bY jOHN fARRELL

LOLPERA IS A MUSICAL CAT'S MEOW

LOLPERA

What: Opera by Ellen Warkentine and Andrew Pedroza, presented by The Garage Theatre
Where: Garage Theatre, 251 E. 7th. St., Long Beach
When: Thursdays, Fridays at Saturdays at 8 p.m. through Oct. 29
Tickets: $18, $15 for students and seniors. Cash only at the door.
Information: (866) 811-4111,www.thegaragetheatre.org

By John Farrell

It started, so they tell us, with one song about one particular photograph of a car reclining on a keyboard.

If you've surfed the Internet you know that picture, or one like it. Funny pictures of cats (yes, and dogs, too) are a dime a dozen: a momentary laugh, downloaded from a phone or a camera and left there for ever.

Ellen Warkentine and Andrew Pedroza found one of those photographs, and wrote a song about it. Then they found another, and another, and finally they realized that they had more than just a few songs. They had the beginnings of an opera, and now, at the Garage Theatre through then end of this month “LOLPERA,” the result of years of collaboration, is joyously crowded into the Garage Theatre's very small theater for performances that are remarkable, theatrically and musically. You owe it to yourself (and any four-footed feline in your life) to see just how special it all is.

The Garage is a small theater, and just crowding the seven musicians into the place, with Warkentine of the keyboards and six other performers playing everything from violin to harp, is worth seeing. Add to that 16 performers, singing and acting through more than two hours of music, and an audience that fills both sides of the performance space, and you've got a crowd.

No matter. Director Jessica Variz manages to keep everything moving, with plenty of dance movements, plenty of colorful characters, all in a set that cost just $600 dollars and is filled with lots and lots of televisions and computer monitors (mostly, but not all defunct) assembled by set designer DiCapria, with projections of funny kitty photographs on two walls that not only advance the story photographically and comically (many are very funny indeed, even if the cats in question don't know it) but also contain the words of the text that is being sung: a kind of super super-title that should be distracting, but is actually just a small part of the wonderfully engaging performances from all the cast.

This is not “Cats,” the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on T. S. Elliot's poems, but an original story that tells about life, love, and the battle between Ceiling Cat (Steve Sornbutnark) who is pure white and watches over you all the time and Basement Cat, (Angel Correa) who is black of fur and of heart. Astro Cat (Michael Burdge) is playing his music as the other cats try to live their lives, commuting to work, loving and giving birth, all the time looking to find cheezburger.

Precious Cat (Sayaka Miyatani) and Dreamer Cat (Pedroza,) Happy Cat (Allie Nelson) and Serious Cat (Ashley Allen,) Gutter Cat (Dinah Steward) and LOLrus (Anthony Pedroza) all contribute to this feline extravaganza, which plays out to music which is intriguing and worth hearing more than once, mixing jazz idioms with classical references in a compelling score.

There is so much going on in this production: funny pictures, the story line which mixes fantasy with more than a little recognizable human reality, the exciting dance numbers, solo arias and a triumphal final number (sans Basement Cat, who has been given a fatal bath) that you may need to see it more than once. ”LOLPERA” is ambitious, exciting, hip and down-to-earth. Bring your own cheezburger.

John Farrell is a Long Beach opera critic.

Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles

What: Play adaptation by Helen Borgers of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, directed by Borgers, presented by Long Beach Shakespeare.
Where: Richard Goad Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach
When: Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. through October 22.
Tickets: $20, $10 for students.
Information: (562) 997-1494, www.lbshakespeare.org

By John Farrell

The fog of Dartmoor rolled into the lobby of the Richard Goad Theatre Saturday night long before “Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles” was presented inside the 30-odd seat theater.

The effect was intended to be a dramatic one, though from the outside it looked more like several cigarette fiends had decided to attack with unhealthy criminal intent.

The air cleared, though, and the presentation of the play, in an original adaptation by the company's Artistic Director Helen Borgers, who was also the actual director of this production, proceeded with less smoke and mirrors and a surprisingly cogent and faithful adaptation of the original 1901 work by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Borgers, who is a Shakespearean expert by avocation, has as much respect for Conan Doyle as she does for the Bard, and kept most of the rich language of the text, and all of the situations in the book, intact. She also managed to make the play, restricted to the small stage of the Goad, a rip roaring good ghost story, with the occasional howls of the hound, heard in the background, keeping the audience on the edges of their comfortable seats. Her only problem: Doyle, in writing this story, leaves Sherlock Holmes out of much of the middle of the piece, and so she must as well.

