By Ernest Kearney — I give to you my personal list of the best theatre Los Angeles offered in 2019, with a few swipes at the less of the best….
First off, the production of August Wilson’s Jitney at the Mark Taper Forum. Wilson’s works share a distinction with those of Shakespeare, in that when the plays of either are fortunate enough to be housed in a production of true artistry one finds theatre nirvana, which is what director Ruben Santiago-Hudson and cast provided L.A. audiences with.
The cast —Steven Antony Jones, Francois Battiste, Amari Cheatom, Nija Okoro, Ray Anthony Thomas, Harvy Blanks, Keith Randolph Smith, Brian D. Coats, and Anthony Chisholm returning to the role which earned him a Drama Desk Award and Obie in 2000’s off-Broadway production— performed as keys on a perfectly tuned piano, with Santiago-Hudson assuring not one false note was sounded.
Contributing to this perfect harmony were David Gallo’s set, Jane Cox’s deft light design and Toni-Leslie James’ superlatively unobtrusive costumes.
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In six short years the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts has won L.A.’s appreciation for the work produced and Artistic Director Paul Crewes its respect for his guidance.
This year that appreciation and respect were given further validation: The Old Man and the Old Moon by the PigPen Theatre Company, was an intoxicating entwining of old world folklore, Arabian night tales and the poetic arts of a Celtic seanchaís resulting in an evening of wondrous magic which is the essence of theatre.
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Some twenty-five years ago at the old TiffanyTheatre on Sunset Boulevard, the marvelous Hershey Felder presented his first solo show based on the life of a great composer. Having previously brought Chopin and Beethoven to the Wallis, this year Felder returned again— and again was…well, marvelous.
Hershey Felder: A Paris Love Story, are the reminiscences of his first youthful journey to Paris which are placed as a palimpsest in homage to his favorite composer Achille-Claude Debussy. Directed by Trevor Hay it was perhaps the most enchanting show of the season.
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We have the Wallis to thank for Renée Taylor’s one-woman show, My Life on a Diet. Best known to movie lovers as Eva Braun in Mel Brooks’ The Producers (1968) and to TV viewers as Fran Drescher’s mother on the CBS sitcom The Nanny, Taylor, with her late husband Joseph Bologna, co-wrote the Oscar nominated Lovers and Other Strangers as well as two additional screenplays and 21 more plays.
It was a privilege and a joy to be in the company of the 86 year old Taylor who is a juggernaut of talent as well as a living history of both Broadway and Hollywood, and, personally, I wanted her show to go on longer than its 90 minutes.
Like a week longer. Maybe two.
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The Wallis also deserves thanks for bringing back talented David Mynne, whose one-man presentation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations was one of last year’s high-water mark.
A Christmas Carol, this year’s Dickens offering, was less satisfying but Mynne’s performance was nevertheless amazing to watch.
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The Fountain Theatre, which I regard as one of the jewels in the crown of the L.A. theatre community offered little this year that drew my interest and what did, I’m afraid, I was less than thrilled by.
Idris Goodwin’s play Hype Man, though not without merit, I found weak and I thought the cast, Clarissa Thibeaux, Chad Addison and Matthew Hancock and director Deena Selenow, brought more to the play than the play brought to the stage.
Of course, there was no performance of the Forever Flamenco series that I was not enraptured by. These monthly Juergas of dancers and singers, overseen by Deborah Culver at the Fountain since 1990, I have often heralded as one of the best kept secrets in L.A. and one of its hottest tickets.
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The Long Beach International City Theatre’s production of Arthur Miller’s The Price was a show one should regret if missed.
David Nevell as a man who sees in the wreckage of his father’s life the failure of his own, and Elyse Mirto as the wife who sees her husband’s true worth but is unable to make him believe it, were each outstanding.
In the most Biblical referenced of Miller’s plays, Bo Foxworth’s layered performance as the prodigal son allowed the audience to see that the chains forged by his choices were as heavy as those of his brother.
As the secondhand furniture dealer Mister Solomon, which is the heartbeat of the play, Tony Abatemarco fluctuated adroitly between the Old Testament’s wise Solomon and Faust’s wheeling-dealing Mephistopheles.
I find director John Henry Davis to be rather hit or miss, but with The Price he undeniably knocked one out of the stadium.
DoubleDouble playwright Guy Zimmerman and director Juli Crockett, by a fusion of the 1944 noir classic Double Indemnity with Shakespeare’s Scottish play, successfully brought another artistic chimera to the stage.
