In Need Of Queer Eye for the Straight Musical

The Drowsy Chaperone. The Ahmanson Theatre. 11/27/05.

The LA Times loved it. Personally, I'd have to say that The Drowsy Chaperone was startlingly deficient on gay people. Apparently, for some that's a good thing, as the Times review asserts ""Director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (of Broadway's "Spamalot") gives all the performers a long leash when it comes to chewing scenery and winking at the audience, but he rarely allows them to descend into camp." For me, a good sense of camp was exactly what this musical was lacking.

For me, the biggest problem was Bob Martin as the Man in Chair. He played his role well, but far too heterosexually. The role was just a little too painful and pathetic, talking too much about how he was in the closet. This was the abject gay man at its most depressing, played by a very clearly straight man who doesn't actually understand or love the character. This should be a man who celebrates musicals as an expression of his queerness, whether he is open about that queerness or not. There needs to be more love. I'd love to see Nathan Lane go for it, over the top and campy, with passion and love. Martin is one of the creators of the musical, so one could argue that his is the most 'authentic' performance possible. The role was, after all, written for him. And one can assume that yes, he does love the show. But he needs to love and understand the character more so that it's not an uncomfortable travesty of a gay man.

Similarly, I thought Beth Leavel as the Drowsy Chaperone was a little too serious and not quite enough aging diva. It's an astounding role, and it could be wonderful, but it wasn't quite there yet. She should be doing Bette Davis in All About Eve, a little past her prime and severely threatened by the young ingenue. While she had her moments, for the most part she was forgettable. This might have to do more with the part than the peformance, though.

The most fabulous performances for me, personally, were Edward Hibbert (who I saw as Oscar Wilde in Gross Indecency) as Underling, the butler. He was beautifully dry (and all wet) and just the right combination of campy and straight man. I wonder what he would do with the role of Man in Chair? Also, Dannny Burstein as Adolpho the Latin Lover was hilarious and huge and campy and that was wonderful. Eddie Korbich as George, the best friend, was great as well. His dancing was excellent and his character animated. I would have loved to see more of him in this show.

Sutton Foster as Jane, the leading lady, was good. She did her one big show-stopping number excellently, and the most interesting thing about her performance is the intertextuality it creates with her role as Millie in Thoroughly Modern Millie, the kind of role that this musical was spoofing. She's a quirky and interesting performer, and I'm not sure exactly how I feel about her, but I am fascinated.

The other major flaw in this production, I thought, was in Troy Britton Johnson as Robert, the leading man. He couldn't really dance, he was too stiff, and in general completely uncompelling. Which could be read as a commentary on the vacuity of the leading men in some of these shows, but I would rather have seen a good spoof of Fred Astaire than his muddled stiffness.

Right now, this musical rather reminds me of a show that I worked on in high school, a musical spoof of Agatha Christie mysteries called Something's Afoot. That, like this, was a good, fun show but not quite Broadway-quality. I think it could be revised into something Broadway-ready, but I'm not sure it's quite there yet. I'd put it though another round of revisions or give the cast some leeway to rework it a bit. Don't be afraid of being campy; in musicals, that's a good thing.

A lesbian musical?!?

When I hear that there's something out billing itself "The Lesbian Musical," many things go through my head. One of them is certainly, "This I've got to see!" But apparently it's true, and here in LA. So yes, I will be going to see The Breakup Notebook: The Lesbian Musical.

I'm already dubious about the tag line "...because everyone deserves a love song." Ugh. Also, one of the cast members actually made the first line of her bio ""___ is not a lesbian but is thrilled to be playing one onstage." Anyone that weirdly compelled to assert her heterosexuality is pretty lame in my book. But there are some good omens, too. The Musical Director apparently worked on Reefer Madness when it was here in LA and I saw it in a little NoHo theater.

But anyway, I must see it. Previews start Dec. 2 and it opens Dec. 10 for a "limited engagement" of unspecified length. I don't know when, but it's definitely on the agenda.

Ditch the comparisons

Ditch. Akbar. 11/19/05.

