Theater Reviews: Beyond, Priscilla's Perfect Day, Arcadia

Also, The Girl Who Would Be King, St. Nicholas, Oklahoma! and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Thursday, Jul 8 2010

ANGELOS/DATING STORIES The setting for Tony Perzow's comedy, Angelos, is a New York City barber shop peopled with a colorful group of regulars These include the owner Angelo (William Knight); Uncle Mo (Jack Kandel); the friendly Mafia associate, Barry (Perzow); a bookie named Kelly the Scalp (Jerome St. Jerome); a street hustler, Jimmy the Book (Stephen Schwartz); a manicurist, Bocha (Tina Saddington); and Mirror (Robert Fisher), so named because of his shoe-shining prowess. Their laidback lives are thrown into comic disarray when a young orthodox Jew (Frank Salinas) drops in, pulls out a gun, and demands their valuables. The reason is love: He wants to start a new life with his gal. The ending is predictable but still tugs at the heartstrings. If you can ignore the clunky physical comedy under R.S. Bailey's direction, there is much to laugh about in Perzow's writing. Opening the bill is Perzow's Dating Stories, where three couples struggle through an evening out. Here, the writing is as soporific as the production. Studio/Stage, 520 N. Western Ave., L.A.; Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun, 5 p.m.; http://angelostheplay.com. (310) 807-4842. (Lovell Estell III)

PHOTO COURTESY OF EL PORTAL THEATRE

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GO ARCADIA When sophisticated, rapid-fire dialogue is whizzing about the stage, mathematical and scientific principles are being dissected in the language of those who dissect them professionally, and the past is bleeding into the present, the question is not if, but when, your head will start to spin. Set in an English estate in both 1809 and present day, Tom Stoppard's exploration of the seeming dichotomies of chaos and order, science and art, head and heart, might err on the side of the cerebral — thrillingly yet too bewilderingly — if it weren't so ripe with the great equalizers: humor and sex. Director Barbara Schofield notes that the play's themes are all based on passion, and her staging arches its back toward reflecting such. Just as you begin to follow one of Stoppard's intricate, essential arguments down the intellectual rabbit hole, Schofield yanks you back by the gut. The logical Valentine (Paul Romero) casually posits the supremacy of science to Bernard (a combustible Benjamin Burdick), who preaches poetry in response; the scene immediately following, between T.J. Marchbank's smoldering Septimus and Kendra Chell's commanding Lady Croom, so pulses with lust restrained by the thinnest of threads, that when Septimus burns a letter, you feel helpless to stem the flush spreading throughout your own body. The cast is uniformly good, though the frequent shouting matches repeatedly reach a decibel level that quickly overwhelms such an intimate theater. Regardless that they skip so nimbly through the fascinating maze Stoppard's constructed is a relief, and reason enough to go. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m.; thru July 31. (626) 355-4318 (Rebecca Haithcoat)

GO BEYOND This musical extravaganza, conceived and directed by Aurelien Roulin, is described as a cross between French cabaret and Cirque du Soleil, but what it's really reminiscent of is the old Folies Bergère, or Las Vegas without the bared bosoms. Like the Folies, it features banks of stairs that the showgirls can saunter down in their minimal costumes, adorned with maximum feathers and glitz, and sometimes escorted by lads in loincloths. Also like the old French show, there's audience participation, in which two sheepish men from the audience are led onstage and decked out in preposterous drag. The show has 17 performers, six choreographers, a stilt-walker, a unicyclist, a bit of boogie-woogie, and exotic numbers evoking many nations: Japan, Africa, France and India, represented by "The Forbidden Temple," a Bollywood-style spectacle, choreographed by Kavita Rao. A mix of Edith Piaf songs is stylishly delivered by Ripley Rader, a couple of mildly erotic aerial sequences are performed by scantily clad Roulin and Sunny Soriano, and there's an impressive toe-dancing contortionist, Ganchimeg Oyunchimeg. But the greatest excitement is unleashed when the dancers cut loose, particularly in the frenzied cancan finale. In short, there's plenty of flash, flesh and fantasy, suitably toned down for a family audience. El Portal Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Boulevard, North Hollywood; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 3 p.m., through August 1. (818) 508-4200, (866) 811-4111, elportaltheatre.com. (Neal Weaver)

GO THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE KING Better to die a man than be born a woman — even a princess. Inspired by Mark Twain's short story about a girl raised as a boy in order to claim the crown, Jan O'Connor's brisk comedy embraces the sexism of its setting to great effect. Manhood means never apologizing, commands the Duke of Lesser Flugel (Warren Davis) to his daughter Basil (Riley Rose Critchlow), as he stuffs socks down her trousers. But if men are rocks, women are water, appearing to yield to their betters while impressing their will through patience and subtlety. When Basil is sent to his uncle King Heimlich's (Ross Gottstein) court as the rightful male heir, s/he's smashed by the wiles of the very femme Princess Clotilda (Whitton Frank), who with her nimbus of red curls is as ripe and soft as a tomato. The cast and casting are spot-on, as is Richard Tatum's direction, which allows us to peek at the layers underneath this superficially simple society. In less detailed hands, it'd simply be a funny, feminist trifle, but while Tatum plays up the humor, he also grasps the pathos in a tomboy forced to shun her own biology and to see her mother (Adriana Bate) as a cowed creature she deigns to visit every six years. El Centro Theatre, 804 N. El Centro Ave., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; thru Aug. 1. (323) 230-7261. Presented by Absolute Theatre and Full Circle Theatrics (Amy Nicholson)