| THEATER TIMES REVIEWS FEBRUARY 2006 |
Hitchcock Blonde
Written and directed by Terry Johnson
American Premiere South Coast Repertory February 3-March 12, 2006
WITH Sarah Aldrich, Adriana DeMeo, Dakin Matthews, Martin Noyes, Robin Sachs PRODUCTION William
Dudley, set, costumes, video; Chris Parry, lights; Ian Dickinson, composer/sound; Ian Galloway for Mesmer,
video realization; Magdalena Zira, assistant director; John Glore, dramaturg
In 'Hitchcock Blonde,' Terry Johnson has more to say about sex than he does about
cinema. He says it with his own great writing, with the visual images of scenic
designer William Dudley, who does more than anyone here to play with the relative
dimensions of film and stage, and the score and sound design of Ian Dickinson, who
beautifully evokes those historic scores of Alfred Hitchcock's classic films.
The true setting of this American premiere, however, is that messy border region of sexual relations that
spawns violence and voyeurism. This is a lawless territory of extremes we know is out there but prefer
to pass with the shades drawn. 'Hitchcock Blonde,' in attempting to get in close enough to show its
extremes of behavior, language and character, suffers a little from the exposure.
There are three male-female relationships here, none of them healthy. One of the three is sanctified by
marriage, but it is the most toxic. Men here, whether famous or fictitious, use positions of social and
professional power to engage and seduce women – generally younger – in vague pursuit of peace and
pleasure. Once they get it, they lose interest or develop impotence. The world of fantasy and the
imagination work into the equation, with film-making an obvious bastion for escapists on both sides of the
screen. For their part, the women have surprisingly few reservations to overcome as they slide under the
spell. But, to their credit, they are more capable of honestly exploring the new worlds in which they find
themselves. But bringing sexuality and its politics out of the projection booth and into the light falls to the
women. And should the power pendulum briefly swing their way, they may find the easy target for
violence is themselves.
The twin plots – one driven by art, the other by science – are undercut by fraud, lechery, or both. In a
twist on Stoppard’s 'Arcadia,' the contemporary story is an investigation of something in 1919 that could
shed light on the other story, set in 1959. But here, the detectives are using the damaged contents of a
stack of mislabeled film cans. The mystery has to do with some Hitchcock out-takes that would inevitably
have historical value. Whether Hitch cast blondes – or chemically converted brunettes – as leading ladies
because of some dark obsession, or whether they just looked good in black and white film, is unlikely to be
what’s driving Johnson, who used historical figures in his earlier 'Insignificance' and 'Hysteria.' He’s more
likely to be intrigued by the larger issues of men, women, sex, imagination, art and truth. Unfortunately, he
seems to have stacked his deck with too many cards of the same suit. Without someone to provide a moral
compass, these folks all seem, well, insignificant.
Whatever Johnson's obsession -- which we'll assume is not casting blondes and brunettes in
compromising theatrical roles -- 'Hitchcock' affords him a chance to flex his considerable writing muscles.
The most potent speeches seem to come from a middle-aged man spinning his web of empathy before a
young lady. Within the mystery of the mystery, there are beautiful paradoxes to chew on, such as the
body double who ironically allows a sense of intimacy with the star, or the man who claims his eyesight is
getting better with age, and that is why he needs more pairs of glasses.
Regardless of what this play needs, it benefits from a scenic concept worthy of the operas that are
Dudley's usual milieu and a lovely – if leering – portrait of Hitch by Dakin Matthews. Also kudos to Robin
Sachs and especially Sarah Aldrich, who’s got to be the bravest actor on this season’s roster.
Whether it cautions or entices, the reader should know there is full female nudity, violence, and the kind of
language that inevitably heats the seats of a couple couples per performance and sends them scurrying
for the safety of their SUVs.
