When small theater companies expand above the 99-seat level, does it invariably lead to “two-to-three character plays with a penchant for crowd pleasing,” as Steven Leigh Morris argued last week in the LA Weekly?
A decade ago, such expansions “often meant smaller cast sizes, fewer performances of fewer productions, and more surefire commercial material,” chimed in former Angeleno Rob Weinert-Kendt on his blog The Wicked Stage.
I disagree. Considering that both of these valuable observers of the L.A. stage were reacting to my latest defense of midsize theaters, maybe that isn’t too surprising.
A half-dozen companies made that leap over the 100-seat hurdle. It’s possible that the average cast size shrank at two or three of them – most likely the Colony, which shed most of its previous acting company in the process, and perhaps at East West Players. But I doubt that’s the case at such classical companies as A Noise Within and Independent Shakespeare. If the average cast sizes decreased at International City and the Falcon, which never operated as actors’ ensembles, it certainly hasn’t been obvious.
The number of opportunities to see each production might have slipped slightly at some of these companies, but the larger size of their venues probably means that they now play to total audiences that are at least as large as, or larger, than they were when these companies were in 99-seat theaters.
As for the notion that they’ve gone excessively “commercial” and “crowd pleasing” (in a bad way), I don’t see much evidence. None of these companies ever claimed to represent the cutting edge of innovation, even before they grew. Since they’ve grown, none of them has become notably more conservative. None of them has resorted to casting Marie Osmond in The Sound of Music.
As I noted here, International City Theatre presented one of the most adventurous seasons in L.A. in 2009 (not so much this year). The two midsize classical companies continue to venture beyond A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The incorporation of the Troubadour Theater into the Falcon programming made the place more “crowd pleasing,” yes, but also a lot livelier – and better – than it was in its 99-seat infancy. East West Players presents some predictable material, but it’s less Japanese American-centric than it was in its smaller space – and it’s hard to imagine the company’s earlier leaders presenting a play with the title My Tired Broke Ass Pontificating Slapstick Funk, as East West did soon after its expansion.
Now let’s get to the Colony. I’ve seen some plays at the Colony that seemed “crowd pleasing,” as in “unchallenging” – for example, last fall’s Better Angels offered nothing surprising about its iconic subject, Abraham Lincoln. So I wasn’t expecting too much from Free Man of Color, the Colony’s latest drama set in 19th century America, also staged by Better Angels director Dan Bonnell.
Kareem Ferguson, Kathleen Mary Carthy and Frank Ashmore in Charles Smith's Free Man of Color
Yet Free Man of Color is one of the most absorbingly nuanced historical dramas in a long time. Charles Smith’s play isn’t only about an admirable young ex-slave (Kareem Ferguson) who defied expectations by attending Ohio University in the 1820s.
It’s also about the university president (Frank Ashmore) who invited the young man into his home, against the wishes of the president’s wife (Kathleen Mary Carthy). Then it’s about the young man’s discovery that his benefactor wants to groom him to lead newly colonized Liberia – and in the process to expedite the shipment of freed slaves back to Africa – which makes him feel as if he’s been duped into a higher-toned variety of servitude. Finally, it’s about the discovery of reasons for the wife’s deep-dish bitterness, with a glance at the new nation’s tortured relationship with Native Americans added as one more layer.
“Crowd pleasing”? Perhaps, if that means that the audience, at the performance I saw, seemed to enjoy engaging with these characters’ struggles and learning something new in the process. But it isn’t “crowd-pleasing” in the pejorative sense of flattering or failing to challenge the audience.
Looking around the nearly packed house at the Sunday matinee, I saw only a half-dozen people – out of maybe 275 – who appeared to be African American. Most of the crowd was white. Yet this is a play in which the supposedly well-intentioned white university president is exposed as condescending as best, manipulative at worst. Even more surprising, I learned here, is that the play was commissioned by Ohio University to commemorate its bicentennial. How many universities would commission a play that ends up tarnishing (albeit in a somewhat fictionalized fashion, I gather) the reputation of one of the school’s founding fathers?
In short, I don’t buy the idea that fitting more than 99 people into a theater necessarily means that those people will appreciate only mindless, feel-good pap.
As Morris pointed out, these theaters (and the others that operate above the level of the 99-Seat Plan) won’t thrive without a degree of stronger financial support than is necessary at smaller theaters – because they pay their actors and other artists better and incur the greater overhead costs of larger spaces. That’s precisely why these theaters should be a top priority of L.A. theater lovers, especially during tough economic times.
Free Man of Color, Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St., Burbank. Thurs-Fri, 8 pm; Sat, 3 and 8 pm; Sun, 2 pm. Closes Sept. 12. 818-558-7000. www.colonytheatre.org.
Last week I traveled briefly to the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City, primarily to observe the continuing development of Great Expectations, the musical.
The musical opened in 2008 at L.A.’s Hudson Backstage, then moved to the Odyssey. That’s where the Utah brass saw it, at the final performance. It’s now receiving a splashy production at the 769-seat Randall L. Jones Theatre (on a LORT-B Equity contract for the six Equity actors and the stage manager). Jules Aaron is still the director, and Ellen Crawford and Dave Barrus remain as Miss Havisham and Joe Gargery, respectively, from both versions of the L.A. cast. The adult Pip is now played by Jack Noseworthy, and the young Pip by Anthony Skillman, who also played the role at the Odyssey. The cast now numbers 22 instead of the 15 at the Hudson or the 18 at the Odyssey. The orchestra has 10 musicians, not the previous three.
The stage is much larger, and therefore so are the choreography and the set – a two-level, cobwebbed structure that has a scrim that flies up. Yet Aaron says that he’s still emphasizing the storytelling, not elaborate scenic effects.
Ellen Crawford, Emily Trask, Jack Noseworthy in Great Expectations
It’s a great story, of course, but it’s also a long and complicated story (also soon to be seen at A Noise Within, in a non-musical adaptation that will be different from the version the same company did in the ’90s). In Cedar City, the first act builds considerable steam, in the adaptation by Margaret Hoorneman, Steve Lozier and Brian VanDerWilt. But the second act still seems excessively plot-heavy, although the production remains top-notch.
The Richard Winzeler/Steve Lane score sounds better than it did in L.A. Aaron reports that the lyrics were changed in “Love By Definition” to better distinguish between the viewpoints of the trio that sings it, and “Making of a Gentleman” was reworked for better integration into the first act. An overture has been added, but it’s in the old-fashioned style of choppy excerpts from throughout the score – and parts of it sound jarringly upbeat, when juxtaposed to the ghostly set-up scene that occurs on stage while it’s playing.
Is this Great Expectations too “commercial” and “audience pleasing”? Well, it’s probably more so now than it was at the 99-seat level, but only because the Utah festival has the resources to please audiences on a more professional level. The production wasn’t sanitized or artistically compromised by its move – if anything, thanks to more detailed design, the grimmer aspects of Dickensian England are more convincing in Utah than they were on L.A.’s micro-stages. More sub-100-seat productions should try to develop the great expectations of upward mobility.
Great Expectations, Randall L. Jones Theatre, College Avenue and 300 West, Cedar City, Utah (three hours northeast of Las Vegas by car). Plays in rep with five other productions; Aug. 18, 21, 23, 26, 8 pm; Aug. 20, 25, 28, 2 pm. 800-PLAYTIX. www.bard.org.
Free Man of Color photo by Michael Lamont.
Great Expectations photo by Karl Hugh.
