Theater Reviews: Of Grapes and Nuts, Paradise Park, The Web

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Thursday, Sep 23 2010

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GO OF GRAPES AND NUTS Humor à la Joad comes to Burbank in this revival of a parodic hybrid between two of John Steinbeck's best-known novels, The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Written by Doug Armstrong, Keith Cooper and Tom Willmorth, the plotline is loosely that of The Grapes of Wrath, following Tom Joad (Ian Vogt) and the Joad family on their trek from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression. The primary additions from Of Mice and Men are the characters of Lenny (David Reynolds), Candy (David Ghilardi) and Curly (Kimberly Van Luin). Director Paul Stroili, part of the original 1990 Chicago cast, lets his actors go full-bore into an over-the-top campiness that winks heavily at the gritty realism of the source material. The self-made frontier ethos is particularly lampooned in a production that gets mileage from both the sly anachronistic jokes in the script and the gusto with which the cast tackles them. Casey Kramer, as Ma Joad, has some particularly hilarious rants, as does Lauren McCormack, who plays the womanizing preacher Jim Casy. Reynolds portrays dim-witted Lenny with such earnestness that we can't help but like him, and Ghilardi (who plays four roles) and Jen Ray (playing both a bulldozer driver and a waitress) showcase their versatility. Even David George's wooden grape crate of a set is comical, providing an appropriate backdrop to a show that puts the "funny" in the "bone" dry Dust Bowl. Little Vic Theatre at Victory Theatre Center, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 4 p.m.; thru Oct. 24. (818) 623-6666. seaglasstheatre.org. A Sea Glass Theatre production. (Mayank Keshaviah)

GO PARADISE PARK A profoundly despondent fellow (Kenneth Rudnicki) wanders into an amusement park for distraction from his agony. Inside, he slips into a fantasia of scenes — including his own romance with a young woman (Reha Zemani) from the Midwest, igniting a bundle of neuroses that keeps them estranged; a ventriloquist/philosopher (Ann Stocking) and his bifurcated dummy (David E. Frank); a tourist couple (Bo Roberts and Cynthia Mance) at the end of the tether that's barely holding their marriage together; their irate young daughter (KC Wright) who yearns, in vain, for an effete Cuban (Tim Orona); a psychotic pizza-delivery boy (Jeff Atik); a wandering violinist (Lena Kouyoumdjian); a circus clown (Troy Dunn); and, in a directorial flourish, a guy in a chicken costume. Charles Mee's comedy is like a sonnet with a couple of repeated motifs: distraction, love and the general feeling of being cast adrift in cultural waters that are partly enchanting, partly evaporating, and partly polluted by the refuse of our ancestors, of our families, of our determination to follow impulses we barely comprehend, and to wind up unutterably lost. He's one of this company's favorite scribes, and mine, for the way in which, with the literary touch of a feather, he conjures primal truths of what keeps us at odds with ourselves and with each other, keeps us yearning for the unattainable. And though there's obviously psychology at work, the driving energies of the language and of the drama are subconscious, cultural and historical currents. Production designer Charles Duncombe anchors his platform set with a wading pool stage center, in which sits an alligator, and he decorates it above with strings of festival lights. Josephine Poinsot's costumes are thoroughly whimsical with primary colors and a feel for an America of the late 1950s — with the possible exception of the married couple's matching shorts and T-shirts that read, "Kiss my ass, I'm on vacation." Director Frederique Michel stages the poetical riffs of text in her typically arch style, and it serves the play almost perfectly, except for the pizza-delivery scene, where the choreography distracts from the psychosis that lies at the core. Even so, I found the evening to be indescribably affecting, tapping emotions that lurk beneath the machinery of reason. This is the last production to be staged at this back-alley venue in Santa Monica, where the company has been putting on plays for 15 years. The ventriloquist's lines couldn't have been more ironic and true: "Then, because the theater is the art form that deals above all others in human relationships, then theater is the art, par excellence, in which we discover what it is to be human and what is possible for humans to be ... that theater, properly conceived, is not an escape either but a flight to reality, a rehearsal for life itself, a rehearsal of these human relationships of which the most essential, the relationship that defines most vividly who we are and that makes our lives possible, is love." City Garage, 1340 ½ Fourth St., Santa Monica; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 5:30 p.m.; thru Nov. 7. (310) 319-9939. (Steven Leigh Morris)

PHOTO BY PAUL RUBENSTEIN

Paradise Park

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PIECES OF ME Loretta Devine has worn many hats during her three decades as an entertainer, working on Broadway (she originated the role of Lorrell in Dreamgirls), starring in numerous television roles and appearing in scads of movies on the big screen. Here, she brings her considerable talents to an evening of poems, songs and autobiographical anecdotes, not all of which are engaging, but her singing voice offers serious compensation for that. She also possesses an enthralling, charismatic personality and sense of humor. Devine gives a sketchy but interesting survey of her early life in Houston growing up in a family of females, and the challenges she faced becoming a singer and performer. Some segments are nothing but slide presentations showing Devine at different junctures in her career; there is also a collage of celebrity photos that are only vaguely entertaining. Devine is at her best when crooning about matters of the heart. "Panties and Pearls and Trilogy" recounts the highs, lows and deceptions attendant to a bittersweet love affair. "My Father" is a heart-wrenching homage, and "Except for the Grace" serves up a powerfully evocative mediation on the homeless and hopeless, embellished by haunting still shots of destitute people. Stage 52 Theater, 5299 W. Washington Blvd., L.A.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 3 & 7 p.m., thru Oct. 3. (323) 960-7780. plays411.com/lorettadevine. (Lovell Estell III)