John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves: Renewal at the Mark Taper Forum

Is it all skin deep?

Comments (0) By Steven Leigh Morris Monday, Sep 22 2008

The title of John Guare’s 1971 farce, The House of Blue Leaves, now playing at the Mark Taper Forum, refers to a nut house, and a tree outside that contains “blue leaves,” which are really gentle birds. It’s a placating image, meant to pacify an emotionally unbalanced woman named Bananas (Kate Burton), to help keep her emotions contained. Bananas, married to zookeeper-songwriter Artie Shaughnessy (John Pankow), is stuck in their New York apartment. But Artie has other ideas: To fulfill their dreams of getting out of Queens and into Hollywood, Artie and his horrible mistress, Bunny Flingus (Jane Kaczmarek), plan to permanently institutionalize Bananas.

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Bananas is the only character in the play who doesn’t fantasize about being a movie star, or part of the fame factory. Among her crimes is to point out to her husband that one of his new melodies is identical to “White Christmas.”

“Can’t you hear it? Can’t you hear it?” she yells at him. From Artie’s aggravated reaction, we see how his delusions of talent are among the many causes of his wife’s anguish.

And so Artie and Bunny try to pacify Bananas with talk of those peaceful blue leaves, to ease her toward (and into) the asylum. Meanwhile, nuns appear on the fire escape, seeking a better view of Pope Paul, not to mention Artie’s deranged son, Ronnie (James Immekus), AWOL from the army. They’ve all landed like aliens into the bedlam of New York City on October 4, 1965.

Nicholas Martin’s production arrives as though through a blanket — maybe it’s the ornate dark blue drapery that hangs suspended over David Korins’ deliberately grimy set. Perhaps it’s the way the set’s platforms glide in and out on hydraulics, just to remind us of the show’s budget and the millions of dollars invested in the Taper’s new face-lift.

If you haven’t been driving along our major boulevards, you’ll have missed the street banners proclaiming the Taper’s grand reopening — after two years of dormancy and a $30 million makeover — as “Act 2.” You may have read about the posh new women’s bathroom (with 16 stalls, up from four), the new elevators, the downstairs lounge, the expanded lobby, the floors that were lowered, the walls that were tweaked, the loading doors that were expanded. When Angels in Americawas premiering during “Act 1,” they had to cut the set into little pieces, then rebuild it once they got it through the door — ridiculous for the most prestigious theater in Los Angeles.

The Taper staff are beaming with pride in their new facility, and with good reason. A theater that’s comfortable to operate is almost as important as a theater that’s comfortable to occupy. But along with all the symbolism of an Act 2 comes a difficult question: What is the real purpose of this beautiful theater? Even up close, one can feel the self-imposed distance of Martin’s production. For any number of reasons, the farce is amusing rather than hysterical. The tragedy at the end is more sad than horrific — which is where it needs to land. But that’s not the issue. Some productions find a spark that others don’t. So what? The implications of this production reopening the Taper — and with it, a new era for L.A. theater — are more troubling than the production itself.

The play could still be relevant. The world certainly hasn’t grown any less nutty since 1971, and Burton’s medicated Bananas possesses a placid core through which an occasional feeling sometimes emerges — infantile desperation or a bout of aggression. I’ve been trying to persuade myself that Burton’s lovely performance justifies the staging of this slightly tired comedy, which peaked with its 1986 Broadway revival, featuring Swoosie Kurtz in the role of Bananas.

Wall Street has been teetering on the brink of collapse for reasons that were entirely avoidable, so I can almost believe that The House of Blue Leaves somehow addresses the hypocrisy of such arrogance and the folly of people in charge — crazy people running our world off the tracks, people even crazier than those they call crazy. But, as much as I strain to, I don’t really believe that the play’s lunacy has that kind of timeless resonance. Blue Leavesis really just a pretty good, old play about fame, with a stock brand of nuttiness.

If The House of Blue Leaveshad been set two years later, Artie and Bunny’s dream of going to California could have included attending plays at the Mark Taper Forum. It’s unlikely they would have bothered, because Gordon Davidson was launching the theater with new plays that reflected a clear mission. That wouldn’t have interested the Arties and Bunnys of the world. Those plays, however, set Davidson’s “Act 1” stage for international attention.