How Swed It Is

Is the LA Times’ Mark Swed having an identity crisis? I can only conclude as much from following his writing in recent months. I’m not talking about the fact that he’s the paper’s classical music critic of record but covers a fair amount of major theatre, as well, or that he was sent to cover performances around and about the Republican Convention that purportedly reflected the zeitgeist or some such thing.

I’m talking about his tendency to make being and becoming the theme of his theatrical criticism. To wit, there was this baffling statement in his mixed review of The Ten Commandments:

Indeed, "The Ten Commandments" is such effective theater that, after 2 1/2 hours of cheesy stagecraft and innocuous, blaring upbeat music, we don't just understand [Moses], don't just aspire to be Moses, we actually become Moses. That is to say, "The Ten Commandments" has the power to leave a epiphany-seeking theatergoer speechless.

Right. I honestly can’t tell if that’s praise or simply throw-up-his-hands bewilderment—if it’s shock or awe, or both. Then there’s today’s review of Macbeth ( A Modern Ecstasy) at REDCAT, in which English actor Stephen Dillane performs the entire play solo, with light jazz accompaniment. Given Swed’s Mosaic transubstantation, this graph stuck out:

"Macbeth" at REDCAT is only Macbeth. And even that isn't quite true. "Macbeth (A Modern Ecstasy)" at REDCAT is the embodiment of Macbeth, the spirit of Shakespeare made flesh. It is the performance of a single actor, Stephen Dillane, and it is a performance — prodigious, incandescent, incantatory — that defies belief.

And this graph even more so:

As if possessed, Shakespeare pours out of him [is something dangling here? Who’s possessed, Dillane or Shakespeare?—Ed.] in unstoppable flood. He channels Macbeth and he channels "Macbeth." That is to say, he is Macbeth, he is all characters in the play, and he is none.

That is to say something—and nothing—all at once. The coda to this Swed swirl is the short blurb that’s been running in the theatre listings, summing up The Ten Commandments. Apparently Swed regained his consciousness after his out-of-body Kodak moment:

Thou shalt not cast Val Kilmer as Moses. Nor shalt thou waste huge sums of money making a cheesy musical out of the Bible that looks, sounds and is quite stupid, and serves as a vanity show for a fashion designer whose clothes just happen to be on sale in the same shopping mall as the theater.

Mark Swed: trenchant critic or spiritual seeker at the footlights’ edge? You decide, dear reader.

They Sell Wine, Too?

I didn't know there were alcoholic libations available at 99¢ Only Stores, but this intriguing possibility is raised by Heseon Park's Times feature on the newest installment in Ken Roht's annual discount-store holiday extravaganza. And I thought Charles Shaw had cornered the market on what the English endearingly call "plonk."

The piece's money quote, though, comes--not surprisingly--from an always quotable trouper:

"You just have no idea how wet underclothes can get until you have done back-to-back perfs of a 99¢ show," said Colleen Wainwright, who plays a stilt-walking mom in the village.

Well, I guess now we do.

Outside the Blog

This month's has a round-up of exciting young theatre companies from around the country, and I'm happy to say that two L.A. upstarts are among the dozen troupes the mag calls "hot, hip and on the verge." My colleague Steven Leigh Morris does the honors for Son of Semele, and I've got a piece on the Black Dahlia.

Also this week, look for my Times feature on the impish URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL: DEAN CAMERON'S NIGERIAN SPAM SCAM SCAM, which I had a great time writing.

Pieces like these remind me why I do this. Indeed, I can imagine that few people have jobs where the ratio of fun had to pay received is so wildly out of proportion--that is, except for the people who make the theatre I have the privilege of covering.

Not a Pulitzer Moment

A slow news week at the Times, I guess: Tomorrow's paper has the Calendar section weighing in on... this weekend's USC/UCLA football game. A breathless introduction explains the whimsical concept: "We asked The Times' arts, entertainment and style critics to handicap the game by looking at it through the filters of their respective fields of expertise. Who should win if fashion dictated? What do the fight songs tell us? Which quarterback has the grace of a ballerina?"

The critics respond with varying degrees of passion to this off-the-beat assignment. It's mostly disposable local-color twaddle, but I must commend dance critic Lewis Segal for taking up the challenge with vigorous exegetic exertions beyond the call of duty. To wit:

Ringed with Trojan muscle, [USC quarterback Matt] Leinart takes his time to calmly decide who deserves the ball on each play. "I've always kind of liked pressure situations," he told FSN West earlier this season, and he almost always exudes confident self-control. Indeed, he moves no more than necessary, all his power kept in reserve. If he were a dancer, he'd be an aristocratic ballet prince — maybe Apollo, majestically driving the horses of the sun.

