STAGE REVIEW: CHOIR BOY

(Michael Shepperd) in Choir Boy. Photo by Michael Lamont.

 

Hit that perfect beat boy

 

By Ed Rampell

 

Choir Boy’s setting -- Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys -- is, for this reviewer, the most interesting, unique aspect of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s gay-themed drama. Historically-black educational institutions have, on occasion, been featured in productions, such as Denzel Washington’s superb 2007 movie, The Great Debaters. But for your Caucasian critic this milieu is relatively untraveled terrain and of keen interest, especially as his father taught in Boys High High School, an all-black and Latino facility in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

 

But Drew is very different from Boys High, a public school that’s part of the New York City school system. In addition to being private, Drew is also a religious school. So, just as, say, New York is a character in Woody Allen’s 1979 Manhattan, Drew’s ambiance hovers over Choir Boy -- although institutionally, not so much geographically.

 

The title character is Pharus Jonathan Young (Jeremy Pope), who aspires to becoming the prestigious choir master of Drew, which seems largely dependent for its economic survival on an annual fundraiser featuring the all male singers. Pharus must chart a tricky, precarious path as a gay youth completely surrounded by boys and men (alas, no female characters trod the boards in this play). This includes not only in the classroom, but in his dormitory in general, dorm room in particular, locker room and showers. Scenic designer David Zinn’s understated sets go with the flow, morphing from one scene to another depending upon their location requirements.

 

The play focuses on five young men attending the school, Headmaster Marrow (Michael Shepperd) and Mr. Pendleton (Leonard Kelly-Young has the role which was played by Austin Pendleton at Choir Boy’s Broadway premiere last year). He is this one-acter’s token white character. Pendleton is one of those archetypal (or stereotypical -- take your pick), rumpled Caucasians who has picked up the proverbial “white man’s burden” and is dedicated to educating minorities and Civil Rights. When he’s introduced, Pendleton goes verbally overboard, trying to impress the lads by getting down with the homies (or at least trying to). But later, with an impassioned speech about the “N” word which the homophobic, diffident Bobby Marrow (Donovan Mitchell) insists on using in full, Pendleton reveals his true colors as a Civil Rights crusader who’d marched with Dr. King.

 

(BTW, according to urban mythology, the physician and researcher Charles R. Drew helped invent the process of blood transfusions and died, when the hospital he was taken to after a car accident supposedly refused to give him a blood transfusion because they only had plasma from white people on hand. In any case, Drew did resist racial segregation when it came to donating blood. About a dozen schools are named after this medical pioneer, including a prep school, but none seem to be named the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys.)

 

The playwright does a good job providing back stories for the five young men, especially through their long distance phone calls back home. These provide insights into their characters, what makes them tick and why these scholarship or full-tuition-paying students are attending this private prep school. For most, it is perceived as their ticket to advancing on to university and achieving in modern America.

 

Against this complicated background, Pharus is trying to come of age. As the eponymous choir boy strives to become a choir man, the effeminate Pharus must navigate his emerging sexuality and the strict code of conduct of the prep school, with its official school song of “Trust and Obey” --Presbyterian hymn. There is some full frontal (and back) nudity in Choir Boy, and McCraney takes on the stereotypes relating to the anatomy of black males. If you listen closely to the dialogue, he may be trying to debunk that myth, not simply reinforcing it. As the well-endowed AJ, Pharus’ roommate, Grantham Coleman strikes the right tone as a big brother figure watching out for the confused Pharus as he strives to make and find his way in the moral universe of the religious school and beyond its presumably ivy covered walls. (Both Coleman and Pope reprise the roles they previously played on Broadway.)

 

The play ran for almost two hours without an intermission. Its ensemble is well-directed by Trip Cullman, who also helmed Choir Boy on the Great White Way.

 

 

 

Choir Boy runs through Oct. 26 at the Gil Gates Theater at the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood Village, CA 90024. For tickets: 310208-5454; www.GeffenPlayhouse.com.

 

L.A.-based reviewer Ed Rampell co-authored The Hawaii Movie and Television Book. (See: http://hawaiimtvbook.weebly.com/.) Rampell and co-author Luis Reyes will be signing books at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6 at the bookstore Distant Lands, 20 S. Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105.  (See:Meet Ed..)     

