Garbo’s Cuban Lover

Reviewed by Julyza Commodore
MACHA Theatre Co.
Through February 25

RECOMMENDED

MACHA Theatre Co. presents Garbo’s Cuban Lover, an imagining of Greta Garbo’s rumored romantic relationship with Mercedes de Acosta. Written by Odalys Nanin and co-directed by Nanin (also starring as de Acosta) and Angela Nicholas, the play’s foundation is their relationship. However, it turns out to be so much more than just that. Set during Hollywood’s golden age of the 1960s, the play contains the dual realities of a wonderful time for American cinema classics, while also being not a great time for women being in same sex relationships, thanks to an abundance of judgment and hypocrisy.

The performances are very strong with exuberant energy. From the top of the show, we are introduced to Isadora Duncan (Kesia Elwin) a figment of de Acosta’s imagination. Through her graceful and fluid movements, she flutters through and keeps the story moving forward as it is imagined by de Acosta who is now at the end of her life. Nanin’s portrayal of de Acosta is done honestly and with the utmost amount of passion that is seen not only through her love for Garbo, but also her love for writing and wanting to be the best at her craft. Known to be a mystery of sorts, Garbo is portrayed by Lydie M. Denier as a tad bit cold and introverted; Denier pulls this off but still remains somewhat likeable due to the humor that is written so well into the script.

Although Greta Garbo’s contributions to the film industry are important as she is regarded to be one of the greatest American actresses, what the play does really well is also showing just how important Mercedes de Acosta (Odalys Nanin) was as a screenwriter and playwright who has been largely forgotten. Why are the contributions of women-of-color pushed to the side and forgotten so often? That may not be a question that will ever be answered outright. What goes without questioning though is that feminine love is what drives the story of this imagined remembrance, and there is an importance to having that love be at its center.

CASA 0101 Theater, 2102 E. 1st St., Boyle Heights; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 5 pm; through Feb. 25. (323) 263-7684 or casa0101.org. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

Call Me Elizabeth

Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Sierra Madre Playhouse
Through February 19

RECOMMENDED

It requires temerity to play Elizabeth Taylor, arguably the most luminously beautiful woman to earn the title of Hollywood “star,” in the largest, most grandiose sense of the word.

In her one-woman show, Call Me Elizabeth, an offering in Sierra Madre Playhouse’s 2023 Solo Shows Festival, Kayla Boye, who also wrote the play, proves a charming performer with a serviceable resemblance to Taylor and an ever-so-slightly wispy voice that further serves her subject.

The action is set in 1961, when Taylor is recovering from a near-fatal bout of pneumonia that earned her a “sympathy Oscar” for Butterfield 8 (a film she detested). As the light go up, Elizabeth (don’t call her Liz, a hated nickname from the tabloids) welcomes friend and former fling Max Lerner to her Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow to collaborate on a planned autobiography. Lerner’s unseen presence provides the perfect excuse for Taylor to go on at length about her past — the movies, the lovers, the marriages! Cue the Cinemascope!

As the champagne flows, washing down the Seconals that Taylor pops to blunt the pain of a back injury that has plagued her since childhood, the recollections get increasingly intimate and raw. What matter if they seem the very stuff of the tabloids that are the bane of her existence? This is juicy stuff that rivets our attention throughout the show’s brisk 75-minute running time.

And what matter if this largely chronological recapitulation sometimes feels like a CV on steroids? Oh, well, it does matter, quite a bit. But Boye sells her confessional with panache, avoiding lapses into the dreaded vanity genre.

Particularly poignant is the 18-year-old Taylor’s studio-engineered wedding to hotel heir Nicky Hilton, a publicity extravaganza staged largely to promote Father of the Bride. Taylor’s “dream” romance quickly devolves into a nightmare of abuse. A swift kick in the stomach and a resulting miscarriage finally prompts her to call it quits on her marriage — earning her first round of hate mail and death threats from a disappointed public.

From the harrowing to the dishy, Taylor’s increasingly tipsy stories are interrupted by phone calls from the drunken Eddie Fisher, Taylor’s current husband — bells signaling the last round in her latest ill-begotten marriage.

