The Wicked Stage

by Rob Kendt

Post-Sept. 11, artists haven't hesitated to speak their minds about terrorism and the war against same. But what about actual art about the terrorist attacks? While we all await with dread the inevitable TV movie starring Meredith Baxter Birney, how eager are we for show folks to step up and dramatize the world crisis? Call us… wary. If it's good theatre, it doesn't matter what it's about, right? So far the other coast has had the mixed blessing of Tony Kushner's prescient new gabfest, Homebody/Kabul (scheduled for Berkeley Rep in April), and the dubious prospect of a Love Letters-style celebrity staged-reading thingy by Anne Nelson called The Guys. Southern California has kept up with Scott Caan's dramatized coffeehouse debate 9-11, which got good reviews at Playhouse West, and September 25, a series of sketch-like plays about New Yorkers responding to their changed city, which got mixed reviews at the Stella Adler Theatre.

These all have head-on correlations with current events; others have self-styled "resonance." Canon Theatre's upcoming War Letters is a Vagina Monologues-style celebrity staged-read-a-thon based on Andrew Carroll's bestselling book. Are we having fun yet? Jill Turnbow's solo show, Between Iraq and a Hard Place, may provide it. Originally staged to acclaim last summer at the Hudson Guild, the show has Texas standup Turnbow relate the wild and scary time she entertained Gulf War troops on a top-secret "R&R" cruise liner parked outside Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. The play was well received last year, but a new run at Santa Monica's Powerhouse Theatre through Mar. 9 plays a little differently, said Turnbow: "People are taking it more seriously. It used to be a funny, touching show, where people would roll their eyes at the military. Not anymore. People are just not as cynical about war in general." Her party-boat experiences gave her new respect for the military, but not necessarily reverence: "They were rowdy. Many of them were having their first beer in a year and hadn't seen a woman in months. It was like turning lions loose in a den." Her material changed in response to the audience--"I had to work a lot dirtier"--and, tellingly, she said, "Their favorite stuff, in fact, was making fun of everything we were doing over there." So what was Turnbow doing over there? "I was naive; I thought it would be fun. And the pay was good. We got hazard pay." They also serve who make us laugh.

• In the midst of crises and closures, L.A. theatre troupes are showing striking ambition. The Blank Theatre Company has announced its first subscription season, including premieres of Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite and Jonathan Tolins' Secrets of the Trade. And the Colony Theatre in Burbank has announced a 2002 slate that gives the Taper and the Geffen a run for their money: the current hit Side Show, the L.A. premieres of Fuddy Meers and The Laramie Project, a new play about Lewis and Clark by Leon Martell. Now Ghost Road Company has announced a "five-year project" that's more about process than product. For the next five years, a release states, the company behind such gems as Resa Fantastisk Mystik and Carrots for Hare "will focus exclusively on creating and producing devised work from existing texts and other ideas that come from the ensemble… We are exploring a new way of making theatre in Los Angeles, rejecting the idea of an open-ended theatre company which goes on indefinitely, burning out artists, audiences, and patrons." The first project, in workshops now, will premiere in the fall of 2002. We're pleased to add that Mark Seldis, formerly of the Actors' Gang, has been officially named Ghost Road's co-artistic director, alongside longtime artistic director and co-founder Katharine Noon. A nicer couple of artists you won't find on the scene.