Local performance artist Kristina Wong performed numbers from her show, Miss Saigon with the Wind, at DITCH on Saturday. I've long meant to see Wong perform, and I'm glad I had this opportunity, although it's no substitute for an actual show. This particular space creates the strangest performance dynamic ever, because it's a bar, not a stage. There's no platform or real stage space to perform on, so the audience is packed in close around the performer on the dance floor. It's hard to see, and hot and crowded and often loud. Which made Wong's performance of the opening scene of Miss Saigon, in which she played all of the prostitutes (and soldiers) in the Saigon bar, incredibly strange and personal. While it's certainly not an ideal venue, it creates a fascinating performer/audience relationship. Wong's screetchy rendition of the (fairly vile) love ballad from Miss Saigon was hilarious as she switched between a saccharine female voice and an exaggeratedly deep masculine voice. I'm going to have to see more of Wong's performance before I can render judgement, but I must admit I'm curious and will try to get out to see a real show of hers soon.

DITCH at Akbar was superfun; the difference in events between DITCH at Zen Sushi and Ditch at AKBAR is huge. At Zen Sushi, there's a decent stage space and we can actually see and hear the performers and actually pay attention. At Zen Sushi, I've been able to carry on conversations better. But at Akbar, there's something to be said about the crushing crowd and loud music - I danced for hours and had an amazing time! Both times I've been to DITCH at Akbar (actually the first time more than the second), I've been with a smoker, so part of the event becomes going outside for fresh air and a cigarette, where there's more conversation and more meeting people and just standing on the street corner talking and taking a break from the heat and the noise, which is important with these events I think. It's one of the times I'm kind of glad to know people who smoke. The whole secondhand smoke thing makes me feel comfortable, it reminds me of friends of mine from college, pubs in London, and all sorts of other good associations with a bad smell. While they're very different experiences, both DITCH venues are amazing and wonderful in their own ways.

Something to be Thankful for

Trans/giving. 11/19/2005. Plummer Park, West Hollywood. 11/20/2005. UCLA.

This Trans/giving was, I believe, even better than those I have previously attended. Trans/giving was celebrating its second birthday and in doing so, they gathered a pretty great lineup of talent. I love the mix of local talent show and professional artists, but this group seemed especially well put-together Of course, it certainly doesn't hurt that one of the performers was Turner Schofield, my personal favorite performance artist.

Spoken word artist Ami Mattison came from Detroit to perform at this event, and her performance was incredibly powerful. She has a beautiful, powerful speaking style that can really electrify a room. Her pieces are wonderfully political and appropriately angry. They are brilliant pieces of writing delivered compellingly. Personally, I was distracted and maybe the tiniest bit obsessed with her hands, which she used well in general, but often held just in front of her pelvis, drawing attention to her crotch. I spent a lot of time during the performance thinking about what that symbolized, but also not wanting to think about anything but what she was saying, which was great. She has a voice and a style that I would gladly listen to all day long. She was selling her CD, but as far as I can tell she doesn't seem to have an up-to-date website of her own for me to recommend. But if you have a chance to see her, check her out.

Turner Schofield remains the up-and-coming performance artist that everyone must see. He's got all of the skill and talent of the perfomers of a previous generation that I love so much, Holly Hughes or Tim Miller or Peggy Shaw, and he's sweet and committed and accessible. On Saturday night, he performed a piece of Debutante Balls, which I have seen at least 3 times now and I never get sick of it. It is completely compelling and feels fresh every time. He's open and honest with an amazing storytelling quality. His comic timing is perfect, his inflections are beautiful, and he can win over almost any audience. Write your local college or performance space and encourage them to book him immediately.

