THE WICKED STAGE

by Rob Kendt

It's not fair to compare, but there they were--two site-specific, nominally avant-garde theatre productions, both playing in Greater Los Angeles around the same time, just begging for comparison/contrast. First was the punishing, four-hour Cal Arts-spawned King Lear, staged throughout the old Edison Electric warehouse at the Brewery Arts Complex, and then there was Tracy Young's seriously playful musing on the collective unconscious, Dreamplay, around and in a backyard pool at a private home in Studio City. There, I've already tipped my hand: I found director Travis Preston's desiccated Lear sadly dated in its would-be avant-gardisms (cross-gender casting, leather and combat fatigues, images of corporatized/militarized/post-industrial/urban dystopia, spatially disorienting amplification, video projections, performance-as-installation, etc.), but the real problem was that Preston showed infinitely more interest in staging a multimedia event than in directing performers or audience into the dense thickets of the play. Peter Sellars' The Persians, at the Taper in 1993, was similarly affrontive to audience expectations, and I found it trying, but at least Sellars had clearly shared with actors and designers and audience a vision of the material; Preston gave us visuals, not vision. I'll admit that being moved around the warehouse on a hydraulically cushioned riser in the piece's third "movement" was a kick, and for about 30 minutes the stylized storytelling began to make sense; here was state-of-the-art innovation in the service of what resembled a genuine interpretation of the play. It proved a mirage; there were more than two hours of uninflected declaiming and baffling artistic choices left. When I shared my reaction with a friend who was involved in the production, she replied simply, "It wasn't for the audience." Uh huh…. One must simultaneously admire and worry for Cal Arts' Center for New Theatre: Theatre dean Susan Solt and Cal Arts prez Stephen D. Lavine certainly got behind the show, which cost a rumored $750,000. But why not save a few eggs for a few other baskets rather than plopping them all in Preston's blender?

Dreamplay reportedly cost around $30,000, much of it for the house rental. It had some audience challenges--chilly night air, some bad sightlines, and a kind of suspension of empathy required in watching actors perform in dripping-wet bedclothes in said chilly night air. But these were quickly forgiven or forgotten, as Young's exquisitely layered and energetically performed text--centering on the true-life case of a sleepwalking murderer, and its resonances with Jung, Tarot, Mormonism, and pop culture--unfolded in playing areas both wet and dry. A two-week workshop not open for review (but this is a column, right?), it revisited and in some cases improved on Young's brilliant original staging two years ago at her former Actors' Gang home. As much as I look forward to new work from this irreplaceable auteur, Dreamplay is clearly Young's masterwork to date, and I'm convinced she could revisit it indefinitely without losing the work's haunting, unsettling, seductive, goofy, lyrical core. This kind of work--and the work of Cornerstone, Bottom's Dream, Evidence Room, Theatre of NOTE, Padua Playwright Productions, and Zoo District, to name a few--gives the lie to the hype that Cal Arts' new venture at long last delivers edgy, significant work to L.A. stages. Indeed, I overheard one Dreamplay actor, seeing Lear on his night off, caustically deadpan: "I understand this production is introducing the avant-garde to Los Angeles." Already met, thanks.

• Simpsons writer George Meyer is another budding playwright who may thank the late Audrey Skirball-Kenis for giving him a nudge onto the boards. Apparently a last-minute monologue/rant he did at an A.S.K. Theater Projects event got a good response, inspiring him to mount the recent two-week workshop (also not for review--is this a trend?) of Up Your Giggy at the Court Theatre. At the final dress rehearsal, the deceptively genial Meyer hosted, delivering hilariously cranky broadsides against advertising, feminism, and marriage. Dana Gould, Jack Plotnick, and Mary Lynn Rajskub stood out in a tight cast that also included Mystery Science Theatre 3000 creator Joel Hodgson.

• Gordon Davidson has announced his departure in 2004 from the helm of the Center Theatre Group/ Mark Taper Forum he founded in 1967. That gives us plenty of time to look back at his achievements and ahead at his legacy. But first, rumors: that in the three years before the Taper's long-awaited second stage, the Kirk Douglas Theatre (I prefer to call it the Spartacus), is built in an old Culver City movie palace, the Taper will put down roots in the 'hood at Ivy Substation, the former train stop where Evidence Room, Bottom's Dream, Antaeus, and others have trod. The Taper will reportedly pump in millions to renovate the Substation for New Work Festivals, Taper, Too, etc.

• Just got back from Oregon Shakespeare Festival; a full report on the nine plays I saw is forthcoming. Until then, tidbits: I kept running into English playwright David Edgar, on commission by OSF and Berkeley Rep to write two new plays about American politics for next season. I asked Edgar what he thought of Evidence Room's current production of his Pentecost: "The avenue staging, with the audience on either side, gives it a real energy," he answered. Also spotted was West Wing casting director Tony Sepulveda, who confirmed the rumor that his parody of L.A. desperation, Beverly Winwood Presents the Actors Showcase, may indeed transfer to the Canon Theatre after months of success at the Groundlings (and with such original castmembers as Jennifer Coolidge and Paul Reubens). And Cornerstoners Tamar Fortgang, Bill Rauch, and Christopher Liam Moore were in town, mainly because Rauch--whose extraordinary production of Robert Schenkkan's Handler just closed at OSF's new theatre--is slated to direct Hedda Gabler there next year. (Next, he and Tracy Young will travel to Yale Rep to re-mount their breathtaking Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella, with such L.A. actors as Kate Mulligan, Brent Hinkley, Chris Wells, Jennifer Griffin, Dan Parker, Peter Howard, and, thank the gods, Chris Moore reprising his definitive Lady Macbeth). Last but not least, I chatted frequently with hard-to-miss Robert Machray, last seen here in the title role of Orson's Shadow. Ashland has always been only ostensibly a "working" vacation; lately it feels like I can never get away from L.A. theatre. And that's not a bad thing, for me or for L.A. theatre.