Out in the Arts

by D.L. Groover

FRIENDS OF DOROTHY

You never know where you might hear the music of the theater muses, but three such sweet tunes were recently heard at regional venues. The music the ladies played was definitely gay.

The tiny black box theater at Country Playhouse hosted Diana Howie’s world premiere Judy’s Friend and Marilyn’s Boy. Theatre Suburbia presented Nancy Kiefer’s nostalgic Could Angels Be Blessed. Closer to home, Theatre New West (1415 California; 713/522-2204) assays Robert Chesley’s erotic classic Jerker through July 12.

Judy’s Friend and Marilyn’s Boy is an extended monologue for two characters desperate for love and acceptance. Sean Joseph O’Casey is a grizzled, lovable wreck of a drunk whose claim to fame is being one of the fabled Muchkins in the Wizard of Oz and then a friend of Garland’s via late-night telephone conversations. Living in the dump of a L.A. apartment complex (evocatively realized by designer Jennifer Owen), the curmudgeonly O’Casey waits on edge for the demolition squad and beguiles us with booze-laden reveries from his life, Oz, and Judy, using costumes and props he has picked up along the way. Act II is Jack Baker’s story. He is a demolition debris specialist, sent into the decaying building to pick up hazardous waste before the building is razed. Baker believes—and hopes—he is the long-lost son of Marilyn Monroe. That he is a big ol’ flaming queen in hardhat and construction boots who asks us directly if his teeth are too small while pouting and wiggling his butt, is not addressed by the playwright. How this stereotypical sissy keeps such a macho job even in West Hollywood is sadly outside the play’s purview. Act II asks more questions than it successfully answers and bumps along in starts and stops, but it builds to a satisfying conclusion thanks to the continuing presence of O’Casey as he influences the shallow Baker.

Jason Howard was astonishing in the dual roles, and his crabby little person living on lost dreams and alcohol is a character not soon forgotten. At press time, Theatre New West artistic director Joe Watts is in negotiations with Howie to produce her play at his Montrose location. If he brings along Howard to star, there will indeed be “no place like home.”

Community theater is full of surprises, mostly good if you go with a realistic set of expectations. Staffed with volunteers, theater junkies, and weekend actors, the minor leagues can’t be fairly compared with the big boy downtown, but sometimes they can make you forget Hamlet. Theatre Suburbia pulled off a lovely rendition of Nancy Kiefer’s regional theater staple, Could Angels Be Blessed.

Redolent of slamming screen doors, back stoops, housecoats with pockets, and daytime turbans, Kiefer’s atmospheric comedy/drama exudes small-town Americana at the end of WWII. Into a strong widow’s world the stirrings of modern gay life intrude and trip up the neat social order. Love, forgiveness, transcendence, and tolerance work into a magical happy ending, somewhat out of place in 1940s Ohio, but it leaves us pleasantly sated nonetheless.

Many nuances and shadings in Kiefer’s world were missed due to the knotty acting, but the simple truths inherent in her work shined through. Sandra Choate added immeasurable mirth as busybody Aunt Polly. Dean Dicks brought a quiet masculine center to the dead soldier’s lover. And Rebecca Rosenberg had a homespun tender aura as shy, sensitive Lucy. This play of still waters and deep conviction was the perfect antidote to raucous Pride celebrations last month. Nostalgic and autumnal, Kiefer’s work depicts another face of gay life: the unforgettable human one.

Robert Chesley’s plays hold pride of place in theater history in that they are among the earliest of what would later be known as “gay” plays. That they are also unrelenting in their clinical depiction of the seamier side of Castro street life only adds to their grunge glamour. In their honesty, they are X-rated, the nudity is in your face, and you can smell the sex.

Jerker is his paean to anonymous, yet masturbatory, sex at the very brink of the AIDS epidemic. In 20 telephone calls, Bert, a businessman, and J.R., a scarred Vietnam vet, develop a deepening emotional relationship while they share sexual fantasies. Chesley’s thesis, that this alienation is the only type of love possible in the present world where sex equals death‚ is bunk. We want these two to put down the phones—and their other hands—and meet in person. When they finally do, in a dream sequence, it feels right to us, too. Chesley is so focused on his theory he won’t allow his characters to be people. They’re sticks and speak for the author, but not for themselves. For all their braggadocio, they remain alone, frightened, unfulfilled, and dead.

Acting in a play so revealing has to be daunting, to say the least, but Brett Cullum (last seen in clothes in The Stand In at Unhinged) and Glen Fillmore (making his professional debut) manage to make solo sex the most natural act on earth, especially when performed for an audience.

DANISH WITH A SCHMEER

Ty Mayberry would make a model Hamlet for any illustrator: He supplies dash, vigor, brooding intensity, and a youthful physicality that any prince of Elsinore would envy. Unfortunately, Shakespeare requires you to speak, and matinee looks won’t get you through this most demanding of roles. Mayberry gives it a game try, but at this stage in his career, Hamlet’s beyond him. To be fair, most of the actors in Alley Theatre’s Hamlet seem to be grasping for their characters. This is a zip-drive rendition of the greatest play in the world, too fast-paced and cut up for anyone to get a handle on who they’re playing, or for their hard work to have much effect upon the audience.

Director Gregory Boyd transforms Hamlet’s line “Denmark’s a prison” into an obsession, giving the set and sound design more attention than the players. Elsinore is a great rusting hulk like a Nordic Sing Sing with steel doors that clang ominously. And when the traveling players are described as “clowns,” well, we suffer through Hamlet in Pierrot makeup for the remainder of the play.

This Hamlet is all over the place—in tone, look, ideas. Only Charles Krohn and Paul Hope in the edited roles of Gravedigger and Osric are able to speak Shakespeare’s glorious language with a true feeling for what they’re saying and make it sound natural. James Black is a magisterial spooky ghost as Hamlet’s father, but stupefyingly channels Tony Soprano when he becomes the murderous Uncle Claudius. No one makes much of an impression in the Alley’s season capstone production, not even Shakespeare. That’s the rub—and the tragedy.

KEEP IN MIND

The Women

Through July 27

Main Street Theater

713/524-6706

Clare Boothe Luce’s bitch fest about domesticity and divorce. If you’ve seen the George Cukor movie classic with Shearer, Crawford, Goddard, and Boland, it’s time to see these harpies in the flesh. And put some gin in it!

The Mousetrap

Through July 20

Alley Theatre

713/228-8421

Agatha Christie’s hoary old chestnut had a longer run in theater history than even James O’Neill in Count of Monte Cristo. This is the mother of all murder mysteries. Go see why.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

July 11–August 9

Country Playhouse

713/467-4497

Stephen Sondheim’s first solo as composer/lyricist. Bawdy and full of Borscht Belt schtick, it’s funny beyond belief and—sacrilege to you show queens—his best show.

Guys and Dolls

July 11–August 2

Masquerade Theatre

713/861-7045

A tasty show indeed: a Valentine musical to pre-Disney Times Square. Damon Runyon’s classic tales of bookies, Salvation Army belles, hookers, and honkers (Miss Adelaide) unfold to perfection in Frank Loesser’s glorious score.

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