"CURTAIN CALLS" #260
By Pat Launer
10/10/08
Dysfunctional families are the motherlode:
Fool for Love, Dark House, Tobacco Road.
It’s shocking the damage some do to others,
Whether parents or neighbors, sisters or brothers.
When dem Cotton Bolls
Get Rotten….
THE SHOW: Tobacco Road, a 1933 dramatization (adapted by Jack Kirkland) of the 1932 novel by
Erskine Caldwell. The Broadway production ran for eight years (3182
performances). It was revived on Broadway twice in the next two years, bringing
its total early run to nearly a decade (1933-1943).
The 1941 film, with its comic tone and changes to the original
plotline, was directed by John Ford and advertised as the picture “brought to
you by the men who gave you ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’” The play was shocking when
it premiered; no one thought that, during the Great Depression, audiences would
want to watch the plight of the poor. But it proved intriguing and long-lasting,
and remains the second longest-running drama in Broadway history. Times have
changed (or have they?); the piece has rarely been revived in the past 50
years.
THE BACKSTORY/THE STORY: Set in Georgia during the worst years of the Depression,
the drama focuses on the Lesters, a family of poor white tenant farmers,
representing the many small cotton sharecroppers being booted off their land by
foreclosure.
Jeeter is the patriarch, a
proud, philosophical, conniving, self-aggrandizing, lecherous and lazy man who
like many Southerners, is deeply entrenched in the Southern credo that ‘you
ain’t a man if you don’t own land.’ In the South, even for many folks today,
land provides the context for self, history and family. Jeeter’s father and his
grandfather farmed this land, and he’s not about to leave it, at any cost –
including losing his livelihood, or starving (or selling off) his kin. “I
was born on the land and that’s where I’ll die,” he proclaims, though his
greatest fear (and his son’s biggest threat to him) is being buried in the
corncrib like his Pa, with the rats gnawing at his face. His wife,
The play takes some liberties
with the novel (i.e., who was killed by the car driven by Dude; how the Lester
parents do or don’t meet their end), but it generally hews close to the
original tale of despair, poverty, starvation and depravity. No one on this
stage has any redeeming virtues. This is a dog-eat-dog-eat-turnip world, where
parents grab their own crumb of food first, and have lost track of their many
children and where they’ve disappeared to (they can’t even seem to remember
their names; of course, there were 17 of them). Those that are left are the
hyperactive, parent-demeaning, 16 year-old dope, Dude, and his 18-old sister,
Ellie May, born with a cleft lip (here portrayed, with all its speech
impediments, as a full-on cleft palate). Dude just wants to blow the horn of a
car (and he marries an oversexed itinerant preacher, Sister Bessie, to get to
do that). Ellie May, as sex-starved as Bessie, humps every man in sight. Bent
old Grandma is ignored and deprived of whatever food there is. The darling
child, her mother’s unabashed favorite, is 13 year-old
The PLAYERS/THE
PRODUCTION: The La Jolla Playhouse must have been prescient
when they decided to revive this old chestnut, but no one could foresee just
how close to the bone it would come in these terrible economic times. Still,
under the direction of David Schweizer, it isn’t played to resonate. It looks
and feels more like a period piece. And though most of the action is portrayed
with gritty realism (and a few uncomfortable laughs), the direction and design
(David Zinn) lean awkwardly and unnecessarily toward the symbolic and
expressionistic. When Jeeter makes pronouncements, which he often does, the
lights change dramatically as if for a dream sequence or soliloquy. In the
second act, as things go from bad to worse, and the Lesters’ world is
crumbling, the house becomes a mere skeleton, having lost every stick of wood
that contains it, and the backdrop slats come crashing down, one by one. It’s
self-conscious and overwrought. The lighting (Christopher Akerlind) seems to be
borrowed from the melancholy 1930s-40s black and white lithographs of Thomas
Hart Benton, which accentuated the extreme contrast between dark and light.
This is especially evident during the many attractive but unnecessary ‘freeze’
moments. The music and sound (
The cast is strong, though the accents are varied and the energy level
seems awfully high for folks who are “wore out” and starving. The wonderful
John Fleck, who in ironic contrast, once ate his way through the title role of La Nonna, The Granny, at the Old Globe (1990), is outstanding as Jeeter, as
crusty and nasty and self-serving a fellow as you’d never like to meet.
