Theater review: 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!' at the Pantages Theatre

Aww, the Grinch is just an old softy.

OK, yeah, you know that already because as a child you, with someone you loved, flipped through the wild rhymes and even wilder illustrations of the original Dr. Seuss book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" and as an adult you, with someone you love, still make appointment viewing of the Chuck Jones animated special. Heartwarming as they are, those versions also convey a hint of menace – enough bad behavior to convincingly set up the Grinch's conversion to goodness once faced with the true spirit of Christmas. But in the stage extravaganza visiting Hollywood's Pantages Theatre this holiday season, the Grinch is harmless from the start.

That's good news if you intend to bring a young one who might easily be scared by the Grinch at his Grinch-iest, bad if you're a traditionalist who likes a Grinch with some bite. I ended up in both camps because, while I prefer some bite, I attended with a 12-year-old and a just-turned-3-year-old who sat pretty much squirm-free through the 80-minute presentation.

In keeping with its family orientation, this cuddly live version also supplies twice as much of grudgingly obedient dog Max: a graying Max who narrates the story and his puppyish younger self during the long-ago events. There's also more face time for the families of Who-ville, who, like those in the audience, are made giddy – and slightly crazy – by the holidays.

Shag-carpeted in green fur, the Grinch, as portrayed by "Lazy Town's" Stefan Karl (replacing the originally announced Christopher Lloyd), is first seen in what can only be described as a Bette Davis pose: haughtily draped across the entrance to his cave, his lips stretched into a sideways frown. Playfully over-the-top from the get-go, he's soon stalking the lip of the stage, pointing to the front rows and challenging: "You want a piece 'a me? C'mon, put 'em up."

The old and young Maxes ("Night Court" and "The Practice's" John Larroquette as the former, James Royce Edwards as the latter) are outfitted with stiff, curlicued tails reminiscent of Bert Lahr's in "The Wizard of Oz," which sway with merry abandonment. Larroquette delivers "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" – one of two key songs by Albert Hague and Dr. Seuss that have been retained from the 1966 animated special – in a deep, gravelly voice that befits a dog but likely won't lead to an upcoming appearance on "America's Got Talent."

This "Grinch" is a holiday tradition at San Diego's Old Globe, where it is about to begin its 12th year, and was glitzed to Broadway proportions for New York in 2006 and '07.

In its expansion to full-on musical, the story is given eight gooey-sweet songs by composer Mel Marvin and lyricist Timothy Mason (who's also the script writer) that too often feel like padding. Fairly entertaining, however, are a Grinch nightmare of screaming kids and their noisy presents, and a one-man production number, complete with solo kick-line, for the hammy Grinch.

A handful of scenes go on a minute or two too long, triggering fidgetiness in kids. The 3-year-old with me sat rapt until the show's final 10 minutes, when, as 6:30 approached, she was late into her day and becoming owlish about everything. As we gathered our things, the 12-year-old ran a checklist of costumes, dancing and singing, and declared, "It was all good." (While I was misting up during the Grinch's humanizing encounter with Cindy-Lou Who, I'd looked over at her and could have sworn she was wiping something from the sides of her nose, but she vigorously denied this afterward.)  

As for me: Well, even though my theater-geek side felt a tad undernourished, it must be admitted that, like the protagonist, "In Who-ville they say / That the Grinch's small heart / Grew three sizes that day!"

– Daryl H. Miller

"Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Performance schedule varies, but includes 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; and weekend performances at 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m. or 8 p.m. Ends Jan. 3. $25 to $100. (800) 982-2787 or www.BroadwayLA.org. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.  

Theater review: 'Scarcity' by needtheater

Meet America's future: A boy, 16, is in a gifted program, making excellent grades. His sister, 11, shows signs of being even smarter. These kids can be whatever they want to be.

Or so we'd like to think.

In demonstrating why they can't, Lucy Thurber presents a heart-wrenching portrait of a much too large segment of the population. Her play "Scarcity," given its premiere by New York's Atlantic Theater Company in 2007, is a harrowing yet miraculously tender account of promise thwarted by poverty in myriad forms -- economic,  emotional, social and many others as well. The play arrives in Los Angeles in a crackling presentation by the rambunctious young company known as needtheater.

Bridget Shergalis portrays the girl with such stinging intelligence that she brings renewed meaning to that old adjective "whip-smart." Jarrett Sleeper, as the boy, is sweetly dutiful, especially toward Shergalis, even as despair drives him toward an anguishing act of abandonment.

Theater review: 'Just 45 Minutes From Broadway' at Edgemar Center for the Arts

Henry Jaglom's new play feels awfully familiar. First there's its title, "Just 45 Minutes From Broadway," which all but sets you to whistling the George M. Cohan song containing that jaunty phrase. Then there's the story, about a free-spirited theater family much like the one in Noel Coward's "Hay Fever." When one family member attempts to break free to a "normal" life, a still deeper sense of déjà vu sets in, for this, of course, is the gist of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It With You."  

Like his distinguished predecessors, Jaglom -- the filmmaker behind "Eating" and a number of entertainment-world stories, including "Last Summer in the Hamptons" -- embraces both the folly and the heroism of his characters. But that's where similarities end, for this story, presented by Jaglom's Rainbow Theatre Company, musters a mere smidgen of off-the-cuff psychology before heading toward a calculatedly eye-misting resolution.  

