March 28, 2002
by Rob Kendt
Who'd have predicted a few years ago, when Theatre of NOTE
struggled to fill houses in its small Cahuenga Boulevard storefront space, that
one day it would be packing 'em in for its distinctive brand of offbeat
playmaking? It doesn't hurt that NOTE sits in the midst of a bona fide revival
of Hollywood nightlife. Time was, you'd have an obligatory pre-show meal at
Chan Dara a few doors down, then wander up Cahuenga to the creepily dim
Burgundy Room or browse World Book and News. Now Chan Dara has expanded in both
directions, adding a bar, and the street has added such indispensible hangouts
as Hotel CafŽ and, just across Sunset, the vinylophile's wet dream Amoeba
Records. The show up at NOTE for another weekend, Dennis Miles' peculiarly
affecting Destronelli, is another exemplar of what NOTE does well:
smart, weird, economical, sneakily bold plays, often in their world premiere.
This is Miles' most accessible work yet; he's an incorrigible mind-gamer whose
queasy Rosa Mundy and shocking Middle Savage were previous NOTE high
points, but Destronelli finds him in a calmer, more urbane, but no less
searching vein; the play's combination of provocation, puzzlement, perversity,
and unsentimental tenderness reminded me of Albee. And NOTE's bisected seating
arrangement allowed me to sit about a foot from Pamela Gordon's exquisitely
frayed turn as a lonely widow; I've never seen this ageless pixie better or
sexier. What with the buzz on the street and the offhandedly edgy work inside,
NOTE and its neighbors are proving that Hollywood may be L.A.'s real downtown.
¥ Or is it Silverlake? That's where a new space called the
Salvation Theatre (at Griffith Park and Sunset, near the old Glaxa space) will
open with a pair of plays by former NOTEster Hank Bunker. I missed his Futon
Dialogues when it premiered at NOTE a few years ago, but the program's
other one-act, The Interview, was my happy introduction to NOTE,
in 1995; it featured Bunker himself as the play's unctuous, passive-aggressive
sports writer. There are other NOTE associationsÑthe casts include Sarah
Phemister and Trace Turville, both memorable in NOTE's The Duchess of Malfi and Self-Portrait
Nude, and the director is Malfi and Middle Savage's Peter
Konerko. Indeed, this Bunker double bill marks Konerko and Turville's farewell
project, as the couple plans a June move to the Big Apple. They'll be missed.
¥ Already departed for the East a few years back was Bunker's ex,
the brilliant NOTE vet Denise Poirier, who now has a house in Hallowell,
Maine's smallest city. She hasn't given up acting: She's appearing in Fuddy
Meers at the Public Theatre of Lewiston, Maine; will then do Anne of
Green Gables in Monmouth, then in the fall will go north to Madison Rep to
work with another L.A. associate, Diane Robinson (who directed Poirier at NOTE
in a definitive perf as Lady Macbeth), possibly on Blithe Spirit. Said
Poirier: "Seems now that I moved away I'm getting more theatre work. Funny
that." We're not exactly shocked.
¥ We were shocked by one trend at our recent Garland Awards at the
Alex Theatre. The show ran a mere 2 hours, 3 minutesÑbut we had honorees who
picked up statuettes and bailed at the one-hour mark, for Pete's sake. Myself,
I'd rather soak in boiling oil than watch a long awards show (I skipped the one
on ABC last weekend). On the other hand, there have been few projects I've been
involved with that felt more depressingly pointless than putting together this
evening to celebrate a so-called theatre "community"Ñand to discover
there's no there there.
¥ Del Shores returns with his hit Southern Baptist Sissies, Apr. 10-June
9 at the Zephyr Theatre. Now who will write a play about conflicted gay
Catholics? Paging Terrence McNallyÉ Mead Hunter, longtime director of Literary
Programs for Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theater, leaves his post this week. We wish
him wellÉ Damon Intrabartolo (bare) and Stephen Trask (Hedwig and the
Angry Inch) are reportedly working on a rock opera about murdered gay icon
Harvey MilkÉ The irrepressible Jef Bek is at work on a rock opera, too. I've sworn
not to tell what it's aboutÑbut I can assure you it's no stuntÉ Jennifer Taub,
a delight in last year's Servant to Two Masters at
International City Theatre, is opening this weekend in Claudia Shear's Mae West
show Dirty Blonde at Portland Center Stage in Oregon. Great casting, except for the
hair colorÉ The Attic Theatre, after a brief stay over the hill in NoHo, has
returned to Hollywood 'hood, calling the Jewel Box Theatre on Cahuenga home for
the present.