Energizing the Bard’s ‘Antony’
Watching Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” at A Noise Within, one is reminded of Dame Edna Everage’s observation “Color and movement is what they like.” In their kaleidoscopic staging, co-directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-elliott provide color and movement in abundance. And like it we do.
“Antony and Cleopatra” is ranked by some scholars among Shakespeare’s “problem plays.” And considering the bizarre fusion of the humorous and the tragic, that’s understandable. But even more than the tonal irregularities, the lightning locale shifts would daunt a World War II field marshal.
Rodriguez-elliott and Elliott, who also plays Antony, overcome all challenges with military efficiency. Navigating Tom Buderwitz’s vertiginous set, replete with sky high walkways and metal towers, requires fortitude — acrophobes need not apply. And for added breathlessness, there are those armored soldiers who soar over the audience’s heads on modified zip lines, right into the thick of battle.
Ken Booth’s magnificent lighting, in concert with Angela Balogh Calin’s vivid costumes, transform Cleopatra’s court into a butterfly grove, with the sumptuously attired Cleopatra as the reigning monarch. Susan Angelo, an 11th-hour replacement in the role, shines in a sinuous turn.
Moving with appropriately serpentine grace, her peevish, passionate Cleopatra is the perfect foil for Elliott’s richly layered Antony, a Roman soldier dangerously besotted with his muse. The two capture the humor of Shakespeare’s aging diva and lecherous lion without cheapening the pathos of their ultimate fates.
A miscasting or two pass largely unnoticed in this large and excellent cast. Robertson Dean is particularly fine as Enobarbus, Antony’s
aide, ultimately led astray by self-interest, much like his deeply flawed commander.
— F. Kathleen Foley
A privileged family falls apart
Awful parents are the maligned muses of great theater: Consider “Medea,” “The Glass Menagerie” or “A Long Day’s Journey into Night.” But in “The Indians Are Coming to Dinner,” now at the Pacific Resident Theatre, playwright Jennifer W. Rowland hasn’t quite found the right balance between dysfunction and good drama.
That isn’t to say this period piece, set just after Ronald Reagan’s landslide reelection in 1984, doesn’t have its pleasures. Director Julia Fletcher finds satirical bounce in this portrait of a privileged Bay Area family going to pieces on Tom Buderwitz’s bougie two-story set.
Blustering patriarch Harold (Michael Rothhaar) thinks he can wrangle an ambassadorship out of influential Anil (Kevin Vavasseur) over chickpea curry and poached pears. This act of strategic dining happens to fall on the same evening Harold’s daughter, Alexandra (Thea Rubley), is singing in an opera competition. Throw in a pot-smoking son (Justin Preston), a pearltwirling wife (the delightful Sara Newman), a passiveaggressive servant (Peter Chen), and you’ve got a full house primed for farce.
But the more Rowland insists that Harold is a father who never knows best,
the more the play stalls. Is this oblivious fogey a symbol of the Reagan era? What is he in the play to express beyond his own narcissism? Rothhaar throws himself into the role, but his Harold exhausts rather than intrigues. Happily, you can sit back and enjoy Chen and Newman’s deadpan double act, where Rowland’s talent for social comedy shines.
— Charlotte Stoudt “The Indians Are Coming to Dinner,” Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 8. $20$28. (310) 822-8392 or www.pacificresidenttheatre.com. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.
Nerd pack gets musical sendup
Thomas Misuraca, writer and librettist of “Geeks! The Musical!,” premiering at Write Act Repertory Theatre, is a total geek.
Or at least he must be, to have so affectionately and persuasively created the single-minded characters who come to the San Diego Comic-con Expo to indulge their obsessions — rare comics, Dungeons & Dragons, the aged star of a “Star Trek”-like sci-fi series — and head home with broader horizons, new friends and selfknowledge.
By geeks, we’re talking people for whom “How many actors have played Dr. Who?” is a momentous, possibly explosive question. In fact, the “Geeks!” character Chip (Tyler Koster) holds up a long line of annoyed autograph-seekers to settle this debate once and for all. His song, “Who’s Who of Doctor Who,” perfectly sends up the geek’s compulsion to pontificate and the conventions of the musical itself.
Just as Tom Wingfield in “The Glass Menagerie” is a stand-in for writer Tennessee Williams, the musical’s snobby Emerson (Wil Bowers) may be an exaggerated version of Misuraca’s own inner geek. Emerson knows everything about everything, and, as he makes clear in his aria, “I Hate It!,” he disapproves. Sometimes, his journey suggests, the most humane gesture may be lowering your standards.
Misuraca’s songs and lyrics are witty; his story lines are competent. But the execution lacks luster. Ruth Judkowitz’s compositions neither offend the ear nor engage it, and her electric keyboard accompaniment gives the show a low-budget vibe.
Except for Richard Lewis Warren, who makes the aged TV star Mel Tyler seem not just washed-up but embalmed, the actors are energetic and charming. They do their best with Liz Heathcoat’s choreography. But only Juliette Angeli as Goth girl Audrina has a pleasing singing voice. Bennett Cohon’s direction plays up the earnest sweetness of the good geeks and declaws the bitchy Emerson. In a darker, campier, more polished production, “Geeks!” might have as much to tell us as it thinks it does.
— Margaret Gray “Geeks! The Musical!” Write Act Repertory Theatre, 6128 Yucca St., Hollywood. 8 p.m. ThursdaysSaturdays. Ends March 17. $25. (323) 960-7770 or www .geeksthemusical.com. Running time: 2 hours.