That was a shame because Richard MacPherson, who played Holmes, was one of the best incarnations of the detective to make it to the small theater, with a sharp profile, a clear speaking voice and enough of the English accent to color every Holmesian remark with authority. Company regular Carl Wawrina had the bigger role as Watson, who goes down to Dartmoor with Sir Henry Baskerville (the clear-voiced and impressive Daniel Moseid) to protect Sir Henry and investigate the strange death of his uncle Sir Charles Baskerville, but he was less adept as Watson than MacPherson as Holmes, and didn't live up to MacPherson's stature. And it should be noted that the fact that he was writing to Holmes, who said he had to stay in London on business, was never clearly made out. In pursuit of textual accuracy a chance to get Holmes more involved in the mystery was missed.

Mike Austin was an amusing Dr. Mortimer, whose walking stick, left behind at Baker Street, was an amusing bit of mis-deduction by Watson. Kevin Douglas Dunn, as the Baskerville's household butler Barrymore, and Summer Gorbea as his wife, were perfect representatives of the ancient British serving class, and when Mrs. Barrymore was finally revealed as the sister of escaped convict, sympathy was more the feeling than horror.

Beryl Stapleton (Adrienne Marquand) was a lovely love interest for Sir Henry, though when she was discovered to be married to another it wasn't much of a surprise. James Stapleton (William Christopher Ford) was from the first a man who showed great curiosity about Sir Henry's business on the Moor, but it wasn't until the end of the play that he became more than just a country squire. Gorbea doubled in the small role of Laura Lyons. Perry sites had a small role as Frankland but, embarrassingly, went up on his lines and Wawrina was unable to help him much.

Borgers stuck to the text of the story but still managed to create, in the small space of the theater, a realistic battle between Holmes and Watson on one side and the fearful, if not really seen, Hound, who was shot and careened off across the moor without actually staining anyone with his make-up. The smoke, which was used mostly at the beginning (with a few Prison Guards looking for the escaped murderer Seldon) was dissipated by the play's end.

This isn't the definitive stage “Hound,” but then their probably isn't one. It is true to its sources, and gives a very clear and much appreciated look at the actual language used in the story, which is often otherwise neglected. Just be prepared for a little smoke at the beginning.

 

(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

 

Private Lives

 
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.
Tickets: Thursday $37, Friday-Sunday $44
Information: (562) 436-4610, www.internationalcitytheatre.org
Three stars

By John Farrell

Nothing speaks for Noel Coward like “Private Lives,” his extraordinarily witty, extraordinarily improbable and extraordinarily delicious comedy from 1930 that has been revived by International City Theatre in a brightly mounted, sharp-looking production at the Center Theatre in Long Beach.

Coward himself starred in the original 1930 production alongside Gertrude Lawrence, and every line sparkled with Coward’s brittle and sometimes misogynist humor, from the remark that “some women need to be struck regularly, like gongs,” to the wry remark about the “potency of cheap music” when one of Coward’s own songs is played by a distant orchestra.

The play is about Elyot Chase (Freddie Douglas) and his ex-wife Amanda Prynne (Caroline Kinsolving) who both on their second honeymoons, having been divorced from each other for five or so years after a very stormy marriage. They meet quite by accident when they are each on their second honeymoons, Elyot with his new wife Sibyl Chase, (Jennice Butler,) Amanda with her new husband Victor Prynne (Adam J. Smith.) The respective honeymoon suites share adjacent balconies but the couple manage inadvertently to avoid each other until Amanda, in a double-take, spies Elyot in her compact’s mirror. The two soon find that they are still in love, despite the years, and run off together, abandoning their new spouses. It turns out they are still in love, in the bad old way, and Sibyl and Victor finally corner them in Amanda’s Paris apartment, where their relationship begins to unravel again.