Zimmerman and Crockett juggled snippets of dialogue and hints of shared motifs, transforming a trio of Barbara Stanwyck doppelgangers (Henita Telo, Jenny Greer and Isabella Boose) into a Greek Chorus to warn Saughn Buchholz as Walter-Walter of the fate awaiting his Oedipus MacMurray.
From concept to execution, this production had the luster that craft and intelligence brings; sharing in the credit for this are scenic designer Melissa Ficociello and Michael Feldman’s ballads.
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Bill Irwin’s On Beckett was perhaps more lecture than show, but what a subject to lecture on and what a lecturer to hear. Having been a fan of Bill Irwin since his Old Hats and Fool Moon days, what I found so extraordinary in his discourse/performance/dissertation/sermon on the works of the great Irish playwright on the stage at Kirk Douglas Theatre, was Irwin’s ability to delve into those “linguistic non-spaces” Beckett supplies, and weave relevance into those silences found there.
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Playwright Lauren Gunderson is the current “flavor of the month” from the New York theatre scene. I find most of her works “vanilla” at best. But there are a couple of her plays which, while not on the level of “Chocolate Therapy,” come close to “Chunky Monkey” status.
Ada and the Engine is one. It tells the story of the rakish Lord Byron’s daughter, Ada, and her contribution to the development of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, precursor to the modern computer. In their staging, Theatre Unleashed emphasized the play’s strengths while cloaking its weaknesses, resulting in a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging production.
As the two dominant men in Ada’s life —William King-Noel, later Lord Lovelace and the driven Charles Babbage— Gregory Crafts and Alex Knox gave faultless performances. But it was Jessie Sherman in the titular role that captured the audience and herded them on the pathway from the joys of dreams to the price paid for them.
Director Heidi Powers enriched the production by her employment of Denise Barrett’s costumes and use of Kevin Hilton’s animation which shattered the black box’s confines by expanding the vista of ideas.
Less successful, but certainly more frenzied was the Theatre Unleashed production of Never Ever Land by playwright Rider Strong, centering on the allegations against Michael Jackson’s involvement with underaged boys. Director Michael A. Shepperd applied cunning and skill but was only moderately successful in masking the play’s faults. On the other hand, Josh Randall as the “abused” lad’s manipulating father and Leif Gantvoort as the unctuous news commentator after a story turned in exceptional performances.
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As a former puppeteer, I admit I was a sucker for Les Miz And Friends! A Puppet Parody and my hearty guffaws filled the Hudson Theatre on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Nathan Makaryk and Geneviève Flati co-directed their “re-envisioning” of Les Misérables, the much beloved musical based on Victor Hugo’s much renowned classic. The crushing poverty, sexual exploitation, brutal police and civil bloodshed are still there, they just added a ton of puppets and screwed with the songs.
Performer-puppeteers Kelly Rogers, Kevin Garcia, Gabrielle Jackson, Jaycob Hunter, Hailey Tweter and Carter Michael kept the laughter coming, as did Christopher Robert Smith as Javert.
The production was packed with silly puns and dopey jokes, but what came as a total surprise, at least to me, was the quality of the cast’s musical chops. Some credit for this must go to “musical accompaniment, Orchestrator and Arranger” David Norris. Here’s hoping Makaryk and Flati set their satirical sights on another classic of the musical theatre.
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I did manage to see Rogue Machine’s Disposable Necessities in their new space in Santa Monica. Playwright Neil McGowan has conceived a clever work akin to an old “slam-door” comedy where an actor would rush out as one character to re-enter as another seconds later. But, McGowan does away with the “doors” by setting his work in a protean near future when bodies are changed with wardrobe like ease. The device supplies the show with laughs, but also with difficulties. Claire Blackwelder isn’t up to the demands of conveying the persona of an elderly chauvinistic lecher dwelling in young lady with a body worthy of Vargas’ watercolors. Nor does Jefferson Reid have the acting apparatus to conjure the reality of a spoiled white boy deposited into the body a black urban teen; the rest of the cast, Billy Flynn, Darrett Sanders and the always superb Ann Noble, having the benefit of experience turn in stellar performances.
We look forward to what Rogue Machine and Artistic Director John Perrin Flynn have in store for us in 2020.
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The Judas Kiss by British playwright David Hare travels the oft-treaded ground of Oscar Wilde’s disgrace following the infamous trial for libel he foolishly instigated against the father of his young lover Boise.
