bY jOHN fARRELL

(1) Private Lives @ International City Theatre (2) Space Trek @ All American Melodrama Theater (3) Gilbert and Sullivan's “Yeoman of the Guard” @ Sierra Madre Playhouse

By John Farrell

“Private Lives” is as much Noel Coward as you can get in one package, full of his dry, brittle and sometimes misogynistic wit and as bitingly satyric as it was when it premiered in 1930 in London with Coward and Gertrude Lawrence as, repetitively, Elyot Chase and Amanda Prynne, the long-divorced couple who inadvertently meet when they both are on honeymoons with new spouses, and, against common sense but very much for comedy, fall in love all over again.

Elyot is Freddie Douglas, who is terrifically good looking and speaks every Coward line like he wrote it himself, with a clarity that make remarks like “some women need to be struck regularly, like gongs” every bit as humorous today as 80 years ago (if a little less politically correct.) Caroline Kinsolving is Amanda and, at least on opening night, she sometimes hurried her lines a little.

The other halves of these two couples, Sibyl Chase (played by the lovely Jennice Butler) and Victor Prynne (played with a very stiff upper lip by Adam J. Smith,) serve only as people to react to Amanda and Elyot.

The sets are simple but very spectacular, by Kurt Boetcher, and the ladies' gown are elegant, though costume designer Kim DeShazo makes more of the women than the everyday boring clothes of the men. Luke Yankee directs with a sure hand.

Tickets are $37 Thursday, $44 Friday-Sunday. “Private Lives” plays through September 18.
What: Play by Noel Coward, directed by Luke Yankee, presented by International City Theatre
Where: Center Theatre, 300 East Ocean Blvd., Long Beach
When: Tomorrow at 8 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. Through September 18.
Details: (562) 436-4610; www.internationalcitytheatre.org,
Venue: International City Theatre
Location: Centre Theatre, 300 East Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

How often (if ever) have you had a Vulcan with huge ears and a logical demeanor serve you chili? (Probably never, we'd bet.)

How often have you personally been teased by any Star Fleet officer. Probably the same.

Go to the All American Musical Hall in Seaport Village, Long Beach this weekend and that is just some of the fun you'll have with “Space Trek,” the ridiculously and ridiculously entertaining “melodrama” written by Ken Parks (who not incidentally stars at Captain Smirk,) with a cast that doubles as the servers during intermissions.

You'll cheer the hero, sigh for the one young lovely and boo the villain, and, because All American is a small theater (less than 100 seats if every table is full) everything is less than 20 feet from you, and mistakes (like Mr. Smock's ear falling off in mid-scene) go with the territory and you see them at once.

This is the last weekend for “Space Trek.” Starting September 16 through November 6 is “Snooty and the Beast” and then a Christmas show. Seaport Village is small enough to retain its local charm, and the All American Melodrama is just part of the show.

Tickets are $20 20, $18 for seniors, military and students, $12 for children 12 and under. Validated 2 hour parking is $1. Performances are Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 7:30 p.m. “Space Trek” plays this weekend only, “Snooty and the Beast” starts next weekend.
Details: (562) 495-5900; www.allamericanmelodrama.com
Venue: All American Melodrama Theater
Location: 429 Shoreline Village Drive, Long Beach

Gilbert and Sullivan's “Yeoman of the Guard” is considered by many the best of their works, a comedy with a dark side that tells of the hurried marriage of a man under sentence of death and his eventual reprieve, which leaves the comedy's comic jester to commit suicide at the play's end, while everyone else is (more-or-less) happily married. You can see it through September 24 at the charming Sierra Madre Playhouse, and maybe you'll want to some back for some of the series of events in the Playhouse's Head over Heels for Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, which includes performances of other music of Gilbert and Sullivan tonight and on two other evenings, and a staged reading of Gilbert's play “Engaged” this Sunday.

“Yeomen” is played with some skill by the cast, especially Luis Marez Ordaz as the Tower jailor Wilfred Shadbolt and Joseph Garate as Colonel Fairfax, condemned to die and willing to marry just to frustrate his uncle's intention to steal his inheritance. Others are not so good vocally, but director Eugene J. Hutchins used the theatrical space with great ideas, and the entire play, uncut, is presented.

Tickets are $25. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m. through September 24. Other performances, including one this evening, are shown on their web-site.
Details: (626) 355-4318; www.sierramadreplayhouse.org
Venue: Sierra Madre Playhouse
Address: 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre

 

(1) The Underpants @ LB Playhouse (2) Tryst @ Little Fish Theatre (3) Private Lives @ International City Theatre

By John Farrell

A hundred years ago, in very bourgeois pre-war Germany, a young and attractive women lost control of her very secret underwear while watching the Kaiser go by in a parade. The unexpected results were hilarious then, in a not-well-known play (in English, anyway) by German Expressionist Carl Sternheim, “Die Hose,”and even more so in the 2002 adaptation of that play by Steve Martin, “The Underpants,” bringing laughs and a little education in gender politics, then and now, to the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre through September 10.