This is not exactly deathless drama that will stick long in the heart or the memory, but as pure entertainment, it packs a wallop. If you enjoy reading People on the sly, this may be your guilty pleasure.

Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; through Feb. 19. (626) 355-4318 or https://sierramadreplayhouse.org. Running time: one hour and 15 minutes with no intermission.

Harold and Maude

Reviewed by G. Bruce Smith
The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre
Through March 19

RECOMMENDED

Harold and Maude, the 1971 dark comedy film that was commercially and critically unsuccessful when first released but eventually attracted a cult following, is also an adapted stage play (by the late Colin Higgins, author of both) being presented at the Lonny Chapman Theatre. In this Group Rep production, the unlikely romance between a morose 19-year-old man and a delightfully eccentric 80-year-old is more comedy than dark, but it is terrifically funny and, ultimately, poignant.

Harold (Landon Beatty) is a somber teenager whose idea of attention-getting fun is staging outlandish fake suicides, something that causes his wealthy socialite mother Mrs. Chason (Susan Priver) much vexation but also, oddly, weary acceptance. So much so that at the beginning of the play, when she sees Harold hanging from a rope around his neck, she is hardly fazed, much to the horror of a newly hired maid. Mrs. Chason is keen to get her strange son a girlfriend and enlists the support of a computer dating service.

Meanwhile, Harold meets Maude (Clara Rodriguez) at a funeral; it turns out they both are enamored with attending funerals of strangers. But in almost every other way, they are total opposites. Where he is glum, she is full of joie de vivre. Where he confesses that he likes being “dead,” she urges him to live life fully. Where he is apathetic, she is a tree-planting, wildlife-rescuing political activist with an undying optimism, despite a horrendous past chapter of her life. At the same time, she thinks nothing of stealing cars or squatting in uninhabited houses because, as she says, “Isn’t ownership a little absurd? Here today, gone tomorrow.” Those last four words of dialogue would prove to be prescient.

At home, Mrs. Chason’s plan to find a girlfriend for Harold has been sabotaged by more of her son’s “suicidal” antics. Two potential matches flee in horror from Harold’s shenanigans. A third — an older actress named Sunshine Doré (Gina Yates) — goes along with Harold’s dramatics with delight and histrionics in one of the funniest scenes in the play.

All of this leads to the moving ending of the play and a changed Harold.

As Maude, Clara Rodriguez is absolutely luminous as she so fully inhabits the character’s humor, eccentricities, joy, wisdom and vulnerabilities that you find yourself falling in love with her in step with Harold.

Landon Beatty, who likely has one of the more challenging roles, is a convincing Harold as he conveys his character’s transformation.

Susan Priver is appropriately hand-wringing and self-centered as Mrs. Chason, while Gina Yates in just one scene gets the biggest laughs in the show.

For the most part, the action, under the helm of Larry Eisenberg, flows smoothly, but on opening night, the pacing was somewhat slow in parts and exits were sometimes awkward. The set by Mareli Mitchel-Shields was a bit of a hodgepodge but a screen at the rear of the stage sets the scene well.

One of Maude’s more memorable lines is, “The main thing is not to be afraid to be human.” And clearly, Harold and Maude has not been afraid to show its humanity.

Note: The roles of Harold and Maude are double cast: Landon Beatty and Clara Rodriguez perform together; and John Ledley and Janet Wood perform together.

Lonny Chapman Theatre Main Stage, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; through Mar. 19. (818) 763-5990 or thegrouprep.com. Running time: two hours and 15 minutes with a 15-minute intermission.

The Dry Years

Reviewed by Steven Leigh Morris
Ghost Road Theatre Company at The Broadwater Stage
Through March 4

 RECOMMENDED

There’s so much to recommend in Christine Breihan’s staging of John Guerra’s play, even though the work feels in need of one more pass to address some dramaturgical clutter.

Let’s start with the almost gothic beauty of a rural, drought-plagued California valley that has the mythology of the Wild West stamped all over it. This is luminously captured in Katrina Coulourides’ set featuring sun-bleached planks (that Breihan uses imaginatively as props and set pieces) and ramshackle wooden structures that speak to the harshness of the elements. Add to that an ensemble of solid performances.

