THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS
AIRDATE: March 21, 2003
It's a theater dim sum -- a little of
this, a little of that -- in a series of one-acts featuring a hilarious new
work stuffed between a raunchy comedy and a gut-spilling melodrama. The triple bill brings back the
homeless-and-much-missed Fritz Theatre, with its fourth mounting of "Sexual
Perversity in Chicago," the 1976 David Mamet spoof that was his first Off
Broadway endeavor. This is the 70s single scene in all its garish, vulgar
glory. It was a time when men were macho and women were… sperm receptacles.
Fritz artistic director Duane Daniels has cast well, and directed with a
breezy, assured touch, returning to his earlier concept of cross-gender
casting. The guys' grossness is pretty funny out of the mouths of babes. Deja
Bleu Ginsberg is especially comical as Bernie, the crass braggart, and
Christopher White makes a deliciously nasty, man-hating female. The play may
reek of polyester, but the title alone still draws in the crowds, and assures
plenty of laughs.
The laughs come fast and furious in
"State of the Art," by local playwright Craig Abernethy. Set in a
writer's mind, it cleverly explores the process of creating a play. In Robert
May's witty direction, as clever as the text, three characters work out a
script while they work out. The cast is terrific, riotously performing
simultaneous physical and mental aerobics. Robin Christ is an
energetic/frenetic life-force, with Ken Oberlander and Jessica John as her
rapier foils. The rapid-fire dialogue is side-splitting, as they contemplate,
"process-wise," what they're "doing, do-wise," to determine
what's going to happen in the play, "place-wise,"
"less-is-more-wise," and most certainly, "spoof-wise." The
theater talk is a hoot; for example, a director is defined as "an easily
threatened cretin who tells everyone where to stand." The 3 get mired in
the process and after they "begin the beginning" and hammer out a
middle, they can't quite figure out the ending. Same could be said for the
playwright but still, for a new play and production, "State of the
Art" is true to its name -- in terms of writing, acting and directing.
And then comes part three of the Fritz
triple-header. "Sisters" is a dark, relentless 20-minute drama by
Gerald Zipper, directed by Al Germani. Jyl Kaneshiro plays bitter, sinister
Annie, who visits her comatose sister in order to unleash a lifetime of sibling
resentment. The acting leans toward histrionics and the play is kind of creepy,
a downbeat ending to an otherwise fast-moving, amusing and engaging evening.
Now if you want to go through heaven and
hell this weekend, check out Lamb's Players' provocative night presentation of
the C.S. Lewis allegory, "The Great Divorce," a huge hit last summer
in England and a surefire theological conversation-starter here at home.
©2003
Patté Productions Inc.