The play stars Maranda Barskey, in her Playhouse debut, as Louise, the young wife whose slight indiscretion causes all the furor, and Mitchell Nunn as Theo, her oh-so-proper older husband whose career as a German civil servant may be wrecked by this innocent accident. No one noticed, Louise says, but apparently plenty of men did, including Klinglehoff (John Gilbert,” Versati (Brian Rohan) and Cohen (Jeff Asch in a hilarious role: he's not really Jewish.) Jane Nunn as Gertrude wants the kinds of attention the beautiful and innocent Louise is getting, and even the Kaiser (Steven Biggs) noticed.

Louise is confused by all this attention, especially as she was discretion itself when the accident happened. Back a century ago a “glimpse of stocking was something shocking,” and if nowadays even concert pianists can appear in high heels and orange mini-dresses, it's interesting, and a lot of fun, seeing how folks lived back then.

Tickets are $24, $21 for seniors, $14 for students and children. Performances Thursday, August 25, Friday, August 26 and Saturday, August 27 at 8 p.m., Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through September 10.
Venue: Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre
Address: 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach
Information: (562) 494-1014 or visit www.lbplayhouse.org.

You've got three more nights to see “Tryst,” Karoline Leach's brilliant little two-actor comedy thriller that features more than a few surprises in its brief, highly enjoyable story of love and greed and gentility set in early 20th century London, starring Margaret Schugt and Bill Wolski, directed by Holly Baker-Kreiswirth. Originally set to close tonight, the play has been extended for an extra week because of popular demand. Be part of that demand and you won't be disappointed.

“Tryst” is about George Love ( Wolski, and that may not, in fact almost certainly isn't his real name) and Adelaide Pinchin, a loveless milliners assistant whom George spies one day in her shop and gets to know in a very brief time. George tells us all about himself: he makes his living by marrying woman who have a little money and no hopes of any man in their lives, gives them a one-night fling and steals what money they have when he leaves them the next morning.

George is a cad, of course, but a very presentable one with clothes cut by the Prince of Wales tailor and all the manners it takes to seduce a lonely woman, and Wolski makes him dashingly handsome. Schugt is the perfect victim: a little fat, a lot lonely, and with a fifty pound inheritance which George will take. But she is also a woman with dreams, with ideas and ambitions, and these get in the way of his plans, derail and confuse them. What happens in the cheap hotel room they take for their wedding night, smelling of Adelaide's rose perfume, is surprising and unexpected, as these two actors take the measure of each other over a night-long game of Russian 21. Go see it if you are thinking of getting married, if you are married, or maybe if you have so far avoided it. You'll love the performances, and guaranteed, you'll be surprised.

Tickets are $18. Performances are Thursday, July 25 at 8 p.m., Wednesday, July 31 and Thursday, September 1 at 8 p.m.
Venue: Little Fish Theatre
Address: 777 Centre St., San Pedro
Information: (310) 512-6030 or visit www.littlefishtheatre.org

International City Theatre opens its production of Noel Coward's classic “Private Lives” this week in Long Beach with Freddy Douglas as Elyot, Caroline Kinsolving as Amanda, Jennice Butler as Sibyl, Adam J. Smith as Victor and Wendy Cutler as Louise. The play, which is directed by Luke Yankee, tells the story of Elyot and Amanda, wed and divorced and wed again to others, who find themselves in adjoining rooms on their respective second honeymoons.

Tickets are $44, $37 for Thursday nights, $55 for Friday's opening night. A preview performance, tickets $29, is set for Thursday, August 25. Friday, August 26 at 8 p.m. is opening night, Saturday, August 27 at 8 p.m., Sunday, August 28 at 2 p.m., Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. through September 18.
Venue: International City Theatre
Address: Center Theatre, 300 East Ocean Blvd., Long Beach
Information: (562)b436-4610 or visit www.InternationalCityTheatre.org.

 

(1) A Southern Exposure @ Little Fish Theatre (2) Corpus Christi @ Garage Theatre (3) A Funny Thing Happened... @ LB Playhouse (4) Gilbert and Sullivan Review @ Warner Grand Theatre

By John Farrell

“A Southern Exposure,” which opened at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro last Friday, proved to be a pleasant, well acted but not very substantial look at southern life in Kentucky, circa 1996. It's hard to believe that in the modern south, not the south of Tennessee Williams but of Ted Turner you could find a reasonably informed family with a college-educated daughter which didn't know what “Gay” meant, had never heard of a Jew and had no clue what a vegetarian was.

Once you get past those problems (and they are minor, after all, and used for comic effect) the play tells the unsurprising story of the extremely attractive daughter of the family, Callie Belle (Kalie Quinones, who has blossomed in several plays at Little Fish) as she leaves the grandmother and aunts that have raised her for a life with a boyfriend in, gasp, New York City. There's plenty to like in “A Southern Exposure,” as long as you don't take it as a portrait of the real South, but it has nothing profound to say.

Tickets are $25, $22 for students and seniors. The play runs Friday, August 12 and Saturday, August 13 at 8 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through September 10 with extra performances Sunday, August 28 at 7 p.m. and Thursday, September 8 at 8 p.m.
Venue: Little Fish Theatre
Address: 777 Centre ST., San Pedro
Information: (310) 512-6030 or visit www.littlefishtheatre.org

“Corpus Christi” is playwright Terence McNally's attempt to put the story of Jesus and his disciples into a modern Gay context, and the play, running at Long Beach's Garage Theatre, makes you wonder what all the fuss at other theaters is all about. There has been plenty of sharp criticism from the Catholic Church and other religious groups, and the play has been banned more than once.