 

THEATER REVIEW: YES, PRIME MINISTER

A scene from Yes, Prime Minister.

We are amused

By Ed Rampell

Yes, Prime Ministeris in the tradition of the British drawing room comedy, which is characterized by witty repartee among usually upper class characters and largely set in the room of a house where guests are entertained. However, this work has one major difference: its drawing room is located in Chequers, the official countryside retreat of the British PM. That’s “PM” as in Yes, Prime Minister, the West End and BBC hit by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, which is now having its U.S. debut at the Geffen Playhouse.

As such, Yes, Prime Minister’s bristling dialogue is decidedly political and full of humorous social commentary about the British power elite, plus the expediency and opportunism that characterizes affairs (figuratively and literally) of state. The barbs about the BBC, celebrity activism and what may be the first drone strike joke launched from the stage of a major play fly fast and furious in English accents. There’s something rotten in the estate at Buckinghamshire, where the PM, his advisors and the Kumranistani Ambassador have gathered at Chequers to try to navigate a path more circuitous than a slalom run in order to clinch a deal with a (fictional) oil-rich Central Asian nation that could pull the U.K. and the European Union out of the grips of recession.

The careers -- and collective asses -- of the Prime Minister and his flunkies are also on the proverbial line. As members of the political class survival of their positions -- and pensions -- are first and foremost in their thoughts, with the well-being of the British people a sometimes distant second.

The New York-born Michael McKean more than holds his own, but as Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby Dakin Matthews almost steals the show. Appleby is the consummate career civil servant who speaks in the bureaucratese jargon that George Orwell denounced in 1984 and his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language,” wherein Orwell criticized politicians’ “inflated style… A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity… politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”

But keep your eyes on Sir Humphrey -- behind his funky functionary lingo he is the ultimate survivor, and he’s not about to be voted off the sceptered island. Jonathan Lynn adroitly directs his cast composed, surprisingly, mostly of Yanks, although Rogue Machine company member Ron Bottitta, who plays a cameraman and is the understudy for other roles, was born in London. The other cast members from the colonies include Jefferson Mays (a veteran of Broadway, off-Broadway and the big and little screens) as Bernard Woolley, the unctuous, eager to please goody-two-shoes Principal Private Secretary to the PM. Tara Summers (who co-starred on the tart Boston Legal TV series) excels as the younger, hipper, scheming, less scrupulous Special Advisor to the PM Claire Sutton. As the Kumranistani Ambassador Jerusalem-born Brian George (a veteran of TV sitcoms and dramas) saunters in and out of the Chequers drawing room in his slippers and robe. In a brief appearance as the BBC’s Director-General, Time Winters scores points about the relationship between the fourth estate and the state -- especially when the latter holds -- and pulls -- the purse strings. This is all the more delicious when one considers that a TV sitcom version of Yes, Prime Minister has aired on the Beeb, biting the hand that feeds it.

The single set by scenic designer Simon Higlett, a West End stalwart, seemed to this untutored eye to perfectly capture the architectural ambiance of Chequers, that rural residence that goes at least as far back as the 16^th century. Sound designers Andrea Cox and John Leonard’s sound effects almost literally had me jumping out of my seat a couple of times.

Yes, Prime Minister is not a play for a nitwit -- but for those who like their wit to be Brit, sly and wry, this reviewer resoundingly votes in the affirmative. Harrumph!


Yes, Prime Minister runs through July 14 at The Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood Village, CA 90024. For more information: 310-208-5454; www.GeffenPlayhouse.com

 

THEATER REVIEW: RED HOT PATRIOT

Molly Ivins (Kathleen Turner) in Red Hot Patriot, The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins.

Bush-hells of fun

By Ed Rampell

Kathleen Turner can’t say that, can she? Oh, but the star of 1981’s Body Heat most certainly can – at least while she’s in character as the outspoken journalist Molly Ivins in Red Hot Patriot. The tall Texan, who was one of America’s leading literary lights of lefty letters, has tall boots to fill. But in what is essentially a one woman show Turner fully embodies Ivins, tossing off zesty zingers, one liners and cuss words that afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted with Ivins-esque aplomb.

