LOS ANGELES TIMES
October 24, 2003
THEATER REVIEW
by Rob Kendt
I'd like to report a mugging at a historic site.
The suspect is a white male, about 6 feet tall, lanky build, with
short, grayish hair but a curiously youthful elasticity and speed. He was last
seen on the grounds of Barnsdall Art Park in a rumpled black suit, winking and
bowing.
Rather than press charges, though, we should thank the gods of
commedia that Casey Smith's Arlecchino, whose antics and deep-dish Italian
accent would shame Roberto Benigni, has been allowed to run away with much of
"The Triumph of Love" in a lean, smart, beguiling new rendition by
director Scott Rabinowitz.
Staged in the back garden of Frank Lloyd Wright's stony, low-slung
charmer the Hollyhock House, this "Triumph," by A Small Company in
association with Chautauqua Theatre Alliance, uses a taut new translation by
Rod McLucas and a 1920s setting to tell Marivaux's classic tale of deceit and
seduction.
Smith's manic butler doesn't own the whole show; he has stiff
competition from Troy Blendell's furiously Gallic gardener. And confidently
occupying the play's sweet heart is Jacy Gross as the Princess Leonidis, who,
disguised in natty suit and fedora (period-perfect threads by Elif Inanc),
coolly manipulates the occupants of a sex-starved intellectual retreat into a
free-for-all frenzy of amour. If she seems a little too cool, too assured of
success in her well-laid plot, it's because there's zero heat between her and
her supposed true object, Agis (Ryan Janis).
Luckily, Janis is the only dud here. As philosopher Hermocrates
and spinster Leontina, David Razowksy and Shelly Sproles paint well-arced comic
portraits of, respectively, stodgy absent-mindedness and strait-laced
repression melting to lust. As Leonidis' maid, Ameenah Kaplan makes knockabout
gems of her few moments.
At play's end, as lovers clinch in a nimbus of natural backlighting
and Casey Cohen's accordion score breathes its knowing benediction, this
"Triumph" lives up to its name.
*
`The Triumph of Love'
*
Where: Hollyhock House, Barnsdall Art Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd.
When: Saturdays-Sundays, 3 p.m.
Ends: Nov. 16
Price: $20
Contact: (323) 960-8865
Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes