Mirror Mirror on the Wall

BY BILL RADEN, with additional reporting by PAULINE ADAMEK and STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS

Theater critics and gossip columnists as a class tend to be a rather narcissistic bunch. It is not a closely held trade secret, however, that whenever a critic criticizes, he or she is really writing about him or herself, some more than others, of course.

Because whatever else is present in our mix of opinionated ignorance, dead-certain arrogance and the post-traumatic stress of an emotionally deprived childhood, our capacity for talking about ourselves seems boundless.

Which is our way at Stage Rows to beg your indulgence; as this week proved rather thin on freshly squeezed fruit of the grape vine, we devote the column even more than usual to gossiping about us.

STAGE RAW: 33%-BITTER

Amid the almost universal citywide rejoicing over last week’s triumphant, Phoenix-like launch of Stageraw.com — the site that we at Stage Rows have been modestly trumpeting to our mother back in Toledo as the “e-Messiah of Los Angeles theater” — emerged at least one less-than-impressed customer. Colin Mitchell, the editor and provocateur-in-chief of the theater commentary and review-aggregate site Bitter Lemons, indulged in a little criticism of his own, namely of SRAW and its world-class crew of rough-and-ready stage reviewers.

Colin didn’t literally call us “the elephant graveyard of L.A. stage critics.” He did, however, snipe at our design and overall philosophy, which he compared to a smoky, oak-paneled old “gentlemen’s club that allows women members.”

But that was only after he took Stage Raw editor Steven Leigh Morris to task for both establishing the site as a non-profit and for stubbornly refusing to recognize the Darwinian triumph of global capitalism or join Colin in embracing the sheer ecstasy or the “basic science” of “survival-of-the-fittest” marketplace competition.

And while it sounds to us as if Colin may be eying a spot on the national Republican ticket for 2016, in the ensuing comments thread, it was Bitter Lemons’ own Kevin Delin that stepped forward to correct his Bitterness on the grounds of Colin’s hazy economic theory. And while Kevin didn’t say whether he approved or disapproved of SRAW, he did carve Colin a rather impressive second nether-orifice with dispassionate clinical precision. And for that, Stage Rows joins an anonymous BL commenter in seconding Kevin’s nomination for president.

Speaking of Elephant Graveyards . . .

What 20 years of marriage can do: from the Mikulan-Ross’ party invitation

Anybody squinting their eyes last week in Echo Park might have understandably mistook the home of former LA Weekly theater editor Steven Mikulan and his wife, ex-Weekly critic Sandra Ross, for Santa Monica Blvd.’s theater row, circa-1994.

The Mikulan-Rossses in a moment of haunting deja vu (Photo: Janet Grey)

Stage Rows joined the Mikulan-Rosses in a celebration of their 20^th wedding anniversary that brought out some of the town’s coolest stage stars of today and yesteryear from out of the woodwork and both sides of the curtain.

Shannon Holt and Michael Sargent critique the vow-renewal rite (Photo by Bill Raden)

Paying tribute was playwright Michael Sargent and his partner, actor Erik Hansen, Evidence Room member Shannon Holt, emeritus Paduan Tina Preston, lighting designer Anne Militello, actor-playwright-critic Harvey Perr, retired Stage and Cinema publisher John Topping and ex-theater critic and current LA Weekly chief film critic Amy Nicholson, and playwright Sharon Yablon.

Ross conceived of the event as a tongue-in-cheek black mass/St. Patrick’s Day party and provided a rich assortment of suitably themed sacraments and sacred brownies. The centerpiece was a Crowley-scented vow-renewal rite performed by the Rev. Stephen Mack, PhD and Thelemite Church of Love adept and arts writer Lisa Derrick that paid uncalled-for homage to the Mikulan-Ross’ renowned fondness for extreme protraction and performance art “boredom effects.” The celebration’s highpoint, however, may have come after, when Ross set up a mock confessional in an inner-room sanctum and recruited Stage Rows to hear the hair-raising sins of a seemingly endless parade of less-than-penitent partiers.

They Live (Again)

Two years into the re-expatriation of playwright and Gunfighter Nation playwrights leader John Steppling to Norway, Gunfighters Wes Walker and Sissy Boyd have finally landed on their feet and at Highland Park’s Moryork Gallery for their latest collaboration, an evening of hybrid performance art/theater called Riddance.

Composer Robert Oriol and and Riddance co-mastermind Wes Walker (Photo: Kevin O’Sullivan)

Stage Rows made it to the show’s opening on Friday and is happy to report that the results are stunning — all the more so as it gave us the opportunity to hobnob and shamelessly fawn at the feet of its legendary star Meg Foster at the post-show party. Foster, who just happens to occupy a privileged place in the Stage Rows Pantheon for her work in John Carpenter’s ultra-hip ‘80s alien invasion flick, They Live, was joined by her manager Chris Roe and Riddance cast members Gill Gayle, Chris Kelley, Zoe Canner and Michael Kurtz. Bowing and scraping (and drinking) was playwright and Padua Productions head Guy Zimmerman, playwrights Cheryl Slean, Michael Hacker and Sharon Yablon, and actors Lake Sharp, Jim Storm, Suzanne Fletcher, Rachel Whitman, Kim Debus and Pharmacy’s Kevin O’Sullivan.

And This Just in from London . . .

Stage Rows was in London this week, meeting with lit managers at the Young Vic and Royal Court theatres to discuss possible exchange programs with Stage Raw, when we sited Nicola Walker (MI5 aka Spooks in Britain, Last Tango in Halifax) in The Cut café off the Young Vic’s lobby. A script in hand and sipping java at a large table, Walker was palling around with colleagues when she got up, smiled sweetly at Stage Rows while passing by, and told us that she’d just spoken with MI5 star Peter Firth, who told her Brit Secret Service series was being made into a movie. In one of the later TV episodes, Walker’s character, Ruth Evershed, gets killed off. Walker quipped that she’ll be spending much of the movie dead. She smiled once more before disappearing into a rehearsal of Arthur Miller’s View From the Bridge, directed by Ivo van Hove.

And This Just in from Westwood . . .

Rumors are flying that, more deeply than was previously reported, the truculent and autocratic personality of a certain septuagenarian film director is directly implicated in the recent demise of a certain major equity revival of a certain 1957 classic of the British stage. The whispers have it that after the ill-fated show’s first temperamental English star walked over the director’s bullying and brutish behavior, and an American marquee name was rushed in as a last-minute replacement, the production was scuttled on the eve of previews after its second English star walked in protest over the director’s humiliating sack of the replacement actor in front of full cast and crew. What could have possibly possessed him? Such demonically unprofessional behavior — even by Hollywood standards — would be enough to make even Linda Blair’s little adolescent head spin.