The bioplay, lovingly written by Allison and Margaret Engel -- two sisters with reportorial backgrounds – covers Ivin's life, lost loves (thank you Vietnam War!), journalistic career, politics and illness in a production imbued with Ivins’ kick-sass atty-tude and humor, which always skewered the high and mighty on behalf of the lowly and powerless. Subtitled The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, the action takes place in scenic designer John Arnone’s set depicting a newsroom from a bygone era that has seen better days. Projection designer Maya Ciarrocchi’s images enliven the subject matter, including visuals of Ivins herself at various points in her life and career.

In this pre-digital newsroom Turner’s co-stars are a decidedly old fashioned AP machine that periodically delivers Associated Press bulletins, breaking news about historic events Ivins covered or, imaginatively, from the hard drinking Ivins’ own personal life. Matthew Van Oss occasionally appears briefly onstage as a copyboy who hands the news flashes to Turner in a non-speaking part (Van Oss should have been cast in the silent film The Artist).

The work shirt-clad Turner who scintillated the screen as a sultry siren in 1980s hits such as the classic film noir Body Heat (a brilliant parable of the Reagan era’s slimy corruption and venality), Romancing the Stone and The War of the Roses, is stouter now, but she’s more or less within the Geneva Conventions’ in terms of Ivins’ own physical presence. Turner’s Texas twang, delivery and ironic inflections captures Ivin’s manner of speaking (which I was lucky to hear in person in 2000 at the so-called Shadow Convention, a sort of left-leaning counterpart to the Democratic Party’s National Convention that took place nearby in Downtown L.A.). Although she’s no longer a sexy ingénue sizzling the screen, as directed by David Esbjornson, Turner’s Ivins generates plenty of brain heat.

The story, as told by Turner, recounts Ivins’ stints as a reporter for Texan dailies and as a co-editor of the Texas Observer. The Lone Star State’s political hi jinks provided great journalistic grist for Ivin's mill, but more importantly, helped place her on the national stage, with her firsthand knowledge and insights into Texan politicians, from the similarly witty Gov. Ann Richards to the Bushes, who put the nasty into dynasty. It was Ivins who coined George W. Bush’s rather fitting nickname – “Shrub” – which became the title of the first of her two biographies about this pretender to the presidential throne. The second of Ivins' Bush bios was, appropriately, called Bushwhacked, and it’s fair to say that Bush Jr. became this populist’s bête noir.

While the play makes much of Ivins’ Elvis obit for The New York Times, Ivins' longtime collaboration with her Texas Observer colleague, Lou DuBose, who also co-authored the Bush bios with her, is never mentioned. Nor are the lefty publications Ivins was long associated with, notably The Nation and The Progressive. These curious oversights by the sisters Engel are odd omissions vis-à-vis the columnist’s oeuvre.

However, the Engels’ script is strongest when describing the personal side of Ivins which impelled her into the fray on behalf of underdogs everywhere. Her relations with both parents were conflicted, especially with her militaristic, domineering, conservative father, whom his daughter caustically called “the General” and frequently clashed with. The death of a lover in Indochina further poured fuel on the fire of Ivins’ ire. The play correctly puts its finger on what motivates writers such as Ivins: a sense of outrage. Happily, for we, the people, Ivins expressed that outrage against the rich and powerful while defending the least of these among us. By the way, written as it is (well, obviously) by professional writers, Ivin Red Hot Patriot has lots of witty literary insights into the creative process of scribbling and doodling, and into we ink stained wretches who ink out a living, dipping quills into bottles of ink or pecking on keyboards.

Ivin's mortality, as she comes to grips with a fatal disease, is also movingly depicted by the ever quipping Turner. Death, where is thy zinger? Although Turner acquits herself well throughout this one act one woman show, she, and the play itself, is best in the final moments as a spectral Ivins delivers one final rabblerousing riposte from beyond the grave to the common people she so loved and had such a profound belief in and respect for. Turner’s final battle cry as Ivins is reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s speech in his 1940 anti-fascist masterpiece, The Great Dictator. The audience at the Geffen applauded and gave Turner -- and her character -- a well-deserved standing ovation. Author! Author!

Red Hot Patriot, The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins runs through Jan. 12 at the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood Village, CA 90024. For more information: 310/208-2028; www.GeffenPlayhouse.com.