It would seem that a rainmaker, Hatfield (Ronnie Clark) — the stranger, based on the early 20^th century character of Charles Mallory Hatfield,  who arrives to save the valley — would be the play’s centerpiece.  And in some ways, he is. But this is a story aching to be about storytelling, truth and lies, and these are distinct entities that Guerra’s play conflates.

Hatfield is the ignition for the autobiography that writer Casey (Melissa Paladino) is constructing/reciting for her off-stage daughter, while Casey is haunted by the ghost of her own mother (Liz Eldridge).

Her autobiography involves a rainmaker who passed through the lives of this family. Does Casey, whose falsehoods punctuate this play, tell the truth about her complicity in endangering the life of her naïve brother Paul (Kelvin Morales)? Paul was desperate to assist the quasi-chemist Hatfield and to learn his trade, using toxic chemicals no less. What was Casey imagining?  To help save the valley? Or instead to do whatever she could to bring the rain and financial stability that would permit her to resume her college education, curtailed because of the drought and the financial hardship it had brought? All at the cost of her brother’s health, if not his life? Can this storyteller tell the truth? Come clean to her own daughter?

Guerra’s play is at its best when grappling with the power of a story. It resonates far beyond California, where school districts are being pressured to downplay slavery and genocidal policies towards indigenous populations in their teachings of history. Because harping on our darker sides is “unpatriotic.” Yet the stories learned in school forge an identity of a nation, of its triumphs and betrayals. When the President of the United States mentions in his State of the Union address recorded suggestions by his opponents to trim Social Security and Medicare benefits, and he’s met with shrieks of “liar” and “bullshit” by people invested in and promoting long-disproved yet widely believed conspiracy theories, this play’s belief in the transformative power of stories can’t be underestimated. Similarly, there are shouts of “liar” all over this play — entire plot reversals based on that toxic accusation.

But what is a lie and how is it connected to betrayal? This is a question that The Dry Years hasn’t quite sorted out.

Being a reasonable fellow, the family’s living patriarch Isaac (Richard Azurdia) is obsessed with using the justice system to redress the past actions of lawyers who helped funnel the valley’s water away from its farms. He’s just told his daughter that he can no longer pay for her education as he had promised. Have faith in the justice system. Her dream is being deferred, not cancelled, he assures her. Have faith. Does that make him a liar? Is believing in the justice system any less theological than the belief in divine intervention?  

He’s heading to Sacramento after an appeal he filed has been approved for a hearing. Hatfield arrives at just about the same time Isaac departs, and Isaac makes it clear he wants nothing to do with this dream-weaver/conman.

But why is Isaac so hostile to the rainmaker? What’s to lose in trying? Are the rainmaker’s efforts at odds with Isaac’s legal strategy? It would seem one has nothing to do with another, yet Isaac presents the decision of fighting in court and pulling rain from the sky as an either/or conundrum. As a few characters in the play point out, it’s not.

Does the rainmaker want money up front? No mention of that. There is a reference to a “contract,” but not its terms. Yet knowing the terms is essential to fathom whether Isaac has such animus towards the rainmaker because he doesn’t want to his hopes crushed, or whether he sees simply sees Hatfield as a conman. (Clark’s performance suggests a grizzled character more world weary and tragic than diabolical — though Casey’s adopted sister, Magda (Camila Rozo), refers to him as diablo.) So Isaac’s reasoning is currently blurry. And a story such as this calls for more precision.

Based on these unfathomable reasons, and in her dad’s absence, Casey tells a lie to the property’s owner, Aunt Faye (Katharine Noon) — that Isaac had a “change of heart,” that he actually wants the rainmaker to work his magical science. And so. with Faye’s reluctant approval and while Isaac is away, Paul helps Hatfield construct a massive wooden tower (very nice stage effects to invoke that construction), and droplets of water come trickling out of buckets. But nothing to write home about, at first. More to the point, Hatfield and Paul start coughing as this story enters the world of La Boheme.

Inevitably (and that inevitability is a good thing for a story like this), Faye discovers Casey’s lie and goes ballistic. “You lied!” she screams, with all the righteous indignation of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Problem is, for Faye, there’s now a contract in place, though we don’t know anything about what that contract entails.  Hmmm.