Director Michael Michetti’s production at The Boston Court was lushly mounted with sets by designer Se Hyun Oh, Dianne K. Graebner’s costumes, and lighting design by David Hernandez, but all the lushness could not conceal the piece’s anemia of dramatic tension.
Some atonement was found in the
performances of Darius De La Cruz as Robbie Rose, Wilde’s most stouthearted
friend and that of Colin Bates as the self-centered Boise.
But it was the sincerity and depth of humanity which Rob Nagle brought to the role of Wilde that served as the most memorable feature of a rather forgettable show.
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The Hollywood Fringe Festival held every June along the strip of Santa Monica Blvd running from Highland Avenue to Vine Street should be a seasonal Mecca for the creative souls of this city and those with any reverence towards the arts. HFF 2019 boasted a total of 405 individual productions and sold over 67,000 tickets.
Here were the standouts for me:
Mil Grus, featured the absurdly inspired clowning of Helene Udy, Grayson Morris, Jeremy Sapp, Jenson Lavellee and Isaac Kessler under Dean Evans’ direction and took TVO’s “Best of the Fringe.” The show, along with its five misshapen blobs of bizarre silliness, just opened in New York.
Theatre Unleashed made their presence felt at the Fringe with Tattered Capes by Gregory Crafts, an intelligent and clever account of the marital woes that befall two caped crusaders. With outstanding performances fromChris Clabaugh, Travis Joe Dixon and Joanna Mercedes, Crafts’ play celebrated the superheroes of our childhood while reverberating with deeper questions regarding the secret identities we use in concealing our true selves from those we love.
Designer Denise Barrett provided the super costumes and Corey Lynn Howe’s direction was more powerful than a locomotive.
With Son of A Bitch, Director Billy Ray Brewton fashioned an American Morality play about, to quote my fellow critic David Narine, “Lee Atwater’s – Republican-Strategist-Liar-Driven-Liar-Brilliant-Liar- Son of a Bitch – rise to power.”
Featuring solid performances by Dennis Gersten as George H.W. Bush, Luke Forbes as “W” and Ben Hethcoat as Atwater, playwright, Lucy Gillespie’s work was a much-needed history lesson.
Another political offering at the Fringe was The Mayor’s Debate of Tranquility, Nebraska, a silly and sinister parable on the American electorate.
A local news broadcaster, Emily Dorsett, hosts a mayoral debate in the American heartland. The candidates include the gay uber-liberal lesbian (Kate Hellen) a Tea-Partier (Lucie Beeby) and the slimy incumbent (Jim Hanna who also penned the script).
The debate goes from glad-handing to backstabbing
with gleeful alacrity and the laughs roar out.
But beneath the chortles, Hanna and
his cast slip a grim warning; that in this nation today, the “amber waves of
grain” are closer to Rod Sterling’s “cornfield.”
Butcher Holler Here We Come written by Casey Wimpee was perhaps the Festival’s most successful immersive piece. The audience is confined in a room dark as pitch, sharing in the fate of five miners trapped beneath the earth. Under the astute direction of Leah Bonvissuto, the voices of the unseen miners, Michael Mason, Isaac Byrne, Adam Belvo, Morrison Keddie and Adam Willson, spin about the audience, webbing them in desperation.
Spencer Green’s twisted take on the anthropomorphic beast fables of Aesop, The Scorpion and the Frog, was riotously engaging. Showcasing the talents of Matthew Leavitt, Christine Sage and Alex Parker it was hands down one of the Fringe’s most thoroughly enjoyable offerings.
Public Domain the Musical, while not perfect, had highpoints that would make your nose bleed. Sam Pasternack (who wrote the book, composed the music, supplied the lyrics and directed) gathered some first-rate performers for this musical ragging of the Disney Corporation’s propensity to squeeze profits from any character in the public domain. Pasternack uses those public domain icons that Disney overlooked: Oedipus (Max Mahle), The Monkey Paw (Max Ash), Rosie the Riveter (Codi Coates) and…er, Potato Mussolini (Ben Cassil). Let it be known, costume designer Ember Everett, rose to the occasion. One of my favorite numbers was Oedipus’ song, “The Way to Become a Hero (is to be at the right place at the right time.) Were there flaws in the production? Of course, but it also had a Potato Mussolini!