Written and directed by Terry Johnson
American Premiere South Coast Repertory February 3-March 12, 2006
WITH Sarah Aldrich, Adriana DeMeo, Dakin Matthews, Martin Noyes, Robin Sachs PRODUCTION William
Dudley, set, costumes, video; Chris Parry, lights; Ian Dickinson, composer/sound; Ian Galloway for Mesmer,
video realization; Magdalena Zira, assistant director; John Glore, dramaturg
In 'Hitchcock Blonde,' Terry Johnson has more to say about sex than he does about
cinema. He says it with his own great writing, with the visual images of scenic
designer William Dudley, who does more than anyone here to play with the relative
dimensions of film and stage, and the score and sound design of Ian Dickinson, who
beautifully evokes those historic scores of Alfred Hitchcock's classic films.
The true setting of this American premiere, however, is that messy border region of sexual relations that
spawns violence and voyeurism. This is a lawless territory of extremes we know is out there but prefer
to pass with the shades drawn. 'Hitchcock Blonde,' in attempting to get in close enough to show its
extremes of behavior, language and character, suffers a little from the exposure.
There are three male-female relationships here, none of them healthy. One of the three is sanctified by
marriage, but it is the most toxic. Men here, whether famous or fictitious, use positions of social and
professional power to engage and seduce women – generally younger – in vague pursuit of peace and
pleasure. Once they get it, they lose interest or develop impotence. The world of fantasy and the
imagination work into the equation, with film-making an obvious bastion for escapists on both sides of the
screen. For their part, the women have surprisingly few reservations to overcome as they slide under the
spell. But, to their credit, they are more capable of honestly exploring the new worlds in which they find
themselves. But bringing sexuality and its politics out of the projection booth and into the light falls to the
women. And should the power pendulum briefly swing their way, they may find the easy target for
violence is themselves.
The twin plots – one driven by art, the other by science – are undercut by fraud, lechery, or both. In a
twist on Stoppard’s 'Arcadia,' the contemporary story is an investigation of something in 1919 that could
shed light on the other story, set in 1959. But here, the detectives are using the damaged contents of a
stack of mislabeled film cans. The mystery has to do with some Hitchcock out-takes that would inevitably
have historical value. Whether Hitch cast blondes – or chemically converted brunettes – as leading ladies
because of some dark obsession, or whether they just looked good in black and white film, is unlikely to be
what’s driving Johnson, who used historical figures in his earlier 'Insignificance' and 'Hysteria.' He’s more
likely to be intrigued by the larger issues of men, women, sex, imagination, art and truth. Unfortunately, he
seems to have stacked his deck with too many cards of the same suit. Without someone to provide a moral
compass, these folks all seem, well, insignificant.
Whatever Johnson's obsession -- which we'll assume is not casting blondes and brunettes in
compromising theatrical roles -- 'Hitchcock' affords him a chance to flex his considerable writing muscles.
The most potent speeches seem to come from a middle-aged man spinning his web of empathy before a
young lady. Within the mystery of the mystery, there are beautiful paradoxes to chew on, such as the
body double who ironically allows a sense of intimacy with the star, or the man who claims his eyesight is
getting better with age, and that is why he needs more pairs of glasses.
Regardless of what this play needs, it benefits from a scenic concept worthy of the operas that are
Dudley's usual milieu and a lovely – if leering – portrait of Hitch by Dakin Matthews. Also kudos to Robin
Sachs and especially Sarah Aldrich, who’s got to be the bravest actor on this season’s roster.
Whether it cautions or entices, the reader should know there is full female nudity, violence, and the kind of
language that inevitably heats the seats of a couple couples per performance and sends them scurrying
for the safety of their SUVs.
Sarah Aldrich
Dakin Matthews
KEN HOWARD
Dakin Matthews
KEN HOWARD
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde, directed by Peter Hall
Ahmanson Theatre January 17-March 5, 2006
WITH Lynn Redgrave, Miriam Margolyes, Terence Rigby, Bianca Amato, Charlotte Parry, Robert Petkoff, James
Waterston, Geddeth Smith, James A Stephens PRODUCTION Kevin Rigdon and Trish Rigdon; Sound Design,
Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen.
‘The Importance of Being Earnest,’ Oscar Wilde’s 1895 comic celebration of
superficiality, spins layers of colorful language around a plot as tightly wired as a
dresser’s dummy. When properly turned out, the effect is an evening both perfectly
shaped and perfectly silly.