On Sunday, Turner perfomed a piece fromUnderground Transit, which I had never seen before. This piece felt more like poetry and less like storytelling, and I just wanted to drown in the words sometimes. This piece felt younger somehow, less mature. It was fascinating and extremely well done, but somehow didn't blow me away the way Debutante Balls does every time. In the space of 15 minutes or so, he did 3 full costume changes, sang two songs, and talked about what seemed like a million different things. It was a crazy, brilliant, beautiful rainbow whirlwind. It felt like he was bursting with things that had to be talked about and they came out in no particular order exploding in every direction, so sometimes it was hard for his audience to follow. There were some moments I loved, but they seemed fragmented, too short, out of context. I love his Joe Androgynous, frat boy look with yellow pants and matching visor (do frat boys ever really match?) where he asks "Does this boy look like he's got a feminist consciousness?" and implicitly asks "Is this what I might have become?" It's a wonderful moment, but I'm not sure why or how we got from the suit to the frat boy look. I think my problem is that I didn't get the framing story; however tenuous or stream of consciousness it might be, I needed something more to bring these selections and personas together. What do these ideas have in common? What does the subway metaphor have to do with it all? Who was the woman in the red dress? It definitely made me want to see the whole show and find out.

The other highlight of this Trans/giving was Stephan Pennington on banjo (with Phil Gentry as backup guitarist). They performed a fabulous set that spanned genres from bluegrass to lesbian folk music to rock and roll. Stephan's vocals on "Wabash Cannonball" and the Elvis and George Michael songs were especially provokative and nearly inspired girls to swoon in the aisles. Their set was quite sexy and incredibly enjoyable to watch.

On Sunday, ryka aoli de la cruz performed an intricate and incredibly intense piece of poetry. It was an absolutely beautiful performance reaching over the gap from poetry to performance art. In this piece, cruz shared some things that were so incredibly personal that I as an audience member felt vulnerable for her.

It was an amazing set of performers at this Trans/giving and I am very much grateful that such an event exists, frequently bringing in amazingly talented out of town guest performers. This particular edition of the event was especially powerful and I very much appreciate everyone's hard work and dedication to making it happen.

Fiction and Technology

A thought on the frequent difficulty of accomodating contemporary technology into mainstream fiction. I'm not talking about SciFi here, I'm talking about the everyday stories, the classic plots, adapting to the availabilty of technology.

In many ways, Sarah Schulman was brilliantly presceint in saying, "Everything was getting computerized by the summer of '84, and it was happening so fast, a social critic could hardly keep up with it. Lila was having a hard time building a plot around a WANG word processor" (Schulman 250).

On the plane from Toronto, I was so mentally fried that I succombed to the temptation to watch the in-flight movie, Must Love Dogs. I love Diane Lane and I love John Cussak, so this movie did have some things going for it. But awareness of technology was not one of them. It was an entire movie about internet dating, and yet none of the characters seemed to own a cell phone. Not once or even twice but several times the plot revolved entirely around people showing up at other people's houses without calling first; who does that? It seems unbearably rude to me. The people writing, directing, and performing in these movies must know that this technology exists, why can't they figure out how to use it properly? Get around the awkwardness and the tired old plot devices and think about the way we live now!

Lesbians do Keroac

Schulman, Sarah. Girls, Visions, and Everything. In Triangle Classics: The Sophie Horowitz Story; Girls, Visions and Everything; After Dolores. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1997.

"Lila Futuransky always knew she was an outlaw, but she could never figure out which one."

This is a book I picked up cheap because someone told me I should know about Sarah Schulman's dyke noir phase. In reading it, I am consistently amazed at Schulman's intelligence and prescience. While I would generally be dubious about anyone discussing 'the lesbian experience' in the '80s, I have to love Schulman's class and race politics. I find this rumination on Jack Keroac's On the Road set in the lesbian performance art community in New York fascinating. Her fictionalized Kitch-Inn seems like the best depiction of the WOW Cafe that I've ever read, complete with a hilariously successful 'Worst Performance Festival' and a crazy over night trash aesthetic. Helen Hayes and Mike Miller, poorly disguised representations of downtown queer performance luminaries, are fabulously reflective of the figures I've come to know through my work. While I don't know the scene well enough to tell if more of the characters are directly correlated to some of my favorite performance artists, the similarities and representations are wonderful.

