Theater Reviews: Wicked, Trying, Monsieur Chopin

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Monday, Aug 13 2007

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(Photo by Ed Kreiger)

Monsieur Chopin

(Photo by Bryan Kopta)

(Photo by Michael Lamont)

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TRYING Set in 1967-68, playwright Joanna McClelland Glass’s memory play chronicles her working relationship with American blueblood, Francis Biddle (Alan Mandell). A Democrat and union sympathizer despite his wealth and power, Biddle’s distinguished career included clerking for Oliver Wendell Holmes and serving as Attorney General under FDR, and as a judge at the Nuremberg trials. Here, Glass' standin, Sarah Schorr (Rebecca Mozo), is a 25 year old newlywed from Saskatchewan when Biddle’s wife hires her to assist the 81 year old former public servant with his memoirs and other correspondence. The play turns on the developing rapport between the cantankerous octogenarian, now suffering ill-health and memory lapses, and the disciplined young assistant determined to survive his irrational temper. Directed by Cameron Watson, the production benefits from designer Victoria Profitt’s handsome period set and A. Jeffrey Schoenberg’s smartly coordinated costumes. Its strongest asset is Mozo’s crisp performance as an up-by-her-bootstraps gal blessed with intelligence and compassion. Mandell, an accomplished performer, engenders plenty of laughs as the aging patrician; it’s a scrupulous portrayal that nonetheless glosses over the respected dignitary and the grieving father his crotchety character used to be. (These things are talked about but never explored.) The problem goes to the limitation of the script; unprobing, it seems powered by indulgent laughter at a senile old guy beginning to resemble a child. COLONY THEATRE, 555 N. Third St., Burbank; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. (added perfs Aug. 18 & 25, 3 p.m.; Aug. 30 & Sept. 6, 8 p.m.); thru Sept 9. (818) 558-7000. (Deborah Klugman)

WICKED Yes, of course Stephen Schwartz’s music is pop drek (though not his lyrics), and the idea that the ostracized “wicked witch” is actually goodhearted in a wicked world is probably lifted from Phantom of the Opera, along with that musical’s looming dichotomy of the dark and the light. (Here it’s the green and the light, epitomized by the respective skin colors of two girlhood friends who form the story’s center.) For all that recycling, I completely empathized with those hordes of 12-year-olds who made this musical riff on the witches of Oz (book by Winnie Hollzman) a Broadway hit. In a production that’s settled in nicely at the Pantages, Eden Espinoza as the green-hued, bookish and bespectacled girl-witch Elphaba has a contagiously appealing intelligence and grace for somebody who’s been so neglected by her parents and scorned by her peers. The weight she carries grows only heavier when she realizes the Wizard (John Rubinstein), whom she’s been so eager to meet, has a civil rights agenda that would place him politically just to the right of Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales. Elphaba agonizes when her erudite teacher, a goat (Timothy Britten Parker), is removed from his post, and soon, thanks to the Wizard’s doing, all the animals in Oz are denied their powers of speech — not just free speech, but any speech. After recognizing that Elphaba’s not going to power-play along with this Stalinist approach to a harmonious society, her spiritual adviser, Mrs. Morrible (the delightful Carol Kane), starts a witch hunt for the girl, sending her careening into exile. Smacked in her green face with such betrayal and cruelty, our heroine rises at the end of Act 1 on her broomstick (“Defying Gravity”). It’s a call to arms against the kind of Orwellian future that we’re so obviously facing, and it’s as glorious as Eugene Lee’s set of timepieces and Swiss-watch machinery. On the night I attended, understudy Emily Rozek turned in a sublime rendition of Elphaba’s privileged friend, Glinda, a squeaky-dumb blonde with just enough campiness to hint at underlying smarts. It’s easy to confuse benign conformity with stupidity in such a nefarious world. Joe Mantello directs a marvelous spectacle with flying monkeys and a fire-spouting dragon in a show that looks like a diversion but is actually quite the opposite. PANTAGES THEATER, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hlywd.; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m.; indef. (213) 365-3500. (Steven Leigh Morris)