LOS
ANGELES TIMES
June
11, 2004
THEATER
BEAT
With
last year's "Yellow Flesh/Alabaster Rose," Erik Patterson emerged as
a compelling new voice who could fashion strangely seductive drama and mine
richly moving comedy from the deep domestic trauma of a broken family as it
pieced itself back together.
In
his new sequel, "Red Light Green Light," Patterson's complicated
empathy for his flawed characters, as well as his disarming wit, are in full
effect. But the drama is faltering and unfocused, as this eccentric extended
family, once happily assembled, faces the ever after part.
Gay
teacher Elliot (Patterson on the night reviewed) remains an almost painfully
needy soul, though he has an endearing protectiveness for a little sister
(exquisitely touching Mandy Freund who believes she's pop diva Bjork. When
Elliot's sensitive new lover Caleb (Trevor H. Olsen) momentarily leaves him
alone on a street in West Hollywood, a bitterly homophobic neighbor (Stewart
Skelton) taunts and gravely injures him with a pipe.
This
senseless bashing sends his circle of loved ones--including his volatile
stripper sister (Jennifer Ann Evans), survivor mother (Sarah Lilly), and
pregnant goth niece (radiant Rachel Kann)--for a loop, in a series of
reiterative confessional monologues. Patterson doesn't need these; when he writes
actual scenes--between Caleb and his concerned mother (Judith Ann Levitt),
between Elliott and a hustler neighbor (Brad C. Light), between a resentful son
(Alan Loayza) and his deadbeat dad (Scott McKinley)--the play snaps and
sparkles.
Director
Miguel Montalvo gives the play a slightly dizzying urban whirl, on an evocative
all-around avenue set by Jason Adams and Alicia Hoge. But Patterson's "Red
Light Green Light" moves fitfully amid this stop-and-go traffic.
--Rob Kendt
"Red Light Green Light," Theatre of NOTE, 1517 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends July 10. $15. (323) 856-8611. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.