Solo shows are the stock in trade for any Fringe and HFF 2019 had some extraordinary ones, with the TVO’s “Best Solo Show (Female) going to Raised By Wolves, a cautionary tale about life among alpha-males and evil step-mothers, written and performed by Marla Black.
TVO’s “Best Solo Show (Male) went to Monica Bauer’s Made For Each Other, an astonishingly tender tale staring John Fico as a man who learns that even those in their flabby fifties are deserving of love.
Cathy Schenkelberg arrived at the Fringe with a double whammy for Scientology; first there was Squeeze My Cans, her harrowing one-woman show about the 20 plus years she spent in the cult of L. Ron Hubbard.
Then there was that show’s musical clone Squeeze My Cabaret, in which Schenkelberg related the same tale but showed that she has a pair of pipes on her that could knock the smug superciliousness off Tom Cruise’s puss at twenty yards.
In HFF 2018 Yokko brought her New York based company Ren Gyo Soh with a Japanese Butoh re-fitting of Euripides, Butoh Medea. This year Yokko turned her efforts on Shakespeare with Hide Your Fires: Butoh Lady Macbeth adapted by Sean Michael Welch and directed by Brian Rhinehart. Both shows were equally entrancing.
Two excellent productions which deserved greater exposure were Clark Wade- A Jazzy Tragedy, written and performed by Esquizito, AKA EP Perez which drew on memories of New Orleans’ Golden Age;
And
Stephen Lang’s Beyond Glory based on the recollections of Medal of Honor winners for which Steve Scott took TVO’s “Best Actor” award.
From Ireland came Drought, poetess-songsmith-performer Kate Radford’s haunting indictment of the toxicity of sexual abuse, which TVO acknowledged as the “Best International Show.”
Her true-life tale of a model being afflicted with alopecia was shared by Jannica Olin in (IM) Perfekt. Olin managed to inspire her audiences and at the same time convulse them with laughter.
With Black Boxing, playwright Matt Ritchey held a funhouse mirror to the very concept of solo shows. Directed by Matthew Martin this raucously funny gem chronicled every pitfall solo shows face. Fittingly, this send-up of a one-man show featured performances by Ritchey and Jim Niedzialkowski.
Finally, I’ll close with one of the most satisfying shows in HFF 2019, Temple Tantrum, written and performed by Nicole Steinwedell. Raised in a right-wing Christian cult, Steinwedell broke free and plunged into a world diametrically different – Hollywood. Steinwedell told her tale with the slashes of vibrancy one expects on a Jackson Pollack canvas.
Steinwedell’s dynamism, like the dissonance of a “perfect storm,” may have dissipated into an ineffable silence, but for director Kimleigh Smith who ably applied orchestration to the tempest, assuring awareness of the work’s import and clarity, for which she took TVO’s “Best Director” honors.
Of course the Fringe had disappointments: Olivia Wilde Does Not Survive the Apocalypse, Princess Magic’s Trash Time Revue, and Lincoln 2020. But these were in a minority.
And the larger L.A. theatre scene had its pratfalls too:
Between Riverside and Crazy, (It won a Pulitzer Prize for drama, just like Enter Madame and Men in White!), Scraps (whose playwright the program told us “never learned to properly write a play.” I buy that.) and The Play That Goes Wrong (which I’m sure would have been much funnier if I hadn’t seen it.)
But these were in a minority as well.
The demands of theatre are arduous, and despite good intentions, dedicated labor and inspired concept, we often fail or falter through our own faults or fate’s callous insensitivity. This is when we should recall the words of Robert Ingersoll:
“…when men and women belong to a profession
that can count Shakespeare in its number,
they should feel nothing but pride.” ¹
And so I say to all my good friends, to all the stagehands, house managers, dancers, marketing directors, composers, ushers, wardrobe supervisors, directors, set designers, choreographers, carpenters, light board operators, set dressers, producers, sound designers, singers, dramaturges, dialogue coaches, box office agents, fight choreographers, company managers, janitors, make-up artists, musicians, spotlight operators, set builders, technical directors, videographers, dressers, prop masters, parking attendants, playwrights, actors, stage managers, wig makers, publicists, scene painters, critics and most importantly to all who make up our theatai, let us join together in 2020 and do what we do best – make magic!
From all of us at thetvolution.com we hope 2020 brings you good fortune, good health and of course, great theatre.
¹ I bet some of you saw that coming.
NOTE: Image features Ryan Melia in “Old Man and the Moon” (PigPen Theatre Co.)
