Restoration is a riveting look at artists who must change with the times or die. The tight, no-weak-links ensemble is lead by the exceptional Micheal Traynor as Ned Kynaston, the last of the male actors to specialize in playing female roles. I can't imagine an actor alive who doesn't see something of himself in Traynor's Kynaston -- one part star, one part whore, one part expert, and all-parts child forced to grow up. He is both delicate and fierce, much as the women who come to replace him are. But really everyone on stage is pitch-perfect, with special kudos to the foppish, but edgy performance turned in by Jaxon Gwillam as King Charles II. (And may I add *everyone* nailed the British accents--thank you!)
In this particular production the director and design team decided to turn this period piece into a work that is set in its own universe of the 17th Century by way of today's runway. Mostly the costumes look like something out of a "Vogue" shoot, with an emphasis on a 21st-C. retro-high-fashion feel, down-selling to jeans only once our hero has hit bottom. This is a bold choice, which I understood was to make the audience understand that the story is as fresh as this week's "Variety" (and with TV actors losing jobs to movie stars and "reality" "celebrities", and voice over artists losing work to TV stars these days, seems utterly on the money). But even while well-intentioned, I found this a little distracting, as the concept was not quite as solidified as it might have been: is this a look only sported by the rich? And if so, then at what financial point is the look abandoned to a lack of cash-flow, since everyone--no matter what their status--seems to be sporting some version of it most of the time, but not always? But I applaud the bigness and bravery of the choice, whereas so many companies would have done half-assed period clothing.
The show also had a single live musician in back and above the house, who played guitar and recorder during the scene breaks. Her singing and playing were lovely and the pieces appropriate, and I always love live musicians in a theatre setting, but truth be told I found a lone musician too small a sound to really fill the space. Not for volume so much as scale--this piece of theatre seemed larger than any one musician could balance. But this is a minor consideration considering the achievement of this new company in this, their debut production.
They have extended the run two weeks to June 15, by popular demand. I highly recommend you catch these folks while you can.
Bottom line: a solid A.
'Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
"Safe" at Circus Theatricals
Creepy, disturbing, imperfect, but absolutely affecting.
Chuck Rose's "Twilight Zone"-for-the-Bush-II-years play is a nicely crafted piece of solid science fiction, and as such delivers a social commentary punch to the gut. Set in what the old show "Max Headroom" called "15 minutes in the future", this is a "No Exit" for today: several people--industrialists, Captains of Industry and entertainers--peruse a new, high-tech fallout shelter when the worst happens and they're all locked in by the corporation who designed it, supposedly for their own good.
What comes of this is a somewhat transparent, but nonetheless taut and well-seen allegory of tensions over the neo-con notion of "security": don't ask questions, trust your keepers, sacrifice without thought. Thrown in to this mix through various references and voice-overs (from the little corporate-cleared "news" this poor lot can receive on their TV monitor) is the notion that the corporation who runs this zoo (and possibly others, unseen) is working with the government to bring things back to "normal". Just like Mussolini would have liked. Or the Bush administration.
The play is not without some plot holes, and some of the character arcs you can see coming (and personally I felt that Rose could have been even harder on the fascists running the show). But the superb ensemble and tight direction from Kappy Kilburn manage keep these in the background, maintaining your focus on the action. Only the amateurish sound design reminds you that this is low-tech, small LA theatre. Otherwise, the knot in your stomach as you leave tells you that this is as solid a theatre experience as you get.
Good, bad or indifferent, I would be hard pressed to tell you the last time I left the theater and had such a heated conversation with my theater-going partner. And I'm still digesting this thought-provoking production. Surely there's something to be said for that in Los Angeles!
Bottom line: A-
Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr
Chuck Rose's "Twilight Zone"-for-the-Bush-II-years play is a nicely crafted piece of solid science fiction, and as such delivers a social commentary punch to the gut. Set in what the old show "Max Headroom" called "15 minutes in the future", this is a "No Exit" for today: several people--industrialists, Captains of Industry and entertainers--peruse a new, high-tech fallout shelter when the worst happens and they're all locked in by the corporation who designed it, supposedly for their own good.