The first time one sees a definitive production of the play, he or she is likely to be as spontaneously and
helplessly smitten by it as its characters are by one another. The production that opened this week at the
Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles (through March 5) has the power to provide that revelatory experience for
those still inneed, thanks in great part to Lynn Redgrave. Despite having the least stage time of the major
characters, hers insinuates that while being Earnest may be important, Lady Bracknell is quintessential. In
Redgrave’s two scenes, she commands the stage as justifiably as she commands the billing. She is, as one of
Wilde’s characters describes her, the only one who “rings the door bell in Wagnerian fashion.”
Two stand-outs in the capable cast are Miriam Margolyes as a cartoonish Miss Prism who tutors Cecily with
oratory flourish, and Robert Petkoff, who brings the bearing of a giddy younger Branaugh brother to Algy.
Director Peter Hall and his designers have minimized their set. Assuming it’s not because a crate of stage
dressing is still at the dock, it’s a welcome focus on the actors and their words.
And it is the words that make the play timeless. Wilde has fed his characters mouthfuls of bons mots to
punctuate conversation and give the play percussion. Yet in many sweet phrases are buried nuggets of irony
that bear the sting of truth. Lady Bracknell offers one that could be the parenthetical subtitle to the play,
turning out its satirical title: “We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces.” True then. True now.
by Oscar Wilde, directed by Peter Hall
Ahmanson Theatre January 17-March 5, 2006
WITH Lynn Redgrave, Miriam Margolyes, Terence Rigby, Bianca Amato, Charlotte Parry, Robert Petkoff, James
Waterston, Geddeth Smith, James A Stephens PRODUCTION Kevin Rigdon and Trish Rigdon; Sound Design,
Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen.
‘The Importance of Being Earnest,’ Oscar Wilde’s 1895 comic celebration of
superficiality, spins layers of colorful language around a plot as tightly wired as a
dresser’s dummy. When properly turned out, the effect is an evening both perfectly
shaped and perfectly silly.
The first time one sees a definitive production of the play, he or she is likely to be as spontaneously and
helplessly smitten by it as its characters are by one another. The production that opened this week at the
Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles (through March 5) has the power to provide that revelatory experience for
those still inneed, thanks in great part to Lynn Redgrave. Despite having the least stage time of the major
characters, hers insinuates that while being Earnest may be important, Lady Bracknell is quintessential. In
Redgrave’s two scenes, she commands the stage as justifiably as she commands the billing. She is, as one of
Wilde’s characters describes her, the only one who “rings the door bell in Wagnerian fashion.”
Two stand-outs in the capable cast are Miriam Margolyes as a cartoonish Miss Prism who tutors Cecily with
oratory flourish, and Robert Petkoff, who brings the bearing of a giddy younger Branaugh brother to Algy.
Director Peter Hall and his designers have minimized their set. Assuming it’s not because a crate of stage
dressing is still at the dock, it’s a welcome focus on the actors and their words.
And it is the words that make the play timeless. Wilde has fed his characters mouthfuls of bons mots to
punctuate conversation and give the play percussion. Yet in many sweet phrases are buried nuggets of irony
that bear the sting of truth. Lady Bracknell offers one that could be the parenthetical subtitle to the play,
turning out its satirical title: “We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces.” True then. True now.
Hitchcock Blonde
South Coast Repertory
Ahmanson Theatre
A Noise Within
South Coast Repertory
Ahmanson Theatre
A Noise Within
The Price
by Arthur Miller, directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliot
A Noise Within February 2006
WITH Robertson Dean, Geoff Elliot, Len Lesser, Deborah Strang PRODUCTION Michael C. Smith, set;
Angela Balogh Calin, costumes.
A Noise Within’s production of Arthur Miller’s ‘The Price’ made a six-performance
return run in early February 2006. It was the Glendale company’s third remounting in
as many years, all with the cast of Robertson Dean, Geoff Elliott, Len Lesser and
Deborah Strang. Elliott and co-Artistic Director Julia Rodriguez Elliot directed.