Wow! I can feel the warm draft wafting my way (and I'm not talking about the rays of that mythical sun). But there's more:

In contrast, [UCLA quarterback Drew] Olson would be a twitchy, twisty, impulsive Twyla Tharp virtuoso. His style is dangerously unpredictable. UCLA's defense has been, shall we say, inconsistent this season, so Olson's mastery of the running/dodging fake-out may count as adaptive behavior. But it's great fun to watch him improvise: five steps back, pause, then two steps for a phony handoff, a shuffle into a new position and finally a lunge into a pass.

It's a slight exaggeration to label Leinart a poised classical quarterback and Olson an edgy modernist — but only slightly. As Martha Graham definitively observed, movement never lies.

You just can't make this stuff up.

117 Nights (and some afternoons)

Thank goodness I'm in the LA Drama Critics Circle or I wouldn't bother to put this year-end list together. (I was a secret voter for last year's Garland Awards, too, which forced to make a similar list. If you're wondering why I had to be secret, ask someone at my old place of business.)

If I have time I'll offer comments about each of the following, most but not all of which I reviewed either for the LA Times or the Downtown News. For the time being, I've simply bolded the shows I found special, memorable, or noteworthy for some reason or other over the past year (and I've got about a half dozen more or so to see before we ring down the curtain on this year).

At the very least, it's a kind of diary of my year as a critic and theatregoer. At best it's a cross section of another busy, stimulating, enervating, pathetic, and glorious year in the great invalid's stepchild, L.A. theatre.

18 Arrests, No Convictions at the Court Theatre
29 Things To Do on a Rainy Day, SOB Theatre Co at Theatre/Theater
110 Degrees in the Shade at Pasadena Playhouse
Abingdon Square at Open Fist Theatre
Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo’s Greatest Hits at the Canon Theatre
Architect of Destiny, Inkwell Productions at the Zephyr Theatre
Around the World in a Bad Mood at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse
As Vishnu Dreams at East West Players
The Authors Thumb at Theatre Unlimited
A Woman’s Worth at the Orpheum Theatre
Bitter Bierce at the Zephyr Theatre
Blithe Spirit at the Globe Playhouse
Blue Surge at the Third Street Theatre
Buddy at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center
Caroline, or Change at the Ahmanson Theatre
Catch-22 at West Coast Ensemble
Center of the Star, Cornerstone Theater Company at Greenway Court
Chekhov x 4, Antaeus at NewPlace Theatre
A Comfortable Truth at Lee Strasberg Theatre Center
Coming to Life at Fremont Center Theatre
Company, Reprise at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse
The Conquest of the South Pole at the Odyssey Theatre
Continental Divide at La Jolla Playhouse
The Credeaux Canvas at the Little Victory Theatre
Dark Rapture at Evidence Room
The Days When Cocaine Was King at the American Renegade Theatre
Dealing With Clair at the Matrix Theatre
Deconstructing the Torah, Circus Theatricals at the Odyssey Theatre
Diary of a Madman at the Odyssey Theatre
Dorian at the NoHo Arts Center
Duel at the Hollywood Court Theatre
Eat Me at Theatre of NOTE
Electra at A Noise Within
Embedded at Actors’ Gang
The Empire Builders at City Garage
Enchanted April at Pasadena Playhouse
The Family Room at the Powerhouse Theatre
Four Dervishes at 24th Street Theatre
The Four Postmen at the Stella Adler Theatre
Freedomland at Sidewalk Studios
Fully Committed at San Fernando Valley Playhouse
Galileo at Brand Park
A Gift From Heaven at Beverly Hills Playhouse
Golden Prospects at the Powerhouse Theatre
Grand Hotel at the Colony Theatre
Hairspray at the Pantages Theatre
Hard Times at Evidence Room
Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Celebration Theatre
Henry Part, Part I, Circle X at Shakespeare Festival LA
Hollywood Hell House at Center for Inquiry West
Holy Days at Theatre 40
Homewrecker at Evidence Room
In the Land of the Giants at the 2nd Stage Theatre
An Infinite Ache at the Black Dahlia Theatre
Intimate Apparel at the Mark Taper Forum
Jack or The Submission at the Elephant Stageworks
Johnny Boy at the Falcon Theatre
Juvenilia at Gardner Stage
Kismet, Reprise at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse
Letting Go of God at the Hudson Backstage
Like a Dog on Linoleum at the Elephant Asylum Theatre
A Lion in Winter at Theatre 40
Little Mary Sunshine, Musical Theatre Guild at the Alex Theatre
Little Shop of Horrors at the Ahmanson Theatre
Lobby Hero at the Odyssey Theatre
Lydie Breeze at the Open Fist Theatre
M Butterfly at East West Players
Measure for Measure, SOB Theatre Co at Theatre/Theatre
Midnight Brainwash Revival at Sacred Fools Theatre
Mirror Mirror at 24th Street Theatre
Miss Margarida’s Way at the Zephyr Theatre
Miss Saigon at the Pantages Theatre
Mixed Messages at East West Players
Molly Sweeney at the Eclectic Company Theatre
My Favorite Year, Musical Theatre Guild at the Alex Theatre
Nothing But the Truth at the Mark Taper Forum
The Oedipus Tree at Plummer Park
Only the Dead Know Burbank, Inkwell Productions at the Hudson Theatre
Ourselves Alone at Gardner Stages
Passing, Towne Street Theatre at the Stella Adler Theatre
Peach Blossom Fan ar REDCAT
A Perfect Wedding at the Kirk Douglas Theatre
Peter Pan at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts
Pharmacopeia at Evidence Room
Play Strindberg at Company Rep
The Queen of Sheba, Unity Players at the Stella Adler Theatre
Raree, Meadows Basement at Theatre/Theater
Red Light, Green Light at Theatre of NOTE
Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil at the Group Repertory Theatre
The Royal Family at the Ahmanson Theatre
Self-Defense at the Actors’ Gang
She Loves Me, Musical Theatre West the Carpenter Performing Arts Center
Shel’s Shorts at Kuttingroom
Side Man at Malibu Stage Company
Sperm, Circle X at the 24th St Street Theatre
Spite for Spite, Andak Stage Company at NewPlace Theatre
Stones in His Pockets at the Mark Taper Forum
Summertime, Theatre @ Boston Court
Swimming in the Shallows, MetaTheatre Company at Third Street Theatre
The Talking Cure at the Mark Taper Forum
The Ten Commandments at the Kodak Theatre
Topdog/Underdog at the Mark Taper Forum
Tougher Than Grace at King King club
True Story at the Coronet Upstairs
Twelfth Night at Actors Co-op
Twelfth Night, Shakespeare Festival LA at Pershing Square
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Independent Shakespeare Company at Hollyhock House
Waking Up in Lost Hills, Cornerstone Theater Company at Lost Hills School Auditorium
War Music at the Geffen Playhouse
Western Big Sky at the Met Theatre
What Are You, Deaf? at Company Rep
What the Night Is For the Laguna Playhouse
Wonder of the World at West Coast Ensemble

