Teenage girls enter talent contests, aiming to hit the bigtime. So goes the first major scene in both of the big musicals that opened in L.A. during the past week.
In the case of the new Backwards in High Heels at International City Theatre, the focus is on young Ginger Rogers of Fort Worth, Texas. In the revival of Dreamgirls, at the Ahmanson Theatre, the would-be stars make up a trio of fictional characters, loosely inspired by the Supremes.
Anna Aimee White and Matt Bauer in BACKWARDS IN HIGH HEELS (Photo by Shashin Desai)
After those initial scenes, the young women rise through the ranks of vaudeville in the ’20s (Rogers) or the black concert circuit in the ’60s (the Dreamgirls) before they become showbiz legends.
Dreamgirls, of course, has been a success on Broadway, in Hollywood, and elsewhere over the last few decades. Backwards in High Heels is still taking its baby steps. The creators of Backwards, Lynnette Barkley and Christopher McGovern, might want to consider the differences between the two shows, as they continue shaping their show.
In Dreamgirls, the major focus is on Effie White (Moya Angela), an enormously talented singer but a seriously troubled person. We watch her career rise and fall and rise, more or less in conjunction with her love life. There are no flashbacks.
Because the characters are fictionalized, the creators of Dreamgirls didn’t feel compelled to walk on eggshells to avoid lawsuits or hurt feelings. They weren’t afraid to depict the low points.
By contrast, in Backwards in High Heels, low points are difficult to discern. The ascent of Rogers’ career never falters or appears seriously threatened – it’s interrupted only by an awkwardly placed flashback to when Ginger was a tot whose custody was disputed by her parents.
Backwards ends as Rogers wins an Oscar in 1940 — even though Rogers’ subsequent career lasted about four more decades, without ever reaching its earlier heights. While Backwards acknowledges that Rogers had five unsuccessful marriages, it handles that fact in two musical numbers that more or less dismiss that aspect of her life as a little sideshow, a joke that probably amused her as much as it amuses us. No probing allowed.
Rogers died 15 years ago. So you would think that the creators of Backwards wouldn’t have to be compulsive self-censors. But their show feels like a tribute more than a living drama, as if they felt that they still needed Rogers’ script approval.
Adrienne Warren, Syesha Mercado, and Moya Angela in DREAMGIRLS (Photo by Joan Marcus)
In contrast to Effie in Dreamgirls, who at one point is surrounded by a half-dozen people criticizing her, Rogers has no enemies. The only substantive person who disagrees with her is her mother, who tries her best to keep her daughter somewhat grounded. But while Lela Rogers is protective, she isn’t aggressively pushy. If she had tussled with Mama Rose, in a scene excised from Gypsy, Rose would have pulverized her.
In Hollywood, it’s Ginger who insists on expanding her projects beyond Fred Astaire musicals, while her more cautious mother worries that Astaire might be an essential ingredient of her daughter’s success. The end of the show enables Ginger to appear triumphant in that argument, as she accepts her Oscar for a movie that Astaire wasn’t in. In retrospect, of course, no one would seriously contend that the highlight of Rogers’ career was anything other than her work with Astaire.
By the way, the script hints that Rogers and Astaire had a fling during their vaudeville days, but it isn’t dramatized – perhaps out of undue discretion? This wastes a promising idea – that Astaire and Rogers could have engaged in amusing adolescent fumbles before they crafted their later image as the epitome of adult glamour.
Of course such a scene might have been pure fiction, but then you’re never quite sure what proportion of these staged celebrity bios is accurate, anyway. In Backwards, we’re told that Rogers’ first marriage lasted a mere three weeks. Yet the program for the Fullerton Civic Light Opera production of Backwards contradicts the script, reporting that the marriage lasted from 1929 to 1931. Better to go ahead and make the show fictional, like Dreamgirls, instead of worrying about such details.
