Theater Reviews: 9 to 5: The Musical, 43 Plays for 43 Presidents

Also, Asleep on a Bicycle, Speech & Debate, Pugilist Specialist and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Monday, Sep 22 2008

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GO PUGILIST SPECIALIST “Victory forgives dishonesty” is the telling slogan that punctuates Adriano Shaplin’s military comedy, wherein a quartet of U.S. Marines with varying specialties is recruited for a “black” operation, i.e., to assassinate a “target” in some Middle-Eastern country. We observe their initial meetings and some gender tension among them — one officer, Lt. Emma Stein (Kimberly Rose-Wolter) is female and the actor bears a striking resemblance to Lynndie England, though Stein’s “secret” past is quite different from the Abu Ghraib inmate-brutality scandal that tarnished England’s reputation. Some verbal sniping over a generation gap also emerges between young Lt. Travis Freud (Linc Hand) and 50-year-old Colonel Johns (Donald Agnelli, looking robust with a buzzcut silver pate). Finally, there’s the issue of “objectivity,” raised by Lt. Stoddard (Max Williams), a piercingly smart officer whose absence of almost any passion becomes a kind of comic motif. The humor in Shaplin’s play comes from the precocious intelligence of the quartet, and from the tart eloquence with which they articulate philosophies of life and survival that have been shaped by life and death in the military. When the mission finally gets under way, the play becomes cinematic — a style that betrays the hypertheatricality of its setup. And its final twist, which delights in mocking the order we try to carve from the chaos of our own emotions, is both amusing and schematic at the same time. Allison Sie’s crisply stylized direction of the fine ensemble comes with a choreographic precision on which the comedy depends. Imagine watching a military parade: This is a production that crawls inside the tiny missteps that would go unnoticed by anybody but those wearing the marching boots. And Shaplin’s mastery of military terminology adds credence, and horror, to the troubles we’re creating all over the world, often in secret. Elephant Theatre Company, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; Tues.-Wed., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through Oct. 19. (323) 860-3283. A VS. Theatre Company Production. (Steven Leigh Morris)

Craig Schwartz

9 TO 5: The Musical

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RAGTIME: THE MUSICAL “Every race or nation that has ever got upon its feet has done so through struggle and trial and persecution,” declaims Booker T. Washington (David Edward Perry) in Terrance McNally’s musical, based on the sprawling novel by E.L. Doctorow. His words ring with optimism whenever America is laid low, and Zeke Rettman’s staging — despite being messy and overcrowded (the cast plus live band would take up half the seats in the theater) — taps in to the angst and hope at the heart of this play about the America we’ve wanted but rarely grasped, and which now feels out of reach. When a conservative businessman (Joe Montgomery) leaves his comfortable home for a year to explore the Arctic with Admiral Peary, he assures his wife (Megan Johnson Briones) that “the world will not spin off its axis in a year.” But this being the 1910s, it does, and upon his return, he’s a frozen caveman to his now radicalized family, which has doubled to include an unmarried black mother (Rachae Thomas), her baby, and her temperamental lover (Kevin Yarbrough). Meanwhile, his brother-in-law (Aaron Jacobs), who once worshipped pop ephemera like siren songbird Evelyn Nesbit (Josie Yount), has taken up labor rights and bomb manufacturing, and a Latvian immigrant (Jon Jon Briones) and his daughter (Danielle Soibelman) confront the obstacles of the American Dream. More passionate than pretty, the dancing and acting rank below the politics, strong singing, and musical director Kelly L. Dodson’s rousing ragtime, a new swinging sound representing the change each character believes in despite getting knocked around more than Jack Johnson. Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m.; thru Oct. 5. (323) 960-1055. (Amy Nicholson)

GO SPEECH & DEBATE Playwright Stephen Karam’s quirky high school comedy imaginatively (and sometimes disturbingly) reinvents the witch-hunt of The Crucible through the teenage frame of The Breakfast Club, mixing in a touch of Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator.” In a small, claustrophobic Oregon town, sexually precocious teenager Howie (Michael Welch) engages in come-hither provocative cyberchat with a much older man, who turns out to be none other than his own drama teacher. Fiendishly ambitious high school newspaper reporter Solomon (Aaron Himelstein), driven by his own repressed sexuality, learns of Howie’s interactions and wants to make his story public in a huge exposé. Along with Diwata (Mae Whitman), a vengeful theater brat who has been passed up by the drama teacher for one too many acting roles, Solomon and Howie form an organization that to the rest of the world appears to be the school’s Speech and Debate club, but which, in fact, has a darker and more confrontational purpose. Although Karam’s writing occasionally slips on its own soap opera suds, the combination of artistry and a brash, youthful energy is unsettling enough to elicit a few squirms — exactly the kind you’d hope for in the theater. Director Daniel Henning’s psychologically shrewd direction drives the action while being engagingly intimate. Himselstein’s sweetly neurotic Solomon; Whitman’s shrill, driven Diwata; and Welch’s technologically sophisticated but emotionally naive gay boy are hilarious, touching and disturbing by turns. 2nd Stage Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Oct 26. (323) 661-9827. A Blank Theatre Company production. (Paul Birchall)