What comes of this is a somewhat transparent, but nonetheless taut and well-seen allegory of tensions over the neo-con notion of "security": don't ask questions, trust your keepers, sacrifice without thought. Thrown in to this mix through various references and voice-overs (from the little corporate-cleared "news" this poor lot can receive on their TV monitor) is the notion that the corporation who runs this zoo (and possibly others, unseen) is working with the government to bring things back to "normal". Just like Mussolini would have liked. Or the Bush administration.
The play is not without some plot holes, and some of the character arcs you can see coming (and personally I felt that Rose could have been even harder on the fascists running the show). But the superb ensemble and tight direction from Kappy Kilburn manage keep these in the background, maintaining your focus on the action. Only the amateurish sound design reminds you that this is low-tech, small LA theatre. Otherwise, the knot in your stomach as you leave tells you that this is as solid a theatre experience as you get.
Good, bad or indifferent, I would be hard pressed to tell you the last time I left the theater and had such a heated conversation with my theater-going partner. And I'm still digesting this thought-provoking production. Surely there's something to be said for that in Los Angeles!
Bottom line: A-
Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr
Friday, May 16, 2008
"Proof", produced by Rosalind Productions at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
I have seen many productions of David Auburn's clever and touching play, and from the get-go, I have to say up front that this was my very least favorite.
Now, I know it's not fair to compare one production to another, and that a good critic analyzes a piece on its own merits. So putting aside even the ify workshop version of "Proof" I once saw that still put this expensive production to shame, I will attempt to do just that.
For those of you who don't know the plot of this gem, it's (very basically) the story of a young girl who has just missed out on her college years for single-handedly taking care of her mentally ill mathematics genius of a father. The play jumps back and forth in time, showing moments of their relationship before his death and her attempts to cope with his loss, exposing the possibility that she inherited not only his brilliance but his insanity.
The main character of this drama, Catherine, is repeatedly mentioned to be 25 years-old -- which considering the story's time-line makes sense. She can still go back to school without feeling like she's missed too much time -- a point of some discussion. So perhaps someone can explain to me why the actress cast in this lead role -- Abigail Rose Solomon -- looks, sounds and acts like a 36-year-old soccer mom. It is a CONSTANT distraction. She just doesn't fit. And worse: on the night I saw her she just didn't know how to act. Apart from getting character's names wrong and bobbling lines (the show was weeks into opening, so there really was no excuse), she spat out her lines as if she had utterly no interest in using them to respond to what was being said to her. No stakes (but for the occasional bout of shouting), no connection, no sense of back story, no relish in the wonderfully dry wit of the character. Basically she played one note the whole night: loud. Maybe it was one of those "bad nights" actors can have. REALLY bad. Still, the casting was simply awful here. How did no one notice this?? And then my theatre-going partner noticed this little item in the program: Abigail Rose Solomon is not only the star...she's one of the PRODUCERS of Rosalind Productions, who is renting out the space at the Odyssey to present this play.
So now it's clear: this is a vanity production thrust upon Los Angeles theatre goers!
Moving on:
Ariana Johns as her sister Claire fares little better. Drab, uninspired and devoid of stakes, she wandered around the set seeming to have strayed into the wrong production, like the "actor's nightmare", and stuck on stage now had to make the best of it. And again, casting issues: even if we were to believe that Catherine was actually 25, her sister, as played by Ms. Johns would be close to 15-20 years her senior. I know this can happen in families, but it seemed a poor choice for the show. She ALSO blew lines.
Comparatively, the work of the remaining two cast members -- veteran actor Greg Mullavey and Micah Freedman, as Catherine's father and almost-boyfriend, respectively -- was delightful. Mullavey brought real depth and a quiet center to the man facing his own slow demise, sadly needing to hang on to his daughter for sanity (and his acting chops made up for HIS line flubs). Still, he rarely really connected to the actress playing his daughter (then again, consider what he had to work with.) And Freedman was terrifically sweet, believably nerdy and well-meaning in what is probably the least interestingly written character in the piece -- a case when casting the right actor helps a role bloom. He might be the only actor who didn't stumble on lines that night -- or maybe merely by comparison to the others....