The point around which the plot turns is actually not Casey’s lie, though playwright Guerra would have us believe it is. The issue is about Casey’s  betrayal of her own father’s wishes, and of her own brother’s best interests. This is a play that purports to be a story about storytelling and its relationship to lies, but it’s propelled by betrayals, in which lies are mere onramps. Had Casey told those same lies and not done nothing about them, the lies would be irrelevant. And that’s an issue in a play about words and their connection to the stories we tell — to identify who we are.  

There’s a kind of fusion, of synthesis, near play’s end, when it settles back on the issue of how Casey should tell her story, and whether or not stories have lives of their own. To paraphrase preacher C.H. Spurgeon: “A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth puts its boots on.”

The lies in The Dry Years that might resonate with timeless relevance are not Casey’s lie to Faye about her dad’s “change of heart,” nor her dad’s original promise to Casey that he would pay for her education without pause. The lies that matter are what she might say about her own actions to her own daughter that she knows are untrue, but make her look better than she otherwise might.

This play comes home when Casey realizes she needs to tell the truth to her daughter. She’s not a pathological liar, like George Santos. She, at least, considers coming clean, and the importance of it. And the importance of the difference between fiction and deceit.

As for the rest, it just needs a broom to sweep away the cobwebs. Guerra’s play is almost there. And this production is gorgeous.

Maybe it’s the way it struck my nerve center. I live in a forest that’s been so plagued by fire and drought, we all wondered if it would ever rain again. And when those clouds roll over, for me, it’s visceral. Cricket Meyers’ sound design has those first drops of rain sounding like beans being dropped one by one, into a tin can. And then as a cluster. I know this sound. The relief and joy of it. And then it doesn’t stop. And the next thing, a few days later, sections of the highway have been washed into the ravine below.

This is all part of a primal, pre-Christian mythology that The Dry Years taps into: earth, wind, fire and water. And it’s absolutely beautiful.     

Ghost Road Theatre Company at The Broadwater Stage, 1076 Lillian Way, Hollywood; Thurs.-Sun., 8 pm; thru March 4. https://ghostroad.org

If I Don’t Behave Then What

Reviewed by Steven Leigh Morris

Open Fist Theatre Company

Through March 4

RECOMMENDED

Iva Brdar’s play isn’t a play in any traditional sense. It’s a poem. A one-woman confessional in 13 verses, starting with “Age 0” and culminating in “Age 78.” It’s almost a one-woman show performed by Cynthia Ettinger, except for the supporting characters (Carmella Jenkins, Howard Leder and Debba Rofheart) who step in nimbly to supplement the verse, sometimes speaking it as in a baton passed, or suggesting the characters to whom the central speaker, Woman, refers.

For full review, see Stage Feature

Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater; Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 3 pm (added perf Fri., March 3, 8 pm); thru March 4.  https://openfist.org Running time 70 minutes without intermission

Conjure the Spirits

Reviewed by Taylor Kass
Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group
Through Feb. 18 

RECOMMENDED

 Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group’s Conjure the Spirits begins on the sidewalk in front of the theatre. A ghostly usher (a cameo by Zombie Joe himself) takes your tickets wordlessly, struggles to navigate worldly fixtures like doors and parking meters, and shouts Shakespeare to the streets of North Hollywood. It’s immediately immersive with a distinct style, making a night at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre unlike any other night at any other theater in Los Angeles. With Conjure the Spirits, playwright-director-actor Hiro Korsgaard brings a bite-sized and sharply intelligent new piece to Zombie Joe’s that explores life, death, and what’s in between.

The concept is as meta as it is metaphysical — after you make it past the spooky usher, you’re informed that you’ll be witnessing a rehearsal of a play performed by actors long since passed. The actors-playing-actors run through their story beats before launching into their performance of a Blithe Spirit-esque play about a a seance gone wrong. The evening is hosted by a man who may or may not be possessed (Ryan Leonard) and performed by a woman who may or may not be able to control her spiritual powers (Zelda Gay). Standouts from the cast include Liza Rash as the medium’s secretive assistant and Sarah Bruce as the gathering’s sole skeptic.