In the ICT Version Elyot Chase, Coward’s role, is played by Freddy Douglas who, if he doesn’t quite have Coward’s presence does have a wonderful and wonderfully trained speaking voice, capable of making every scintillating syllable count. Kinsolving is a less effective stand in for Lawrence. She looks every inch the wonderfully attractive woman who still inspires Elyot’s love, (and she look stunningly lovely in Costume Designer Kim DeShazo’s costumes,) but Director Luke Yankee apparently couldn’t quite get her to be as clear-voiced as Douglas. Their chemistry is near-perfect but their love-making, and love-fighting, is sometimes damaged by Kinsolving’s rapid speaking.

Butler’s Sibyl is a lovely flirt, but hardly in the same category as Amanda, a light-weight personally who comes across, as she should, as not quite up to Elyot’s standard. Smith’s Victor is very upright, very sober (except for those cocktails) and just the kind of man you would never imagine Amanda marrying: invariably safe and solid, without any sense of adventure at all, as British as a London Post Box and just about as exciting.

In a small but interesting role is Wendy Cutler, as the French maid Louise whose abrasive accent shows up Victor and whose antics include a piano-side pratfall that may actually have been an accident.

The set, designed by Kurt Boetcher, is an elegant and inspired affair: two large balconies looking out over the Mediterranean in Act I and easily dissolved into Amanda’s Paris Apartment in Act II. Plenty of room as the actors manage to avoid one another for the first half of the first act becomes an intimate flat (with record player and record to smash over Elyot’s head) in the second.

As effective as Amanda and Sibyl’s lovely period dresses are (especially those worn on their respective wedding days,) the other costumes are just not as good. Perhaps Elyot and Victor would wear business suits, but hardly the really boring business suits they do wear, with matching sham handkerchiefs in their pockets and, despite the fact that both men are slim, no waistline at all. This may have been the look in 1930, but it is hard to imagine Noel Coward's Elyot in so charmless a suit.

Those quibbles aside, “Private Lives” is, over 80 years later, still a biting and hilarious (and slightly frivolous) play. A lot has happened since then, wars and the end of Empire, but there is still charm in hearing Amanda and Elyot trying to figure out their emotional lives in the sharply biting language that is the play's endearing and enduring best feature.

John Farrell is a Long Beach theater critic. More of his work can be found at www.byjohnfarrell@typepad.com.

(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

 

A Southern Exposure

What: Play by Kelley Kingston-Strayer, directed by Gina Stickley, presented by Little Fish Theatre
Where: Little Fish Theatre, 777 Centre St., San Pedro
When: Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through September 10, extra performances Sunday, August 28 at 7 p.m., Thursday, September 8 at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $25, $22 for seniors and students
Information: (310) 512-6030, www.littlefishtheatre.org
Two and one-half stars

By John Farrell

Can There be anywhere in contemporary America where, among literate adults who claim to be up-to-date on current events, the word “Gay” only means happy or carefree?

Apparently.

That place is in Kentucky, where “A Southern Exposure,” a comedy of bright intentions and serious sentiment, is mostly set. “A Southern Exposure” opened at the Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro, where it will run though September 10, with a fine cast, especially Kalie Quinones, who has been in several other Little Fish productions of late and sparkles like a jewel in this one, starring as Callie Belle Hurt, the young and independent granddaughter of Hattie Belle Hurt (Geraldine Fuentes, brought in at the last minute to replace the ailing Jo-Black Jacob.) She is independent, yes, but just as much a part, and an observer of, the old-fashioned ways of her grandmother who raised her and her two aunts, Ida-Mae (Linda June Larson) and Mattie (Cindy Shields.)

The foursome have a long history together. Hattie Belle was forced to raise her granddaughter as her own child when Callie Belle's parents were killed in a car wreck so long ago she doesn't remember then. Ida-Mae has had a part in her life, too, and in Mattie's, a lovely lady who suffers a little from dementia but is always cheerful.

Still, there are a few questions raised by playwright Kelley Kingston-Thayer's award-winning play, which she developed from her own short story, that don't seem quite right. Maybe the three older members of the family really don't know what Gay means, but it is hard to imagine a family so dedicated to education for the daughter of the family also never having met a Jew, or a vegetarian, for that matter.

Ignore these things, though, and you have a play that presents a problem that many parents (and even grandparents) have to face: a young woman who falls in love and wants to move from the friendly comforts of a small town to the excitement (and employment opportunities) of a big city.

