It goes down easy
Go ahead, wear your heart on your sleeve. That’s the dress code of “Where the Great Ones Run,” Mark Roberts’ sweet tale of fame and regret. A 99-seat “Crazy Heart,” this tender 80-minute dramedy has the makings of a mellow hit for Rogue Machine Theatre.
Country music star Sonny Burl (Jeff Kober) has left a trail of human debris on his way to the top: estranged wife Marylou (Holly Fulger), who runs a truck stop in their Indiana hometown; feisty daughter Julie (Lily Holleman), now coming out as a lesbian; and boozing Buddy (Mark St. Amant), who started out with brother Sonny on the road to stardom but lost his way. When Sonny comes home to make amends, there are tears, nostalgia and plenty of fresh coffee.
True, these tropes feel as familiar as your favorite Hank Williams tune, but Roberts, director Mark L. Taylor and an agreeable cast make a predictable story worth the trouble. Stomping and sulking on Keith Mitchell’s cozy diner set, the characters grow on you, and you’re content to watch them (inevitably) do the right thing.
Roberts, the creator of “Mike & Molly,” has a quick way with a one-liner, even if he overpopulates the stage, proliferating subplots while missing the opportunity for more musical numbers. No matter. Kober is credible as a star, and Jennifer Pollono steals the show as a waitress who over-shares. Rode hard and put away wet? “Great Ones” offers easygoing respite.
— Charlotte Stoudt “Where the Great Ones Run,” Theatre Theater, 5041 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends July 8. $30. (855) 585-5185 or www .roguemachinetheatre.com. Running time: 1hour, 20 minutes.
A therapeutic look at grief
The title of “Grace Notes & Anvils” at the Odyssey Theatre refers to two divergent aspects that those in mourning will inevitably encounter. “Grace notes” are those individuals whose acts of kindness come with unexpected synchronicity. “Anvils” goes the other way, when the almost-forgotten personal loss reenters consciousness with a “thud.”
So say Ron Marasco and Brian Shuff, authors of “About Grief: Insights, Setbacks, Grace Notes, Taboos.” Their exploration of the tricky subject of grief is a specialty hybrid of staged reading, topical symposium and group therapy session. Aptly, it plays on its own subjectively personal terms.
Hence, Marasco, Shuff and the ever-vital Roxanne Hart, the first in a series of guest actresses, enter the black box space, sit with scripts at a dining table and invite us to call out our own black-lined calendar dates before hitting the text. That proves to be a shrewdly synoptic accrual of anecdotes and reenactments, some riotous, others rending, and many well-chosen quotations.
That it works, and it does, is due to the benignly acerbic Marasco and the collegially sincere Shuff, who adroitly keep things rolling. Then, there’s Hart, as sensitive and emotionally direct an actress as we’ve got, fixing the viewer in her laser-beam gaze while delivering a key point.
It’s hardly high-end dramaturgy, but it totally achieves its aim — to universalize and raise discourse on a topic that most people avoid. As someone forever transformed by his partner’s 1994 demise and still processing his mother’s passing in December, this reviewer can attest that bereaved attendees will find “Grace Notes & Anvils” empathetic, therapeutic and invaluable.
— David C. Nichols “Grace Notes & Anvils,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m.; also, 8 p.m. June 27, July 11. Ends July 15. $25-$30. (310) 477-2055 or www.odysseytheatre.com. Running time: 1hour, 20 minutes.
More is less in Molière comedy
How do you do a comedy of manners when the manners are 400 years out of date? True, Molière has aged remarkably little over the centuries. Audiences at the Actors Co-op’s revival of “The Learned Ladies” (1672) may not know many women who have forsworn love for scholarship, but they’ve certainly met pretentious people. You don’t have to be from France or the 17th century to enjoy watching the eponymous ladies outdo one another in their praise of a silly sonnet.
On the other hand, it’s a talky play — in rhyme, no less — filled with clever figures of speech, puns and innuendo, all gracefully translated from the French by poet Richard Wilbur. What are the actors supposed to do with themselves while speaking, or more troublesomely still, listening to these lines? At Actors Co-op, they act. Under Heather Chesley’s indulgent direction, every cast member has brought some elaborate affectation to his or her role. And when they’re not shuffling, bending, babbling, preening, smirking, pouting or gasping, they’re ostentatiously “reacting” to those around them with rolling eyes, mischievous glances, titters and harrumphs.
There’s so much sustained, occasionally funny but often tedious shtick that the arrival of hack poet Trissotin (Stephen Van Dorn, who would shine in a less resolutely scene-stealing cast) — seems almost beside the point.
The action has been mysteriously moved to the 18th century, possibly to allow the cast to sport ridiculously ornate wigs (by Krys Fehervari). They’re funny, but why would these pseudo-intellectuals wear them? Even Tannis Hanson, who gives pragmatic young heroine Henriette a likable complacency and a subtly leery expression, is hard to see under her poodle hair.
Vicki Conrad’s costumes and Mark Svastics’ set, bathed in a rosy glow by lighting designer Lisa D. Katz, are pretty. But the best moments are the gavottes, choreographed by Julie Hall, that introduce the acts, in which the cast members caper about wearing amusingly self-important expressions.
— Margaret Gray “The Learned Ladies.” Actors Co-op, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends June 17. $30. (323) 462-8460, Ext. 300, or www.actorsco-op.org.