In its final moments, Conjure the Spirits breaks into a haunting liminal space populated with movement pieces in the classic disturbing Zombie Joe style, leaving the audience with more questions than answers. (Sound and lighting design by Zombie Joe ratchets up the suspense.) Korsgaard’s script is a lean and fast-paced piece, rich with intriguing characters and layers of metaphor. But while the show’s breakneck speed is heart-pounding (and allows the show to be performed twice per night), it leaves nearly all of its narrative threads loose. Contemporary experimental theatre generally necessitates leaving room for interpretation, but the characters are simply so engaging that they deserve a conclusion in at least one of the metaphysical worlds that Korsgaard has built. Nevertheless, Conjure the Spirits is a ghost story that is sure to haunt long after you leave the theater.

Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group, 4850 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri. – Sat., 8:30 & 9:30 pm; through Feb. 18. zombiejoes.tix.com. Running time: 50 minutes with no intermission.

Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Reviewed by Iris Mann
Theatre 40
Through February 19

RECOMMENDED

This delightfully whimsical play by Katie Forgette, has a bittersweet underpinning and invites comparison with Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, particularly due to its metatheatrical device of breaking the fourth wall to have the characters address the audience directly. Also, like Our Town, it deals with a small community, in this case, a tight-knit Catholic parish, and is a memory play, dealing with the memory of a crisis, the “incident” of the title.                                                                                                                             

The crisis takes place in 1973, when, as Linda O’Shea (Ivy Khan), the protagonist and narrator, reminds us, it was the time of analog living, with no texting or posting on social media. You “lived your life in person,” and you were also “held up to public ridicule in person.” For the members of a lower middle-class Irish family, the most important asset they could possess was their good name, which was threatened by the incident.

As Linda starts to talk about her recollections, the other characters keep interrupting, wanting to tell their stories and their memories of the events in question. The incident, or crisis, relates to what happened after Linda’s mother, Jo (Alison Blanchard), pleads with her to tell her younger sister, Becky (Danika Hughey), about menstruation, and, while she’s at it, to throw in some information about the birds and the bees. Jo describes a woman’s period as part of God’s  “colorful mosaic,” but just the thought of talking about it causes her to cry, so she can’t do it.

Linda finally agrees and explains the subjects in the most graphic, ribald terms. Without realizing it, Becky, who loves old gangster movies and plays at being various characters from those films, interrogating and investigating people, has her cassette machine (this is the 1970s) recording underneath her trench coat. Then, the tape of Linda’s raunchy explanation accidentally gets played in Becky’s Catholic school class in front of the formidable Father Lovett (Patrick Skelton), who is scandalized. He is intent on telling Becky’s father (also Skelton) about the corruption of his older daughter’s soul, while Linda and other family members are just as intent on preventing the priest from talking to the father, and keeping the incident from ruining their reputation. Subterfuge and blackmail get mixed in with the ensuing hijinks.

Director Ann Hearn Tobolowsky sets just the right rhythm for the piece and conducts her actors so they transition effortlessly from addressing the audience to reenacting scenes from the past. She makes skillful use of the expanse of the set, and she also establishes a pleasing comedic level for the cast, while injecting a hint of poignancy.

Khan displays an impressive stage presence from the very beginning and navigates the required emotional layers deftly. She projects a winning demeanor throughout. Blanchard does excellent work, moving from a seemingly foolish, naïve and unsophisticated woman to a mother that is more “with it” than one expects.

As the aunt living with the family because she is separated from her husband, Milda Dacys displays a biting humor and cynicism that are delicious, and then she reveals a moving vulnerability when her character talks of the conflicts in her marriage.  

Hughey gives an adorable performance and manages to mingle a precocious quality with an essential innocence in a very endearing way.

Skelton, who covers three roles, is bombastic and tough as the girls’ father, and properly stern and rigid as the priest. He successfully differentiates between the two male characters, but is less successful as a gossipy woman. It’s not so much his performance; it just becomes too campy to have him don a wig and speak in a faux feminine voice.

The set design by the talented Jeff G. Rack creates a fitting environment for the action, and costume designer Michele Young has clothed the cast quite appropriately for the era.