Aging husband and wife actors (Jack Heller as the cranky-cuddly father, Diane Salinger as the airy-fairy mother) live outside New York City in a rambling, memorabilia-strewn home that glows with nostalgia and romance (set and lights by Joel Daavid). 

Theater cast album reviews: 'Next to Normal' and more

We cast album geeks tend to spend a fair amount of time in bad lighting conditions. We're either bathed in the glow of a computer screen as we search the Internet for news of upcoming releases, or we're awash in  fluorescent light as we skulk the aisles of what few record stores remain, seeking signs of our ever-harder-to-find must-haves.

The current search is rewarded by the release of "Next to Normal," winner of this year's Tony for best score. The story follows an otherwise typical American family down the rabbit hole of mental illness -- not an easy place to go. But composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey make the journey  fascinating. We come out on the other end having learned something about ourselves.

The album is reviewed in Sunday Arts & Books, along with the Broadway cast recordings of the movie adaptations "Shrek" and "9 to 5," the latter of which changed a bit after its tryout at the Ahmanson; the '80s hair-rock assemblage "Rock of Ages," which also started in L.A.; and revivals of the landmark musicals "West Side Story" and "Hair."

"Next to Normal" stands out for a number of reasons, not least: It's an original idea amid all of those adaptations, jukebox piece-togethers and revivals. Geeks rejoice!

-- Daryl H. Miller 

Credit: Decca Broadway

Review: Josh Groban, Kiri Te Kanawa at Hollywood Bowl opening night

 

It was a chocolate and champagne sort of night at the Hollywood Bowl.

The festive mood at Friday's season-opening concert proved extra-conducive for enjoying those consumables from one's picnic basket, while, in a more fanciful sense, those flavors wafted on the air as cocoa-voiced Josh Groban and effervescent soprano Kiri Te Kanawa performed separate sets as new inductees into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame.

As a double bill, these talents might have seemed an odd combination -- the 28-year-old boy-man who sends his female fan base swooning with a repertoire that is a bit pop, a bit classical and a bit world music, yet not really any of them, and the celebrated, ever-radiant 65-year-old opera star who's gone largely missing for more than a decade now.

Yet diversity is one of the qualities embraced by the Hall of Fame, which showcases performers who "embody the spirit of the Bowl," as Thomas Wilkins, the evening's conductor and genial emcee, explained.

Proof of that precept promptly materialized as the hall's first inductees, country singer Garth Brooks and composer-conductor John Williams manned a stage-side lectern to introduce this 10th anniversary Hall of Fame concert.

Review: Crown City Theatre's 'A Chicago Christmas Carol'

Well, God bless us, every one. Charles Dickens’ holiday staple has been visited by a trio of ghostly life coaches. The musical “A Chicago Christmas Carol,” by Crown City Theatre Company, is the result.

Hovering in the ether, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill bestow an extra measure of social consciousness on this production, while Upton Sinclair lends his setting from “The Jungle.” So the familiar characters, plus a few new ones, are plunged into icy, sooty, early-1900s Chicago to try to eke out a living in or near the sinister abattoir run by Ebenezer Scrooge.

The most poignant variation in this show by Crown City Artistic Directors William A. Reilly (book and music) and Gary Lamb (lyrics) is the inclusion of a mother and daughter (Joanne McGee and, at the reviewed performance, Shannon Lamb) whose Christmas Eve eviction forces them into the streets. The girl becomes this version’s Tiny Tim, while Tim himself matures into a 17-year-old labor organizer who, as portrayed by power-piped Malek Hanna, delivers a workers’ song that is the production’s most rousing moment.

Throughout the score, the plodding rhythms of everyday drudgery leap, whenever possible, into a joyful dance. At a piano beside the stage, Reilly provides jaunty, blood-pumping accompaniment.

The designs are basic but resourceful, the performances pleasant if rarely stellar. Then again, in his very ordinariness, Michael Vodde, as Scrooge, reminds us that sneering, miserly impulses reside in us all. Most important, the presentation, directed by Tam Warner, retains Dickens’ generous spirit, even when exercising tough love on its characters — and, by extension, the audience.

--Daryl H. Miller

“A Chicago Christmas Carol,” on the St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church campus, 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 21. $20. (818) 377-4055. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

Caption: Joanne McGee and Shannon Lamb in "A Chicago Christmas Carol." Credit: Neil Reinhold

Tyne Daly feels motherly in Getty Villa's 'Agamemnon'

You wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of the emotions that Tyne Daly’s infuriated queen mom harbors for her lying, murderous hubby in the Getty Villa presentation of “Agamemnon.”

Horror and pain fuse into a look of pure venom after Delroy Lindo’s kingly title character tricks Clytaemnestra into delivering their oldest daughter, Iphigenia, to what he says will be her wedding but turns out to be a human sacrifice. Daly’s daughter, Kathryne Dora Brown, portrays Iphigenia. So during the killing’s enactment, fuel is being thrown onto Daly’s fire. 

“It’s not an easy thing, even in dumb show, to see her get hacked up,” Daly said of watching what happens to her middle daughter at each performance. “Does it set me up for playing revenge and betrayal? Sure, it does.”

The connection affects Brown as well, though she’s not supposed to show it. “It is unbelievably overwhelming and touching to hear my mom going through that death scene,” Brown said. “I’m lying there, dead, with my eyes closed, and I start tearing up.”