Theater Reviews: Hillary Agonistes, Of Mice and Men, Flora the Red Menace

Also Indecent Acts, I'd Rather Be Right and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Monday, May 12 2008

...continued from page 1

Ed Krieger

A House With No Walls

More About

A HOUSE WITH NO WALLS This third installment of Thomas Gibbons’ enthralling trilogy on race relations studies, with compassion, the loneliness of a woman much like Condoleeza Rice, here named Candace Lane (Kellie Roberts). She’s an African-American intellectual whose drift toward social conservatism has made her a target of black progressives, white liberals and — paradoxically — puts her at odds with the very conservatives whom she courts. With so much stridency in the air, is conversation even possible? As in his Permanent Collection, Gibbons toys with the umbilical cord that connects history to identity, here via the construction of the Museum of American Liberty, celebrating George Washington. On the very grounds of the proposed site was the euphemistically named “servants quarters” — actually a hovel where Washington’s nine slaves were housed. Two of those slaves, a brother and a sister (Toyin Moses and Maurice McRae) occupy the space as ghost presences, haunting Candace, who nonetheless adheres to a philosophy like Ward Connerly’s, that “welfare programs” such as affirmative action not only perpetuate the “victimization” of black citizens in principle, but they also don’t work in practice. So what is the purpose of a museum, and of history: to add to that identity of “victimization”? To give us hope or to leave us paralyzed? What truths need to be included in this museum? What is the role of empirical truth? This core concern, among other issues, puts Candace at loggerheads with black activist Salif Camara (Hugh Dane), while Candace’s former peer and lover, a white, liberal scholar named Allen Rosen (Darin Dahms) spins like uprooted seaweed in the emotional and moral riptides. Through this, the gut-wrenching pursuit of freedom by those ancient ghost presences creates a blistering historical context for all the debate. The ideas and their permutations are scintillating, but Ben Guillory’s underprepared production doesn’t yet do them service, with actors struggling for lines and with Lane’s wan performance in the pivotal role. The play’s arguments and ironies may simply be too weighted in the drama’s cerebral stakes, but it deserves a staging that would test that theory. The New LATC, 514 S. Spring St., dwntwn.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru June 14. A Robey Theatre Company production. (Steven Leigh Morris)

I’D RATHER BE RIGHT Perhaps the current occupant of the White House might successfully solve our nation’s suffocating monetary problems if his cabinet meetings were held in New York’s Central Park. Such is the premise that drives this 1937 fantasy-musical (book by George Kaufman and Moss Hart, music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart). It’s a hot summer in 1937 and old FDR (an engaging Joe Joyce) — despondent over the economy — takes a stroll in Central Park, where he encounters lovebirds Peggy and Phil (Christiana Valo, Stephen Vendette). Angered by the money woes that forestall their nuptials, he vows to balance the budget — no easy task, as the members of his cabinet are like first cousins to the Marx Brothers. With the park as the designated meeting place, one hair-brained scheme follows another — there’s even a radio broadcast with the members playing kazoos. In this two hours of daffy fun, the musical selections aren’t executed with consistent polish, but there's some kick to them. Numbers like “Have you Met Miss Jones,” “Spring in Vienna,” “Labor Is the Thing” and “Off the Record” aren’t likely to enthrall the memory. Most of the heavy lifting is done by Vendette and Valo, superb in their musical numbers, as is Joyce. Brian O’Halloran and John Harvey strike just the right balance on piano and percussion, and Victoria Profitt’s Sesame Street–inspired set has an odd appeal. As a glimpse of bygone Yankee feel-good fervor and white-bread Broadway wholesomeness, it has an indelible charm. Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd.; Hlywd.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru. June. 1. (323) 960-4429. By George Productions. (Lovell Estell III)

INDECENT ACTS A quartet of short plays rides both sides of the line separating the combative from the sophomoric. Writer-director Coleman Hough’s “Glancing at the War” looks at two performance artists (Erin Fleming and Elizabeth Liang), respectively playing Miss America and Miss Diagnosis prepping to go onstage and letting slip the horrors of their personal lives amidst stretching and elocution exercises. It features taut performances by both women, and Dan Wingard as some kind of crazed production assistant – call it old news well delivered. Jason Grote’s “Luna” is a creation myth about the origins of the Sun and the Moon (David LM McIntyre and Mandi Moss), told with deliberate, inarticulate clumsiness by the subjects of the legend and cokehead narrator (Terry Tocantins). It features similarly appealing performances, directed with choreographed whimsy by Amanda D’Angelo. Boo Killerbrew’s “True Love Waits” takes the single joke of lonely women (Linda Graves, Grace Eboigbe and Krista Collins) throwing a bawdy bachelorette party before their marriage to a beer-swilling Jesus (Tocantis). In Tim Banning’s lascivious staging, the play rides the joke for all it’s worth, and all it isn’t. Eboigbe’s tender Judy stands out amidst the fearless ensemble. Rosalyn Drexler’s “Room 17C” melds Kafka’s Metamorphosis with Arthur Miller’s "Death of a Salesman" by plonking Linda Loman (Shana Ledet Qualls) in a squalid motel room with cockroach Gregor Samsa (a physically dextrous performance by McIntyre). Biff (Joe Roche) also shows up, and gets mad. If there’s a larger purpose to this literary etude about the seediness of existence, it crawled by me. Karen Jean Martinson directs. Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 11 p.m.; thru May 31. (323) 856-8611. (Steven Leigh Morris)