Theatre 40, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills; Thu. – Sat., 7:30 pm.; Sun., 2 pm.; through Feb.19;
(310) 364-0535 or https://theatre40.org; Running time: approximately 90 mins. with no intermission.

Do You Feel Anger?

Reviewed by Terry Morgan
Circle X Theatre Co.
Through February 25

RECOMMENDED

There’s a Cowboy Junkies song from 1993 called “Hunted,” which is about the ever-present threat of male violence in women’s lives, the refrain of which is: “Do you know what it’s like to be hunted?” It’s a terrifying song, and unfortunately is no less resonant today than it was 30 years ago. Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s play, Do You Feel Anger?, explores the dark side of the war between the sexes with great humor and a bit of surrealism but clearly gets across outrage that women still have to deal with this situation. The new production by Circle X at the Atwater Village Theatre is superb, bolstered greatly by vivid performances.

Sofia (Paula Rebelo) is starting a new job, teaching an empathy seminar to employees at a debt collection company. She has her work cut out for her, if her first meetings with friendly but not so secretly abused worker Eva (Tasha Ames) or the upbeat but deranged manager Jon (Casey Smith) are anything to go by. Once she meets Jordan (Napoleon Tavale) and Howie (Rich Liccardo), the other employees in her class, she knows it’s going to be an uphill battle getting past their ingrained misogyny. But as she tries to connect with these people, she finds that they’re changing her, as well.

Rebelo does a nice job as the earnest lead among a gang of overtly crazy characters, and Rose Portillo is similarly good as Sofia’s Mother, who mostly has a series of monologues. Smith is hilarious and disturbing as Jon (“Bottom line – I really want to pretend that I’m a good guy.”), and a scene in which he discovers for the first time that menstruation exists, to his disbelieving horror, is a comedic highlight of the play. Liccardo is very effective as the truculent Howie, and Tavale is funny as the somewhat dim Jordan. Ames, however, is magnificent as Eva, in a humorous and heartbreaking performance that represents the manic, damaged heart of the show.

Director Halena Kays gets high-energy work from her talented cast and adroitly achieves the tricky balance between humor and disquiet that the play requires. François-Pierre Couture’s set design features a surprising reveal, and the lighting design from Couture and Stephen Azua – especially a fluorescent series of spotlights at scene breaks – adds to the feeling of something being wrong at the debt company. Nelson-Greenberg’s writing essays the tightrope of this play so well that one is disarmed by the broad humor, until there’s a moment toward the end where we remember that none of this is funny. At that point in the production, I could palpably feel everyone around me in the audience thinking about how the issues brought up in this play were reflected in their own lives, and it was powerful and sobering. A lot of people know what it’s like to be hunted.

 Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village; Thurs.-Sat.  8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m.; through February 25. https://circlextheatre.org. Running time: ninety minutes with no intermission.

Southern Girls

Reviewed by Taylor Kass
All The Way Productions
Through Feb. 26th

 RECOMMENDED

 “The dream is the truth.” This quote from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God threads throughout Southern Girls, another American coming-of-age story that’s as bitter as it is sweet. Sheri Bailey and Dura Temple’s Southern Girls follows six Alabama women from their childhood in the 50’s to their adulthood in the 90’s.Two are Black, one is biracial, three are white, all are raised in a conservative and racist society at a time when things are changing, perhaps irreversibly. Southern Girls premiered in Los Angeles nearly 30 years ago, but All The Way Productions’ revival, directed by Zadia Ife, proves that this play’s glimpse into the not-so-distant past is still all too relevant.

Southern Girls is brutal to its characters as they grow up, piling on abuse, lynching, rape, misogyny, unwanted pregnancy, infidelity, and racism both quotidian and violent. It’s a fine and sometimes inscrutable line between accurately portraying the very real pain women – and particularly Black women – experienced during this time period in American history and defining characters by the suffering they endure. Southern Girls threatens to sink into the land of melodrama but is saved by the detailed characterizations from its talented ensemble.