Adam Blumenthal's set was a beautifully-wrought back porch of a not-entirely well-maintained house. Sadly, the back of the set was not well insulated, so you could hear every movement of the cast backstage as the show went on. I noticed there was no sound designer listed, which makes me feel a little bit better about saying that the inter-scene music and sound was sloppy, unproduced sounding, unimaginative and bland. But still...they had the money to build this lovely set but NOT hire a sound designer? They sure could have used one, as the transitions from one scene and time to another felt clunky, awkward and choiceless (a word I feel applies to most of this production): none of the music told us anything about the tone of the show--the tracks were merely placeholders.
I have to say that I am actually quite astonished that this mess was directed by LA favorite Elina DeSantos, whose work I have admired for some time. Perhaps this was the best she could get out of this often amateurish cast. Perhaps she was a gun-for-hire who was paid by the producer/star to take the cast sight-unseen and make them look good. Despite her typically simple, clear staging, even Ms. DeSantos couldn't work that Herculean task.
Bottom line: D+
Till next time!
--HDSQ, Jr.
Now, I know it's not fair to compare one production to another, and that a good critic analyzes a piece on its own merits. So putting aside even the ify workshop version of "Proof" I once saw that still put this expensive production to shame, I will attempt to do just that.
For those of you who don't know the plot of this gem, it's (very basically) the story of a young girl who has just missed out on her college years for single-handedly taking care of her mentally ill mathematics genius of a father. The play jumps back and forth in time, showing moments of their relationship before his death and her attempts to cope with his loss, exposing the possibility that she inherited not only his brilliance but his insanity.
The main character of this drama, Catherine, is repeatedly mentioned to be 25 years-old -- which considering the story's time-line makes sense. She can still go back to school without feeling like she's missed too much time -- a point of some discussion. So perhaps someone can explain to me why the actress cast in this lead role -- Abigail Rose Solomon -- looks, sounds and acts like a 36-year-old soccer mom. It is a CONSTANT distraction. She just doesn't fit. And worse: on the night I saw her she just didn't know how to act. Apart from getting character's names wrong and bobbling lines (the show was weeks into opening, so there really was no excuse), she spat out her lines as if she had utterly no interest in using them to respond to what was being said to her. No stakes (but for the occasional bout of shouting), no connection, no sense of back story, no relish in the wonderfully dry wit of the character. Basically she played one note the whole night: loud. Maybe it was one of those "bad nights" actors can have. REALLY bad. Still, the casting was simply awful here. How did no one notice this?? And then my theatre-going partner noticed this little item in the program: Abigail Rose Solomon is not only the star...she's one of the PRODUCERS of Rosalind Productions, who is renting out the space at the Odyssey to present this play.
So now it's clear: this is a vanity production thrust upon Los Angeles theatre goers!
Moving on:
Ariana Johns as her sister Claire fares little better. Drab, uninspired and devoid of stakes, she wandered around the set seeming to have strayed into the wrong production, like the "actor's nightmare", and stuck on stage now had to make the best of it. And again, casting issues: even if we were to believe that Catherine was actually 25, her sister, as played by Ms. Johns would be close to 15-20 years her senior. I know this can happen in families, but it seemed a poor choice for the show. She ALSO blew lines.
Comparatively, the work of the remaining two cast members -- veteran actor Greg Mullavey and Micah Freedman, as Catherine's father and almost-boyfriend, respectively -- was delightful. Mullavey brought real depth and a quiet center to the man facing his own slow demise, sadly needing to hang on to his daughter for sanity (and his acting chops made up for HIS line flubs). Still, he rarely really connected to the actress playing his daughter (then again, consider what he had to work with.) And Freedman was terrifically sweet, believably nerdy and well-meaning in what is probably the least interestingly written character in the piece -- a case when casting the right actor helps a role bloom. He might be the only actor who didn't stumble on lines that night -- or maybe merely by comparison to the others....
