My wife says I really know how to pick plays for Valentine’s Day. Last Sunday, in addition to the Wooster Group’s tedious novelty North Atlantic at REDCAT, we also saw Shishir Kurup’s On Caring for the Beast, which is about the attempts of human beings to transcend or at least survive torture and other forms of pain.
Of course Kurup can’t be responsible for how his play goes over on Valentine’s Day. It’s a serious play that grapples with unpleasant but real subjects. Kurup’s staging for Cornerstone Theater has its haunting moments, but it’s more a collection of parts than a cohesive whole.
The focal point is a writer (Bahni Turpin) who’s interviewing a former torturer (Amro Salama), while gradually allowing her obsession with the subject to creep into her relationship with her musician boyfriend (Justin Gordon). Yet Kurup doesn’t provide enough background details about these characters and then dilutes their story with too much other material.
He adds glances at two neighboring households that have similar but more predictable issues with psychological or physical pain – and goes overboard in overlaying an aura of mysticism, involving the Hindu goddess Kali and a ouija board. You also could get the unintended impression from his play that torture is something that only people of color might do.
For a very different but politically sharper and, yes, funnier take on torture, see Christopher Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them, in Blank Theatre’s West Coast premiere at the Stella Adler Theatre. After seeing Kurup’s play, I felt slightly guilty for enjoying Durang’s play, which treats the subject satirically, but Durang isn’t making fun of torture. He’s lambasting the culture that allows torture to be considered as a tactic by Americans and highlights how easily it might yield woefully inaccurate intelligence.
Catherine Hicks, Sunil Malhotra, Alec Mapa and Rick Genovese in Durang's play
The plot is a wild chain of events propelled by neurotic or psychotic caricatures of people. But by maintaining a level of comic artifice, as well as one relatively sane character Felicity (Rhea Seehorn), Durang enables her to rewrite events and emerge with an ending that might not be happy but at least averts World War III. In fact, the ending is so self-consciously romantic that Durang’s play really wouldn’t have been a bad choice for Valentine’s Day.
Why Torture Is Wrong‘s location in the 99-seat Stella Adler, on Hollywood Boulevard, marks a decision by the Blank – which usually operates out of its 49-seater on Santa Monica Boulevard – to establish a higher profile in the heart of Hollywood. Blank artistic director Daniel Henning wants Blank to become Hollywood’s first midsize regional theater. Producing at the Adler is a smart tactic in that campaign.
I also was glad to see the venue of Kurup’s play. It’s the first professional production at a gracefully intimate theater located at Inner-City Arts, an entrancing oasis surrounded by downtown’s Skid Row. It would be great if the next play there could be more explicitly related to the neighborhood.
Another new venue opened last weekend in El Segundo. The first production of the new Pacific Stages is Kenneth Lonergan’s insightful and funny Lobby Hero, one of the best plays of the past decade, in an appealing staging by Robert Bailey. If you’ve never seen this story of an affable young security guard (Edward Tournier) at the intersection of two ethical dilemmas, here’s your chance.
I wonder, however, if it was wise of this new company to take the name Pacific Stages when there are several units of the Pacific Theatres cinema chain within a few blocks – as well as Pacific Resident Theatre up the coast in Venice.
On Caring for the Beast, Cornerstone Theater at Inner-City Arts, 720 Kohler St., downtown L.A. Wed-Sat, 8 pm, Sun 2 pm. Closes Feb. 28. 213-613-1700. www.cornerstonetheater.org.
Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them, Blank Theatre at the Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Thur-Sat, 8 pm; Sun, 2 pm. Closes March 14. 323-661-9827. www.TheBlank.com.
Lobby Hero, Pacific Stages, 2041 Rosecrans Ave., #170, El Segundo (free parking in the top levels of the parking garage, above the 90-minutes-only parking and the valet parking). Thur-Sat, 8 pm; Sat., 3 pm; Sun 5 pm. Closes March 21. 310-868-2631. www.pacificstages.org.
Water supposedly surrounds the characters in small, enclosed spaces in two plays currently playing in intimate theaters, which are ideal venues for this kind of narrative set-up.
At the Hayworth, Carlos Lacámara’s Exiles examines a boatload of participants in the Mariel boatlift of 1980 – when Cuban Americans took boats to Cuba in order to bring relatives back to the U.S., only to learn that the Castro regime also was requiring them to transport some criminals and lunatics out of Cuba. The play focuses on a group of Americans and Cubans who are stranded in the Caribbean by a broken engine. Their interactions are fraught with past grudges as well as current dangers, and the boat becomes an emotional pressure cooker.
David Fofi’s staging, using a boat frame designed by John Iacovelli, keeps the tension high. The excellent cast includes playwright Lacámara, whose Havana Bourgeois played an upstairs space at the Hayworth in 2007. One of the characters in Exiles also participated in the situation that took place in the earlier play, which was set in an ad agency just after Castro took over.
Tony Williams and Candice Afia in Blood and Thunder
Meanwhile, in Terence Anthony’s Blood and Thunder at Moving Arts, the characters aren’t quite as stranded as the Cuban exiles, but they’re still surrounded by water in their second-story apartment. The play is set in New Orleans during Katrina. Two estranged brothers engage in a desperate struggle for the upper hand, while flashbacks recall the woman who came between them. The audience sits a few inches away from the action, feeling almost as stranded as the characters in the venue’s rather claustrophobic configuration. But it’s only 65 minutes, and it’s a powerfully visceral experience, although perhaps it too wasn’t exactly ideal for Valentine’s Day weekend.
Exiles, Hayworth Theatre, 2509 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Fri-Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 3 p.m. Closes Feb. 27. 323-960-4442. www.thehayworth.com.