True, Joshua and his disciple are all gay. But then they tell you, at the play's start, that they are actually gay men (from Corpus Christi, Texas, itself a pun of sorts) and the story takes place in a theater that has hardly a fixture that suggests reality.

Joshua is born in a motel, his mother is a virgin but not much more, but Joshua overcomes hatred, gives unconditional love and is more like the Savior some believe in than is comfortable for many modern religious groups. Go see for yourself: Maybe you'll be offended, maybe you'll come away moved and thoughtful. In either case you'll see an exciting act of theater.

Tickets are $18, $15 for students and seniors. Performances are tonight, Friday, August 12 and Saturday, August 13 at 8 p.m., Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through August 27. Two for one tickets are available for Thursday performances.
Venue: Garage Theatre
Address: 251 East Seventh St., Long Beach
Information: (866) 811-4111 or visit www.thegaragetheatre.org

The first real musical in 17 years premiered recently at the Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage theatre, and the lively “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” is the perfect vehicle to return musical comedy to that venue.

The Stephen Sondheim musical stars Scott K. Ratner as Pseudolus, the slave who dreams of freedom, and features a large cast of very enthusiastic actors. The score is played by pianist Bill Wolfe, the play's music director, right on stage. The work, under Director Michael Ross, manages to use the rather awkward venue to advantage. You'll love all the mad-cap entrances and exits, and forgive the sometimes less-than-perfect singing.

Tickets are $24, $21 for seniors, $14 for students and children. Performances are Friday, August 12 at 8 p.m., Saturday, August 13 at 8 p.m., Sunday, August 14 at 2 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. through September 3.
Venue: Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage Theatre
Address: 5021 East Anaheim, Long Beach
Information: (562) 494-1014 or visit www.lbplayhouse.org

The Warner Grand Theatre is a playhouse of dreams, and the latest dream comes from Scalawag Productions, which is presenting “A Gilbert and Sullivan Musical Review” as the first of what it hopes will be a long and productive relationship with the Warner Grand and the Grand Vision Foundation.

This first effort features students drawn from San Pedro, Gardena, Harbor City, Torrance and Wilmington in a production designed and directed by Marcia Barryte of the Dodson Middle School Drama Department.

Three performances, Friday and Saturday night and Saturday afternoon are scheduled, and Barryte already has plans for a production of “Oklahoma” in the near future and a Christmas special next year. (There was no room for the production in the 2011 season, she said.) Look to hear more from Scalawag.

Performances are set for Friday, August 12 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, August 13 at 3 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $10, $25 for VIP seats.
Venue: Warner Grand Theatre
Address: 478 W. 6th st., San Pedro
Information: (310) 847-0386, or visit www.scalawagproductions@gmail.org

 

(1) Long Beach Opera Moscow Cherry Town (2) Golden State Pops A Tale Old as Time (3) Long Beach Playhouse Dog Sees God

By John Farrell

Dmitri Shostakovich, probably the greatest classical composer of the 20th century, was in and out of favor with the Soviet government many times, especially under the capricious and violent Stalin, but when Khrushchev came to power he was still busy writing and felt safe enough to combine with two Russian comic writers, Vladimir Mass and Mikhail Chervinsky, to write a comic operetta about the Soviet bureaucracy as it developed “Moscow, Cherry Town,” a huge development of apartments built to ease the problems of homelessness. That was in 1959, and the operetta was a hit on stage and as a large film a few years later.

Fifty years after the fact the work has been slowly rediscovered across Europe and the U.S. It was given its west coast premier at the Terrace Theatre in Long Beach last Sunday by Long Beach Opera and there is one more performance in Santa Monica on Sunday, well worth the trouble if you want to see what Shostakovich could do in a lighter vein, and especially what LBO does in its thrilling and exciting performance with a large cast, mostly company alumni, all under the sure hand of director Isabel Milenski, herself the daughter of company founder Michael Milenski. Artistic and General Director Andreas Mitisek conducts the performance, which is sung in clear English with supertitles as well. Shostakovich was apparently ambivalent at best about his score, but audiences fifty years later see things in a very different light and enjoy all the jokes.

“Moscow, Cherry Town” is about the new building of apartment blocks in Moscow after the war, “...happiness in one thousand concrete rooms.” There are four couples involved, including a corrupt official and his lover, a young married pair who have to live in separate housing, and the bureaucrat who doesn't want to give out the keys to the apartments because then he'd just be a landlord without any power.

It is all sung to a lightweight but accessible score with musical references to everything from Tchaikovsky to Lehar's “Merry Widow,” with plenty of comic action, including a Soviet rock and roll number, a ballet dream sequence featuring the two male villains in tutus and a happy ending. The bad end badly, the good end well. That's how Lady Bracknell describes fiction in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” and it is true here too.

