New Theater Reviews: Cartoon, Li'l Abner, and The Brig

Also, Stay Forever: The Life and Music of Dusty Springfield

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Monday, Feb 11 2008

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THE ERIKSON REPORT Playwright Adrian Bewley plays the title role of Scott Erikson in a promising new work that consists of two parallel dramas still in need of synthesis. One follows the political intrigue of a young, vigorous Republican U.S. senator (Bewley) under consideration as the party's candidate for vice president in an upcoming election. A series of scenes depicts his faux-pas-laden appearances on talk shows with various hosts (most played by Sinead McHugh), during a personal meltdown in the wake of his father's death, in which he comes off as inhumanly and inhumanely distant from even the appearance of grief, in a world where appearances largely determine success and failure. The mockery of TV "journalism" is so outlandish, in both the writing and in Dina Buglione's directorial style, it pushes this side of the play into comedy sketches struggling to coexist within an otherwise more delicately chiseled human drama. That drama is the coming out of Erikson, as orchestrated by a Mephistophelean freelance journalist/gay-porn-film producer, Bob Hollander (Ken Lerner), who poses as therapist and acting teacher to the vulnerable pol, whose better judgment has gone haywire. Hollander is really just setting Erikson up for blackmail by filming the "sessions" — psychodrama acting lessons involving attachments to porn actors that grow increasingly erotic. One beautifully telling moment involves a scene partner (Derrick Sanders) — oblivious of Erikson's true identity, having no TV, computer or interest in newspapers — who invites him to his apartment for a romantic interlude. Once there, however, Erikson balks — needing the frame of the "acting lesson" to rationalize his obvious attraction to other men. Aside from the bipolar directorial styles, Buglione stages the multitudinous short scenes handily on Michael Crave's multilevel platform set, and much of the acting is equally sharp. Tricia Donohue convinces as Erikson's chrome-plated, Hillaryesque wife; Robert Keiper and Nancy Peterson turn in authoritative cameos as the next-in-line veep appointee and his second lady; and Lerner's rat-eyed poseur-opportunist has stomach-turning authenticity. Bewley anchors his own play as the increasingly disheveled senator slowly tumbling from his fool's paradise. McCadden Place Theatre, 1157 N. McCadden Pl., Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (added perf Feb. 28, 8 p.m.; no perf March 2); thru March 9. (323) 960-4424. Presented by Drumfish Productions. (Steven Leigh Morris)

Haven Hartman

Jeanine W. Stehlin

"Star Song"

Haven Hartman

What the Butler Saw

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What the Butler Saw

GO LI'L ABNER A modest Broadway success half a century ago, Li'l Abner is a charming, if watered down, spoof of American politics, pitting innocently clever Appalachian po' folk against powerful but bumbling Washington bureaucrats. The book, by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, follows the general sense of the famous comic strip while steering clear of Al Capp's more intense satire of figures from the '60s left. ("Joanie Phoanie" sent up wealthy Joan Baez offering protest songs to an orphanage, and Capp also took shots at the Students for a Democratic Society.) Gene de Paul's down-home score and Johnny Mercer's simple lyrics pay homage to Capp's colloquial language, resulting in the one memorable song, celebrating an ineffectual Confederate general, "Jubilation T. Cornpone!" Musical director Darryl Archibald and a large cast of fine performers energize the theater. Eric Martsolf and Brandi Burkhardt are superb as the supersexy but naive should-be lovers Abner and Daisy Mae. The evening's biggest laughs come from Cathy Rigby, finally shedding her little-boy outfit from Peter Pan, to play the very mature, cranky and hilarious Mammy Yokum. Lee Martino's vigorous choreography and Michael Michetti's traditional and economic staging provide the audience exactly what the producers promise: a new and enjoyable look at a rarely performed musical. UCLA Freud Playhouse, Macgowan Hall, Wstwd.; Sun., 7 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m.; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru Feb. 17. (310) 825-2101. A Reprise Broadway's Best production. (Tom Provenzano)

PUTTING ON THE FRITZ Fourth wall? These two one-acts smash right through it by introducing their characters with a series of smart monologues. When the playwrights repair the wall by having their people bicker, kiss and analyze each other, however, the plays lose their authority. In Steven A. Lyons' cute Peaches in Regalia, a chipper naif named Peaches (Elizabeth Schmidt) is inspired to become a waitress by her diner's signature dessert — a concoction of canned fruit, iceberg lettuce, cottage cheese and paprika — four oddities seeking cohesion, not unlike Peaches and her and fellow patrons, Sasha Harris, David Nett and Edmund Wyson. More twisty is Scott Stein's Scott Stein's First Play: A New Play by Scott Stein, in which the narrator, Scott Stein (David LM McIntyre), attempts to wrest control of his memories from the other Scott Steins and associates (Mark Charron, Karen Corona, Julia Griswold, Michael Holmes, Laura Napoli, Andrew Thacher and Thesy Surface), only to recognize the impossibility of knowing yourself when you can't even remember everything you did last month. Directed by Duane Daniels, it's a nicely staged gem of philosophy that would be twice as strong at half the length. Sacred Fools Theater, 660 N. Heliotrope Dr., Hlywd.; Tues.-Wed. & Sun., 8 p.m.; thru Feb. 27. (310) 281-8337. (Amy Nicholson)

SOME GIRL(S) For a while, writer-director Neil LaBute's play nudges us to believe that he's re-examining gender relations through the perspectives of one insufferably solipsistic Lothario named Guy (Mark Feurenstein) and four ex-girlfriends (Paula Calle Lisbe, Justina Machado, Rosalind Chao and Jame Ray Newman) whom he somehow persuades to meet him (one at a time) at various motel rooms around the country in order to set things right, before he plunges into marriage with an offstage fiancée. And if you can believe that all these jilted women, some married, would drive across town to meet an ex-boyfriend — 15 years after a breakup, in a motel room, no less — with psychic wounds still festering, then the clinking of the verbal sword fights will ring true. That some girl(s) might actually wish to let bygones go is a premise not entertained here. That said, the performances are taut and tart, if not tarty: Machado's voluptuous booze-swilling seductress is just gorgeous. Lisbe's chronically injured sparrow, in a sweet, crisp rendition, is Machado's image inverted. Newman and Chao bring their own constructs of intelligence and dignity. Yet they all go through the same permutations of snarky sarcasm leading to quiet tears and bitter vulnerability. Furthermore, LaBute's main point isn't relationships or the trail of hurt left by Guy, but storytelling. Guy is a writer, and Some Girl(s) wrestles with the writer's right to write, or rather to borrow, if not steal, the stories of people with whom he's been intimate. It's a bit like Donald Margulies' Collected Stories; only here, the debate's counterweights are unhinged. Guy tries to pull off a stunt that is so amoral, it flails all of his arguments into cotton candy, rendering LaBute's treatment of his play's core idea as distracted and frivolous as his central character. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Wstwd.; Tues.-Thurs. & Sat., 8 p.m.; Fri. & Sun., 7:30 p.m.; Sat., 3:30 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m.; thru March 9. (310) 208-5454 or www.geffenplayhouse.org. (Steven Leigh Morris)

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