Amazingly, Fleck manages to imbue the nasty Jeeter with a modicum of charm. As
Catherine Curtain provides comic relief as Bessie, the lady preacher
with a less-than-holy past. Chris Reed (a native San Diegan) brings humor to
the oversized, oafish Lov. Other locals in the ensemble include Jesse MacKinnon
as the catastrophist neighbor Henry Peabody, and UCSD MFA almost-grads Joel J.
Gelman and Josh Wade. Sam Rosen is hunky, dumb and highly energetic as Dude;
Kate Dalton is like a writhing animal in heat as Ellie May (nice touch to have
her constantly covering her misshapen mouth); and Mary Deaton looks
dirty/pretty as the almost-mute
The production is disturbing in its jarring tonal shifts. The play is
relentless, and its characters are as unsavory as their grimy lives. These
days, that’s a heavy dose of ‘There But for the Grace of God’ realism.
THE LOCATION:
Love Hurts
THE SHOW: Fool for Love, written by actor/writer/director/Pulitzer Prize-winner Sam Shepard in
1983. It started in
THE BACKSTORY: Shepard wrote the play when he was in the midst of a nasty divorce, just
before he took up with Jessica Lange. But though he had personal conflict in
mind, the play shines a gritty light on some of his favorite themes: the
exploration/destruction of the American Dream and the American West; and the
uniquely American craving for both freedom and roots.
THE STORY: Eddie, a cowboy and stunt-man,
has just driven thousands of miles to find May, who’s holed up in a run-down
motel in the middle of the
THE PLAYERS/THE
PRODUCTION: The
Kurner also
designed the apt costumes and the ratty green claustrophobic motel room, with
its smeared walls and hard-slamming doors. The sound design (Adam Brick), which
includes songs by Merle Haggard specified by the playwright, is spot-on, and
the whistling train adjacent to the theater fits right into the action.
NVA is a great
match for Shepard’s grit. And this production has all the coarse, grainy
roughness and passion the play demands.
THE
LOCATION:
Am I My Brother’s
Keeper?
THE SHOW: In a Dark, Dark House, the West coast premiere of a 2007 drama by the prolific playwright
Neil LaBute. Kicking off ion’s third season, the dark, dark drama (with comic
moments) plays in repertory with LaBute’s breakout work, bash.
THE STORY: Since LaBute’s plays almost always feature an 11 o’clock revelation,
it’s hard to divulge too much plot and storyline. And this one has less
resolution than most, so you’re left to your own devices at the end.
Once again, LaBute is exploring the dankest recesses of the human
heart, the mutual pain inflicted, the hurt passed along in families. Terry is
the rough, blue-collar, protective older brother of Drew, who from outward
appearances, seems to have done quite well for himself. He’s got a wife and
children and a law degree. But lacking a moral core, he’s blown it all to bits.
He’s been disbarred for a shady business deal, he’s repeatedly unfaithful to
his wife, he’s been an absent father and a lousy brother.
Now, he’s in a posh rehab facility, trying to wrangle his way out of a
DUI and a coke possession rap. During the course of his therapy, he’s revealed
a childhood sexual abuse and has called on his brother to corroborate his
recollections to the doctors, which will facilitate his release. We learn that
the brothers shared an abusive father, a weak mother and a charming older
friend who was a sexual predator. That’s the first of three scenes, that sets
the stage for a contemplation of the repercussions of childhood violence and
abuse, and the roots of homophobia. The second scene finds Terry with a young
girl whose father owns a miniature golf course. Over time, her connection to
the action and the brothers is revealed. But we never know what becomes of her.
In the third scene, the estranged brothers come together again, in the spacious
yard of Drew, celebrating his release from medical confinement. There are
breakdowns and revelations galore, lies and self-deceptions on top of puzzles
and enigmas, and we’re left scratching our heads and wondering exactly who did
precisely what to whom.
In the preface to the published script, LaBute wrote that the play was
based partly in truth, that he himself was abused as a child. But once he got
that off his chest, it feels like he kind of walked away from the computer. In
a maddening lack of definitive dénouement, we’re left frustrated, hanging. If
he wanted us to discuss the play afterward, well, everyone did. But no one knew
what had happened. And the production didn’t provide enough elucidation to
help.