The production is a great introduction to play and playhouse, which work well together to put their
advancing years in mutually flattering light. The house, which A Noise Within has made noises about
abandoning, is a hunched room of aging theater seats and patrons. The set is the cluttered upper room of
an abandoned home, where a family had retreated with furniture and memories as bankruptcy, then
paranoia and finally death claimed its patriarch.
While Miller is arguably the American playwright of the 20th Century, his plays were having diminishing
impact by the time ‘The Price’ premiered in 1968. His early masterpieces ‘Death of a Salesman,’ ‘All My
Sons,’ ‘The Crucible’ and ‘A View from the Bridge’ were a hard act for even him to follow. But the scripts of
the 1960s – ‘The Misfits,’ ‘Incident at Vichy,’ ‘After the Fall’ and ‘The Price’ – hold up against any writer’s
second shelf of work. A Noise Within’s production shows how much even a lesser-Miller work has to offer.
‘The Price’ explores Miller’s usual themes of family, honor and death, but represents the first work following
the death of the writer’s father in 1966. The play’s characters echo the four-cornered family from
‘Salesman,’ but with the brothers now middle-aged and the dead parents replaced by one brother’s wife
and an indomitable old Jewish businessman who is the father figure Miller has long been waiting to love.
There are other stand-ins for the parents amid the room’s furniture and clothing – most importantly the father’
s empty chair and several of the mother’s evening gowns.
Vic (Elliot) is the policeman son who sacrificed a career in science to stay home and nurse his once-
successful father through his final decline. Walter (Dean) left years ago to become a wealthy, influential
surgeon. The house has sat empty since the father died a few years earlier and now, with the property
slated for demolition, Vic has asked an appraiser to come by with a price for the contents. Before the
break, Walter, who has ignored a week of phone calls from Vic asking him to share in the memories,
decisions and profits, and Vic’s wife Esther (Strang), arrive to meet the ancient appraiser, Soloman
(Lesser).
The acting is uniformly fine and engaging. (Hence the repeated retrieval from storage of Michael C Smith’s
set and Angela Calin’s costumes.) But the revelation is Lesser, playing the 90-something Soloman with the
kind of weary valiance that comes with being a seasoned pro of 85. In the same way the play and the
theater bring each other to life, Soloman and Lesser clearly combine to make their moments of oneness
some of the best
either has had. Miller is surely smiling whenever Lesser is onstage.
For Miller so loved this character, that he gave him the special name of Soloman, representing ultimate
wisdom in sorting out the affairs of man. Lesser, who must maintain suspense in the play by balancing his
character between pro and con, does so beautifully. Soloman adheres to a strict morality, though Walter
and Esther don’t believe if for a minute. Vic does, but he’s long been dismissed as a push-over. Part of
what gives
Soloman his drive is the loss of his only daughter to suicide. This leads to one of the play’s major themes.
The ‘price’ of loss. That loss is manifested by the survivor’s ability to ‘see’ the departed. Soloman sees his
daughter every night as clearly as if she were seated before him. Similarly, Vic and Walter can still see
their father in his chair. Vic, however, cannot summon up an image of his mother, and for her part Esther
says many times, “I can never believe what I see before me.”
After a Sunday matinee, I exited the old hall into the late-afternoon clarity of a bright winter day. The heat’s
thin air had allowed the mountains to inch closer down Brand Avenue and the San Fernando Valley wore a
welcome home. Glendale’s maintained architecture made it feel like a town that understood itself, and rolled
down all the windows to let that spirit fill my dirty sedan as I rolled through the tall shadows to the 134, and
my first trip out to my parents’ now empty home, to continue the work of clearing out all they could not take
with.
by Arthur Miller, directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliot
A Noise Within February 2006
WITH Robertson Dean, Geoff Elliot, Len Lesser, Deborah Strang PRODUCTION Michael C. Smith, set;
Angela Balogh Calin, costumes.
A Noise Within’s production of Arthur Miller’s ‘The Price’ made a six-performance
return run in early February 2006. It was the Glendale company’s third remounting in
as many years, all with the cast of Robertson Dean, Geoff Elliott, Len Lesser and
Deborah Strang. Elliott and co-Artistic Director Julia Rodriguez Elliot directed.
The production is a great introduction to play and playhouse, which work well together to put their
advancing years in mutually flattering light. The house, which A Noise Within has made noises about
abandoning, is a hunched room of aging theater seats and patrons. The set is the cluttered upper room of
an abandoned home, where a family had retreated with furniture and memories as bankruptcy, then
paranoia and finally death claimed its patriarch.
While Miller is arguably the American playwright of the 20th Century, his plays were having diminishing
impact by the time ‘The Price’ premiered in 1968. His early masterpieces ‘Death of a Salesman,’ ‘All My
Sons,’ ‘The Crucible’ and ‘A View from the Bridge’ were a hard act for even him to follow. But the scripts of
the 1960s – ‘The Misfits,’ ‘Incident at Vichy,’ ‘After the Fall’ and ‘The Price’ – hold up against any writer’s
second shelf of work. A Noise Within’s production shows how much even a lesser-Miller work has to offer.
‘The Price’ explores Miller’s usual themes of family, honor and death, but represents the first work following
the death of the writer’s father in 1966. The play’s characters echo the four-cornered family from
‘Salesman,’ but with the brothers now middle-aged and the dead parents replaced by one brother’s wife
and an indomitable old Jewish businessman who is the father figure Miller has long been waiting to love.
There are other stand-ins for the parents amid the room’s furniture and clothing – most importantly the father’
s empty chair and several of the mother’s evening gowns.
Vic (Elliot) is the policeman son who sacrificed a career in science to stay home and nurse his once-
successful father through his final decline. Walter (Dean) left years ago to become a wealthy, influential
surgeon. The house has sat empty since the father died a few years earlier and now, with the property
slated for demolition, Vic has asked an appraiser to come by with a price for the contents. Before the
break, Walter, who has ignored a week of phone calls from Vic asking him to share in the memories,
decisions and profits, and Vic’s wife Esther (Strang), arrive to meet the ancient appraiser, Soloman
(Lesser).
The acting is uniformly fine and engaging. (Hence the repeated retrieval from storage of Michael C Smith’s
set and Angela Calin’s costumes.) But the revelation is Lesser, playing the 90-something Soloman with the
kind of weary valiance that comes with being a seasoned pro of 85. In the same way the play and the
theater bring each other to life, Soloman and Lesser clearly combine to make their moments of oneness
some of the best
either has had. Miller is surely smiling whenever Lesser is onstage.
For Miller so loved this character, that he gave him the special name of Soloman, representing ultimate
wisdom in sorting out the affairs of man. Lesser, who must maintain suspense in the play by balancing his
character between pro and con, does so beautifully. Soloman adheres to a strict morality, though Walter
and Esther don’t believe if for a minute. Vic does, but he’s long been dismissed as a push-over. Part of
what gives
Soloman his drive is the loss of his only daughter to suicide. This leads to one of the play’s major themes.
The ‘price’ of loss. That loss is manifested by the survivor’s ability to ‘see’ the departed. Soloman sees his
daughter every night as clearly as if she were seated before him. Similarly, Vic and Walter can still see
their father in his chair. Vic, however, cannot summon up an image of his mother, and for her part Esther
says many times, “I can never believe what I see before me.”
After a Sunday matinee, I exited the old hall into the late-afternoon clarity of a bright winter day. The heat’s
thin air had allowed the mountains to inch closer down Brand Avenue and the San Fernando Valley wore a
welcome home. Glendale’s maintained architecture made it feel like a town that understood itself, and rolled
down all the windows to let that spirit fill my dirty sedan as I rolled through the tall shadows to the 134, and
my first trip out to my parents’ now empty home, to continue the work of clearing out all they could not take
with.
Lynn Redgrave
PHOTO CRAIG SCHWARTZ
PHOTO CRAIG SCHWARTZ
Len Lesser
PHOTO CRAIG SCHWARTZ
PHOTO CRAIG SCHWARTZ
