Theater Reviews: Leiris Picasso, A Memory of What Might Have Been, The Jesus Hickey

Also, The Importance of Being Earnest, Grace and Glorie and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Thursday, Jun 17 2010

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GO THE JESUS HICKEY Billboards, potato chips, freeway underpasses, tree stumps and pigeon coops are just some of the places Christ's image has appeared, or alleged to appear, in recent years. In Luke Yankee's ticklish comedy, the Savior-sighting takes place in the Emerald Isle city of Sligo, and comes by way of a girl as pure as the Virgin mother herself. Agnes Flynn (Anastasia Lofgren) is a wholesome teenager who shares a home with her imperious grandmother (Barbara Tarbuck), and her gruff, barfly father Sean (Harry Hamlin). They seem like a happy bunch, in spite of money problems due in large measure to Sean's drinking and troubles on the job. But a miracle is in the offing, as one night Agnes and her young beau Seamus (Aaron Leddick) slip away for some quiet time together, and he plants a "love bite," on her neck. As it turns out, the hickey is the face of Jesus and has miraculous healing powers, even curing the dim-witted Father Boyle (Tom Killam) of chronic back pain. In Act 2, we see Agnes transformed into an angelic figure and a media sensation, with all that implies, making the rounds in Europe — and making a lot of money for her avaricious father. Unfortunately, the fame comes with a price for all concerned that may be too much to pay. Yankee's well-written script nimbly skirts the boundaries between morality play, satire and comedy. Performances are quite good under Yankee's direction. Tarbuck is especially engrossing as a saintly woman with a penchant for foul language. Katselas Theatre Company at the Skylight Theater, 1816 N. Vermont Ave., LA., Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through July 18. (310) 358-9936. (Lovell Estell III)

GO LEIRIS/PICASSO "We try not to have so many guests. It disturbs what's left of the neighbors," says Michel as he stumbles around his Paris home in the dark, falling down stairs, knocking over crudités, and scalding himself on a teakettle. It's all rather amusing ... until you realize that it's 1944 and there's a Nazi patrol outside. This just the sort of dark humor that characterizes writer-director David Jette's farcical take on an actual evening at the house of Michel Leiris (Michael Bulger) when members of the French Resistance produced Pablo Picasso's play, Desire Caught by the Tail. The play itself is nonsensically awful (but oh, how the man could paint), so Jette has instead written about the circumstances surrounding its production, a sort of play without a play. In it, Leiris, his wife Zette (Jenny Byrd), Albert Camus (Tyler Jenich), Jean-Paul Sartre (Patrick Baker), Simone de Beauvoir (Amy K. Harmon), and Picasso's mistress Dora Maar (Melissa Powell) scramble to set up while they wait for the master. Besides their own petty but hilarious squabbles, they also have to deal with a Nazi (Joseph L. Roberts) who keeps popping up, as well as the leader of the resistance, Sam Beckett (Dan Gordon). Jette's direction keeps all the moving parts well synchronized as the actors enter and exit Juliana de Abreu's well-designed, multi-door set. The ensemble is strong overall, though Baker's over-the-top bombastic caricature of Sartre and Bulger's sincerity as the put-upon host stand out. And while the work isn't historically accurate, it succeeds because, as Camus says, sometimes "happiness feels better than truth." Bootleg Theater, 2220 Beverly Blvd., L.A.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru July 24. (213) 290-2782, BrimmerStreet.org (Mayank Keshaviah)

PHOTO BY C.M. GONZALEZ

Magnum Opus: Surf Dogs Unite!

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GO MAGNUM OPUS: SURF DOGS UNITE! No writer is credited for Magnum Opus Theatre, and it's for his or her own protection. Every week, the ensemble mines one of L.A'.s richest natural resources -— terrible unsolicited screenplays — and gives the unknown author's words a sweet, brief life. And they use every word. When the description calls for "a beat," the cast beat-boxes "oonce-oonce-oonce." As host Thurston Eberhard Hillsboro Smythe (Brandon Clark) vows, "We didn't change a thing." Yes Virginia, someone sincerely wrote Surf Dogs Unite!, a bitchin', brawlin' morality play about a debauched biker (Troy Vincent) and a bible-toting sand dune disciple (Eric C. Johnson), who wrassle for the souls of promiscuous surfer Dan (Michael Lanahan) and friends Swave (Victor Issac) and Little Rad (Colin Wilkie). "To surf, or not to surf? Intense question," opines Dan, but Jonas Oppenheim's direction suffers no lack of purpose. Crisp and assured, it's so funny, the proselytizing writer might be tempted to take a bow. But judging by a few loud audience members who hissed whenever Joshua flogged John 3:16, maybe not. Sacred Fools Theater, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive; L.A.; Fri. 11 p.m.; thru June 25. (Final two perfs at The Paul Gleason Theater, 6520 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.) (Amy Nicholson)

GO A MEMORY OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN George Bernard Shaw wrote that "men and women are made by their own fancies in the image of the imaginary creatures in [their] youthful fictions, only much stupider." Life imitates art, in other words, and usually very badly. Or so it goes in playwright Robert Riemer's wickedly funny assault on the myth of romantic love. A day and a half after walking out on their respective marriages and families, middle-aged fugitive lovers Gordon (Joseph Aaron Campbell) and Nina (Jackie Quinones) wake up in a cheap Baja California motel room to take stock of their impetuous flight to rekindle their onetime teenage romance. In the sobering light of day, however, spent passions can't conceal doubts festering under the blazing Ensenada sun. For one thing, the tempestuous, now-alcoholic Nina is no longer the winsome flower of Gordon's memory. For another, the motel's resident mad playwright, Tony (the antic Hunter Greene), and his creepy idiot-child of a Mexican fishing guide, Mayolo (the hilarious Jonica Patella), have not only been eavesdropping on their neighbors but Tony is appropriating their tryst for a romantic tragedy that uncannily anticipates Gordon and Nina's every thought and deed. Worse, he has already determined the denouement to be a bloody crime of passion. As the affair careens to its catastrophic conclusion, Zombie Joe's stylish direction of a crack ensemble on Jeri Batzdorff's appropriately seedy set leavens Riemer's grim romantic fatalism with touches of manic absurdity and simmering suspense. ZJU Theater Group, 4850 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8:30 p.m.; through June 26. (818) 202-4120. (Bill Raden)