Theater review: 'Three Tall Women' at El Centro Theatre

Edward Albee devotees needn't be urged to see "Three Tall Women" at the El Centro Theatre. However, those wary of America's most unpredictable living playwright may require nudging to sample the rewards that this suave West Coast Ensemble staging of Albee's 1994 Pulitzer winner delivers.
 
Consider Eve Sigall, whose arresting performance as A, the eldest titular female, easily justifies attendance. Either 92 or 91 (there is early Alzheimer's afoot), A centers Albee's deeply personal study, based on his own adoptive mother, and Sigall, pitched directly between Ruth Gordon and Piper Laurie, nails each hairpin turn.
 
Her caretaker is B (Jan Sheldrick), an acerbically sympathetic fiftysomething given to knitting and zingers. We gradually discern that A is who B will become, just as C (Leah Myette), a brusque 26-year-old legal aide, is who B used to be.
 
Their symbiotic trek around A's history comprises the occasionally baffling, often darkly funny Act 1. In Act 2, Albee deepens his syntax, the women now redrawn as specific versions of A.  With the advent of A's silent, long-estranged son (Michael Geniac), a moving meditation on mortality emerges.
 
Director Michael Matthews keeps the mood as dove-toned yet skewed as designer Kurt Boetcher's fractured bedroom set, with assets in Tim Swiss' subtle lighting, Sharon McGunigle's archetypal costumes and Rebecca Kessin's evocative sound.

Ultimately, though, it's all about A and the selves she incites. Besides the remarkable Sigall, company stalwart Sheldrick sometimes exposes technique as B, but her arch deadpan is richly apt, and Myette does everything possible to humanize C's pat, youthfully impatient character. Their mutual affinity reflects Albee's mordant lyricism, and recommends this thoughtfully elegant reverie.

– David C. Nichols

"Three Tall Women," El Centro Theatre, 804 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 20. $20. www.westcoastensemble.org or (323) 460-4443. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

Photo: Leah Myette, Eve Sigall and Jan Sheldrick. Photo credit: Carla Barnett.

Theater review: 'The Trojan Women' at City Garage*

A high level of invention suffuses "The Trojan Women" at City Garage.  Deconstructing Euripides' classic tragedy into a multifarious current-day collage, adaptor-designer Charles Duncombe and director Frederíque Michel pull few punches in the wake of burning Illium.
 
The geopolitical realities in Duncombe's freewheeling text range from harrowing statistics of recent genocides to sardonic swipes at our blog-infested society. Darfur, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, overpopulation, climate change and more punctuate the same gender positions that have driven this saga since its Peloponnesian War premiere.
 
Hecuba (June Carryl, magnificently composed) suggests a traditional African queen, clothed at the outset by title mourners whose burkas are but one of costumer Josephine Poinsot's inspirations. Cassandra (Mariko Oka) devolves from culture vulture to a naked, feral creature of website contours. Andromache (the touching Amelia Rose) turns the society trophy wife into a figure of post-millennial pathos, rending against Troy Dunn's quietly insidious Greek envoy.
 

Theater review: 'Bleeding Through' by About Productions

"Bleeding Through" at Shakespeare Festival/LA is Theresa Chavez and Rose Portillo's noir-tinged interactive theater piece exhuming the secrets within historic Angelino Heights.
 
Based on Norman Klein's novella, this About Productions attraction operates on multiple levels.  After the Unreliable Narrator (David Fruechting) prepares us for more than one version of the truth, we sit around the speakeasy-flavored area within designer Akeime Mitterlehner's excellent multi-perspective set.
 
His story follows Molly (Lynn Milgrim), an elderly resident who may be involved with a long-ago homicide. As the Narrator queries Molly and neighbor Ezra (Ed Ramolete), the reminiscences crisscross with Molly's younger self (Elizabeth Rainey).
 
A morally dubious attorney (James Terry), the boss' dissolute son (Brian Joseph) and Molly's deceptively innocuous second husband (Pete Pano) provide complications that echo various cinematic classics, apt considering that Angelino Heights served as location for many movie murders in Hollywood.

Chavez and Portillo impressively explore the space to suggest contextual layers, assisted by François-Pierre Couture's ambient lighting, Pamela Shaw's period costumes and the live accompaniment by musicians Scott Collins and Vinny Goila. The cast is proficient and, at times -- Molly's first encounter with each of the men, a tense Act 2 poker game -- they reveal the promise in the premise.

Theater review: 'Songs for a New World' at International City Theatre

"It's about one moment" runs the key motif in "Songs for a New World." Actually, Jason Robert Brown's 1995 theatrical cabaret is all acute moments, keenly delivered in the ingratiating International City Theatre production under Jules Aaron's airtight direction.
 