Another major difference between the two shows is probably unavoidable. Dreamgirls was created with an original score (Henry Krieger’s music, Tom Eyen’s lyrics), so it could be explicitly shaped to match the dramatic contours of the show. Backwards in High Heels uses four original songs by McGovern, yet most of the score consists of period standards associated with Rogers musicals, probably because most of the audience will expect to hear them. While McGovern guides these songs into generally appropriate moments, they simply can’t match the show-specific fit of the Dreamgirls songs.
This Dreamgirls revival, directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom, is packed with fresh acting talent, but the major difference from previous versions is in its visual imagery, not its performances. The ”media design” by Howard Werner/Lightswitch offers a vivid complement to Robin Wagner’s set and Ken Billington’s lighting. While the look isn’t necessarily better than that of previous productions, it’s certainly unexpected and often stimulating. But a Busby Berkeley bit in “Steppin’ to the Bad Side” seems out of place and ostentatiously over-the-top.
I saw two productions of Backwards in High Heels last weekend: Fullerton Civic Light Opera’s West Coast premiere, which has now closed but will re-open briefly in Escondido, and International City Theatre’s L.A. County premiere.
In retrospect, one would have been enough. But which one?
Fullerton’s is definitely bigger. Rob Barron’s staging has more than 20 actors (including the company’s producer Griff Duncan playing a Hollywood producer) and a 10-piece band, compared to Long Beach’s six actors and a five-piece band. It also has some big set pieces, including original lighting equipment from old Hollywood that dominates the stage in the show’s first moments. It’s intended for large venues.
The flip side, of course, is that the midsize ICT’s production, staged by caryn desai, offers more intimacy. The audience gets a closer look at the dancing and the faces. The Stephen Gifford set design is reminiscent of a classy cabaret instead of the more vaudevillian look of Fullerton’s design by Dwight Richard Odle. Not surprisingly, a cabaret look is more appropriate for the Astaire chapters, while a bigger production is more appropriate for depicting Rogers’ earlier years.
Neither of the Gingers (Melissa Wolfklain in Fullerton, Anna Aimee White in Long Beach) is notably better than the other. Likewise with the mothers (Cynthia Ferrer in Fullerton, Heather Lee in Long Beach), who are both especially strong. But between the two first husbands, Fullerton’s Ted Leib looks more convincing as a seedy drunk than Long Beach’s Jeff Payton, and Long Beach’s Matt Bauer looks more like Astaire than his Fullerton counterpart Cody Walker.
It’s a toss-up. But it’s not the kind of toss-up that leaves me yearning for a rematch. I think I’ve seen enough of this show for now.
Backwards in High Heels, International City Theatre, south end of Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd. Thur-Sat, 8 pm; Sun, 2 pm. Closes March 21. 562-436-4610. www.InternationalCityTheatre.org.
Dreamgirls, Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center, 135 N. Grand, L.A. Tues-Fri, 8 pm; Sat, 2 and 8 pm; Sun 1 and 6:30 pm; Thurs April 1, 2 pm. Dark on Wed., March 10. Closes at the April 4 matinee. 213-972-4400. www.CenterTheatreGroup.org.
On the other hand, I’d like to see a second performance of Cousin Bette, Antaeus’ production at Deaf West Theatre. Antaeus has taken over the double casting tradition pioneered in L.A. by the Matrix Theatre. It would be fun to see both casts in Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of the Balzac novel.
Nike Doukas as COUSIN BETTE
I use “fun” advisedly, because this is one trek through a classic that is genuinely and unexpectedly deserving of it. Hatcher has taken some liberties – in an e-mail I received from him via director Jeanie Hackett, he listed six narrative variations from Balzac’s original. Perhaps the most significant departure is near the end, when Hatcher’s inventions tilt the mood all the way over into virtually Ortonesque comedy, thanks to some quasi-farcical contortions.