Blood and Thunder, Moving Arts, 1822 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake. Fri-Sat, 8 pm; Sun 3 pm. 323-666-3259. www.MovingArts.org.
Giselle Wolf, Michael Newcomer and Larry Cedar in Celadine
Finally, a report from the southeast San Fernando Valley: Charles Evered’s Celadine, at the Colony, is a spirited and ultimately light-hearted period romp about independent women and their relationship with a king and a possible spy in 17th century England. A subplot about the central character’s dead daughter feels undeveloped, perhaps in order to retain a primarily buoyant mood. If you thought the Geffen’s Equivocation, set in a similar environment several decades earlier, was a bit overstuffed, you might find Celadine more to your liking – or you might find it a little under-stuffed. Laguna Playhouse’s Andrew Barnicle directs.
Two other Valley plays are about Irish immigrants abroad. I preferred the richly realistic examination of disillusioned, middle-aged Irish men in London, in Sean Branney’s U.S. premiere of Jimmy Murphy’s The Kings of the Kilburn High Road at Theatre Banshee, to the over-the-top theatrics of Ann Noble’s Sidhe (pronounced “She”) at the Road Theatre. Sidhe is set in Chicago, but Noble – who also plays the role of a landlady who rents to a couple of Irish sibling terrorists on the lam – clutters the play with a surfeit of Irish fairy lore as well as moments of unbelievable melodrama.
Celadine, Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St., Burbank. Thur-Sat, 8 pm; Sun, 2 and 7 pm; Sat Feb. 20, 3 pm. Closes at the matinee on March 7. 818-558-7000. www.colonytheatre.org.
The Kings of the Kilburn High Road, The Banshee, 3435 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. Fri-Sat, 8 pm; Sun, 2 pm. Closes Feb. 28. 818-846-5323. www.theatrebanshee.org.
Sidhe, Road Theatre at Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Fri-Sat, 8 pm; Sun 2 pm. Closes March 20. 866-811-4111. www.roadtheatre.org.
Why Torture Is Wrong photo by Rick Baumgartner.
Blood and Thunder photo by Jay R. Lawton.
Celadine photo by Michael Lamont.
Thank you Don Shirley for recognizing the talented cast, crew and lovely director of our production of Lobby Hero. The mention here is very meaningful to our young company and we so appreciate the encouragement it represents to us all.
A note about the name Pacific Stages. When I came up with the concept for our company in early 2001 the first name I registered was LA South Bay Theatre Company. That was quite a mouthful and merely meant to be a bookmark as I explored suitable monikers and began developing the mission for our company. I knew from the outset that my goal was to establish a LORT theatre based in the South Bay, and using as a model esteemed organizations such as South Coast Rep. In fact one of my early exploratory conversations was with David Emmes, who generously shared some interesting insights about the process.
In choosing a name our considerations were both local and national. It was important that the name was at once specific to our location and goals and generic enough to stand apart on a national basis. We went through the same exercise with our logo. Our core mission focuses simply on great writing – Great American writing to be specific – and I liked the timeless image of an old fashioned typewriter key with a contemporary twist. So this is how name and our logo came to be. Some years later I came to know the lovely and talented Marilyn Fox of PRT and we shared our own experiences with the word Pacific in our nomenclature.
At the time we were choosing a name it was just me sitting and pondering a very large vision I was determined to make happen. I had not yet met Richard Lundquist, our most generous benefactor for the space we are holding our debut season in and the landlord of both our theatre and Pacific Movie Theaters. It was happenstance that placed us in the same location. And rather than look at it as an opportunity for confusion I prefer to think that it is an indication of the good karma that has helped us reach this moment.
In closing I would simply like to encourage audiences in the South Bay and the extended Los Angeles community to come to El Segundo and see this delightful production of Lobby Hero and to stay tuned for the World Premiere of L Trey Wilson’s SOMETHING HAPPENED. Previews begin on April 1st and our official opening night is April 10th.
Thank you.
Jeryll W Adler, Executive Director & Founder, Pacific Stages
Actually, Pacific Resident Theatre ran into a little trouble with Pacific Theatres over the similar names of the companies. Here’s what I wrote about it in the L.A. Times in 1996:
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: Speaking of Fox’s group, it used to be the Pacific Theatre Ensemble. In 1993, this columnist asked company officials why they were changing the name to the more long-winded Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble. It was because the group had recently moved its mainstage to the Culver City neighborhood and wanted to establish its
permanent residency there, came the reply.
But now that the group is ensconced in Venice, not Culver City, the real reason for the name change emerges: An attorney representing Pacific Theatres, the movie theater chain, pointed out the similarity
between the two names and requested a change, say the new company officials. This version was confirmed by Pacific Theatres attorney Ira Levin. After a prominent newspaper article about the stage company
appeared, he said, the movie chain started getting calls from customers, employees and even the attorney’s mother, asking when the firm had entered the live theater business. “There was confusion,” Levin said.
And then in 1997:
WHATCHAMACALLIT: First it was the Pacific Theatre Ensemble. Then the Venice-based stage company became Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble, after the Pacific Theatres movie theater chain complained that their
names were too similar.
Then, in the latest name change, the company dropped “Ensemble.” Pacific Resident Theatre, if you please.
“This was a board decision that I voted against,” said artistic director Marilyn Fox. “It was from the business side. People were complaining that four words in the name were hard to remember, that it was hard to answer the phone, that there wasn’t enough room on the marquee.”
The group is no less of an ensemble, she said. “There has been no change in the concept of the theater.”
The board also considered dropping “Resident” and reversing the last two words: Pacific Ensemble Theatre. But “it seemed like too much of a change,” Fox said. And maybe the group didn’t want to be known as PET.