The problem is, they aren't really very compelling problems. Yes, Hattie Belle wants her granddaughter to stay with her and not move to New York. Yes, Callie Belle screw up her first romance, but she finds a good job and a real joy in New York City, and is more in touch with her family back home than many young women would be. But all the action, even the ending of the play, is more soap opera than substance: attractive, comic characters engaged in by-play and some deep thought, but a conflict, such as it is, that is emotionally compelling only because you care for the characters, not because you are surprised or challenged by what finally happens.

Still, there is plenty of charm in this play, for all its weaknesses. Fuentes, who took over the role of Hattie Belle with only six days notice, is fine as the grandmother and, though she carried a script with her opening night, she didn't seem to much need it. Larson's Ida-Mae is a calming force in the frequently comic storm of the family life, and Shield’s Mattie is as funny as all get out in her Wonder Woman outfit, and her simplicity is anything but stupid. Quinones is beautiful and funny and patient: you don't wonder at her New York success and are glad she has had such good parents, all three older woman giving her something of themselves.

“A Southern Exposure” isn't a great play, but it is charming, and director Gina Stickley manages to create a very successful production, even in the small Little Fish space. Go to see a light-weight play filled with great acting, but not much plot. Go to see Quinones in a part she dominates. But don't go expecting Tennessee Williams.

John Farrell is a Long Beach theater reviewer. More of his work can be found at www.byjohnfarrell.com

 

A Southern Exposure tells a coming-of-age story set in Kentucky but resonating everywhere

A Southern Exposure

What: Play by Kelley Kingston-Thayer, directed by Gina Stickley, presented by Little Fish Theatre
Where: Little Fish Theatre, 777 Centre St., San Pedro
When: Tonight at 8 p.m., tomorrow at 8 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through September 10, additional performances Sunday, August 28 at 7 p.m., Thursday, September 8 at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $25, $22 for seniors and students
Information: (310) 512-6030, www.littlefishtheatre.org

By John Farrell

Kentucky is a ways from Texas, and even farther from Southern California, but “A Southern Exposure” isn't just about the south, but about human relationships wherever you find them.

“A Southern Exposure” is the new play that the Little Fish Theatre is offering up

opening this weekend in San Pedro. It tells the story of four woman in the present-day south, one a young woman who moves to New York at the end of her college career to live with a young man she met in college, another the grandmother who raised her, and two great aunts who are also concerned with her life.

The play is by Kelley Kingston-Thayer, a first-time playwright who originally wrote the piece as a short story, then expanded it into a one-act play and finally created the two-act production that Little Fish is presenting. Kingston-Thayer describes herself as “a little Kentucky housewife,” which she may be. She is also the first place winner in this years Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights.

Geraldine Fuentes plays grandmother Hattie, a person the play's director, Gina Stickley, describes as “your basically typical Southern controlling woman: loving and sentimental but hard-ass, judgmental and very religious.” Fuentes took over the roll well into rehearsals, replacing another actress who was unable to perform because of illness. She had, as of Tuesday, only six days of rehearsal, but was not finding any difficulty. “She is really working hard to get on board with the role, and is a true professional,” Stickley said.

Kalie Quinones plays the young daughter, Callie Belle, who disrupts the family by falling in love and moving from Kentucky to New York. Linda Larsen is Ida Mae, the aunt who acts as peacemaker in the family, and Cindy Shields is Mattie, the youngest of the sisters but a woman afflicted with dementia, which sometimes allows her moments of insight, but at other times leaves her hopelessly confused.

The play takes place largely in the Kentucky kitchen of the family, where much of the passion and family feelings are expressed, but it also takes place in the New York apartment Callie Belle lives in, and in the bedroom of the Kentucky home. As usual Little Fish, which has only limited space in its theater, makes the most of its opportunities: “Dealing with the limited space has been a challenge,” Stickley says, “But we have adapted and made the play real for the audience.”

The play is set in present-day Kentucky, and the accents have to be genuine for audiences to appreciate the story. The Kentucky accent isn’t a mystery to Stickley, who knows it well. “The Kentucky accent isn't far from the Texas accent,” Stickley pointed out, “and we have worked hard to get that accent right. We did some pretty significant work on the accent right from the start, and now I only occasionally have to make corrections.