Tickets are $25-$115. The remaining performance is at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22.
Venue: Barnum Hall
Address: 601 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica
Information: (562) 432-5934 or visit www.longbeachopera.org

Last Year the Golden State Pops gave the west coast premier of “A Tale as Old as Time,” a concert of Disney music licensed by the Disney Concert Library that sold well at two concerts. This year they reprised that performance with a single concert Saturday night and it proved just as popular, with just under 900 people coming to enjoy the music and the films clips, and a lot more.

There were maybe fifty Little Princess in the audience Saturday, one on a leash, all to compete in the costume contest at intermission. One actually won, as did a very small boy who had to be held up on stage but kept waving, dressed in a Tygger suit.

The audience was filled with kids, and plenty of adults, all to enjoy the music as the orchestra, under Artistic Director and Conductor Steven Allen Fox, played its way through selections from the newest film, “Up,” and from classics like “Sleeping Beauty” and half a dozen other films, represented in clips projected above the stage as the orchestra played arrangements prepared especially for professional orchestral groups.

There were differences this year, including “Up” and a medley from the newest in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, which opens this weekend and was represented by stills from the new movie. The audience cheered their favorite heroes, but it seemed that the villains, especially Cruella DeVille from the ”101 Dalmatians” movies had a special place in the hearts of the more adults members of the large audience. No announcement has been made of next year's concert season, but it does seem likely that this program will be back next year. Starting sewing those Little Princess costumes now.

Dog Sees God” is a look at the Peanuts characters later in life, when bullying and homosexuality and the harsh realities of life begin to set in. It opens Friday, May 20 at the Long Beach Playhouse and continues there in the Studio Theatre through Saturday, June 18, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $22, $20 for students and seniors.

Venue: Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre
Address: 5021 East Anaheim, Long Beach
Information: (562) 494-1014 or visit www.lbplayhouse.org

 

Long Beach Opera Moscow Cherry Town; Golden State Pops A Tale Old as Time; Long Beach Playhouse Dog Sees God

By John Farrell

John Atkins, Vincent Chambers

Dmitri Shostakovich, probably the greatest classical composer of the 20th century, was in and out of favor with the Soviet government many times, especially under the capricious and violent Stalin, but when Khrushchev came to power he was still busy writing and felt safe enough to combine with two Russian comic writers, Vladimir Mass and Mikhail Chervinsky, to write a comic operetta about the Soviet bureaucracy as it developed “Moscow, Cherry Town,” a huge development of apartments built to ease the problems of homelessness. That was in 1959, and the operetta was a hit on stage and as a large film a few years later.

Fifty years after the fact the work has been slowly rediscovered across Europe and the U.S. It was given its west coast premier at the Terrace Theatre in Long Beach last Sunday by Long Beach Opera and there is one more performance in Santa Monica on Sunday, well worth the trouble if you want to see what Shostakovich could do in a lighter vein, and especially what LBO does in its thrilling and exciting performance with a large cast, mostly company alumni, all under the sure hand of director Isabel Milenski, herself the daughter of company founder Michael Milenski. Artistic and General Director Andreas Mitisek conducts the performance, which is sung in clear English with supertitles as well. Shostakovich was apparently ambivalent at best about his score, but audiences fifty years later see things in a very different light and enjoy all the jokes.

“Moscow, Cherry Town” is about the new building of apartment blocks in Moscow after the war, “...happiness in one thousand concrete rooms.” There are four couples involved, including a corrupt official and his lover, a young married pair who have to live in separate housing, and the bureaucrat who doesn't want to give out the keys to the apartments because then he'd just be a landlord without any power.

It is all sung to a lightweight but accessible score with musical references to everything from Tchaikovsky to Lehar's “Merry Widow,” with plenty of comic action, including a Soviet rock and roll number, a ballet dream sequence featuring the two male villains in tutus and a happy ending. The bad end badly, the good end well. That's how Lady Bracknell describes fiction in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” and it is true here too.

Tickets are $25-$115. The remaining performance is at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22.
Venue: Barnum Hall
Address: 601 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica
Information: (562) 432-5934 or visit www.longbeachopera.org

Last Year the Golden State Pops gave the west coast premier of “A Tale as Old as Time,” a concert of Disney music licensed by the Disney Concert Library that sold well at two concerts. This year they reprised that performance with a single concert Saturday night and it proved just as popular, with just under 900 people coming to enjoy the music and the films clips, and a lot more.

There were maybe fifty Little Princess in the audience Saturday, one on a leash, all to compete in the costume contest at intermission. One actually won, as did a very small boy who had to be held up on stage but kept waving, dressed in a Tygger suit.

The audience was filled with kids, and plenty of adults, all to enjoy the music as the orchestra, under Artistic Director and Conductor Steven Allen Fox, played its way through selections from the newest film, “Up,” and from classics like “Sleeping Beauty” and half a dozen other films, represented in clips projected above the stage as the orchestra played arrangements prepared especially for professional orchestral groups.

There were differences this year, including “Up” and a medley from the newest in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, which opens this weekend and was represented by stills from the new movie. The audience cheered their favorite heroes, but it seemed that the villains, especially Cruella DeVille from the ”101 Dalmatians” movies had a special place in the hearts of the more adults members of the large audience. No announcement has been made of next year's concert season, but it does seem likely that this program will be back next year. Starting sewing those Little Princess costumes now.