Of course, that's not entirely what the book is about, though I kind of wish it were. It is about Lila Futuransky wandering through the East Village as Keroac wandered across America, doing things and meeting people and reflecting brilliantly. Lila, however, goes on a personal journey in which she falls in love and seems to sort of settle down, a plot line of which I am highly suspicious as a representation of lesbian adventures and trajectories. While my general lack of appreciation for On the Road arises from its excessive masculinity, I might criticize Girls, Visions, and Everything for being a bit too "lesbian" or a bit too bitter in the beginning and sweet at the end, but in general I love it.

Cool Queer Events this Weekend

I was trying not too drool over all the cool things happening this weekend, because I'll be out of town and thus I cannot go to them all, but I am sad. It's a great weekend for queer film because Outfest is putting on their people of color film festival, Fusion, on Saturday and Sunday. Also, there is a bunch of independent queer film at the Arclight's AFI Film Festival this weekend. I have a friend who's going to see Breakfast on Pluto, in which Cillian Murphy plays a transgendered woman in a '60s nightclub. And together, the two film festivals give you 3, yes 3, chances to see Margaret Cho in Bam Bam and Celeste (although one of them is last Tuesday and you already missed it. sigh.

In terms of performance, the most exciting thing to me is that the Butchlalis de Panochtitlan will be performing on Saturday (Nov. 12) at the Fusion festival at 6PM at Barnsdall Art Park. They're a super-fun group of performers, if sometimes a bit overly theoretical in tone, and totally cute, and I would definitely go see them if I were in town.

Next Top Lesbian

For some reason, I'm not quite sure why because I missed most of this week's episode (I prefer the replay on Tuesdays), Kim from America's Next Top Model, was doing a guest spot on Veronica Mars. My general appreciation of Kim as a vaguely butch face on TV inspired me to allow myself to fall victim to their crossover ploy. It actually worked fairly well - Veronica Mars was pretty good, and I was convinced to watch the whole episode. Kim's acting debut was a little rough- she was servicable but a bit awkward in a minor role as a rental car lackey, but I still believe that she needs to have a career beyond reality TV that will allow me to watch her more often.

What's so great about Nov. 19?

The date of Nov. 19th wants to kill me. I was originally supposed to go to a USC football game, but I cancelled that when I realized that it conflicted with Turner Schofield performing at Transgiving, which of course I absolutely must see. If you ever have a chance, I highly, highly recommend that you see Turner's show. This tragically conflicts with DITCH at Akbar that night, which will probably also be awesome. Technically Transgiving ends at 9:30 and DITCH starts at 9, but the last time I was at Transgiving it was absolutely epic, starting an hour late and dragging until everyone was kicked out of the space. Akbar was the location of the first DITCH, and I had more fun that night than I had in a long time. It was an excellent evening and I suspect returning to the scene of the crime will be equally awesome. Also, Kristina Wong is performing at DITCH, an artist that Turner himself has frequently told me I must see. Saturday the 19th is also the UCLA leg of the conference formerly known as QGrad, the Queerscapes conference cohosted by USC and UCLA, but that should be over before the queer performance action really starts.

If you happen to be in San Francisco, Nov. 19th is also the date of the Miss Trannyshack 2005 Pageant, which will I'm sure be an absolutely amazing drag event.

Double booked!

At UCLA on Thursday (Nov. 3), 2 exciting queer scholars will be presenting papers at almost exactly the same time. Bad scheduling makes my life difficult!

Karen Tongson from USC will be presenting "From Weissnichtwo to Kalihi: The accent in Queer Provincial Imaginaries" at 4pm in 164 Royce Hall.

Sue-Ellen Case will be presenting ideas from her new book in the Distinguished Lecture Series for the department of Musicology in Shoenberg hall at 5pm.

You say 'relic' like it's a bad thing

Goldoni, Carlo. Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters. Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Giorgio Strehler, dir. Freud Playhouse, UCLA. 10/21/05.