Stickley, herself an actor, knows all about the Texas accent. She is originally from Texas (though you don't even hear a whisper of Texas in her speaking voice now: “I had my Texas accent completely strained out of me in acting school.” But though she speaks like every actor should, she can keep track of the speaking patterns her cast employes.

“This play takes place in the south,” Stickley says, “but it is about everyone who has a close relationship with an older family member. Hattie has raised Callie Belle since she was a baby, when Callie Belle's parents were both killed in a car accident. It is Callie Belle's coming of age story. And it is a story that everyone can recognize and relate to.”

“A Southern Exposure” opens tonight, and plays through September 10, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. plus a performance on Sunday, August 28 at 7 p.m. and a performance Thursday, September 8 at 8 p.m.

John Farrell is a Long Beach theater critic. More of his articles can be found at www.byjohnfarrell@typepad.com.

 

Cal Phil Features Bryan Pezzone in Sunday Pops Concert at Disney Hall

By John Farrell

Sunday afternoon the California Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director Victor Vener played some beautiful music in the confines of Walt Disney Hall, their second venue. They called it Dancing under the Stars” though the stars weren't out that afternoon. (They played the same concert the night before at the Los Angeles County Arboretum as well, which explains the title.)

No negative judgment on the Arboretum, where thousands go every two weeks to hear the orchestra play under the stars, but it is hard to believe that the music Sunday could have sounded better at any venue in, say, the western United States, indoors or out. There were problems, of course, but the orchestra was fully professional, if not flawless then nearly so, and the rehearsal from the night before only served to make everyone sharper.

That's not saying that everything was of equal value at Sunday's concert. The afternoon opened with selection from the musical “Grease” that featured a couple of recognizable tunes but that otherwise didn't have much to commend it. It was a musical bon-bon, no more, and not a high calorie, rich chocolate one at that.

Ignoring that opening, the concert was filled with serious music and enough variety to satisfy most tastes and featured a world (indoor) premier of two works by pianist and composer Bryan Pezzone.

After the selections from “Grease” the orchestra changed from a pops orchestra plying hits to a serious orchestra giving its all to Ravel's 1912 “Daphnis and Chloe, Suite no. 2,” a marvel of Impressionistic music whose roots Vener explained with characteristic humor. The music has an effect that is palpable and mysterious: you feel like all nature should sound like the first movement, “Lever du jour,” and while the next two movements aren't as profound, the effect of all is complete magic played by an effective and musically secure orchestra.

The other Ravel work on the program was the better-known “Bolero,” a work that is too often taken for granted. True, in a recording it is little more than a cliché, and probably doesn't deserve much attention. Performed live, though, and it can be filled with passion and a very real sense that every instrument in the orchestra is exposed and must play precisely for “Bolero” to work. Terrence Schonigt, who plays the same riff on the snare drum through the entire work, is perhaps the most remarkable of the performers in “Bolero,” but precision and perfect coordination are required throughout the orchestra. You may not love the piece, but you have to appreciate the sheer artistry of performing it live.

Pianist and soloist Bryan Pezzone was the featured soloist, performing with drummer M.B. Gordy and bass guitarist Tim Emmons three pieces of his own composition on the long grand piano, “Skipping,” “Lament” and “Dancing Hearts,” all at least in agreement with the concert's title (though, as Pezzone pointed out from the piano bench, more introspective and emotional than their names suggested.) They were bright, interesting and melodic.

The the orchestra came back into play, after listening respectfully to the trio on the stage front, playing with the soloists a piece called “Banana Dancing (for Mr. Moose),” the world premier (except for Saturday night, of course.) It was a little in the form of a piano concerto, complete with a cadenza and plenty of dialogue between the pianist and the orchestra, played with enthusiasm by its composer and the orchestra as well. (The title is a tribute to a childhood music teacher, apparently.)

The orchestra played, as another brief offering, Glenn Miller's “In the Mood” in an orchestration that emphasized the brass and was a pleasant diversion before the program's final work, Bernstein's “Symphonic Dances” from “West Side Story.”

The last is a regular at Pops concerts but is still worth hearing, and Vener had the audience yell out “mambo” at his direction when it was cued in the score, and a fillip to the performance.

