West Adams

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Skylight Theatre
Through March 8

In September 2019, Investopedia published an article entitled “Six Gentrifying Neighborhoods in Los Angeles,” with West Adams at the top of the list. The writer mentioned the neighborhood’s proximity to Metro’s Expo Line, and the possibility of nabbing a property for $300 thou at a time when prices for L.A. housing are skyrocketing with no end in sight. Three months earlier, the L.A. Business Journal reported with equal enthusiasm that businesses were “relocating to the suddenly trendy area.”

Gentrification serves as the backdrop for Penelope Lowder’s prickly percipient satire. Developed in the Skylight Theatre’s Playwright’s Lab, West Adams deals not only with racism, but also with the downside perils of the MeToo Movement — an imperative response to the long-time violation of women’s personhood that can unfortunately be exploited by unscrupulous people for their own vengeful ends. And though the script could benefit from some tinkering — there are back story details that might be clarified — West Adams overall is a savvy, satisfying play, spotlighting the toxic ilk that still poisons our fractious American communities.

Directed by Michael A. Shepperd, the story develops around two 30-something couples: Mike (Clayton Farris), a self-congratulatory white guy who makes a living selling bounce houses, and his wife Julie (Jenny Soo) a Chinese American woman whose Dad foots the bill for both their home and for Mike’s business. Mike and Julie hang out with Peruvian-born Edward (Andres M Bagg), Mike’s employee whom he is sponsoring for legal status, and Edward’s pregnant wife Sarah (Blaize Allison), who is fond of quoting scripture and conceals her piranha-like leanings behind a thinly concealed decorum.

When the play begins, the four are preparing a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” that they hope to perform at the upcoming neighborhood fest — a matter of great importance to Mike in particular, who envisions it as a step in his personal advancement within the community (meetings with Wesson, lunch with Garcetti). But Mike’s chances to score are diminished after a fabulously affluent black family moves in across the street and takes control of both the neighborhood council and the event at which the four of them had wished to shine. For all except Edward, this change in the neighborhood landscape is a critical turn that foments barely concealed envy and ill-will. The stakes escalate sharply after Sarah crudely criticizes a group trip to the African-American museum as inappropriate for kids who, she says, would be better-served viewing placid landscapes by Renoir. The matron across the road is understandably affronted; thereafter, the shit hits the fan, as the foursome plot to destroy the well-being of these strangers whom they perceive as having usurped their lives.

A plethora of exposition means that West Adams takes a couple of scenes to get off the ground; once it does, however, it stays smartly on point, serving up knowing portraits of people whose duplicity drives them to destroy others. And Lowder’s highlighting of an ugly distortion of the MeToo agenda, in tandem with her skewering of bigotry, makes this timely burlesque of spiteful human behavior seem twice as potent.

But while the play is on target, the performances (so far, that is, I saw this on opening night) are less so. Striving for a crisp tone and a fleet pace, Shepperd and crew haven’t yet shaped these characters with enough nuance or dimension. Both Farris as the unlikable, self-centered Mike, and Baggs as the more sensitive foil Edward, serve the play’s themes but haven’t a life of their own. Soo, a performer who excels in projecting entitlement (as she did in Echo Theater Company’s production of Gloria by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ in 2018) brings a little more texture to the guileful Julie, but I still wanted more. Only Allison, whose Sarah parades her pregnancy while telepathing the instincts of a toothsome shark, really owns her role.

Skylight Theatre, 1816 ½ Vermont Ave., Los Feliz; Fri.-Sat., 8:30 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; Mon., 8 p.m.; through Mar. 28. (866) 811-4111, atctix.org or https://SkylightTix.com. Running time: 80 minutes with no intermission.