Adam Blumenthal's set was a beautifully-wrought back porch of a not-entirely well-maintained house. Sadly, the back of the set was not well insulated, so you could hear every movement of the cast backstage as the show went on. I noticed there was no sound designer listed, which makes me feel a little bit better about saying that the inter-scene music and sound was sloppy, unproduced sounding, unimaginative and bland. But still...they had the money to build this lovely set but NOT hire a sound designer? They sure could have used one, as the transitions from one scene and time to another felt clunky, awkward and choiceless (a word I feel applies to most of this production): none of the music told us anything about the tone of the show--the tracks were merely placeholders.
I have to say that I am actually quite astonished that this mess was directed by LA favorite Elina DeSantos, whose work I have admired for some time. Perhaps this was the best she could get out of this often amateurish cast. Perhaps she was a gun-for-hire who was paid by the producer/star to take the cast sight-unseen and make them look good. Despite her typically simple, clear staging, even Ms. DeSantos couldn't work that Herculean task.
Bottom line: D+
Till next time!
--HDSQ, Jr.
Friday, May 2, 2008
"The Smartest Man in the World!" from West Coast Jewish Theatre at the Pico Playhouse
When I was a child I really enjoyed musicals. My folks had old cast albums and they would take me to shows, which clearly began an early interest in the stage. My interest in musicals continued well into adulthood, but then at some point it was like a switch got flipped and I stopped wanting to go see them. For a long time I couldn't figure out why. Then one day it hit me: almost nobody seemed capable anymore of making a musical that didn't suck. "The Smartest Man in the World!" is a perfect example of why I soured on musical theatre. That and the over-use of exclamation points in musicals' titles.
The show, in brief, is a look at the (mostly later) life of famed physicist and icon Albert Einstein. So many possibilities. And yet, the mostly superior cast giving their blessed all simply could not make up for the tacky, shallow, silly, one-dimensional book by Russ Alben and John Sparks. Likewise, their excellent voices could not brighten the childish, repetitive, predictable music by Jerry Hart and AWFUL, clunky, trite lyrics by Alben (not aided in the least by the flat arrangements by Gerald Sternbach). Suffice it to say (and just for starters), in this musical world repeating a phrase (lyrical or musical) over and over is what's to pass as clever.
The story, such as it is, is told mostly through the convention of interviews with one reporter from the Jewish Daily Forward as a through-line, plus Einstein's own reminiscences of his life (read: "mostly loves"). You would hope that in putting on a piece of theatre about such an important and famous person--indeed, a giant--would strive to tell us something we didn't know about him: his hidden needs, his dark side, his life goals. Instead what we get is a collection of trivia and a lot about how he liked the ladies. And he didn't like war. Nothing else of any weight. Nothing about his process. Nothing about his actual theories or why they were so important (Can't be done? Go read or see "Copenhagen" or "Insignificance").
Now, maybe some clever direction would help this dog. But no. Herb Isaacs' staging is woefully obvious and flat, and worse: seemingly devoid of helping the actors shape characters. The always excellent Alan Safier puts on a great show as Einstein (German-speaker-taught-English-from-a-Brit accent and all!), but there are times--leg flung over the arm of the chair in which he's sitting--you can't help but wonder if the direction he got from Isaacs was "be eccentric". There are other actors on the stage--clearly competent ones-- who seems to be floundering, DESPERATE to make a character choice, having been given nothing but blocking and a costume. Every scene is played at about the same 60%. Nothing is more important than anything else until the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, and then there's 2 minutes of emoting.
And there were moronic inconsistencies. My favorite: Einstein and his assistant came to the US together. They took their citizenship test together, we are told in the show. Yet Einstein has an accent and she doesn't...until she starts to imitate him. Ugh.
Which leads us to the choreography. Anyone see "Waiting for Guffman"? Picture that. To the point where I actually needed to stifle my giggling. It makes you wonder if the director actually changed the choreography to something he understood. I've seen it happen before.
I just wanted to hug all the performers and say "God, I am SO sorry your talents are being wasted on this." Tragically, I think their performances are the cause of the good press this stinker has gotten, as most critics are not educated enough to be able to look past the big smiles and keen voices to see what's underneath: nothing.
I know musicals are hard to create. Any good theatre experience is. But there was a moment, between "Avenue Q" and "13" where I had real hope for original musicals again (as opposed to this onslaught of based-on-the-movie or collection-of-pop-hits shows we face now). Once again my hopes have been dashed. The producer was standing in the lobby, grinning and looking for complements. I wanted to slug him and demand my time back.
