Theater Reviews: The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Crucible, Goodbye, Louie ... Hello

Also, Tartuffe, Silent Sky, The Bluest Eye and more

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Theater Critics Thursday, Apr 14 2011

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GO THE CRUCIBLE Director Sean Branney grabs hold of Arthur Miller’s red-scare allegory, wringing emotionally charged, angst-ridden performances from the talented cast. Young Abigail Williams (a brilliantly conniving Sarah van der Pol) and her gaggle of naive girlfriends extricate themselves from an oceanic amount of hot water by explaining their late-night woodsy romp with Barbadian servant Tituba (Hollie Hunt) as a ritual in which Tituba conjured the devil, whom they claim walked side by side with scores of local women. A witch hunt ensues and the girls point their adolescent fingers at any woman they want hanged. John Proctor (Shawn Savage), whose love affair with the conniving Abigail comes back to bite him, sets out to debunk the witchcraft accusations when his wife, Elizabeth (a steadfastly stony Karen Zumsteg), becomes Abigail’s target. Branney masterfully creates chaos, pitting neighbor against neighbor, husband against wife and holy man against lawman in what amounts to a town battle of holy-war proportions. Van der Pol’s Abigail is so full of vicious vengeance that she practically hisses her misguided intentions to win the affections of Savage’s skillfully choked-up Proctor. Fear drives the outrageous events of the play, and Branney relentlessly shines light on the fatal foolishness of a fear-driven society. The Banshee, 3435 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m., thru May 15. (818) 846-5323, theatrebanshee.org. (Amy Lyons)

GO GOODBYE, LOUIE … HELLO The late playwright Allan Manings was blacklisted and forced to move to Canada. There, he worked on a horse farm till 1961, when he was able to return to Hollywood and forge a successful career in television. So it’s not surprising that he should focus on the doings of the House Un-American Activities Committee in this, his final play. Actor-comedian Louis Berns, née Bernstein (Alan Freeman), has reached retirement years, and spends his days with his children, son Scott (Paul Denniston) and bossy but loving daughter, Aimee (Maria Kress), and his lifelong friend and fellow comic, Benjy Gordon (Steve Franken), with whom he plays a daily gin rummy game. For much of Act 1, the play seems to be a gentle, funny Jewish character comedy. But when Scott’s journalist friend David (Roy Vongtama) sets out to write a profile of Louie, his research reveals that Louie was called to testify before HUAC in 1951, and named his old friend Benjy, resulting in Benjy’s being blacklisted and the destruction of his career. When this information is revealed, catastrophe results. John Gallogly directs a fine cast in a richly nuanced production, with wonderful performances by Freeman and Franken as the two old actors. Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Boulevard West, Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m., thru May 8. (323) 851-7977, theatrewest.org. (Neal Weaver)

The Cripple of Inishmaan

The Crucible

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THE HUMAN VOICE (LA VOX HUMAINE) The old Tin Pan Alley tune “Hello! Ma Baby” (more recently popularized by the singing frog in the Warner Bros. cartoons) might be an appropriate score for this 1930 Jean Cocteau play in which an unnamed Woman feels trapped in a room with a telephone that is a lifeline to her physically and emotionally distant lover. Adding to the Woman’s slow devolution is a shoddy connection that both drops her call multiple times and crosses wires with other conversations. Lady Gaga, she is not. She wants her lover on that telephone. She needs him on that telephone. Badly. Yet what Cocteau wrote as an exploration of the human voice (as well as a showcase for the divas of his day) here at times sounds more like an extended Verizon commercial. “Can you hear me now?” Yes, but what are you saying and why should we be invested in it? Speaking in a typewriter staccato and landing on her words with labored deliberateness, actress Ho-Jung has a hard time consistently demonstrating the heightened emotion necessary to bring the piece to life. Director Dan Bonnell perhaps errs too far on the side of subtlety, failing to elicit that desperation from her. At the same time, Anthony Wood’s translation may be partially responsible for trite expressions of love torn asunder, which undermine the depths of sorrow in Cocteau’s original. At least set designer Melissa Ficociello’s room nearly collapsing on itself — with its sea-foam-blue walls, which resemble dirty clouds — is a clever nod to both period hues and the Woman’s situation. A Bunch of Artists Production. Elephant Space Theater, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 7 p.m., thru April 24. (323) 960-7863, Plays411.com/humanvoice. (Mayank Keshaviah)

MASSACRE (SING TO YOUR CHILDREN) At the start of Jose Rivera’s mystical melodrama, the room goes black for 60 seconds of offstage screaming. Like the play that follows, it’s a bold idea that can’t resist going deadeningly over the top. Seven murderers — four men, three women — tumble into the room, covered in blood, clutching machetes and crowbars and pipes and knives, and vibrating with the rush of killing Joe, the tyrant who has spent five years terrorizing their small American town. But their chest bumps and self-congratulations quickly fade into the quiet fear of realizing that, sans scapegoat, they now have to think for themselves — and worse, take ownership over whatever miseries befall them. (Surely they can’t be any worse than Joe, who has raped the women, killed the children and slashed the population by a third.) This is a heightened world staged too casually by Richard Martinez, who plunks this gory metaphor in a suburban rec room and encourages his cast to pivot from slang to grand speechifying. It’s as though the play and this production are so concerned with the big strokes that all the details are scrambled: The characters are inconsistent and their relationships murky. Minutes after one growls to another that they don’t know each other and should keep it that way, a cheery five-year flashback to before the Reign of Joe makes the gang look as tight as the cast of Friends. And it’s worth noting that only the men get the good speeches — while they recant their painful stories, the ladies just give them massages. Underlying it all is: How culpable are we in our own captivity? Rivera burns with the need to demand an answer but douses his own flames. An Urban Theatre Movement production. Underground Theatre, 1312-1314 N. Wilton Place, Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 7 p.m., thru May 15. (323) 369-0571, urbantheatremovement.com. (Amy Nicholson)