UPDATE: Forgot to include one show--nothing major, just the production of the year: Exits and Entrances at the Fountain Theatre.

Iraq'd

From the Onion, in honor of Tom Ridge's departure:

Bat's Entertainment

The upward flight of the strange, bloody musical Bat Boy has been unique in the annals of theatre. After being promised for year after year, this spin on the popular Weekly World News character finally opened at the Actors' Gang El Centro Space with a short one-month run in Nov., 1997. I was there on opening night--it was actually the first time I met the late Polly Warfield, who was there reviewing for Drama-Logue. I had a good old time at the show, though I hardly imagined it would make it beyond this incarnation. Among the cast of that production were the inimitable Chris Wells, the awesome Kaitlin Hopkins, the charming Ann Closs-Farley (who also did the costumes, I recall), and the striking Deven May as the titular creature himself.

Only Deven is still with the show, which made it to Off-Broadway in 2001 (with Hopkins still on board), and is now on London's West End. While the reception has been decidedly mixed--with many critics wondering what this sick, campy romp is doing in such exalted surroundings--the show is still running, and I was happy to pass the Shaftesbury Theatre several times on my recent visit, and read with pride the names of authors Keythe Farley, Brian Flemming, and composer/lyricist Laurence O'Keefe. I even took this crappy picture with my Motorola phone camera:

Note the main blurb over the door: "Yuk!" Obviously the show's marketers understand what they've got here, better than critics who've called it "one of those cultish New York shows that should quickly be returned to sender," or quipped, "Like its vampiric hero, Bat Boy sometimes bites, but it also sucks." And London audiences seem to get it, too--also on the West End is the uproarious Jerry Springer, the Opera (now featuring David Soul--yes, that David Soul--in the lead). Even the current Sweeney revival I raved about here is pretty non-traditional fare for the tony West End. I don't expect Broadway, which made such quick work of Caroline, or Change and Assassins, to embrace such innovation or irreverence any time soon, alas. But in L.A. and London, it seems, there's still hope.

For more information about the various infestations--ahem, incarnations of this musical entertainment, you can hang out here.