Bottom line: B+ for effort, F for material.
Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr.
The show, in brief, is a look at the (mostly later) life of famed physicist and icon Albert Einstein. So many possibilities. And yet, the mostly superior cast giving their blessed all simply could not make up for the tacky, shallow, silly, one-dimensional book by Russ Alben and John Sparks. Likewise, their excellent voices could not brighten the childish, repetitive, predictable music by Jerry Hart and AWFUL, clunky, trite lyrics by Alben (not aided in the least by the flat arrangements by Gerald Sternbach). Suffice it to say (and just for starters), in this musical world repeating a phrase (lyrical or musical) over and over is what's to pass as clever.
The story, such as it is, is told mostly through the convention of interviews with one reporter from the Jewish Daily Forward as a through-line, plus Einstein's own reminiscences of his life (read: "mostly loves"). You would hope that in putting on a piece of theatre about such an important and famous person--indeed, a giant--would strive to tell us something we didn't know about him: his hidden needs, his dark side, his life goals. Instead what we get is a collection of trivia and a lot about how he liked the ladies. And he didn't like war. Nothing else of any weight. Nothing about his process. Nothing about his actual theories or why they were so important (Can't be done? Go read or see "Copenhagen" or "Insignificance").
Now, maybe some clever direction would help this dog. But no. Herb Isaacs' staging is woefully obvious and flat, and worse: seemingly devoid of helping the actors shape characters. The always excellent Alan Safier puts on a great show as Einstein (German-speaker-taught-English-from-a-Brit accent and all!), but there are times--leg flung over the arm of the chair in which he's sitting--you can't help but wonder if the direction he got from Isaacs was "be eccentric". There are other actors on the stage--clearly competent ones-- who seems to be floundering, DESPERATE to make a character choice, having been given nothing but blocking and a costume. Every scene is played at about the same 60%. Nothing is more important than anything else until the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, and then there's 2 minutes of emoting.
And there were moronic inconsistencies. My favorite: Einstein and his assistant came to the US together. They took their citizenship test together, we are told in the show. Yet Einstein has an accent and she doesn't...until she starts to imitate him. Ugh.
Which leads us to the choreography. Anyone see "Waiting for Guffman"? Picture that. To the point where I actually needed to stifle my giggling. It makes you wonder if the director actually changed the choreography to something he understood. I've seen it happen before.
I just wanted to hug all the performers and say "God, I am SO sorry your talents are being wasted on this." Tragically, I think their performances are the cause of the good press this stinker has gotten, as most critics are not educated enough to be able to look past the big smiles and keen voices to see what's underneath: nothing.
I know musicals are hard to create. Any good theatre experience is. But there was a moment, between "Avenue Q" and "13" where I had real hope for original musicals again (as opposed to this onslaught of based-on-the-movie or collection-of-pop-hits shows we face now). Once again my hopes have been dashed. The producer was standing in the lobby, grinning and looking for complements. I wanted to slug him and demand my time back.
Bottom line: B+ for effort, F for material.
Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
"The Full Monty" at Theatre Theater
...or to be accurate: as co-produced by Theatre 7 and Mercury Theatre Productions.
Let me come out and say from the get-go that I really love David Yazbek's work in general, so I was already well inclined to love this show, as I loved the original British film about a bunch of out of work men in an industrial town who band together to make money doing one night of see-all stripping and end up changing their lives in really positive ways.
Which is why I am so torn about this production.
Without banging the drum, it basically came off to me like really solid community theatre: all the energy and earnestness(and all the obvious self-appreciation) a group of humans can harness, but not all the talent necessary to tell a story on a stage.
Let me start with the stuff I liked: Lauren Blair's choreography was simply terrific. Deceptively simple, but really effective, and it always seemed to fit in with the characters. And some of the performances were great fun. In spots. Which describes the show as a whole: pretty much everyone had their moments. And the band was tight, if poorly mixed.
