Theater Reviews: Cymbeline, Oleanna, The Little Foxes

Also, School House Rock Live! Too, Stranger and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Wednesday, Jun 10 2009

...continued from page 1

LOVE WATER In a drainage pipe near a park and a ditch that might be a space-alien breeding ground, unloved Antonio (Joseph Vega) and overly loved Lulu (Alina Phelan) hide out from their normal lives. He’s a teenager escaping his family, which includes a manic mother (Misi Lopez Lecube), who may be lacing his food with poison, and a dad (Chuma Gault) and sister (Jessica Martinez) who don’t care either way. She’s fleeing a husband (Jon Beauregard) so devoted to her he leaves pies in the park for her. “There’s a lot of love in that pie,” Lulu tells Antonio, which means something to playwright Jacqueline Wright, whose allegories here are made of flotsam — her pieces are stitched together with wild images that stir the imagination but don’t quite absorb your emotions. Wright is a clear talent, who delights in the theater medium. Overhead Lulu and Antonio’s hideout, a broken man bandaged from head to foot describes the joy of bashing out brains in a skiing accident and suggests — but doesn’t quite advocate — that we jump off a building. Meanwhile, a lonely lecher finds and hatches a gigantic egg, out of which climbs a pale, naked English-speaking creature who demands freedom and caramels. Sibyl Wickersheimer’s austere set invites movement, and director Dan Bonnell has his cast run — rarely walk -- from end to end. But with Bonnell allowing half the cast to use Wright’s dreamlike imagery and language as an excuse to heighten their speech, while the other half recognizes the need to ground the characters with natural performances, the production feels too bipolar for us to commit to caring about why Dad eats paper, why Mom wears Antonio’s clothes and why Lulu pushes away intimacy. Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through July 11. (323) 882-6912. A co-production of Open Fist Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theatre — The L.A. Project (Amy Nicholson)

THE MUSCLES IN OUR TOES High school, the cherished never-neverland of pop culture, is the setting for Stephen Belber’s hit-and-miss comedy, here in its world premiere. On the occasion of their 20th high school reunion, old friends Les (Daniel Milder), Rag (Michael Benyaer), Dante (Al Espinosa), and Phil (Bill Tangridi) congregate in an old music classroom to reminisce and trade shots of booze. This group is a study in contrasts. Dante is a banker, a new convert to Judaism and is full of swagger and attitude; his brother Phil is “atypically gay”; Les works in theater as a fight coordinator; and Reg, an Iranian, works for the federal government. Unfortunately, the bonhomie mojo of the moment is tempered by the absence of their comrade Jim (Keith Ewell), a tennis-shoe baron who’s been kidnapped by rebels in Chad, supposedly in retaliation for the U.S. government’s detention of a terrorist. The play’s premise, already stretched thin, turns to rice paper when the group hatches an insane plot to free their buddy. Most of the buzz here comes from the raft of one-liners, testosterone-fueled antics and bawdy humor, although it starts great in the absence of a viable plot. Cast performances are fine under Jennifer Chambers’ direction. El Portal Forum Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., N. Hlywd., Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun. 3 p.m. through June 28. (866) 811-4111. (Lovell Estell III)

Craig Schwartz

The Little Foxes

John Lucker

Touch the Water

More About

OLEANNA Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles star in David Mamet’s 1992 drama about a college professor and the charges of sexual harassment lodged against him by a failing student. The play is a reaction against the mindset of an era that featured the despotism of political correctness — embodied by Anita Hill’s 1991 testimony before the U.S. Senate against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas for his allegedly sexually explicit conversations while she worked at his secretary at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After all these years, and with Pullman’s affable performance juxtaposed against Stiles’ stoic confusion and indignation, the play strains more than ever to express some serious ideas through a kangaroo court. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m.; through July 12. (213) 628-2772. (Steven Leigh Morris) See Stage feature.

GO SCHOOL HOUSE ROCK LIVE! TOO The original School House Rock was a long-running kids’ TV show that winningly combined cartoon characters and songs with a high educational content. Here director-choreographer Rick Sparks assembles six terrific, high-energy performers — Harley Jay, Tricia Kelly, Jayme Lake, Michael “Milo” Lopez, Lisa Tharps and Brian Wesley Turner — to employ all their skill and pizzazz on songs about numbers, multiplication, parts of speech, American history, government, the bones of the body, financial interest rates, and a score of other useful topics, all turned into lively entertainment. (A math song about multiplying is called “Naughty Number Nine,” and the American Revolution is served up in “No More Kings.”) There’s a scrap of plot, about saving a financially failing diner, but that’s the merest of pretexts. Cody Gillette provides crisp musical direction and leads the trio (with Anthony Zenteno, on guitars, and Eric Tatuaca on drums) to provide infectious, hard-driving accompaniments on Adam Flemming’s handsome diner set. Clever costumes are by Kat Marquet, and Daavid Hawkins provides hundreds of zany props. If you already know that 6 x 9 = 63, you might feel, as I did, that 20 songs is a few too many, but the kids seem to love it. Greenway Court Theatre, 544 N. Fairfax Avenue, L.A.; call for schedule; through July 26. (323) 655-7679, ext. 100, or www.schoolhouserockla.com. (Neal Weaver)