Ferruccio Soleri first played Arlecchino in 1960 and has been performing this play for 50 years. The production, directed by Giorgio Strehler, has existed more or less intact for even longer, although Soleri is credited with restaging it after Strehler died in 1997. The play itself was written by Goldoni in 1747. It was based on earlier Italian commedia dell'arte which in turn was strongly influenced by Roman Plautine comedy. It's a production with an awfully long history. Sometimes that makes it feel old, especially in that Soleri is 70 years old, so while he did a great job, one can assume he would have been a litle more spry in the role when he was younger.

This was actually a really fun show, in that commedia is a fun genre and this was a strong example of it. There were several ridiculous and hilarious moments and I found myself laughing out loud on occasion. It was, however, 3 hours long, which feels a little extreme for a comedy of mistaken identities and wacky antics. Occasionally it was a bit slow and probably could have been trimmed a bit. There were moments where it felt weird being in a dark theater watching a play that evoked the roots of commedia when it would have been performed in a bustling marketplace.

But overall, I had a great time. Stock characters, slapstick, pratfalls, and other commedia humor still makes for a great show. Soleri was quite agile and did a good job of holding the audience's attention regardless of his age.

A Play in Search of A Genius

Svich, Caridad. Iphigenia Crash Land Falls On The Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable). In Divine Fire: Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks. Ed. Caridad Svich. New York: Backstage Books, 2005.

More people should read this play. It's a play with a great title and a lot of potential. I want to see it, and I want to see it done well. I want a collaboration between Luis Alfaro and Francesca Lia Block, possibly with help from the Butchlalis de Panochtitlan. I believe this play could be amazingly brilliant, but I'm torn. It requires a brilliant video artist, a brilliant sound designer, and a director with vision and a decent urban glam rave sensibility. Plus, there should be an awareness of both queer politics and Latino/Chicano issues and culture.

Apparently they did it at 7 Stages in Atlanta, which I hear has a good queer contingent, so that gives me some hope. There are some pictures here.

Anyway, the play seems totally fascinating, but it's also kind of hard to visualize because projections and music play such important roles in the production. It is in many ways about atmosphere and surface and I'm not entirely sure about what's below the surface but I think it feels right to me. The play is making comments about sacrifice, teenage sexuality, indulgence, and celebrity but it's not saying anything didactically, so it's hard to think about the point below the story and to distinguish that from tone and mood. I need to think about it more. I also need to read Euripedes Iphigenia so I know where Svich is coming from.

But this comes in a series of recent plays in which queer Chicano/a playwrights adapt Greek tragedies. I'd love to see a festival reminiscent of the ancient Greek festival of Dionysus in which three tragedies and one comedy were presented in the span of a single day as a trilogy of related themes. I would put Luis Alfaro's Electricidad at noon under the heat of an LA sun and the powerlines pulsing. Sunset would fall at the end of Cherrie Moraga's Hungry Woman and the rave of Svich's Iphigenia Crash Land Falls... would lead us into the dark. It would be a strange, beautiful experience.

But back to Iphigenia. There are some confusing vaguenesses in just reading the script and I'm not sure what some of the elements really mean. It references maquilladoras and desaparacidos and features a dictador that could be Juan Peron, Hugo Chavez, or George W. Bush, leaving a director or reader to infer what to make of these references. In fact, it felt very topical in terms of Dubya wrangling rebellious Bush twins. The male lead is supposedly a "transgender rock star" but it's unclear whether that means he's a transman or an effeminate biological male. In fact, I'm not sure whether its transgendered politics are in the right place at all, which is a big issue. Is this campy crossdressing or trans awareness? Why do they need to be transgendered; what does it mean? I still have a lot of questions about this play, but I very much want to see it done and done well.

A Good Moment for Brecht

There's a lot of Brecht going on at the moment.

Caucasian Chalk Circle just closed at South Coast Rep.

Threepenny Opera is running at the Odyssey Theatre through Nov. 27.

Mother Courage opens on Oct. 29 at The Theatre at Boston Court.