But what really sunk this production was Kristie Rutledge's utterly inadequate direction. Her staging of the action was good, but she--like so many directors of musicals--seem to think that that's all you need: tell the actors where to stand. What they forget is that ultimately the ONLY thing the audience wants to care about is the characters. The cast of this production all seem to be in different shows. Some were talking out to the audience with every line, some were performing for a camera, some were performing for a 800-seat house. But few of them were doing anything approaching playing the scenes they were in. They were playing emotions, they were playing moments, they were playing jokes. But none of them were actually attached to the story--the single most important job of the director. So there were lots of wonderful moments, but without being integrated emotionally into the story there was no story arc and the result is that the moments in between the great moments were all pretty painful to watch.
Add to this the lesser sin of Bill Wolfe's not nearly as poor--but problematically very similar--musical direction. A couple of the lead actors just couldn't sing their roles effectively. And by this I mean they either didn't have the voices or they didn't cover their inability to sing with stronger acting choices. A really good music director knows how to get those almost-singers to the place where what you THINK you're hearing is great singing, when in fact it's really just great performing. (Rex Harrison is the uber-obvious example of this.) Like with the rest of the show, there are moments when the singing just clicks and all of a sudden it's BANG! POW! exciting. But then the rest of the show takes over and you're back to mediocreville. And sadly that's MOST of the show.
The technical elements here all worked well: lighting by Chris Singelton, costumes and set by committee (I guess, since there was no credits I could find) all worked quite well, which for better or worse did not distract from the cast.
The story is such fun, the music and lyrics just NEAT, and they certainly came at it with great energy, so it was hard to not be at least entertained. But all-in-all it was a cotton-candy night. In other words: simply not a full enough Monty.
Bottom line: B- (A- for effort, C for execution).
'Til next time!
--HDSQ
Let me come out and say from the get-go that I really love David Yazbek's work in general, so I was already well inclined to love this show, as I loved the original British film about a bunch of out of work men in an industrial town who band together to make money doing one night of see-all stripping and end up changing their lives in really positive ways.
Which is why I am so torn about this production.
Without banging the drum, it basically came off to me like really solid community theatre: all the energy and earnestness(and all the obvious self-appreciation) a group of humans can harness, but not all the talent necessary to tell a story on a stage.
Let me start with the stuff I liked: Lauren Blair's choreography was simply terrific. Deceptively simple, but really effective, and it always seemed to fit in with the characters. And some of the performances were great fun. In spots. Which describes the show as a whole: pretty much everyone had their moments. And the band was tight, if poorly mixed.
But what really sunk this production was Kristie Rutledge's utterly inadequate direction. Her staging of the action was good, but she--like so many directors of musicals--seem to think that that's all you need: tell the actors where to stand. What they forget is that ultimately the ONLY thing the audience wants to care about is the characters. The cast of this production all seem to be in different shows. Some were talking out to the audience with every line, some were performing for a camera, some were performing for a 800-seat house. But few of them were doing anything approaching playing the scenes they were in. They were playing emotions, they were playing moments, they were playing jokes. But none of them were actually attached to the story--the single most important job of the director. So there were lots of wonderful moments, but without being integrated emotionally into the story there was no story arc and the result is that the moments in between the great moments were all pretty painful to watch.
Add to this the lesser sin of Bill Wolfe's not nearly as poor--but problematically very similar--musical direction. A couple of the lead actors just couldn't sing their roles effectively. And by this I mean they either didn't have the voices or they didn't cover their inability to sing with stronger acting choices. A really good music director knows how to get those almost-singers to the place where what you THINK you're hearing is great singing, when in fact it's really just great performing. (Rex Harrison is the uber-obvious example of this.) Like with the rest of the show, there are moments when the singing just clicks and all of a sudden it's BANG! POW! exciting. But then the rest of the show takes over and you're back to mediocreville. And sadly that's MOST of the show.
The technical elements here all worked well: lighting by Chris Singelton, costumes and set by committee (I guess, since there was no credits I could find) all worked quite well, which for better or worse did not distract from the cast.
The story is such fun, the music and lyrics just NEAT, and they certainly came at it with great energy, so it was hard to not be at least entertained. But all-in-all it was a cotton-candy night. In other words: simply not a full enough Monty.
Bottom line: B- (A- for effort, C for execution).
'Til next time!
