Out in the Arts

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
by D.L. Groover

With its penultimate production in a sterling 2001-02 season, the Alley Theatre added a sparkling crown jewel: a haunting, expansive treatment of Tom Stoppard's linguistic fantasy on the life of A.E. Housman, The Invention of Love. Under Gregory Boyd's restrained direction, the hermetically sealed emotional life of England's greatest classical scholar and neo-Romantic poet swirled with both cinematic abandon and theatrical flair. (There's no better visual to get across the idea of Victorian noblesse oblige than the gilded model of the Houses of Parliament used as humidor, liquor cabinet, and resting place for well-cushioned posteriors.)

Into Stoppard's dazzling kaleidoscope of classical allusions, Victorian press agentry, and Oxfordian intrigue, the Alley's splendid performers added their own facets. If Houston presented theater awards, I'd vote for a split decision between John Tyson (the elder Housman) and Philip Lehl (the younger) for Best Actor. Cut from the same cloth, these splendid performers clarified the dense text, added definition to the muffled emotion in their same, yet different, character, and layered it with what might be called humane warm regret.

The play aches with nostalgia, Stygian gloom, and the waters of remembrance, but is made whole through Stoppard's mordant wit and wicked tongue.

When Housman's schoolboy obsession, Moses Jackson (perfectly epitomized by Ty Mayberry's athletic straight-arrow) gently rebuffs him, his world implodes. Driven deep inside a protective shell of academe and romance poetry, Housman poured out his life, but forgot to live. He forever pined for the straight man who got away; yet had Housman gotten him, we'd not have A Shropshire Lad, nor the brilliant classical studies which are paragons of scholarship today. Nor Stoppard's striking play. Nor the Alley's immensely moving version of it.

DIVA, DIVA, WHO'S GOT THE DIVA?

These days there are more sad faces at Houston Grand Opera than a tent-full of Pagliaccis. Layoffs, downsizing, cancellations, and patron rumblings constitute some of the drama, and they've run through all the excuses‹tropical storm Allison, Ken Lay, Osama Bin Ladin. For their marketing campaign, they've settled on an uplifting "Year of the Diva." Since there's a dearth of good manly singers in the current international crop, this isn't such a bad way to go. We're looking forward to Renee Fleming's first-ever Violetta, Susan Graham's belated HGO debut as Handel's Ariodante, Elizabeth Futral's Manon, and Laura Claycomb's no-doubt stratospheric Lucia, after her stunning Gilda from last season.

Who we will miss next season, though, is ultra-dramatic soprano Patricia Racette, a powerhouse Marguerite in Boito's Mefistofele. Just last month she came out in Opera News, revealing her partner, singer Beth Clayton, without fanfare or fuss. She's the only singer I can think of who's admitted to being gay at the height of her career. Racette met Clayton in Santa Fe when both were singing in Traviata. "It's the only time Violetta ever went home with Flora," she admitted in the interview. "We're very happy and very proud and we don't talk around it. She's not my roommate or friend, ever!"

FACES WEST

The Roman god Janus had two. Eve, thanks to Joanne Woodward, had three Oscar-winning ones. Sally Field's Sybil had, I think, 21 (22, if you really like her.) Preternaturally gifted gay Rob Nash, Houston born and bred thespian/writer, beats them all, hands‹or faces‹down.

His shows are a crazed one-man parade, transforming the stage with firecracker pacing and the warm-hearted accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. You haven't experienced anything like them until you see three characters run up the stairs at the same time, or three separate sex scenes occurring simultaneously, as happened when was last seen in Freshman Year Sucks and Sophomore Slump.

In this latest jaw-dropping tour-de-force, Nash takes on his favorite world: Holy Cross, a fictional Houston parochial high school as it stages Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. All those wonderfully dysfunctional students, teachers, staff, and families are back in multi-faceted glory under Nash's sure hand‹and face. The magic Nash so effortlessly conjures entirely explains why live theater is so damned unbeatable.

Rob Nash Does Romeo and Juliet: Love & Sex at Holy Cross High

July 18 through August 17
Theatre New West
1415 California
713/522-2204

THE POWER OF POLITICS

If you're interested in something a bit different, how about a play by the president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel? His 1985 autobiographical/individual vs. the state black comedy, Largo Desolato, translated by Czech ex-patriot Tom Stoppard, continues the cutting-edge tradition of dos chicas theater commune. You might have seen a TV adaptation on PBS years ago with F. Murray Abraham and Phoebe Cates, but this inspired play needs a live audience to set revolutionary blood rushing.

Largo Desolato
July 5 through July 27
The Helios, 411 Westheimer
713/201-0193

Tickets $10; students/seniors $6.