Are L.A. Theater companies slowly becoming more politically aware? Are they using this for actual contemporary commentary? Will there be audiences? I'm kind of curious, though I hear that the Caucasian Chalk Circle was a little fluffy and uncritical. I'm most interested in Threepenny; Brecht is more fun with more music.

More Psychotic

Futher thoughts on 4.48 Psychose, perhaps occasioned by the New York Times article preceeding its performance in Brooklyn.

First, Isabelle Huppert is indeed phenomenal. She manages to be riveting despite speaking for an hour and a half in a language I don't understand without moving. She also appears without makeup in this production, looking her age, tired, even a bit haggard, even though she remains one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. Her physical, vocal, and facial expression remain extremely articulate, implying that language is almost unnecessary. She remains the strength and the weakness of this production; it could not be done with anyone else, and the minimalist intensity relies entirely on her skill and her fame in certain intellectual circles. Anyone who as not seen her films, for whom she herself is not part of the attraction of this play, who cannot appreciate her uncharacteristic vulnerability, will get much less out of the production.

Second, the fact that the play is in French is not the problem. The fact that the play is so incredibly minimalist that the audience has not even language to rely on makes it more difficult. But the problem is that this is a brilliant, beautifully-written text and the production in many ways foregrounds that text with Huppert's stunning articulation. The drawback is that this makes it feel like a French lesson; the words are clearly spoken but their meaning not fully grasped. Not understanding the words means that much of the mordant humor, the hope, the potential of Kane's text is lost in translation or lack thereof. This production means something so different when you hear the words but not all of their resonances, not the profound depth of their meanings. The very fact that I know and love the text of the play made it more frustrating for me that I couldn't understand all of the words.

Third, while I'm not sure seeing this play in French is the greatest thing ever, and perhaps I would have enjoyed it much more in English, I'm so incredibly glad that I saw this production. It gave me a feeling of insight into how the play itself worked and it was an extremely intense, emotional experience despite the language barrier. I learned that part of how Psychosis works is by putting the audience into almost a trance state, so you can feel the barrenness and desolation about which the character speaks. Emotional vulnerability not only of the actors but the audience is essential to the play. You have to make the audience brutally aware of their own embodiment, the act of sitting there watching, thinking, feeling. It has to be an experience of the self as much as of the play, which leaves me in an incredibly strange emotional state. It leaves me raw, emotional, introspective and that is the greatest contribution of the play.

Tough on the Psyche

Kane, Sarah. 4.48 Psychose. Starring Isabelle Huppert. UCLA Live. 10/5/05.

I didn't post a review of this when I first saw it. Partially because it took some time to think about, partially because the things I have to say about it are about as minimalist as the production itself. But then I read this blog post about the early press for the production when it gets to BAM in New York and I thought maybe it was worth saying something, however conflicted, about my experience at this production.

First of all, my thoughts fall somewhere in between The Playgoer's and the article to which he was responding. I agree with the premise that an informed audience is better than a suprised audiend. I found the idea, however, that fluent French was a requirement for "decent theatregoing Manhattanites" to be profoundly elitist and a bit disturbing. While a solid working knowledge of the "classical" languages would be lovely for all educated adults, it's not a feasible reality in this day and age. Would he be making the same comment about Arabic? Chinese? As a native Californian, I would have understood the play quite a bit better if it were entirely in Spanish because that's the more practical language to undestand in my life. Seeing theater in other languages is a difficult experience and a good thing to do, but it is reasonable to inform the predominantly English-speaking New York audience that a play originally written in English won't be performed in English. Warning the audience makes sense to me.

I also found the assertion that all problems would be solved if everyone would just bother "to read the play beforehand. When it's a classic, like a familiar Shakespeare, it's really no problem to at least follow where they are in the play. Such effort is called preparing. And perhaps what ticks me off is that is what is mocked most in McKinley's article." Now, I can't comment on McKinley's article (I refuse to pay to get it out of the NYTimes archive), but I know 4.48 Psychosis. I've read the play at least 3 times and seen the British Royal Court production twice. I know this play well and I love it. But reading it is a very different experience from seeing it. It's more of a poem than a narrative in which one can "follow where they are in the play" and without any movement whatsoever, there's not a lot of following to be done.