--HDSQ
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
"Love Loves a Pornographer" at Circle X
I'm not sure what is more offensive to me as an active theatre-goer in Los Angeles: the fact that this play is intolerable tripe or the fact that it is *exactly* the specific kind of pseudo-intellectual crap that LA critics adore.
But let's start from the top: as produced at the lovely Inside the Ford space, it is a show that is lovely to look at. From the moment you walk in there are literally wall-to-wall reproductions of 19th-Century paintings all over the house -- both the one where the audience sits and the one as created on stage: a lovely old English manse of that era. It is a lovely touch, and the set with its details and a scrim for a back wall, enabling you to look out onto the upstage drop of an expansive lawn, are impressive. Or at least expensive-looking. So upon entering you think "OK--good production values. Good start."
But then the play begins...and basically if you have a respectable college education you're screwed. "Love Loves a Pornographer" by Circle-X regular Jeff Goode is set in the 19th century in the home of (what else do weak writers write about?) a writer-- here, receiving his neighbors as guests--but the writer has a proposition for his guest, a highly-placed literary critic. What follows is roughly 45 minutes of sheer boredom as Mr. Goode rolls out a painfully tedious and woefully over-written exposition, which is finally broken by the arrival of the rest of the cast. Which is as good a time as any to mention that I actually really enjoyed the performances in this piece, with the exception of Jim Azide as the uptight LONDON TIMES critic Reverend Miles Monger, whose shrill, one-note queen-on-a-bitchfest performance felt incredibly out of place as the (straight) sexual aggressor he ends up to be.
And this really gets to the heart of my problem with this play, at least as directed by Jillian Armenante: on the surface everything seems pretty and well-accomplished, but once the surface is just barely scratched you realize quickly that very little here makes sense. There's lots of oh-so-witty banter in an Oscar Wilde fashion, but Mr Goode seems to demand we see how witty it is by adding ENDLESS, cloying alliteration whenever possible. From every character. In just about every scene. Also, there are a few words I noticed that he used incorrectly. At one point, for example, the youngest character refers to something as "frippery", offending the others, causing her to repeat it over and over in order to cause more offense, the implication being that it is a word she chose because of its indecency. Go look up the word, meaning "a shallow display, especially in dress" and you'll see that it is not--nor has it ever been--an offensive word. Not even in the Victorian Era.
Further, the writer throws in a lot of jokes he clearly felt were very smart. The cast wisely flying through some of them as to make sure we didn't really notice how poor they were, landing on the few that work and were deserving of a laugh in this "comedy" of manners (incorrectly called by some critics a "parody of drawing-room comedies"). All in all I just felt Mr Goode must have written this play in a state of pique after someone called him "a dummy", desperate to prove Them wrong. Sadly, I think they might have been more on the mark than he would prefer, if this play is an example.
Moving on, there's much ado made of the daughter's American fiance having brought some home-land tobacco to the house, which they all dig into with relish, claiming that it is something new and exciting. Only on planet Earth, it isn't -- the British had been importing the stuff for close to 200 years at the time this play is set. All you need to do is look at a few Hogarth prints from 100 years before to know that it wasn't "new" to the English. Likewise, there's a lot of needless blocking around the lighting of the electric table lamps as the day -- and the play -- moves on. No dialog -- just blocking. Which then begs the question: was it in the script? And this question: was the electric lamp this common in a household at this time (I believe it was not until several decades later)? And THIS question: as this rigmarole with the lights begins after tea time (always 4p, as is the tradition) late in a play performed in real-time, and everyone is dressed for Spring (as the backdrop also tells us it is), why is the freaking sun going down so early in a country so far north of the equator?????
This might seem like needless nit-picking on my part, but it is not: in a piece in which the time and place are clearly so crucial it goes to show an utter lack of respect for the audience. The poor word-choices, the poor research -- it all says that the director and possibly the writer are claiming "none of this matters -- it's just a play!" But in doing so, it is nothing short of a slap in the face of an educated audience.
The rest of it, in which we are lead to see that porn is harmless, prurient fun--especially when compared to real-life, hypocritical manipulation of human feelings--made me feel that that was a WHOLE lot of time spent to tell me that the world is round. Or in other words: a lot of frippery.
