LOS
ANGELES TIMES
March
19, 2004
THEATER
BEAT
Heard of pub theater? Charlie Terrell's "Tougher
Than Grace" is club theater, staged in the high-ceilinged, bare-bricked
environs of King King, a Hollywood bar with a studied red-light decadence that
feels inherently theatrical.
And
in some of the show's best moments, director Steve Ferguson uses the space in
ways that feel novel. As Terrell and his taut, serious-as-a-stroke band rips
through a bluesy number, we're left to hang out and scan the faces of actors
mingling around and behind the bar; an appealing mix is struck between
nightlife people-watching and a multimedia rock show.
Sometimes,
though, we're just left hanging, watching a sort of live music video, all
archetypes and broad strokes. The play follows the perils of young Tina (Jackie
Page), voluptuous daughter of an abusive, fire-breathing Pentecostal preacher
(Michael Childers) with a boozy, blonde-wigged wife (Irene Muzzy).
The
feverish, hypnotic Childers makes a convincing link between rock abandon and
evangelical fervor, speaking in tongues and flailing epileptically,
handkerchief aloft like a spiritual antenna. And Donny Persons, as a sweet,
shaggy dreamer, and Sarah Colonna, as a skeptical barmaid, share an effective,
elliptical over-the-counter exchange.
As
murky and silly as the story gets (there are some stripper catfights worthy of
"Showgirls"), the stagecraft is often marvelous, with Paul Stula's
projections, Leonardo Ramos' lights and Terrell's artful underscoring conjuring
a tasty Southern Gothic atmosphere.
Indeed,
"Tougher Than Grace" isn't such a bad place to have a drink and a
laugh. Terrell may have intended something more portentous than that, but thankfully
he's too much of a rock-club showman to give us a bad time.
--Rob Kendt
"Tougher Than
Grace," King King Club, 6555 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Sundays, 7:30
p.m. Indefinitely. $15. (323) 960-5765. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.