THE PLAYERS/THE
PRODUCTION: The acting is potent. Claudio Raygoza plays Drew
with juvenile ingenuousness that masks a bottomless pit of soulless
manipulation. He’s gotten through life fooling most of the people most of the
time. Raygoza is not quite as slick as a sharpie like Drew might really be, but
that’s obviously an acting and directorial choice. Maybe the detachment,
dispassion and insouciance are what’s helped him get by and convince people of
his ‘honesty’ and ‘earnestness’ all these years, while he’s perfected the art
of casual cruelty. We come to realize we can’t believe anything we see or hear.
There’s a whole lot roiling under the surface of these warring brothers, and
nothing is what it at first appears.
As Terry, Jeffrey Jones is seething with barely concealed anger. But he
seems to have retained a kind of tough decency, and at least a whiff of
morality, though his flirtatious scene with a teenage girl begs the question.
Jones is onstage throughout all three scenes, and he’s frankly terrific -- intense, volatile, frightening at times. His
scene with a pubescent Rachael VanWormer is superb. She isn’t 16 but she plays
it with aplomb -- sexy and cute, quick
and comical with the suggestive repartee.
The language is superb throughout, very real and wonderfully handled by
this fine cast, under the direction of Glenn Paris, who’s also responsible for
the leafy scenic design, replete with a clever, working miniature golf ‘hole’
for the second scene. There’s a great deal of focus on how people talk; each
character comments on the other’s style – whether rife with curses (Terry) or
adolescent “dudes” and “bros” (Drew) or hip, youthful banter (Jennifer) or
old-fashioned expressions (Drew). It’s all about growing up too fast, or not at
all. But the subtext isn’t sufficiently clarified for us in this production.
There seems to be one emotional breakdown too many at the end. We’re just left
wondering. And unsatisfied.
THE
LOCATION: ion Theatre, playing
in repertory with Neil LaBute’s bash, through
11/1
NEWS AND VIEWS
… Bye Bye Broadway…
The economic crisis is taking its toll on the
… Don’t forget your sonnets…The San Diego Shakespeare Society’s 7th Annual Celebrity Sonnet presentations will be at the Old Globe on Monday,
October 13 at 7:30pm. http://www.sandiegoshakespearesociety.org/events.htm
… Don’t miss out on your Free Night of Theatre… The race is on… to get your free tix! The San Diego Performing Arts League is
once again taking part in the nationwide audience-development program that
includes over 120 cities and 600 theaters. This is your opportunity to try a
new music, dance or theater venue. Tickets will be provided for performances in
the period from October 16-November 2. Many shows are already sold out… so
hurry! www.sandiegoperforms.com/freenight2008.html
… To augment its regular schedule of classes,
… Hip Hop is in…
… UCSD Playwriting alum Mat
Smart, who penned the marvelous
play, The Hopper Collection,
(which premiered here at the Baldwin New Play Festival in 2004 and went on to
have productions at the Magic Theatre and Huntington Theatre), is about to
present a new work, Thomas Repair, as part of South Coast Repertory
Theatre’s NewSCRipts
program. He’s been very busy since he moved to
…
'NOT TO BE MISSED!' (Pat’s Picks)
Fool for Lovei - wonderful performances;
still-provocative play
In a Dark, Dark House – dark, disturbing drama with unnecessarily unsatisfying ending; very
well performed
Ion theatre, in
repertory with bash, through 11/1
Tobacco Road – set during the Great Depression, the play is chilling in its relevance.
Flawed production, but some fine performances
The Light in the Piazza – beautiful, lush, luscious and romantic
Lamb’s Players Theater,
through 11/2
The Women – elegant, glamorous and backbiting; sheer delight!
The Old Globe Theatre, through 10/26
Boomers - you gotta love it, even if you aren’t one. Fabulous band, super songs,
high-energy performances
Lamb’s Players at the
Horton Grand Theatre, an open-ended run, now selling through 12/21
In honor
of Columbus Day… discover a new theater!
Pat
© 2008 PATTÉ PRODUCTIONS, INC.
For nearly 25 years, Pat Launer has been the only regular broadcast theater critic in