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A Life in the Theatre - off-stage & on-stage - with Hal Holbrook at the Pasadena Playhouse. An early success by David Mamet in 1977t, when he was in his twenties, is now being revived with Hal Holbrook as a veteran stage actor, and Rick Stear as a young up-and-comer, who stare the stage of the Pasadena Playhouse in a two-character short play without intermission A Life in the Theatre. It begins with Robert (Holbrook) and John (Stear) discussing the play and their performances on opening night in their cramped dressing room of a small repertory company. After a scenic design, with much too elaborate scene changes that has many backstage flats rising and falling, they appear again in the same dressing room in costume changes for scenes from various plays: something from the French Revolution, a hospital melodrama, a sea epic and a Chekhovian-type classic. All the while revealing their thoughts on acting, style, their careers, playwriting, their personal life outside the theatre and their feelings toward each other. Director Michael Michetti tries to add interest to the many scenes, not helped by the time-consuming and cumbersome backstage scene changes. Unless you’re a theatre professional the theatre talk may be boring. And Holbrook and Stear don’t set off sparks. A Life in the Theatre runs through Oct. 23.
The Geffen Play-house does the unexpected with the confusing The Unexpected Man. Why did the Geffen do this? The Unexpected Man is a two-character, 85-minute play, that brings a famous novelist (Christopher Lloyd) and a fan of the writer (Holland Taylor) together in a compartment of a Paris train bound for Frankfurt. The’re strangers, apart, oblivious of each other, lost in separate thoughts. They’re not very likeable or interesting. The writer is a sick sort with bitterness towards his daughter’s choice of husband and his critics. The woman gazes out the train window and doesn’t read the writer’s novel The Unexpected Man she carries in her purse, which could spark an adventure or conversation. Their monologues don’t reveal much. Maria Mileaf directs the two stars in a listless way and the stars don’t help by making even their eventual interaction as uneventful as their inner musings.
Burbank’s Colony Theatre recalls 17th Century Irish History in The Clearing Helen Edmundson’s play The Clearing is a bleak and tragic account of how English Protestamt forces, during the reign of Oliver Cromwell, applied what is now known as ethnic cleansing to parts of Ireland, seizing land owned by the Irish and their English sympathizers and moving those evicted to the rugged Con-naught province. Those who didn’t cooperate were hanged. Personal-izing this drama is a mixed marriage between English Robert (David Rose) and Irish Madeleine (Denise Dillard). Featured in the play’s drama is a stern English martinet (Chad Borden), an amiable Englishman (Blaise Messinger) and his sour wife (Allison Shanks), Madeleine’s dear friend (Faith Salie) and a guerrilla fighter (Tmothy O’Hare). Dir-ector Robert O’Reilley stages the events against a big set of rocky terrain and swirling skies, intensifying this brutal historical chapter.
Matrix Theatre celebrates Harold Pinter’s 70th birthday with his first play The Birthday Party This is the play’s first major revival in 15 years and its enigmatic plot will puzzle and confuse. In The Birthday Party two men take rooms for the night at a seaside boarding house. Upon learning that it’s the birthday of a fellow lodger, the men offer to help their landlady throw him a birthday party.
As the evening festivites progress, it becomes clear the two men have come specifically to this house to collect the guest of honor. Are they agents from a secret organization sent to deal with a traitor? Attendants instructed to bring back a dangerous lunatic to the asylum? Their identities and motives remain a mystery, adding a menacing undercurrent to the bawdy atmosphere as the party guests dance, sing, and drink toasts to the increasinly terrified lodger. who insists it is not his birthday. Andrew J. Robinson directs two casts and all six are fine in their alternate roles.
Matthew Bourne does it again with his conception of The Car Man at the Ahmanson Theatre. Who would have thought that staid and proper London. England would be the birthplace of a daring and sensual musical called The Car Man, subtitled “An Auto-Erotic Thriller,” directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne. This show reunites the creators of the multi-award-winning sensations Swan Lake and Cinderella, and is greater in every way than the other two. Here his stunning company of dancers weave their magic once again, this time creating a thrilling tale of jealousy, passion and revenge featuring a reworking of the music and story of Bizet’s Carmen. In a steamy blend of grand opera. modern dance and film noir Bourne sets his fantasy of mid century and mid America youth in a auto garage.
The action takes place over a period of nine months starting with the inhabitants of a steamy, dusty small town being shattered by the arrival of a sexy and mysterious drifter named Luca who, after taking a mechanic job, promptly proceeds to seduce not only the boss’s wife, Lana, but others as well. With no fewer than four people covering each of the leading roles through the run I was impressed by all of them. Never have I seen such choreography. It follows the Bizet music while depicting sex in all its variety. In its graphic boldness it’s not for children under 15.
Theatre of Will presents Lenny’s Back about Lenny Bruce at NoHo’s American Renegade There have been many attempts to tell the story about the legendary comic Lenny Bruce, who died in 1966 of a drug overdose at the age of 40. But the play by Sam Bobrick and Julie Stein is the most interesting as it reveals many new facets about the famed and persecuted comedian.
And starring as Bruce in this one-man show is Barry Pearl who captures this complex man so perfectly that you feel he is actually there on stage. Here is Lenny Bruce at his funniest, and most tragic, in a performance that will surely earn Pearl best acting honors. We find him in San Fernando Valley where he is buried making a personal appearance before an audience and lifelike wax figures of his parents & friends. Then in a too short 90 minutes he tells his story about his mother, wife, the drug scandal, the trials, imprisonment, etc. in such fascinating detail you will be mesmerized. See it. It’s awesome!