The next pair of California Philharmonic concerts, “Rodgers and Hammerstein in Europe,” are scheduled for Saturday, August 6 at the Arboretum at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, August 7 at 2 p.m. at Walt Disney Hall.

John Farrell is a local music and theater critic. More of his stories can be found at www.byjohnfarrell@typepad.com.

 

Bus Stop shows its age at Kentwood Players

Bus Stop

What: Play by William Inge, directed by Max Heldring Stormes, presented by Kentwood Players
Where: Westchester Playhouse, 8301 Hindry Ave., Los Angeles
When: Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. through August 20.
Tickets: $18, $2 discount for students, seniors and military members
Information: (310) 645-5156, www.kentwoodplayers.org
Two and one half stars

By John Farrell

Like every play in the canon, William Inge's “Bus Stop,” which opened at the Kentwood Theater in Westchester Friday night for a run through August 20, ages with the passage to time and the change in people's attitudes.

When the play opened on Broadway in 1955, the public must certainly have been a little shocked at the attitudes of the four people who arrive by bus at a small cafe in Kansas and are stranded there overnight because of snow and the violent wind. There is Cherie, the non-too-innocent bar singer who has had a fling with Bo, the rodeo hero and is essentially being kidnapped by him back to his ranch in Montana, Bo himself and his wise friend Virgil and the Shakespeare-spouting Dr. Lyman, a charmer who is also a incipient child-molester on the lam.

Back then the play's comedy must have been mixed with serious questions about the play's sexually charged story, the serious doings of the bus driver and the waitress, Cherie's very serious concerns about kidnapping, Dr. Lyman's intent with the teenaged waitress. Fifty and more years later the Kentwood Players and director produced a work that is all charm and warmth despite the howling wind outside, but without any of the piece's hardly concealed menace. This is 2011, after all, and what was both unspeakable and unspoken in 1955 is hardly noticed nowadays. What was threatening then is no more than a sit-com now, and that is how “Bus Stop” comes across in Westchester, a homey episode of a very modern “Beverly Hillbillys” with even Granny getting some actions upstairs.

Cherie is Jessee Foudray, and her accent is right out of the Ozarks, her figure good enough to catch the attention of any man. She isn't quite afraid of the occasionally violent Bo Decker (Sam Hambrecht) but she doesn't want to go with him to his Montana ranch: at least at first she wants to continue her singing career. Bo, in a hat a little too big for him, is crazy and violent enough to get into an off-stage fight with the local sheriff, Will Masters, (John Russell channeling Matt Dillon) a bear of a man and a natural peacekeeper. Bo calms down after he has been knocked down, and only then reveals that Cherie is the first and only girl he has ever slept with. That changes her attitude towards him.

The cafe is run by Grace Hoyland, Valerie Ruel) a middle-aged woman who has seen everything and has been left by her husband years ago, and Elma Duckworth, (Janet Lee Rodriguez) a teenage charmer who isn't quite as innocent as she seems. Grace sneaks upstairs for an assignation with bus driver Carl (Neil Engelman.) Dr. Gerald Lyman (David Kunzle) is also along for the ride, a many-times married alcoholic and college professor who has, we find out, been chased from Kansas City for seducing under-aged girls. And there is Virgil Blessing, (Andy Grosso) Bo's best friend and the one voice of reason in the crowd: he ends up alone and standing out in the cold.

Cherie is the center of attention in this crowd (the role was played in the movies by Marilyn Monroe) and she has all the charm and personality needed to be the center of that attention and convey Cherie's slowly growing realization of her love for Bo. Bo isn't quite up to that: he yells effectively and storms around a bit but is never quite convincing. Dr. Lyman is full of quotations and no menace at all, and Elma is hardly taken in by him, though she enjoys the attention. Grace and Carl make a good-hearted pair and Virgil, in a small role, makes more of his character than anyone else.

“Bus Stop” may not be over the hill, but here it is a social comedy, full of the feeling of the plains: wind and weather and cold loneliness, but not a single jot of the embarrassment and menace it had half-a-century ago. It isn't a drama at all.

John Farrell is a Long Beach theater critic. More of his reviews can be found at www.byjohnfarrell@typepad.com