[ssba]
Finding Nick
Reviewed by Neal Weaver
Zephyr Theatre
Through March 27
Nicholas Guest’s solo show seems like a live audition tape: it shows off his handsome appearance, his versatility, his knack for quick character sketches, his talent for dialects, and his easy-going, seemingly effortless way with a song. Only dramaturgy goes missing.
Veteran actor Guest was the son of a British father who worked for the U.N., so the family was continually on the move, from New York City to Paris, and other places. And he went to various schools, from Geneva, Switzerland to the International School in Paris.
As his picaresque tale unfolds, he sings several numbers, accompanied by Tony Garafone on guitar and Hillary Smith on cello. The songs, in English and French, include selections by Ed McCurdy, Bob Dylan, Jacques Brel, Woody Guthrie, Georges Moustaki, the Internationale, and a song he composed called “A Rainy Night in Paris.” He’s joined for a final number by his daughter, Elizabeth Guest. To make it an all-around family affair, the program credits his wife, casting director Pamela Guest, as his muse.
All the elements are held together by a slender thread of plot concerning Guest’s uncertain identity, and his efforts to define himself. He depicts himself as a rather callow youth, drawn to various identities, but more interested in their costumes, mannerisms, and postures than in their commitments and the content of their lives. He tries on various personas, ranging from French student rebels, and Italian communists, to Jean Paul Belmondo. The biggest laugh in the show comes when he announces he’s going to join the Black Panthers. He’s intrigued by their black jackets, berets and raised fist salutes. His father drily and tactfully suggests that the Panthers might not welcome him with open arms. Various women come and go in the course of the narrative, but none sticks around long enough to seem important. The slight story finds its pat denouement when he decides to take up acting, so he’ll be able to be any number of different people. Guest delivers a spot-on impersonation of irascible actor and teacher Bill Hickey, and an Italian singer attempting to emulate Jimmy Hendrix.
Guest seems like a nice man, affable, and engaging. But he does not match the urgency and passion of his song-writers, McCurdy, Dylan, Guthrie and Brel. And he depicts his own life as merely a series of amusing anecdotes, with nothing much at stake. It all goes down easily, but it’s disappointingly bland.
Director Lee Sankowich has put the piece together skillfully and seamlessly, but he hasn’t been given the materials to generate any real dramatic heat.
Norman Kerns provides the handsome slide projections that punctuate the story, and at the end, in a series of shots of Guest with daughter Elizabeth, he hints at the heart that is otherwise lacking.
Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles. Thurs.-Fri., 8 p.m., through March 27. (323) 960-4420, www.plays411.com/nick.