I personally was the recipient of one of these warning letters when I purchased my ticket to the production, and I must admit that I scoffed at it. I was amused at the idea that the audience had to be warned, but I also didn't realize that there wouldn't be consistent supertitles so I was glad to know. And my letter did include encouragement to read the play beforehand and an offer of the text online. Personally, I would much rather have an informed audience than the few people who didn't read the letter and therefore walked out 15 minutes into the show or even worse, boo'd at the end.

Now with all of this discussion, it makes it sound like it was a horrible production and I didn't enjoy it. That is very much not the case. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. And I'm not at all opposed to seeing plays in foreign languages that I don't understand. This one was strange and fascinating and gave me some good insights into a play I know and love.

The Surrealist Theater is Empty

all wear bowlers. dir. Aleksandra Wolska. The Kirk Douglas Theatre. 10/18/2005.

After all of my disappointment with the Center Theatre Group's season, I ended up seeing all wear bowlers at the Kirk Douglas with my parents this weekend. It was probably a mistake, since I feel so repulsed by Ritchie's programming, but director Wolska worked at my alma mater right before I got there, so I feel a personal connection that motivated me to see her work.

This piece was quite entertaining and flawlessly executed. Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle are extremely talented perfomers and the production itself was quite clever. It began with delightful clown routines and playful gestures, and by the end it was mildly terrifying and evoked existential dread. The perfomers all seem extremely well-educated, perfectly familiar with the Beckett, Magritte, and Laurel and Hardy upon whom they were building.

Unfortunately, the performance itself left me asking, "so what?" It was entertaining, but was there a point? They are clever and witty, but why should I care? It seemed to be all empty virtuosity that was tragically irrelevant. They certainly didn't manage to change my mind about Michael Richie's programming for CTG. And halfway through the play I was struck by the shocking revelation that Ritchie is completely evacuating the potential of the Kirk Douglas as a space in a shameful way. They are going to dedicate it almost entirely to children's theater and productions from elswhere and completely write it off. That's a tragic failure to live up to its potential and Gordon Davidson's plans.

More on Pinter

I believe I can be a little more articulate on my feelings about Pinter - I was reacting in a hurry earlier. I am glad that a playwright won the Nobel Prize. I believe Pinter deserves quite a bit of recognition for what he has done. He's a fascinating playwright mostly because his plays have a great deal of depth that leaves room for actors' and directors' interpretation. However, his portrayals of women disturb me profoundly. They are all a combination of uptight frigid bitch and whore. Seriously, think of Ruth in The Homecoming or the woman in The Servant or Stella in The Collection. He's working out some serious sexual issues with women by turning them into these weird dark fantasy creatures. Even creepier that most of these women were played by Vivan Merchant, who was his wife. So if you can turn off all feminism and other forms of identity politics (Pinter's characters occasionally make really strange racist remarks where you don't know if Pinter is making fun of his characters or not and I believe almost all of his plays are all white) then sometimes you can enjoy how nasty the people are to each other, but I always have reservations. Pinter's plays aren't enjoyable, and generally they aren't really political either. Thinking about the implications generally upsets me. The thing he seems to be doing most with plays such as The Lover or The Homecoming is shattering middle class repressed sexuality, which is a good thing, but he seems to do it in such an anti-woman way that it disturbs me. Not that his men necessarily come off well, but the women always seem to be a bit of this same woman.

Whatever Happened to Crazy Joan?

Lypsinka. The Passion of the Crawford. The L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center's Lily Tomlin Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center. 10/14/05.

John Epperson as Lypsinka as Joan Crawford in The Passion of the Crawford. Well, if that isn't a giant mess of identities, I don't know what is! In many ways, I don't know what to make of this show. Now don't get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoyed it. I laughed out loud and I laughed often, but it wasn't quite what I expected. I anticipated a sort of collage show of Crawford's greatest and lowest moments and especially bits of Mommie Dearest. Instead, Lypsinka perfomed mostly excerpts from a live interview with Crawford (in front of a live audience), which provided an interesting object on which she could practice her art.