   The implicit theme is community as eternal counter to American turbulence, yet Brown's marvelous story-songs carry individual points. Since its WPA Theatre premiere directed by Daisy Prince, "Songs" has become a regional staple in various takes, such as Jon Lawrence Rivera's environmental, 9/11-centric interpretation in 2003.
 
   Musical director Brent Crayon, who conducted that acclaimed staging, commandingly repeats here. His expert combo nails Brown's rangy eclecticism, as does a perfectly pitched cast, vocally lush, dramatically fluid.
 
  

Theater review: 'God Save Gertrude' at The Theatre @ Boston Court

Elsinore meets the Masque in "God Save Gertrude," now at The Theatre @ Boston Court. Deborah Stein and David Hanbury's play with music is a punk-rock take on "Hamlet" from the perspective of his beleaguered mother.

As played by Jill Van Velzer with full-throttle commitment, this Gertrude isn't quite the beauteous majesty of Denmark that tradition dictates. Stein's scenario occurs in "the recent future or an alternative now," when revolution is afoot. Barricading herself in a bombed-out theater (surreally designed by Susan Gratch), Gertrude works several realities at once. By turns sarcastic, rhapsodic and pathetic in costumer Soojin Lee's bedraggled evening gown, Gertrude name-drops, exposits and rails in postmodern manner while reliving past glories of anti-Establishment stardom with her late first husband.

These segments, lyrics by Stein and composer Hanbury, are dynamically effective, recalling "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." Here, as elsewhere, director Michael Michetti makes sharp use of Jason H. Thompson's space-spanning videos, Rob Oriol's ominous sound and Steven Young's spectacular lighting.

Theater review: 'The Doctor Despite Himself' at Electric Lodge

Post-commedia antics are the prescribed treatment in “The Doctor Despite Himself” at Electric Lodge. Ipanema Theater Troupe’s wacky take on Molière’s 1666 “Le Médecin malgré lui” is awash in slapstick aplomb.

That is obvious from the pre-show intrusion by woodcutter Sganarelle (Charles Fathy) and bickering Martine (Clara Bellar), his shrewish wife, as we take our seats.

Their Punch-and-Judy combat leads to Martine’s revenge — giving her thick-headed spouse his comeuppance by passing him off as a learned physician. The plan backfires, to put it mildly.

In director Guru Monteiro’s hands, “Doctor” gambols about the black-box setting as though it’s a tony Second City workout. The translation by Bellar and the cast is slight but serviceable, and designer Swinda Reichelt’s costumes must be seen to be believed. Constructed of foam-core and stretchy elements, the outfits merge circus whimsy with a structural extravagance that suggests pet chew toys come to life.

Fathy’s deadpan drollery and Bellar’s amiable hectoring are in the classic style, albeit overextended. Raquel Brussolo gets ample mileage from the statuesque figure and blond locks of her tarty nursemaid to ingenue Lucinde (also Bellar), whose muteness provides Sganarelle’s big test.

She and inamorato Leandre (Brad Schmidt) wear campy color-coordinated cat suits, and Steven Houska’s various authority figures go from loopy to loopier in farcical form and function.

It is not really satirical, apart from a running list of treatments that directly reflects the current health care debate. But the company’s main objective is unassuming silliness. As such, “Doctor” is enjoyable, even if Molière’s wit plays second fiddle to the wardrobe.

— David C. Nichols

 “The Doctor Despite Himself,” Electric Lodge Performance Space, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 8. $20. (310) 823-0710. Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Above: (Left to right) Steven Houska, Charles Fathy and Clara Bellar. Photo credit: Angelo Loukas

Theater review: 'That Perfect Moment' at NoHo Arts Center

 May 16, 1969, is the date “That Perfect Moment” seeks to reclaim. No need to notify the principals of Charles Bartlett and Jack Cooper’s seriocomic play at the NoHo Arts Center, for it’s the sum total of their crafted situation.

That date, immortalized in the poster that dominates the home of Mark and Sarah Vanowen in “lower Van Nuys,” was when love-rock band Tthe Weeds played the Venice Pavilion. Pony-tailed Mark, lead singer, has arranged a reunion tonight, in an attempt to resurrect the past.

Sarah thinks differently, leaving him at the outset, and it’s soon clear that the Summer of Love isn’t quite as frozen in mind for his fellows as it is for Mark. Former bassist Albert and keyboardist Gabriel have their own issues. The wild card is now-conservative Skip, whose holiday letter sets the formulaic plot in motion.

Theater review: 'Richard III' at A Noise Within

With as many stern alarums as merry measures, “Richard III” plots, betrays and murders his way around A Noise Within, where Shakespeare’s deathless study of despotic ambition opens the company’s 2009-10 season.

