GO THE FRIENDLY HOUR Tom Jacobson’s lovely new play chronicles the rituals of a women’s club in rural South Dakota from the late 1930s to 2007, and we watch the women with whom we grow increasingly familiar age and engage in theological disputes that are really at the heart of the matter. God’s purpose, and the purpose of community, interweave and clash through the decades, as five fine actors portray many more roles. Leading the pack is Kate Mines’ prickly creationist Effie, and Ann Noble’s proud, forward-thinking Dorcas Briggle, who, had she lived somewhere else, would have joined the Unitarian Church. (Deana Barone, Mara Marine and Bettina Zacar round out the cast.) The play desperately needs pruning — its length is partly responsible for a monochromatic quality that dampens Mark Bringleson’s otherwise animated and tender staging. If this were scaled down to six pointed scenes from its perpetually unrolling carpet of the club’s rites and characters’ domestic crises, the impact of the survivors' dotage in 2007 could be that much more gripping. Still, Jacobson has put aside the conspicuous cleverness of his past works, Bunbury and Ouroboros, for an impressionistic landscape that straddles the literary worlds of Anton Chekhov and Thornton Wilder. Desma Murphey’s wood-frame set, against which a backdrop of clouds peers through, contains both elegance and allegory, and Lisa D. Burke’s costumes contain similar affection and wit. Lankershim Arts Center, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Nov. 1. (866) 811-4111 or www.roadtheatre.org. A Road Theatre Company produciton. (Steven Leigh Morris)
Kristin Stone Entertainment
Inside Private Lives
Henry DiRocco/SCR
An Italian Straw Hat
Related Content
More About
GO GOING TO MEET THE MAN Almost 20 years since it premiered in L.A. at Theatre West and was discovered by Robert De Niro, Chazz Palminteri’s Broadway hit, solo memoir A Bronx Tale has all the ingredients of an enduring saga — violence and sentimentality, fathers and sons, rites of passage and tests of loyalty. The setting is the Palminteri’s apartment stoop at the corner of Belont and 187th Street in the Bronx, where, as a 9-year-old in 1960, Palminteri, sitting by himself on the front steps (lovely set by James Noone) witnessed a gang shooting. The gang, in this instance, was the Italian mob, but one has the sense from Palminteri’s story that the general shapes of gang warfare and drive-by shootings are as universal as the tests of loyalty they induce. Palminteri describes being dragged to the local police station to identify the shooter — one self-appointed neighborhood protector named Sonny, whom the locals respected and feared. The scene has Palminteri playing himself, with his hand thrust into his father’s sweaty palm, as the parent prays the kid will keep his mouth shut — which he does. “I did a good thing, huh dad?” the boy asks, to which the father replies, “You did a good thing for a bad man,” hoping that the matter — and the dubious morality attached to it — will simply dissipate. But Sonny’s gratitude slowly emerges, and young Chazz finds himself with a second father, engaged in an ethics clash with his first. The former is loved, the latter, feared; the former works like a horse and can barely pay his rent; the latter has grown stinking rich by scaring others into doing his works — he delegates and makes decisions; Sonny dismisses the Palminteri family’s love of pro baseball — “When your dad can’t make the rent, tell him to go to Mickey Mantle, and see what he says” — because in this world, “nobody cares.” With that philosophy, Sonny encourages the boy to go to college and work his way up in the world. Meanwhile, through the child’s Faustian friendship with the gangster, the boy finds himself at the center of attention and a superstar in gambling dens and gangster conventions, a kind of attention that intoxicates him. Jerry Zaks directs a tender production, supported by John Gromada’s subtly nostalgic sound design, while Palminteri’s skills at capturing and flipping to and fro among dozens of local denizens, including the leading players, provide much of the sharp edge to his story’s sweet center. Wadsworth Theatre, on the Veterans Administration grounds, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., W.L.A.; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 & 7:30 p.m.; through Sept. 21. (213) 365-3500 or www.ticketmaster.com. (SLM)
GO THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES John Guare’s 1971 farce looks gorgeous in the newly minted Mark Taper Forum — a venue now as fresh and plush as any in the city. The investment in the building, just now reopened after a year of remodeling, truly honors the work on the stage. This work, however, doesn’t quite reciprocate. It does pack fire on many occasions, and that fire is fueled by the energetic interactions between John Pankow and Kate Burton as Artie Shaughnessy — a Queens zookeeper who’s also an aspiring songwriter named Artie Shaughnessy — and his profoundly medicated wife, Bananas. With his thinning hair and mantra that he’s too old to be a young talent, Pankow’s lean and hyperactive Artie struts the stage and slides on to piano stools at the local Ed Dorado club and in his tawdry living room, with the grin of a used-car salesman and an unfettered desperation to be discovered. Oh, how he yearns to fly away to California, the way his old pal, movie director Billy Einhorm (Diedrich Bader) did. He shows a cavalier and abusive disregard for his wife — by flaunting his mistress, Bunny Flingus (Jane Kaczmarek), and making no secret of his plan to have Bananas institutionalized while he and Bunny realize their dreams together in California. Burton’s Bananas is this production’s centerpiece, mastering the skill of playing madness without showing madness. To the contrary, the world’s vainglorious insanity swirls around her, which is Guare’s point, while it’s clear from her eyes that her task is to keep that lunacy, and the lunatics who run the world, at bay. Walking into this theater, I’d wondered what was the point of reopening the Taper with this college and regional theater hit of more than 30 years ago. Burton answers that question with her face and comportment — Bananas has come through shock treatments and must continue, with as much dignity as she can muster, to endure life’s torments and insults to her obvious intelligence at the hands of the maniacs who govern her life. The farce is set in 1965, when the pope was visiting New York, yet Burton propels its significance forward to the election cycle of 2008. The fame that almost everyone but Bananas worships is almost beside the point — which is, vicious and rabid personal ambition while the world skids off its tracks. I shouldn’t bring up Sarah Palin, but why not? Nicholas Martin’s opulent production suspends a veneer of dark blue drapery over Artie’s grimy Queens apartment (set by David Korins). This frames what’s supposed to be an emotionally ribald play with a tempering ornateness, which may be partly responsible for muting the farce that should be literally explosive. Instead, the comedy feels at a remove, more amusing than hysterical, and more sad at play’s close than horrific. I also couldn’t grasp what the ragtime strains in Philip G. Allen’s sound design had to do with any of this. The final reason for the unintended alienation may well be that Martin wasn’t able to find the rhythms and textures among the supporting players. One can’t really tell in a single glance. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., dwntwn., Sun., 6:30 p.m.; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 & 8 p.m.; through Oct. 19. (213) 628-2772. (Steven Leigh Morris)
