Denise Crosby and Jacqueline Wright in "House of Gold"

“I was pushed as a child performer, from very early in my life,” recalls Gates McFadden. “At two-and-a-half I was performing ballet recitals. I modeled clothes on a TV show when I was five. I’d be asked to do tasks, such as brush my teeth, but nobody told me the right way to do things and I often felt humiliated on camera.” Worse – she felt she had no choice in any of it.

The adult McFadden, however, has more choices. And one of them has been to stage a play that reflects on such pressured childhoods — House of Gold, which McFadden describes as “a hilarious yet scathing critique of our culture, revealing dark truths about our values, and, ultimately, about ourselves.” It opens on October 22.

JonBenét Ramsey

In House of Gold, playwright Gregory S. Moss was inspired by the sordid murder of child beauty pageant star JonBenét Ramsey and the subsequent media frenzy. Fifteen years after the 6-year-old’s tiny lifeless body was found on Christmas Day in the Colorado basement of her family home, the mysterious circumstances of this ghastly and unsolved crime continue to mesmerize and titillate the public. Its main legacy was to introduce the public at large to the mysterious and disturbing world of kiddie beauty pageants.

Explains McFadden, “Greg has taken the JonBenét story purely as an inspiration, and he exaggerates it in a way that you understand. I like that this is a chance to look at this phenomenon in a different light.”

An actress, director, choreographer and teacher, McFadden is perhaps best known for her 1987-1994 TV stint as  Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in several feature film and video game spinoffs.

Within the LA stage world, however, McFadden might be better known as artistic director of Ensemble Studio Theatre of Los Angeles (EST/LA) since 2009. Among the plays produced under her tenure are Julie Hébert’s award-winning Tree, Nicholas Kazan’s Mlle. God, Tom Jacobson’s House of the Rising Son, and the late night show Crack Whore Galore, which she also directed. In 1990, she appeared in Viva Detroit at Los Angeles Theatre Center.

Gates McFadden

Her numerous New York theater credits include Tommy Tune’s production of Cloud Nine, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Delacorte), How to Say Goodbye, (Vineyard Theater), Emerald City (NYTW) and The Homecoming (JRT).  and To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York).

Not surprisingly, McFadden’s ties with the long-running sci-fi TV show endure. Twenty-five years after they first met on the Star Trek: TNG series, McFadden and fellow actress Denise Crosby (who played Tasha Yar) are working together once again, this time collaborating on House of Gold. Crosby plays the pageant mom, known only as “Woman” in the script. Also appearing in House of Gold is Jacqueline Wright (recently seen in EST/LA productions of Mlle. God and Tree), who heads the ensemble as a young beauty pageant contestant who must constantly remain the perfect living doll for her obsessive “live-the-American-Dream” parents. Alex Davis co-stars as teen misfit Jasper, neglected by his parents and living in the margins.

The underworld of child beauty pageants

In her research to prepare for directing House of Gold, McFadden immersed herself in the bizarre world of child beauty pageants by watching clips on YouTube and the train-wreck reality TV show Toddlers & Tiaras that takes viewers behind the scenes as parents primp and prep their frequently reluctant children for competition.

During these pageants, toddlers and small children don bikinis and often strike poses that seem informed by an awareness of adult sexuality but are detached from any understanding of its meaning. Often these competing kiddies are tarted up like a desperate cougar. We know we are looking at very young girls, and yet the eerie effect of all the caked-on makeup, fake tans and bouffant hairdos is to create the illusion of child-women far older than their actual years. Many even give the impression of being jaded and middle-aged; the only thing missing is a jaunty martini in their tiny hands.

Jacqueline Wright in "House of Gold"

It’s creepy stuff.

Says McFadden, “In American culture, reality TV is more real than real life. Parents think it’s normal to exploit and humiliate their children on camera. We are a society of voyeurs. Every single day over the past few months, there has been some story about a child being abducted or killed, either by their parents or somebody else. Then there are the parents who post ‘humorous’ videos on YouTube of their kids that are humiliating and then they go viral. I’ve been wondering, what is going to happen to those kids when they grow up, having been defined by that video? That’s childhood abuse!”

As a mother and a former child actor, McFadden says she is especially sensitive to how vulnerable our children are and how predatory our culture has become.  “The part that is strange to me is that parents can get money when these clips go viral. When I learned that, I really was astonished.”

West Coast premiere

Late last year House of Gold made its debut at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. and recently opened at the Mousson d’Été International Theatre Festival in Pont-a-Mousson, France. This EST/LA production marks its West Coast premiere.

Jacqueline Wright and Tony Pasqualini; Photo by Maia Rosenfeld

Recalls McFadden, “I loved this play when I first read it two years ago and I tried to get the rights to stage it, but I couldn’t because of the pending production at Woolly Mammoth. I think that [Woolly Mammoth director Sarah Benson] and I had different interpretations, though.” McFadden is especially taken with House of Gold’s opportunity for open interpretation, explaining that it is a play that has been written in such a way that the director is able to fill in a lot of the stage directions. “Greg has said that it’s the only play of his that has been written that way. He says it came out like a dream, all at once.”

The element of animation

McFadden seems relaxed and friendly as she shows me around the performance space at the Atwater Village complex where House of Gold is being staged. The seating of the modestly sized black box theater has been configured along two walls facing the entrance to the room. Across the entire painted floor are colorful and childlike designs of swirls and spirals, suggesting a playground.

Animation for "House of Gold" by Drew Christie; Photo by Maia Rosenfeld

McFadden has been working closely with animator Drew Christie, whose work she says inspires her. “I’ve always wanted to collaborate with him,” she smiles. House of Gold incorporates his distinctive animation and cartoons, as well as video, projections and choreography. “We’re calling it a dark, kaleidoscopic comedy. The animation is very dark and powerful; you don’t know if it is an older person doing it who has a dark side or if it is the work of a child. I felt it really tied everything together and created some beautiful abstract images as well as telling the story.”

As stipulated in Moss’ play, McFadden has not cast any child actors; the two younger parts are played by adults. “To me, that’s great, because I had no interest in revisiting the movie-of-the-week, tragic story of JonBenét and seeing the tragic violence or exploiting a child in any way.” She says this casting approach lent a much-needed element of Brechtian detachment. “By making it a little bit larger than life and having adults play the children, you don’t worry about the child actors. You create a distance and in that way we can see what our responsibility is in this whole thing.”

Denise Crosby

Most of all, McFadden is appalled by the sexualization of these very young girls. “If you are going to bring up children to be sex objects, how do you even expect them to know what sexuality is? How do you find a connection to it emotionally when it becomes so externalized? This sexualization is really disturbing. The good thing is, it provokes discussion. What’s great in this play is you see too much attention lavished on one child and the opposite on the neglected child. They’re both very damaging.”

House of Gold, presented by Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA. Opens October 22. Plays Fri.-Sat. 8 pm;  Sun. 2 pm and 7 pm. Through December 4. Tickets: $25; Sunday matinees at 2 pm are pay-what-you-can. Atwater Village Theatre complex, 3269 Casitas Ave., LA. 323-644-1929. www.ensemblestudiotheatrela.org.

*** All House of Gold production photos by by Thom Bertelsen except where noted