By Ed Rampell
One of the great things about L.A.’s theater scene is that the TV and film industries provide a vast talent pool of thespians, some of whom are eager to ply their trade by trodding the boards, from Equity waiver 99-seaters to the Ahmanson. And Angelino audiences are in luck, as Seminar’s lead role is played by Jeff Goldblum, a bona fide Hollywood star who has appeared in blockbusters from Jurassic Park to Independence Day.
A once promising novelist now under a cloud of suspicion, Leonard seems to have abandoned his art for booze and bedding co-eds, as he turns to book editing, magazine articles and academia to keep the wolf (re: bill collectors) at the door. He also teaches a pricey rarified weekly writing seminar for young aspiring literati in the Upper Westside apartment of wannabe wordsmith Kate (Aya Cash), who comes from a well-to-do family. At Kate’s posh Manhattan pad Leonard proceeds to alternately praise or rip his tutorial subjects apart, lauding or lambasting their literary efforts, as he, perhaps, unleashes and works through his own inner demons. (When he does so Goldblum is the creepiest he’s been since David Cronenberg’s 1986 sci-fi horror remake The Fly.)
Douglas (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe) is a pretentious scribe who happens to have a last name with a certain cache in the dynastic-oriented literary realm. He pompously holds forth on topics, describing their “interiority and exteriority” and so on. Izzy (Jennifer Ikeda) schemes to attain celebrity status by sleeping her way toward the pantheon of scribblers in the public eye. The stony broke Martin (Greg Keller) is critical of both the maestro and his classmates alike. But for some strange reason he never quite gets around to submitting his own unpublished manuscripts for review, and possible scorn and derision.
As the quartet strive for success in the world of publishing, the rapidly paced clever dialogue references creative communities and colleges such as Yaddo and Bennington, supposed hothouses for launching hopeful literary lions towards getting published, fame and fortune. As Leonard’s class unfolds there are enough shifting romantic liaisons to make Woody Allen’s polyamorous skull spin. Who does and does not get “lucky” (and with whom) is a wry commentary on “success,” which can be sexual in the celebrity sense and/or artistic.
Award winning playwright Theresa Rebeck’s must-see (and hear) Seminar is often funny, sometimes sexy and always insightful, shedding light not only on the trap and claptrap of celebrityhood but more importantly on the literary creative process and on what it truly means to be a writer. Along the way there are meditations upon ethics and great lines tossed about, such as thoughtful Kate’s spot on observation: “Fraud is a way of life in a capitalist culture, especially in the arts.”
Sam Gold, who helmed the Broadway production of Seminar, expertly, tautly directs the current ensemble cast with finesse. They all strike the right notes of pathos or humor, especially Goldblum, who, in addition to his Tinseltown big budget hits, has a rather extensive theater background and has acted in films by Robert Altman, Paul Mazursky, etc. At age 60 Goldblum is hitting his stride and all his marks, whether delivering zingers, stingers or soliloquies.
The breezy dizzy Izzy is no ditzy blonde -- she’s an Asian-American. Ikeda appeared on the Great White Way in Top Girls, which is ironic as her girl goes topless in Seminar while she uses her feminine charms to climb the literary ladder towards media acclaim. Some may consider Izzy to be a blithe free spirit; others may find her to be a sensationalized sensual-ized stereotype of the “Eastern” sex kitten who freely pleasures white males.
Rebeck’s rumination on the literary life contains plot and character twists that reveal what it genuinely means to be an artist, especially in this overly commercialized world where a terrifyingly small number of Americans read contemporary fiction, and where the publishing world is undergoing major shifts due to the nature of technology and a collapsing economy. Of course, the underlying core of the problem is the small amount of readers of books in our glitz-driven electronic and digital media saturated society, which seems poised on the verge of becoming a parody of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where there’s no need to outlaw reading books, since so few people do, anyway. (The lawmakers are probably illiterate and couldn’t write the legislation anyway.
Seminar ends contemplatively and with the play’s only scene change. In another realistic set designed by David Zinn, Martin confronts his tutor at Leonard’s apartment, its shelves brimming with books, where the truth is revealed by the student and his teacher, who confesses to having “no skin.” The perfect note -- literally -- is struck, as church music mysteriously sounds, suggesting the spiritual nature and calling of the writing process.
What, pray tell, exactly is a writer, those creatures inking out a living by creating a precious cosmos composed of words, as Seminar puts it? For my money (or lack of, since I am one) a writer is someone who has something to say and says it well, in written form. And, dare I say it, may even hope to write the wrongs of the world in doing so.
Seminar runs through Sunday, Nov. 18 at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012. For more info: www.centertheatregroup.org/; 213-628-2772.
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