“Dog Sees God” is a look at the Peanuts characters later in life, when bullying and homosexuality and the harsh realities of life begin to set in. It opens Friday, May 20 at the Long Beach Playhouse and continues there in the Studio Theatre through Saturday, June 18, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $22, $20 for students and seniors.

Venue: Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre
Address: 5021 East Anaheim, Long Beach
Information: (562) 494-1014 or visit www.lbplayhouse.org

Summer of Love replays the sixties, Run for Your Wife at Huntington Beach, VideoGames at GSPO, Russia at LBSO, Anna in the Tropics at Expo Center

By John Farrell

The world premier of “Summer of Love,” commissioned by Musical Theatre West, written by Roger Bean and highlighting 23 songs from the summer of love itself (1967, if memory serves opened Saturday night at the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts at CSULB and the audience, most of whom could easily remember that particular summer, went in humming the tunes and came out humming them again, thoroughly satisfied.

But for those who remember the real activities that summer in San Francisco, the result was a little less fulfilling. Yes, the songs were wonderful, performed by a cast with electric chops and backed by an on-stage band, professional choreography and brilliant effects. But the story was no more than a brief sketch, about a runaway bride (thirty years after “It Happened One Night”) who remains a virgin but who gets together with her husband-to-be after he drops acid (in the nicest way!) You'll love the music. Forget the rest.

Tickets are $30 and up. Performances tonight, and tomorrow at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m., and next week Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
Venue: Carpenter Performing Arts Center
Address: $200 Atherton St., Long Beach
Information: (562) 856-1999 or visit www.musical.orgwww.musical.org

“Run for your Wife,” at the Huntington Beach Playhouse through this weekend, is a fast-paced, door-slamming farce by Ray Cooney that, for San Pedro playgoers, will sound a bit familiar. Didn't we just see a play (“My Wife's Husband”) about two men and one woman living in marital confusion? Yes, but this play is English, not Croatian, and the roles are reversed: two women are unknowingly sharing one man And while the Croatian play was subtle and even gentle, this one makes everything move at a frenetic and breathtaking pace.

Directed by Gigi Fusco Meese and starring Cort Huckabone as the husband who lives a successful double life until he helps a woman being mugged, gets hit on the head and has to explain his increasingly unusual situation to two policemen, it never flags and Meese, helped by a fine cast including the goggle-eyed Mitch Nunn as a put-upon friend, directs with a very fast hand.

Tickets are $20, $18 for students and seniors. Performances tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m., matinee Sunday at 2.
Venue: Huntington Beach Playhouse
Address: 7111 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach
Information: (714) 375-0692 or visit www.hbph.com

For concert-goers the problem this weekend is not whether to go to a concert but rather which one to choose from. If you love great classical music in the Russian vein then you should head to the Long Beach Convention Center's Terrace Theatre when the Long Beach Symphony, celebrating its tenth season under Music Director Enrique Arturo Diemecke, will present the fifth in this year's season of concerts, featuring pianist Ian Parker in Tchaikovsky's brilliant and beloved Piano Concerto No. 1. The concert is at 8 p.m. Saturday night

If you prefer music closer to home the Golden State Pops Orchestra under Maestro Steven Allen Fox is presenting VideoGames Soundtracks with the Southern California Master Chorale, the second in their series of concerts dedicated to the newest in classical music. That concert is also at 8 p.m., in the Warner Grand.

Tickets for the LBSO are $23-$79.
Venue: Terrace Theatre of the Long Beach Performing Arts Center
Address: 300 East Ocean Blvd., Long Beach
Information: (562) 436-3203 or visit www.lbso.org

Tickets for the GSPO are $25-$35, $15 for seniors, students and military members.
Venue: Warner Grand Theatre
Address: 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro
Information: (310) 43308774 or visit www.gspo.com

Long Beach Shakespeare has grown from presenting yearly outdoor performances of Shakespeare (though they still do that) to a regular season at their Richard Goad Theatre on Atlantic in Long Beach (most recently they did “Othello” there) and now to the Expo Center just up Atlantic on Broadway as well. Tomorrow they will open their latest production at the Expo Center Backroom Theatre, “Anna in the Tropics,” a contemporary play (it was at South Coast Repertory a few years back) that focuses on the cigar workers in Tampa in 1929, when the world they knew, one of hand-made cigars and regular work, was coming to an end.

Just down the street, starting Friday, April 15 and continuing on Friday and Saturday through April 23 LB Shakespeare is presenting “Fortune's Fools,” a play by 18-year-old playwright Lauren Velasco that had its premier there last Fall and is being given a second hearing by popular demand (and because April is the month in which the Bard was born.)

Tickets for both shows are $20. “Anna in the Tropics” plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Saturday, May 14. “Fortune's Fools” play Saturday and Sunday through April 23.

Venue: Expo Center Backroom Theatre
Address: 4321 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach
Venue: Richard Goad Theatre
Address: 4250 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach
Information: (562) 997-1494 or visit www.lbshakespeare.org

 

Stones at Little Fish and Entropy General at Alive Theatre Taming of the Shrew at LBPH, Mr. Marmalade at Garage

Italian American Reconciliation

Stones in his Pockets

By John Farrell

Little Fish Theatre, which is the busiest show in town, has two plays on offer for the next few weeks, “Italian American Reconciliation” on Friday and Saturday night (plus a couple of odd days as well) and “Stones in his Pockets,” filling their Wednesday and Thursday night slot this week and next. They are both entertaining (though “Italian American Reconciliation” is not at heart a nice story, though told with plenty of humor) but if you have time for only one, go see “Stones.”

