Theater Reviews: Divorce! The Musical, Grand Motel, The Jazz Age

Also, Call Me Mister Fry, Blues for Central Avenue and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Wednesday, Feb 18 2009

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GRAND MOTEL The real star of Michael Sargent’s new farce is the set — Chris Covics’ stunningly realistic backyard of a Palm Springs men-only nudist motel, replete with lawn chairs and lawn, swimming pool containing little rubber duckies, the motel’s stacco walls and a sliding door to the room facing the pool. Early in Act 1, aging “degenerate Southern playwright” Cornelius Coffin (Dennis Christopher) staggers from that room into the 95-degree heat at 10 a.m., dressed in a white shroud, like Tennessee Williams or “like the men wear in Morocco.” As though jolted by a surge of electricity, he flails backward upon entering the heat, shielding his eyes from the glare and staggering back into his room to retrieve his sunglasses. It’s one in a series of funny, small jokes, nicely staged by the author. Coffin is hiding from the East Coast premiere of his latest play, or at least hiding from the reviews, which are due out any moment. There’s a suicide pact he makes with a male model (Andy Hopper), who insists he has a girlfriend, while Coffin’s so-called friend, Maria St. Juiced (Shannon Holt), arrives by scaling an 8-foot wall. Holt offers a performance of nicely timed tics and wiggles, which reveal her character’s idiosyncratic insanity. Another wall-hopper is the local, prancing male escort (Nick Soper). The motel’s co-owners (Craig Johnson and Erik Hanson) are struggling to keep the place afloat, though we hear that the competition across the street, another male nudist motel called The Deep End, is fully booked. Nice comedic cameos also by Bruce Adel and Nathaniel Stanton as an aging couple, respectively named Low Hangers and Papa Smurf, who come to P.S. to reinvigorate their otherwise flaccid love life. There is a plot about things not being what they seem, but this is essentially a comedy of manners. Sargent’s structure is so languid that once the jokes about the atmosphere tumble away, the play is left wearing mere threads, not unlike its characters. Unknown Theater, 1110 Seward St., Hollywood; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 6 p.m.; through March 28. (323) 466-7781. (Steven Leigh Morris)

Courtesy of The Blank Theatre Company

The Jazz Age

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GO THE JAZZ AGE The title phrase, coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald about the desperate frivolity of the post–World War I era, captures the spirit if not the style of Allan Knee’s fascinating, melodramatic fantasy of life. The play shows the intersecting lives of Fitzgerald (Luke Macfarlane), his troubled Southern belle wife, Zelda (Heather Prete), and literary rival Ernest Hemingway (Jeremy Gabriel). Fitzgerald is at the apex of his career when he tries to woo into his world the reluctant, soon-to-be poster boy for machismo. Opposites in style but with both being enthusiastic expats in Paris, the hard-drinking womanizers bond, spar and occasionally hint at urges toward homoeroticism through more than a decade of rocky friendship. With their live performance of exhilarating period (and some original) music, Ian Whitcomb and his Bungalow Boys punctuate much of the play. Director Michael Matthews and the fine cast follow Knee’s heavy-handed writing with fierce dramatics that effectively play like the most overarching characterizations of 1940s plays by Tennessee Williams — with Prete’s powerful Zelda resembling Blanche. Kurt Boetcher’s set evocatively transforms The Blank’s tiny space, pairing masculine wood frames with panels of effete Tiffany’s blue. 2nd Stage Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Bvd., Hollywood; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through March 22. (323) 661-9827. The Blank Theatre. (Tom Provenzano)

GO MISSIONARY POSITION Steven Fales’ earlier monodrama, the autobiographical Confessions of a Mormon Boy, told the tale of Fales’ futile attempts to escape his homosexuality, his doomed marriage, his excommunication from the Mormon Church, a brief career as a male prostitute, drug addiction, rehabilitation and his theatrical career as “a gay Mormon chorus boy.” It was, in its way, an epic tale, but this, the second installment of his Mormon Boy Trilogy, is more like a comic footnote. It examines the two years he spent as a Mormon missionary in Portugal. Sexually frustrated, still in denial about his homosexuality and desperately trying to maintain his Mormon beliefs, he took refuge in hard work, unconsummated crushes, fantasies and rationalizations. Though he clearly considers the beliefs and rituals of the Church of Latter-day Saints absurd, Fales knows Mormonism from the inside. Born into a sixth-generation Mormon family, he was indoctrinated from birth, and despite his antagonism toward that church (particularly in the wake of its vast and possibly illegal financial support for the campaign to pass Proposition 8), he retains a kind of rueful, bemused affection for its follies. An attractive, engaging performer, and an able raconteur, he can be very funny. Celebration Theatre, 7051 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through February 22. (323) 957-1884 or www.tix.com. (Neal Weaver)

STRIP In writer-director George Damian’s self-described play about eight dancers at a gentlemen’s club, the boundary between reality, dreams and theater is as narrow as a G-string. It’s an L.A. curio: the product of a town where actresses work as strippers only to get cast as wannabe actresses working as strippers in a play that features a dozen actual pole dances — during which the audience is encouraged to whoop and throw money. How meta. The plot and acting are functional, perhaps even fun for fans of trainwreck B-movies; here, the dancing reigns supreme. Sets range from awe-inspiring athleticism where the performers do the splits 10 feet off the ground upside down and supported by the mere crook of an elbow before drizzling down the pole like honey, to physical comedy, as the newbie or strung-out strippers twirl madly in seemingly constant peril of shattering an ankle bound in 6-inch clear stilettos. (The play’s sponsors include a waxing company and a shoe store on Hollywood Blvd.) The story comes with a dose of pathos, but it’s no victim’s lament — just unapologetic titillation dotted with stripper trivia and wisdom where the happy-enough ending is the once-innocent Midwest ingenue whirling with whiplash speed around the pole with a smile. The Hayworth Studio Upstairs, 2509 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.; Fri.-Sun., 8 p.m.; through Feb. 21. (323) 960-7784. (Amy Nicholson)