Theater Reviews: Of Mice and Men, The Dying Gaul

Also, Mask, The Lost Plays of Tennessee Williams

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Monday, Mar 24 2008

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THE HISTORY OF BOWLING Contrary to the title, Michael Ervin’s sloppily crafted comedy is actually about the lighter side of being disabled. We are on a contemporary college campus where Lou (Tara Samuel), who has epilepsy and a load of emotional baggage, is teamed with the paraplegic Chuck (Danny Murphy) to write a paper for a gym class, in lieu of their handicaps. The pair decides to write about bowling for the disabled, but what gradually evolves is an unlikely romance between them, which is later complicated by Danny’s blind but charismatic roommate, Cornelius (Lynn Manning). In one of the play’s poignant and convincing moments, Cornelius and Lou share an evening under the stars that turns lightly sensual, though Ervin’s script doesn''t offer much of a story. In fact, at times the cheerleaders (Kristin Arnold, Anya Profumo, Chris Scoles, Danyelle Weaver, Kimi Winker) doing their slick routines during scene changes provides some of the more gripping entertainment. Sara Botsford directs. NoHo Arts Center, 1136 Magnolia Blvd., N. Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru April 27. (818) 508-7101. Open at the Top Theatre Company. (Lovell Estell III)

GO THE LOST PLAYS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS Jack Heller portrays the eponymous geezer in “Mister Paradise,” a character much like the aging playwright himself, in the first of a trio of beautifully staged and performed slice-of-life one-acts about the ravages of growing old. Each is taken from a collection of Williams’ plays discovered after his death and assembled in a 2005 anthology. Mister Paradise is an alcoholic poet squandering the remainder of his life in obscurity in the French Quarter. A beautiful Ph.D. candidate (Melissa Lechner) found a battered book of his works under a table leg in a book shop. She also found herself moved and inspired by the poems. She arrives at his door with the aim of “returning him to the world.” This brittle-tender story is a gorgeous, Beckettian meditation of mortality and eternity, and the ownership and higher purpose of literature, expertly staged by Robert Burgos. “The Palooka” is a boxing drama that also studies aging, but through an old fighter (Timothy V. Murphy) trying to adopt a new identity to mask his “washed-out” reputation. Under Brian Foyster’s direction, William Mahoney and Jason Lopez also turn in chiseled performances as, respectively, a trainer and a young boxer. “And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens” shows the gay origins of Blanche Dubois. Also set in the French Quarter, it shows a brutish sailor’s (Chris Rydell) visits to the apartment of a trasvestite-landlord, Mr. Delaney (Foyster), who takes the younger stud’s contempt as a sign of affection. The play dances in the world of closeted yearnings, more horror at aging, and includes a pair of very fey tenants (Chris Carver and Jonathan Runon) who flesh out Mr. Delaney’s limp-wristed world of interior design. Interesting historically, the play’s larger point now sits on the museum shelf of cliché. It boasts another round of sterling performances, this time under Heller’s direction. Danny Cistone designed the detailed, era-specific sets, and Dana Campbell’s costume design contributes to the verisimilitude. L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, Davidson/Valentinie Theatre, 1125 McCadden Pl., Hlwyd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru June 8. (323) 860-7300. (Steven Leigh Morris)

The Lost Plays of Tennessee Williams ("The Palooka")

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Of Mice and Men

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Of Mice and Men

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GO MASK If this can’t draw a youth audience, nothing can. To its credit, the new musical by Anna Hamilton Phelan (book), Barry Mann (music) and Cynthia Weil (lyrics) doesn’t pander to the sentimental “fatal disease of the week” syndrome that’s built into its spine. After UCLA doctors tell 15-year-old Rocky (Allen E. Reed) and his meth-addicted biker mom, Rusty (Michelle Duffy), that the craniodiaphyseal dysplasia that has been progressively contorting Rocky’s face since he was an infant would lead to his demise within months, the diagnosis is mercifully ignored both by Rocky and the musical itself. (Rusty sings that if she kept digging a grave each time they said her boy would die, she could be eating chow mein in China by now.) The story’s core, spun from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1985 movie starring Cher and Eric Stoltz (Phelan was the screenwriter), focuses on the curiously and beautifully adept mothering skills of Rusty and those of her biker tribe, headed by barrel-bellied Dozer (Michael Lanning). Young Rocky — remarkably well-balanced emotionally and an adept scholar — struggles to fit in to his new school, Azuza High, in the San Gabriel Valley. (The real-life Rusty and Rocky lived in Covina and Glendora. Rusty died two years ago in the aftermath of a motorcycle crash in an Azuza intersection; she had recently served a prison term for meth use. Unmentioned in this musical is that she had another son, Joshua, who died of AIDS at age 32.) Unlike in The Phantom of the Opera or Wicked, here the “mask” doesn’t stand for much that’s larger than itself; though it suffers during moments of straining to be epic, Mask is a chamber piece about the tugs and pulls between a wounded mother and her afflicted son, a perfectly amiable and moving domestic musical supported by Mann’s pop ballads and Weil’s often very witty lyrics, ranging from the school-daze farce of High School Musical to the heroic and largely pointless gush of a rock opera. Under Richard Maltby Jr.’s carefully modulated direction, this work-in-progress has many assets. As Rusty, Duffy’s performance and voice are both sublime, as is Robert Brill’s revolving set that features a silhouette of the San Gabriel Mountains punctuated by industrial-scale power lines — talk about capturing a locale with a few symbols. Now this promising musical needs to do the same. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 4 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m. (no perfs April 2; added perf April 2, 2 p.m.; thru April 20. (626) 356-PLAY. (Steven Leigh Morris)