The performance became very much about Lyspinka's gestures and facial expressions, particularly the way in which she punctuated the pauses in Crawford's speech with tics and twitches and the way she reacted to the interviewer, who was played delightfully by Steve Cuiffo. My favorite moment was when she was reminiscing about the star system and said "but I don't live in the past." I wish I had an exact quote for this because it was very meta.

The interview was occasionally cut with interludes of Joan singing, which were extremely strange, and scenes from another interview in which the inteviewer visited Crawford's home at Christmas, suggesting the reality of Mommie Dearest. After the interview section, Lypsinka performed Crawford reading a strange children's poem, which was even weirder. This part was a little slow, and since the poem made very little sense, my mind kept wandering. In the end was a final breakdown, in which a bunch of very short clips of Joan were spliced together into a collage of insanity, which was kind of fun. I felt bad because I didn't necessarily get all the references, being most familiar with Crawford from Mildred Pierce and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, but a lot of the sections were actually bits from the earlier interview so that worked out OK.

Crawford is such an interesting person to impersonate because later in her career (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane) she became such a mockery of herself anyway. With her giant bushy eyebrows and broad shoulders, she looked like a drag queen herself. It was interesting to see the video montage at the beginning of the performance which included plenty of her earlier work and even some musicals, because I was suprised to be reminded that at one time she actually was a beautiful women. She says in the interview that she could never play an ingenue, but she was indeed actually a starlet and at one point she looked the part.

Reflections on Pinter, Nobel Laureate

Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize. Of course this is quite an honor, and playwrights, especially extremely political playwrights, are rare recipients. The New York Times makes a good point about Pinter seeming to be a political choice for the Nobel Committee - he's a vocal opponent of the Iraq war. In fact, he recently announced that he was retiring from playwriting in order to concentrate on political writing and poetry.

I've spent a fairly significant amount of time with Pinter's plays recently, and I have to say that I'm not entirely a giant fan of Pinter's writing. It is endlessly fascinating, mentally stimulating material with which to work, but I've never particularly enjoyed watching it. All his plays have the same rhythms, the same speech patterns, and a very similar set of mysterious incidents, so en masse they seem rather overwhelming and somewhat monotonous. And bad productions of Pinter are quite possibly the most miserable experience on the planet.

Pinter is certainly brilliant and quite deserving of theis phenomenal honor, even if he's not always for me.

John Fleck makes a great lesbian

Greenspan, David. She Stoops to Comedy. The Evidence Room. 10/7/05.

John Fleck is my hero. He's hilarious. He can make just about anything funny. And in this case, he played a lesbian with no costuming, no elaborate drag, no offensive sterotypes; it was wonderful. She Stoops to Comedy is a play about an actress, Alexandra Page, whose estranged girlfriend is heading off to Maine to do Shakespeare in a barn (haven't we all been there at some point?). In order to make sure the girlfriend doesn't fall in love with a costar (or various other possible motivations), Alex heads off to take the role of Orlando opposite the girlfriend's Rosalind in As You Like It. Cross-dressing without costume changes and complicated sexual tension ensues. I could watch John Fleck play a lesbian diva for all eternity. He was awesome and over the top, but entirely with voice and gesture - the play was quite sparse in terms of costumes and sets and Fleck looked like Fleck whether playing Alexandra Page or Harry Sampson.

The script itself was a bit too self-indulgently PoMo at times. There were moments where it dragged and some moments were extremely awkward. And the entire heterosexual director subplot was boring and extraneous. I don't even know what to make of the whole gay man "who needs another play about me?" section. I think I might have been offended by that. But on the upside, Shannon Holt played dual roles as a rival diva and a lighting designer/archeologist who also happened to be ex-lovers and had an amazing, hilarious scene together. While there were some problems, overall this production had some moments of brilliance that make it absolutely worth the trip. I thoroughly enjoyed it.