In fact, if you don't have time, make time to see the Irish comedy that features only two actors, David Graham and Bert Pigg, taking on all seventeen parts in a story that has heart and point as well as brilliant performances, all at a break-neck speed. “Stones” is ostensibly about the comic impact a Hollywood production has when it comes to a remote Irish village, but the play is really about two men who learn about themselves and their own lives while experiencing life as extras on the set.

Tickets for “Italian American Reconciliation” are $25, $22 for students and seniors. It plays though May 28, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Thursday, May 26 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 15 at 7 p.m.
Tickets for “Stones in his Pockets” are $18. It runs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. through May 12.
Venue: Little Fish Theatre
Address: 777 Centre St., San Pedro
Information: (310) 512-6030 or visit www.littlefishtheatre.org

“Entropy General” is an original play by Ryan McClary staged by the ever-inventive Alive Theatre in a former automobile garage in Long Beach with minimal sets (including four borrowed hospital gurneys) and plenty of medical hilarity, but with a point. It starts with two victims rushed into the hospital emergency ward, one with a steering wheel embedded in his chest, the other a cute teenage cheerleader dead of a drug overdose who keeps coming back to life to offer commentary on life and death. It's a MASH-inspired look at medicine and other important things, and ends with a pie fight.

Due to Long Beach City regulations it can only be offered two night every other week, so the play isn't being produced this weekend but next, and then two weeks later. After the Saturday performances Alive is presenting “Post Mortem,” a “grotesque burlesque” that is just as entertaining. Go for one, stay to see the other.

Tickets for”Entropy General” are $15-$18, for “Post Mortem” $5. Both play through May 28, “Entropy General” Friday May 13 at 8 p.m., Saturday, May 14 at 2 and 8 p.m., Friday May 27 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, May 28 at 2 and 8 p.m. “Post Mortem” will be performed Saturday, May 14 and Saturday, May 28 at 11 p.m.
Venue: The MADhouse
Address: 624 Pacific Ave., Long Beach
Information: (562) 818-7364 or visit www.alivetheatre.org

It sounds like a gimmick: putting Shakespeare's “The Taming of the Shrew” into the wild west, but it works wonderfully well at the Long Beach Playhouse, especially since Amber Bonasso, as the shrew Kate, brightens up her performance with a wickedly knowing eye for the comedy of her situation. David Santana, as Petruchio, is as rough on her as the play calls for, but is also ready to address the audience directly to explain his situation. It makes for a great show, and director Gregory Cohen uses the modified thrust stage to bring the action right out to the audience.

Tickets are $22, $20 for seniors, $12 for students. Performances through May 28 are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m. through Saturday, May 28.
Venue: Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage Theatre
Address: 5021 East Anaheim, Long Beach
Information: (562) 494-1014 or visit www.lbplayhouse.org

“Mr. Marmalade” is the invisible friend of four-year-old Lucy, and he isn't what you'd expect a four-year-old to conjure up from her imagination. He snorts coke, drinks, goes through rehab and has a failed relationship with Lucy and does it all in the space of one very busy night. Lucy, a survivor if ever there was one, gets over him and starts to learn how to play dodge ball with her non-imaginary friend Larry (Au Pacheco.)

It's all in an evening's work in the Garage Theatre's production of Noah Haidle's iconoclastic play. Lucy is Calli Dunaway, and she tries to be all sweetness and light, but Mr. Marmalade (Angel Correa) is pretty much of a corrupting influence, even if he is imaginary. Bradley, (Joe Howells,) Mr. Marmalade's equally imaginary manservant, is much more likeable. Amy Lou Sebelius plays Lucy's Mom and Mathew Anderson her boyfriend (they both double other roles.) The play is a simple romp through a four-year-old's slightly nightmarish dream life. Or is it real?

Tickets are $18, $15 for students and seniors. The play continues through May 21, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.
Venue: Garage Theatre
Address: 251 East 7th St.' Long Beach
Information: (562) 433-8337 or visit www.thegaragetheatre.org

 

Reefer Madness the Musical Smokes at Cerritos College Burnight Auditorium

By John Farrell

“Reefer Madness,” the original movie, was created in 1936 by a very over-zealous ( and badly misinformed) U.S. Government to fight the supposed craze for “marihuana” (the spelling then.)

The official who spearheaded the film was still in office thirty-odd years later, so probably the government took a long while to recognize just how silly the film was, but the counter-culture, even pre-Beatnik (and that is a long time ago) knew a grossly inaccurate and unintentionally funny film when they saw it, and “Reefer Madness” has been the darling of late-night video parties at home and in movie houses for many more years than it was ever a threat to pot-use.