As satisfying as it is to root for the women who make it out of their small-minded small town, it’s potentially more interesting to unravel the complex motivations of the women who chose to stay. Jessica Sade Ward delivers a subtle yet ultimately heartbreaking performance as Ruth, a devoted older sister and mother who dedicates her life and sacrifices her dreams for her family. Arianna Evangelia is compelling as Charlotte, whose deep emotions about her complicated family life simmer below the surface until they threaten to boil over. Katie Spokely is a scene-stealer as Dolly, a woman almost frighteningly dedicated to the status quo but just as deeply wounded by it. Southern Girls maintains that the only thing more painful than girlhood is growing out of it, as the dreams of these six southern girls are deferred from aspirations to memories.

Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; Fri. – Sat. 8:00 p.m.; Sun. 3 p.m.; through Feb. 26. www.onstage411.com/southerngirls. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes with one 15-minute intermission.

Home Front

Reviewed by Iris Mann
Victory Theatre Center
Through February 12

RECOMMENDED

In this west coast premiere of Home Front, by Warren Leight, a psychiatrist is quoted as saying, “This country will break your heart.” So will this beautifully rendered play. The statement by the psychiatrist foretells what happens to the story’s three characters in the face of a doomed interracial love affair during the 1940s, when such a union was taboo.

The action begins in a New York bar on VJ Day, which marked the end of World War II. Naval Lt. James Walker (C. J. Lindsey), who is African-American, meets Annie Overton (Austin Highsmith Garces), a white woman, and it is love at first sight.  They very quickly become intimate, and Annie gets pregnant. When James comes back on leave, they start to set up housekeeping together in a tenement basement

James believes that the world is changing, moving forward in terms of race relations, given his black unit’s stellar performance during the war, and the fact that black servicemen actually became officers. Annie trusts him and believes in him. But, assigned to duty in South Carolina prior to being discharged, James ends up in prison after arming himself and shooting in defense of a young man about to be lynched.  Edward Glimmer (Jonathan Slavin), a New York neighbor and friend, uses a connection in Washington to arrange for James to get a general discharge, but things get even more wonky, showing how illusory it was (and by implication, remains) that the moral arc in inter-racial relations bends towards justice.

James returns to New York and looks for work, but all he is offered are menial jobs. As his rage at the world grows, he and Annie begin to turn on each other.

The play is well constructed, and there are scenes involving unseen characters which are imaginatively handled, although it may have been more effective if, at least once, we had witnessed or heard actual people expressing blatant, or hidden, racial prejudice. But that is a minor consideration here.

It should be noted that Leight injects an interesting touch by having James and Annie express their own biases. While not overtly prejudiced, at certain points each uses a derogatory expression regarding gay men while interacting with Edward, whom they know is gay. James acts out of jealousy and disillusionment, while Annie speaks without thinking.

Director Maria Gobetti does a superb job of immersing her actors in the action, setting just the right pace, atmosphere and emotional levels.  Her use of the small stage is highly inventive, and she keeps the proceedings taut as they become increasingly volatile. She extracts uniformly splendid performances from her actors.

The interplay between all three performers is so genuine that we almost feel we are looking through someone’s window, watching the harshness of real life unfold. The actors also manage to be totally convincing as people of the 1940s.

Lindsey is an attractive presence, beginning with a soft, innocent charm and building to a crescendo of outrage and cynicism. One almost wishes James would take the plea and accept the general discharge, while completely understanding why he cannot. We are shaken just watching his thunderous outbursts. Garces is a revelation, descending from an optimistic, high spirited young woman to a defeated, broken victim of circumstances beyond her control. She takes the audience with her every step of the way on her emotional journey.

Slavin provides most of the clever comic relief. But his smooth performance goes beyond the comedic to depict an essentially sensitive and kindly soul who has a quiet strength and wisdom.  The actor’s presence provides an anchor for the whirlwind around his character.

The set design by Evan Bartoletti and costume design by Carin Jacobs help immeasurably to suggest the period and create an ambiance. Lighting designer Benedict Conran and sound designer Noah Andrade deserve honorable mention, while the montage of scenes from the historical VJ day supplied by Jermaine Alexander at the very beginning sets the mood for the drama that follows.

Victory Theatre, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank; Fri. & Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 4 pm.; through Feb. 12. 818-841-5421 or thevictorytheatrecenter.org; Running time: Two hours with one intermission.