Theater Reviews: Beaverquest!: The Musical, My Fair Lady

IN THE WINGSJerry Sroka’s tepid seriocomic backstage drama follows the parallel lives of six actors and their roles in a play-within-a-play about a childless couple’s desperate attempts to conceive. While Sroka’s script indicates the troupe is involved in a highly financed Equity production, everything about the environment shouts cheap waiver. A few remarkable acting moments brighten the outing, including a very entertaining “star turn” by vain TV star Tony, played with arrogance and intellectual honesty by Will Schaub. The most interesting moments come from ageless actress Mariette Hartley, playing a very similar thespian role as Mary — the wise stage veteran who suffers through a stream of small roles while undercut by the battling of writer-director Sam (Dan Hagen) and his wife, Julie (Annette Reid). (Julie produces and suddenly stars in the production.) Ultimately, this relationship leads to real poignancy by the end — but too late to save the evening. Myriad insipid comic moments, including an overabundance of Groucho imitations and old movie references, become exceedingly tedious, and the real director, Don Eitner, is unable to bring the disparate elements together to create a convincing dramatic event. Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; no show April 26; thru May 11. (323) 960-7735 or plays411.com/wings. (Tom Provenzano) GO MY FAIR LADY Some musicals just keep on giving. So it is with this touring production of Lerner and Loewe’s decades-old classic. Despite some shortfalls, it still charms and bedazzles. The story, adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, tells the plight of Eliza, a poor cockney flower girl who is transformed into a courtly princess by the determined linguist Henry Higgins. This revival showcases jaw-droppingly beautiful costumes and lavish sets. But it soars on the angelic voice and alluring presence of Lisa O’Hare in the role of Eliza. Her singing is rapturous, and her performance near perfect. Not quite as impressive is Christopher Cazenove’s Henry Higgins, who comes off as intermittently droll and unstudied. Trevor Nunn’s stagecraft displays skillful precision as he marshals this huge cast around onstage. But there are lapses in the ensemble numbers: Sometimes the singing comes across as mechanical or strained. During “With a Little Bit of Luck,” which features a troupe of dancers clanging away with trash-can lids attached to their feet, I counted two instances where one of the dancers nearly fell. Such glitches fortunately couldn’t torpedo this thoroughly enjoyable revival. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m.; thru April 27. (213) 628-2772. (Lovell Estell III)

SHOWING OUR AGE Performed by a six-person ensemble under Laurel Ollstein and Theresa Chavez’s direction, this docudrama dramatizes a patchwork of stories about the lives of senior citizens from many corners of the globe. The spine of the piece is Ollstein’s fictional story of a middle-aged woman named Grace (Rose Portillo), who finds herself caregiver to the philandering father (Ramon Hilario) she barely knew as a child. Smartly written and with Portillo’s spirited and drolly sympathetic performance, set off by the credibly cantankerous Hilario, it’s a well-paced, engaging take on a complex social problem. While Ollstein’s front-and-center plot is sharp and focused, some of the other material is not — music-laced monologues and skits based on real-life interviews written by Ollstein and other company members. The narratives are vivid enough: They include a Jewish guy (Kevin Sifuentes) reminiscing on buying kosher chicken in East L.A.; an unhappily married woman (Melody Butiu) who found true love in a bar; a transcriber at the Nuremberg trials (Bernadette Sullivan) who married a Holocaust survivor (Ralph Cole Jr.); and, most heart-rending, a Japanese woman (Butiu) rummaging through the ashes after Hiroshima. But tech elements, including a distracting set and indifferent lighting, undercut the performers’ efforts. Often the seemingly under-rehearsed monologues are addressed to Portillo’s movie-developer character rather than confidingly to the audience — a directorial choice that dilutes both the punch and the pathos. INSIDE THE FORD, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, L.A.; Wed.-Thurs., 11 a.m.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; thru April 27. (323) 461-3673. An About Company Production. (Deborah Klugman)

You Don’t Know Me

Val Dillman

The Time of Your Life

Ed Krieger

In the Wings

Gina Ortez

Chico’s Angels

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More About

• Patricia Zamorano
• Bobby Stapf
• William Saroyan
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Musicals

Val Dillman

(Click to enlarge)

The Time of Your Life

Ed Krieger

(Click to enlarge)

In the Wings

Gina Ortez

(Click to enlarge)

Chico’s Angels

THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE  Do not take your recovering-alcoholic relative to see William Saroyan’s 1940 Pulitzer Prize–winning drama. Aside from the ensemble piece’s meandering plot, it takes place in the universe’s seemingly most pleasant lowbrow gin joint that also celebrates dipsomania. Wealthy businessman Joe (Robb Derringer) is a fixture at the cheesy San Francisco tavern run by jovial barkeep Nick (Christopher Shaw), who keeps a gimlet eye on the human flotsam that parades through his door. Although we’re not sure where the well-off Joe has gotten his money, he uses it for sheer pleasure, shelling out chunks of it on toys, chewing gum, champagne, and funds for his sad-faced pal, Tom (Matt McTighe), to woo his golden-hearted prostitute sweetheart, Kitty (Shiva Rose). Director Matt McKenzie’s colorful and atmospheric production is staged in honor of Saroyan’s 100th anniversary. The play’s awkward mix of the maudlin, the turgid, and rambling bloat has aged poorly. That said, McKenzie’s crisp and energetic staging is powerful and intermittently moving — and the show is blessed with a number of sympathetic performers. Derringer is all charm and optimistic affability as Joe, while Shaw, equal parts best friend and ambivalent Mephistopheles, is the perfect publican. Deft turns are also offered by the supporting cast, a brilliant collection of the kind of weathered-faced souls you’d find on Skid Row. Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru June 1. (310) 822-8392. (Paul Birchall) GO  YOU DON’T KNOW ME As the title of playwright-poet Patricia Zamorano’s Chicana coming-of-age tale suggests, there is much that her hardscrabble East L.A. characters choose not to reveal to each other — or even to themselves. For 17-year-old Santa (Erika Beas), it is her budding poetry talent and longing for her best friend, Sonia (Alma Deras); for Santa’s mother, Jovita (Jennifer Lora), it is the demons she tries to keep at bay with drugs, booze and sex. Like her play’s denizens, Zamorano’s heartfelt work is rough around the edges, which has its benefits. Director Emmanuel Deleage elicits sturdy performances from most of his cast, though Beas doesn’t display the emotional range needed for Santa’s angst-driven journey. Problematic also are the unlikely contradictions of Zamorano’s characters, such as the alternating disgust at and encouragement of Jovita’s drug use by her dope dealer/lover Joey (Eddie Diaz). What keeps it all appealing, though, is the interspersing of Santa’s fiery and deeply revealing poetry, verses that could well serve as her ticket out of the barrio. Opening the evening is Zamorano’s short play Juvy Sunday, also directed by Deleage, a spoken-word monologue concerning an adolescent juvenile-hall inmate (Maggie Gutierrez) yearning for her mother’s weekly visit. CASA 0101, 2009 E. First St., Boyle Heights; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru May 4. (323) 263-7684 (Martín Hernández)