Balzac probably wouldn’t have minded. Cousin Bette was a part of an overall oeuvre that the prolific author called La Comédie Humaine. With a title like that, and writing that was “so much more fervent than real life,” to quote from Christopher Breyer’s illuminating program note, it would be easy to conclude that it’s not only OK but essential for the family drama and social commentary to overlap into comedy. In fact, for a TV analogy, this production seems as close to Dallas as to Masterpiece Theatre. Then again, the Chopin tinkling in the background sometimes evokes the sound of silent film comedy.
The action is centered around the “poor relation” title character, who is also the narrator. In the cast I saw, the terrific Nike Doukas, who usually looks so chic (most recently in The Happy Ones at South Coast Repertory), carefully extricates any shred of superficial allure in order to emphasize the spectacle of one scheming woman who’s determined to turn endless humiliations into eventual triumph.
Cousin Bette, Antaeus Company at Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Thur-Sat, 7:30 pm; Sun, 4 pm. Closes March 21. 818-506-1983. www.antaeus.org.
I confess. I should have gone earlier to see the creations of Chance Theater, Orange County’s most consistent equivalent of L.A.’s many enterprising small companies. Last weekend, I decided to take advantage of the fact that the Chance had two productions up, both directed by artistic director Oanh Nguyen.
I saw my first Chance show not at Chance but at South Coast Repertory. It has provided its former Second Stage – now called the Nicholas Studio – as a venue for a brief remounting of Wayne Lemon’s Jesus Hates Me, a Chance hit from last year. South Coast is trying to cooperate more tangibly with smaller troupes in OC.
Jesus Hates Me is a Texas comedy – with punchy one-liners and a bitterness toward far-out religiosity that are reminiscent of the Del Shores sub-genre, and with an underlying melancholy reminiscent of the Horton Foote sub-genre (would someone please revive the Preston Jones comedies so I can remind myself of what his sub-genre was like?)
It’s about 25-year-old Ethan (a superbly natural Chance Dean) who lost his chance to get out of town when a bum knee tripped up his football career. He now finds himself trapped by his possibly suicidal mother, who runs Blood of the Lamb Miniature Golf, complete with Biblical decorations at each hole, including a manikin of Jesus at the 17th. A woman who operates a local bar and Ethan once had a fling, and she carries a torch. They seem to be on such good terms that it’s unclear why the romance never took off. Other ex-classmates are the local cop and an incorrigible doofus and reprobate.
Richard Comeau, Amie Bjorklund, Ryland Dodge and Jeremy Fillinger in MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (Photo by Christopher Trela)
It’s a lively production of a promising play, but frankly the script can’t hold a candle to the show I saw at Chance’s home base, the Stephen Sondheim/George Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along. Watching Nguyen’s rigorously but elegantly stripped-down production, it’s unfathomable that Merrily usually is considered one of Sondheim’s problem shows. It feels like a masterpiece, taking us on an engrossing journey of a three-way friendship from its dismal end backwards through 20 years to its hopeful beginning. Its depiction of the ravages of time is immensely moving.
The cast is wonderful and their ensemble work exceptionally well timed – even though the three leads (Jeremy Fillinger as Franklin Shepard, Ryland Dodge as Charley Kringas, Amie Bjorklund as Mary Flynn) are making their Chance debuts. Because this is in OC instead of LA county, with no applicable 99-Seat Theater Plan, the actors are non-Equity. But Chance managing director Casey Long told me that Chance pays more than the 99-Seat Plan would, although he declined to specify how much.
If South Coast is looking for another production to import from OC’s small theaters, Merrily We Roll Along should be a prime candidate. Would you believe that it has never been professionally staged in a full production above the 99-seat level in Los Angeles or Orange counties? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Jesus Hates Me, Chance Theater at South Coast Repertory Nicholas Studio, 655 Town Center Drive. Costa Mesa. Fri-Sat, 8 pm; Sat-Sun, 2:30 pm. Closes Sunday. 714-708-5555. www.scr.org.
Merrily We Roll Along, Chance Theater, 5552 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills. Thur-Fri, 8 pm; Sat, 3 and 8 pm; Sun, 2 and 7 pm. Closes Sunday. 714-777-3033. www.chancetheater.com.