“Reefer Madness the Musical”) took that sense of the ridiculous and ran with it, producing on Broadway in 1997 a hit musical that didn't have to exaggerate much to make fun of the 60-year-old views. By then Bill Clinton had admitted smoking marijuana (but not inhaling) and pretty much everyone who wasn't a die-hard remnant from J. Edgar Hoover recognized that marijuana wasn't the complete threat to the social fabric that “Reefer Madness” made it out to be.

The audience, raised in the 60's and later, were party-hearty and the musical went on to Tony heaven and a national tour. And now, in the hands of the very students it was ready to warn 75 years ago, “Reefer Madness” has come to the Burnright Auditorium at Cerritos College in a production that features a lively cast, great costumes (which on occasion the whole cast shucks right down to fig leaves) and choreography that is bright, dazzling and often electric. Speaking of electric, the whole show is miced and those mics were a large part of the disruption in the first half of the musical on opening night May 6, but the person in charge of technical matters fixed that problem, and everything went swimmingly thereafter.

The musical takes after the movie, with Chris Hayhurst as the lecturer (apparently modeled on Harry J. Anslinger, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics,) giving the audience the benefits of his deep knowledge of reefer culture, funny enough now but probably more than a little dangerous then. (Hayhurst also plays the Devil, with horns, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the musical's definitely upbeat end.) He tells the story of Jimmy (Korey Mitchell) and his high school sweetheart Mary (Rebecca Fondiler) as they are caught up in the grip of “reefer.” The story is as expected, with Mary dead at the end and Jimmy saved from the electric chair by a cheerful presidential pardon. All this is told with plenty of in-jokes that everyone now recognizes as truth, (just one: marijuana is not addictive) but were part and parcel of the government's propaganda campaign back then.

Unlike many more expensive productions, this one featured a live band, seven very lively musicians directed with energy by Hector Salazar. Stage director Patrick Pearson keeps his large and lovely cast (especially when naked) moving through the story's more and more improbable events with a cheerful eye and a sure hand. And choreographer Kelly Todd does a first-rate job getting every ounce of effort and wonderful scenes of effective movement from the very large cast. (One advantage to student productions: you don't have to pay the cast.)

The mics started things on the wrong foot, but were repaired by the middle of the performance, and the singing, of the effective if not-too memorable songs, was better than the broad playing of the cast. (But then how could this material be taken as anything but parody?)

“Reefer Madness” is just lots of almost-innocent fun, and 76 years after the film, it's nice to hear an enthusiastic audience (some of whom, just perhaps, had smoked reefer once or twice) laughing now at what was then a very serious subject. “Reefer Madness” plays Friday, May 13 and Saturday, May 14 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 15 at 2 p.m. You'll love it, and you'll probably love it more if you get stoned beforehand (not that we are suggesting anything.)

John Farrell is a theater critic who writes for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the Torrance Daily Breeze, the Pasadena Star-News and Random Lengths News in San Pedro. His twice monthly column can be at found at www.randomlengthsnews.com (Click on “ACE” stories when you reach the web page.)

Nixon/Frost & Motezuma are week's highlights

You don’t have to be a political junkie to appreciate “Frost/Nixon,” Peter Morgan’s Tony Award nominated play now at the Ahmanson Theater of the Los Angeles Music Center through March 29. Stacy Keach op, his easy, oily grace, stars as President Richard Nixon in a performance of emotional depth and physical brilliance. He has the president’s slight stoop, his oily grace, his very real passion. British actor Alan Cox is David Frost, the English talk show host who turns himself into an investigative reporter for his six-hour 1977 television conversation with the resigned president. Yes. It is a successful, Oscar-nominated film, and if you have seen that you know the story. But on stage with the physical and psychic presence of two great actors and a production that is as brilliantly theatrical as Keach’s performance it is a drama of great passion and more than occasional humor. The Ahmanson is at 135 N. Grand in the Music Center in Los Angeles. Call (213) 628-2772. Tickets are priced $20 and up.

The Alive Theatre’s Cherry Poppin’ Play Festival, six new plays presented two a night Friday, Saturday and Sunday over three weekends at the Queen Mary, ended weekend before last. There hasn’t been that much energy in the lower stern of the Queen since her boilers were removed three decades ago. The plays, from serious drama to comic parody, were accompanied by music from local bands and filled the small Royal Theatre at the QM. Alive Theatre, which chooses venues that suit its plays, has already moved on, and is opening its next show, “References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot” by Jose Rivera in the sculpture garden at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach Sunday, March 29 at 5 p.m.. A second performance is set for Friday, April 10. “References” mixes two languages and the real and surreal in a love story that features a talking moon, a coyote who wants to seduce a cat, and a love triangle mixed up with vivid dream in the dry and barren desert near Barstow. The March 29 performance is $20; the April 10 performance also has $35 tickets for a pre-play reception and performance, $30 for members, and $25 regular tickets, $20 for members. MOLAA is located at 628 Alamitos Ave. in Long Beach. Tickets can be reserved at (562) 437-1689 or online at http://molaa.com/

Opera, opera you have never seen or heard, continues to flourish in Long Beach, and next on the list of Long Beach Opera’s intriguing 2009 schedule (it is the company’s thirtieth year” is their production of Vivaldi’s only recently rediscovered opera “Motezuma,” which will be performed at the Terrace Theater of the Long Beach Performing Arts Center Saturday, March 28 at 8 p.m. There is a second performance set for Barnum Hall in Santa Monica on Saturday, April 5 at 4 p.m. “Motezuma” was lost for 269 years until its score was rediscovered in 2002. Not surprisingly, these performances mark the opera’s American premier. The story is based on the history of Cortez’ conquest of Mexico. In addition to two performances of the 3 and one-half hour long opera, several special events, including a lecture by former MOLAA curator Gregorio Luke, are planned. Tickets are limited for both performances. The Center Theater is at 300 East Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach, Barnum Hall at 600 Olympic Blvd. in Santa Monica. For more information call (562) 435-2994. Single tickets are $45-$95.

