Theater Reviews: Candida, Poor, Poor Lear, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Also, Surviving Sex, The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh, and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Wednesday, Feb 11 2009

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Michael Lamont

Candida

The Making of a Mulatto

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VIOLET SHARP The world-famous Charles Lindbergh kidnapping case spawned a web of mystery. One person to become haplessly entangled in the tragedy was Violet Sharp (Meredith Bishop), a 27-year old domestic in the Lindbergh household, whose defiant attitude and evasive answers to routine police questioning aroused suspicion. Playwright William Cameron structures his melodrama around the obsessive pursuit of Violet’s confession by police inspector Harry Walsh (David Hunt Stafford). Hunt and other authorities persuaded themselves of Violet’s complicity, despite flimsy evidence and the unwavering endorsement she received from the Lindberghs themselves. The play scores points for its observations about women and class and the dangerous proclivities of some men to distort facts for the sake of their own compulsive desire for closure. But the production, under David Coleman’s direction, leaves much to be desired. While she nails a couple of moments near the end, Bishop’s housemaid comes off more sullen than sassy (in contrast to the historical accounts), while Hunt’s driven cop gives off bombast but no heat. Amy Lloyd does respectable triple duty as a tongue-wagging sister, a secretary and a nurse. Many supporting performances are overly dramatic or under rehearsed – or both. Random blocking, gratuitous videography, Jeff Rack’s drab set, and Jeremy Pivnick’s indifferent lighting underscore the more pivotal problems with the acting and direction. Theatre 40 at the Reuben Cordova Theater, 241 Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills; (in rep, call for schedule); thru March 12. (310) 364-0535. (Deborah Klugman)

GO WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? Too often, fine actors with disabilities are barred from playing the roles their talents merit, so Blue Zone Theatre was founded to offer them opportunities that don’t exist elsewhere. The result, in this case, is an eloquent and powerful production of Edward Albee’s modern classic. It’s undeniably disconcerting at first to discover that three out of the four actors are visibly disabled. But we soon get past that, and this production is in many ways superior to the overly cozy one at the Doolittle Theatre a few years ago, with John Lithgow and Glenda Jackson, directed by Albee himself. These actors play from the gut, and the small theatre enables them to be subtle. There are tricky moments, as when the ditsy young wife Honey (Teal Sherer), seated in her wheelchair, declares, “I love to dance. I dance like the wind.” But she makes it work, doing “interpretive” wheeling and zooming round the stage. Ann Colby Stocking, who’s given us excellent work in the past, is an impassioned and brassy Martha, Jack Patterson keeps the fires raging beneath George’s seeming submissiveness, Sherer finds ample comedy as the brandy-swilling Honey, and Paul Haitkin captures Nick’s smug arrogance as well as his vulnerability. Noho Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 3 p.m.; through March 1. (323) 960-7711. (Neal Weaver)