“The Tragedy of King Richard III,” as the program page cites it, ends the tetralogy formed by the “Henry VI” plays and is the second-longest play in the canon after “Hamlet.” Like that tragedy, its title character is central to its popularity, and he embodies this hard-working production’s mix of the artful and the ungainly.

Director Geoff Elliott correctly places the action in the early 1480s, the medieval tone enhanced by designer Darcy Scanlin’s split-level, carved-stone set. After an establishing prologue, a spotlight hits Richard (Steve Weingartner) at the rear of the house. Making his hunchbacked, clubfooted way through the audience, Weingartner conversationally delivers, “Now is the winter of our discontent,” and we’re off in a treacherous whirl.

Theater review: 'Sweeney Todd' at Chandler Studio Theatre

The enduring genius of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler carries "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street." Their macabre Tony-winning masterwork revisits its penny-dreadful roots in this compact Production Company revival.

Many approaches have attended this musical thriller since its 1979 premiere, most recently John Doyle's cast-accompanied deconstruction and Tim Burton's gory Hammer Studios-flavored film. Here, director Derek Charles Livingston and musical director Richard Berent re-parse the fiendishly intricate property around a fervent ensemble, seeking a stylized immediacy that often evokes "The Threepenny Opera." Given its computerized accompaniment and un-amplified voices, the musical accuracy and intelligibility of lyrics is gratifying.

Kurt Andrew Hansen's resonant title barber never quite reaches dementia, but his "Epiphany" is still so intense that we're afraid to applaud. If Donna Pieroni overplays the infatuation as Mrs. Lovett, his raucous partner-in-meat-pies, her Kathy Najimy-meets-Faith Prince attack is entertainingly apt. When they devour the Act 1 finale, "A Little Priest," we're goners. 

Harmony Goodman, reliable as always, makes us overlook her Beggar Woman's lack of disarray, while Brian Maples' reedy tenor and Jenny Ashman's focused soprano adorn more interesting lovers than usual. Rob Herring gives urchin Tobias unforced clarity, R. Christofer Sands treats rival barber Pirelli to a droll ham's holiday and Nancy Dobbs Owen offers keen work en pointe as Sweeney's lost Lucy.

There are some unfinished lapses in Livingston's staging. Weston I. Nathanson's lecherous Judge Turpin isn't sufficiently repellent, ditto Rick Cox's clarion-voiced Beadle. Designer August Viverito's illumination could use footlights, his functional set reveals "dead" customers exiting, and some late-inning tactics may confuse non-devotees. Still, overall "Sweeney's" yeasty essence lands with a vengeance.

-- David C. Nichols

"Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street," Chandler Studio Theatre, 12443 Chandler Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Nov. 22. $34. (800) 838-3006. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

Photo: Kurt Andrew Hanson and Donna Pieroni. 

Theater review: 'Death and Giggles' and 'Sole Mate' at the Actors' Gang

There's noteworthy invention to "Death and Giggles" and "Sole Mate" at the Actors' Gang, a resourceful double bill of performance pieces that takes "less is more" to another level.

A joint venture with Three Chairs Theater Company, the program is at once slight and disarming. After the announcements by flash-lighted MC Fingaz (Eleanor van Hest), "Sole Mate" starts things off. Cristina Bercovitz portrays flap-toed Mr. Shoe, who longs for his ideal partner. While Bercovitz pipes away to sound designer Jonathan Snipes' whimsical tune, the flexible Jessica Erskine gives various possibilities a leg up from around a screen. All ends happily, albeit inevitably.

"Death and Giggles," the main event, is a largely wordless rumination co-created by Bercovitz and the impressive Daisuke Tsuji. We follow Giggles (Tsuji) from childhood to the twilight years, as he copes with many balloons, abstract dreams and a sock puppet. Cirque du Soleil veteran Tsuji has an expressive face and controlled physicality. When he spouts loopy doggerel while making his smiling way into the audience, it's hard to resist.

Less magical are those passages that needlessly move the childlike fun into high concept, though scenic designer Shannon Kennedy's molded-fabric backdrop is certainly serviceable, and François-Pierre Couture offers rich lighting. The early passage of little Giggles reluctantly staying put is amusing; adding a rooster's crow to its crickets would make it hysterical. And the bit of clown/balloon sexuality moves the tone from mischievous to near-crude. Still, it's a diverting attraction, although a whiff of the workshop lingers.

-- David C. Nichols

"Death and Giggles" and "Sole Mate," Actors' Gang at the Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City. 9 p.m. Fridays, 8 p.m. this Saturday and Oct. 10. Ends Oct. 23. $15. (310) 838-4264. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

Photo: Daisuke Tsuji. Credit: The Actors' Gang.