Bottom line: C for effort.
Til next time,
--HDSQ, Jr
But let's start from the top: as produced at the lovely Inside the Ford space, it is a show that is lovely to look at. From the moment you walk in there are literally wall-to-wall reproductions of 19th-Century paintings all over the house -- both the one where the audience sits and the one as created on stage: a lovely old English manse of that era. It is a lovely touch, and the set with its details and a scrim for a back wall, enabling you to look out onto the upstage drop of an expansive lawn, are impressive. Or at least expensive-looking. So upon entering you think "OK--good production values. Good start."
But then the play begins...and basically if you have a respectable college education you're screwed. "Love Loves a Pornographer" by Circle-X regular Jeff Goode is set in the 19th century in the home of (what else do weak writers write about?) a writer-- here, receiving his neighbors as guests--but the writer has a proposition for his guest, a highly-placed literary critic. What follows is roughly 45 minutes of sheer boredom as Mr. Goode rolls out a painfully tedious and woefully over-written exposition, which is finally broken by the arrival of the rest of the cast. Which is as good a time as any to mention that I actually really enjoyed the performances in this piece, with the exception of Jim Azide as the uptight LONDON TIMES critic Reverend Miles Monger, whose shrill, one-note queen-on-a-bitchfest performance felt incredibly out of place as the (straight) sexual aggressor he ends up to be.
And this really gets to the heart of my problem with this play, at least as directed by Jillian Armenante: on the surface everything seems pretty and well-accomplished, but once the surface is just barely scratched you realize quickly that very little here makes sense. There's lots of oh-so-witty banter in an Oscar Wilde fashion, but Mr Goode seems to demand we see how witty it is by adding ENDLESS, cloying alliteration whenever possible. From every character. In just about every scene. Also, there are a few words I noticed that he used incorrectly. At one point, for example, the youngest character refers to something as "frippery", offending the others, causing her to repeat it over and over in order to cause more offense, the implication being that it is a word she chose because of its indecency. Go look up the word, meaning "a shallow display, especially in dress" and you'll see that it is not--nor has it ever been--an offensive word. Not even in the Victorian Era.
Further, the writer throws in a lot of jokes he clearly felt were very smart. The cast wisely flying through some of them as to make sure we didn't really notice how poor they were, landing on the few that work and were deserving of a laugh in this "comedy" of manners (incorrectly called by some critics a "parody of drawing-room comedies"). All in all I just felt Mr Goode must have written this play in a state of pique after someone called him "a dummy", desperate to prove Them wrong. Sadly, I think they might have been more on the mark than he would prefer, if this play is an example.
Moving on, there's much ado made of the daughter's American fiance having brought some home-land tobacco to the house, which they all dig into with relish, claiming that it is something new and exciting. Only on planet Earth, it isn't -- the British had been importing the stuff for close to 200 years at the time this play is set. All you need to do is look at a few Hogarth prints from 100 years before to know that it wasn't "new" to the English. Likewise, there's a lot of needless blocking around the lighting of the electric table lamps as the day -- and the play -- moves on. No dialog -- just blocking. Which then begs the question: was it in the script? And this question: was the electric lamp this common in a household at this time (I believe it was not until several decades later)? And THIS question: as this rigmarole with the lights begins after tea time (always 4p, as is the tradition) late in a play performed in real-time, and everyone is dressed for Spring (as the backdrop also tells us it is), why is the freaking sun going down so early in a country so far north of the equator?????
This might seem like needless nit-picking on my part, but it is not: in a piece in which the time and place are clearly so crucial it goes to show an utter lack of respect for the audience. The poor word-choices, the poor research -- it all says that the director and possibly the writer are claiming "none of this matters -- it's just a play!" But in doing so, it is nothing short of a slap in the face of an educated audience.
The rest of it, in which we are lead to see that porn is harmless, prurient fun--especially when compared to real-life, hypocritical manipulation of human feelings--made me feel that that was a WHOLE lot of time spent to tell me that the world is round. Or in other words: a lot of frippery.
Bottom line: C for effort.
Til next time,
--HDSQ, Jr
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