Theater is often thought of as a weekend indulgence, but at San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre, they are trying to change that. Their new Mid-Week Series, which opened with a hilarious production of “13 O’Clock,” a two-woman 51-costume-change comedy by Trippplicate, a U.S. premier of a play from the Edinburgh Festival, opened March 4 at the theatre. The last performance is tonight at 8 p.m. Future productions, scheduled through October, will be performed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Next up is Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which opens April 22 and runs through May 7. Underneath the Lintel” by Glen Berger opens August 19 and continues through September 3, and “Hate Mail” by Bill Corbett and Kira Obolensky opens October 14 and continues through October 29. All performances are at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20. The Little Fish Theatre is at 777 Centre St. in San Pedro. Call (310) 512-6030 or visit their website: http://www/littlefostheatre.org/

By John Farrell

ICT Punches with Brecht-Weill “Threepenny Opera

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill were writing before the first great Depression, circa 1929, but the message of their “Threepenny Opera,” that money solves all problems and that the poor are always the victims of the rich, still has legs, very shapely legs, 80 years later.

The new production at International City Theatre in Long Beach, directed with a punch-in-your-face directness by Jules Aaron, uses the sexy (an apparently more accurate) translation of Michael Feingold to tell the story of Mack the Knife, the two girls he marries, the others he loves and leaves, and everyone who is willing to see him hanged as long as the reward is big enough.

Jeff Griggs stars as Mack, and his slim and athletic good looks are intentionally marred by eyes that hide in make-up. This Mack only sleeps metaphorically. His wife Polly (Shannon Warne) is virginal but no virgin, and her father (Tom Shelton, in a deliciously prim performance) is determined to end the marriage. His wife (Eileen T’Kaye) agrees, and she is determined to make her daughter a widow, too.

The production has a bit of a comic-book look to it, but the characters are all too real, and Weill’s jazz-driven score, played by a behind-a scrim quarter including a banjo and a clarinet, is as thrilling and modern as it was in pre-Hitler Berlin. “Three-Penny Opera” is one of the great works of musical theater, and this ICT production shows why. ICT is located at the Center Theatre in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 East Ocean Blvd. in Long Beach. It runs Thursday-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 22. Tickets are $35-$45. Phone: (562) 436-4610

Laugh and Rock Out with the Prince Known as Hamlet

Max Bialystock in “The Producers” finds out the hard way, through a Broadway failure, that Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” turned into a musical called “Funny Boy,” wasn’t meant to be comic and tuneful.

“Hamlet, the Artist Formerly Known as Prince of Denmark,” Cal Rep’ new production at the Armory in Long Beach, reiterates the point. The idea of taking the greatest play in English, cutting it down to a few murders, a ghost and a circus act and adding the music of Prince, sounds seductive, but turns out silly.

Kyle Hall makes a seductive, high-energy rock star out of Hamlet, and the supporting cast, and Gregory Joseph Allen, in three roles, knows how to chew the scenery. But when Ophelia, Jeremiah O’Brien, comes on, hairy-chested in a sleeveless ball gown that keeps falling off, you realize that this play emphasizes the silly over the tragic, and things just get sillier.

Directors Matt Walker and Mike Sulprizio from the Troubadour Theater Company have specialized in this kind of parody for more than a decade, but their claim that this will introduce audience to serious theater doesn’t make sense. You can only enjoy this “Hamlet” if you know the other well enough to fill in the blanks.

But there is plenty of energy here, with a large cast, a four-piece band playing loud and energetic rock from the Purple one’s repertory and some great dance numbers choreographed by Lysa Fox. You’ll enjoy this show, no doubt, but will come away hungry for just a few more lines from the bard. (Remember him?) “Hamlet” continues at the Armory, 854 7^th st., Long Beach through March 14. Performances are Tuesday-Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee Sunday, March 14. No performances are scheduled for March 6 and 7. Tickets are $20. Phone: (562) 985-5526.

Little Fish Takes San Pedro Deer Hunting in Michigan

San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre is moving to Michigan for the next month, to a town called Escanaba. But you can still head down to their home on Centre St. to see “Escanaba in the Moonlight,” a play by Jeff Daniels that explores the relationship between deer hunting and UFOs and answers the vital question: Will Reuben Soady finally bag a buck?

The comedy opened last week and continues at the Little Fish Theatre, 777 Centre St., San Pedro, through April 4, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. with added performances on Sunday, March 29 at 7 p.m. and Thursday, April 2 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25, $22 for students and seniors. Phone: (310) 512-6030.