"Medea" haunting, impressive
By Frances Baum Nicholson
Correspondent
Perhaps the most disturbing of all the plays of the ancient Greeks is "Medea," in part because it is so heinous in its implications, and in part because one hears echoes of its horror in the nightly news. Who is not appalled at the idea of a woman who would murder her children? And yet, it is the very contemporary nature of this unnatural connection between rejected love and revenge on one's own offspring which makes the impressive production at The Theatre at Boston Court so very powerful.
Utilizing a brand new, and very straightforward translation by Paul Roche, director Stefan Novinski has set the piece in the kitchen of a major banquet hall, as Jason, Medea's former husband marries the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. The traditional chorus becomes the culinary workers and wait staff. The sympathetic banquet coordinator lends the grieving Medea her office, from which we first hear the moans and cries of a rejected, angry woman. And when she emerges, a cold and avenging demon, her intent becomes all the more fearsome because her surroundings are so identifiable.
Lisa Tharps becomes a startling, compelling Medea. Her mobile face registers both the ferocity of her core-deep anger and the masks she can place over it to deceive her victims. When, in the end, she finds herself wrenched by her own decisions, the play across her face tells as much as the words she speaks. It is a performance which powers the entire production.
Balanced against her, Andrew Borba's logical, rather obtuse Jason seems almost understandable in his choices. Adam Gregor, as the pompously commanding Creon, creates a character whose self-importance makes him equally incapable of seeing through the masks to the danger evident in this darkly passionate, rejected woman.
Indeed, as these and others come and go, it is the chemistry between Tharps and the intricately choreographed chorus - individuals in action, yet, given a group identity - which underscores the play's fascination. Alaina Reed Hall's wise, and therefore dread-filled nurse supplies much of the musical feel of the piece, an essential part of any Greek play.
Donna Marquet's extremely realistic kitchen set allows the audience to move into "Medea" in a way that is usually far more difficult, and with any classic accessibility is key. Novinski's whole mood for the piece emphasizes the humanity of the characters, making their choices less a matter of godly interference or fate, and more a matter of internal ethic. Only in the final moment, as the set falls away and high art and symbolism intrude, does the accessibility recede. It's the only bad choice in the entire production.
"Medea" is not a pleasant play, but as done at the Theatre at Boston Court, it is compelling, fascinating theater. Its portrait of a woman undone by the fatal flaw of her own inability to adapt to her rejection is one which an audience can debate in modern terms as well as those of Euripides' own time. In so doing, it underscores that essential element of humanity which Greeks knew so well: That humanity is a constant through time and history and motivations for actions remain the same.
THEATER REVIEW
Different ways to deal with tragedy
Cal Rep takes a classical approach to Euripides' 'Medea,' while Boston Court stages it with gospel-style singing.
By F. Kathleen Foley
Special to The Times
February 25, 2005
Euripides fans - and we know you are legion - rejoice. Two worthy productions of "Medea" are running within easy traveling distance of Los Angeles.
Directorially speaking, the interpretations are radically different, but both feature superlative casts, cogent translations and the kind of emotional truthfulness guaranteed to give a genuine cathartic charge.
David Bridel takes the more classical approach in his staging at Cal Rep. Working from Kenneth McLeish and Frederic Raphael's richly contemporary adaptation, Bridel keeps his staging as stringent and evocative as a Universal horror film.
Fog fills the precincts of Danila Korogodsky's superb set (which, by the way, has a breathtaking surprise in store at play's end). George Cybulski's appropriately Stygian lighting design glares up through traps in the stage floor, underneath which hands are seen desperately scrabbling. Lauren Hea-Seung Kim's costumes look more like decaying cerements than clothing, while Mark Abel's clanging and dissonant sound design, along with Justus Matthews' original choral music, increases our dread. In Barbara Matthews' hair and makeup design, the Greeks have the matted hair and livid countenances of the dead.
Only the "foreigner," Medea (Marjo-Riikka Makela), appears rosy and hale Ñ a fitting separation emphasizing her outcast status. Although hampered by a sometimes incomprehensible accent, the youthful Makela centers her portrayal in raw anguish and loss, whereas the able Mark Piatelli plays Jason with just the right touch of cocky hubris.
Granted, Bridel sometimes overdoes the histrionics, especially in the case of over-the-top Kreon (Gary Grossman), but all in all, the acting is haunting and fine.
While Makela is girlishly spontaneous, Lisa Tharps, who plays Medea at the Boston Court, is measured, queenly and magnificently vindictive. Tharps' Medea may think twice before murdering her sons, but she doesn't think thrice. Her anguish, while real, is tamped down - banked embers that will soon blaze into a firestorm.
Director Stefan Novinski has assembled a terrific cast that makes the most of Paul Roche's outstanding new translation. Designer Donna Marquet's weirdly revisionist set is, quite simply, one of the best in memory Ñ a functioning commercial kitchen, shining with stainless steel appurtenances. Here, Medea's women - who sing their responses, gospel-style - buzz around preparing food while catastrophe looms.
It's doubtful whether Novinski sufficiently links the setting with the text, but it's a daringly odd design choice as intriguing as it is perplexing. Drew Dalzell's sound design, with its undertone of Muzak, is further disorienting. Rand Ryan's lighting and Barbara Lempel's costumes are utilitarian and crisp.
Jason (Andrew Borba) is a preening, self-contained opportunist whose arrogance will soon give way to howling grief. Particularly excellent, the chorus executes Todd Schroeder's original music with brisk matter-of-factness. Bustling and worldly wise, these handmaidens may have no energy for theatrics, but their understated horror is evident, as is their wrenching empathy for Medea's plight.
*
'Medea'
Where: Cal Rep at the Edison Theatre, 213 E. Broadway, Long Beach
When: 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Also 2 p.m. Feb. 26 and 7 p.m. March 8
Ends: March 12
Price: $20
Contact: (562) 985-7000, www.calrep.org
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Also
Where: Boston Court, 70 North Mentor Ave., Pasadena
When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays
Ends: March 27
Price: $30
Contact: (626) 683-6883, www.bostoncourt.com
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
MEDEA
Director Stefan Novinski, a solid supporting cast and superlative design back up the always- strong Lisa Tharps, storming as jilted Medea in a production lacking nuance. Tharps' Medea is less a whirlwind than a charging bull, all muscle and rage, pacing around in red silk like a lick of fire. Pride, not pain, is her ruler. Jason (Andrew Borba) is a caddish opportunist, and their scenes together are violent, powerful and loveless. Novinski's stylish, uncharitable production makes Medea shorthand for evil. One forgets that Euripides stacks sympathies in her favor. Before she's even introduced, the nurse spends 10 minutes painting her victimization, railing against Jason's sins, and reminding us that Medea is now a foreigner abandoned in a strange land. Here, Alaina Reed Hall sings Medea's woes with the bitter grit of Bessie Smith; it's one of the few moments in the show where Euripides' words really connect. The chorus chimes in, showering Medea with compassion. Novinski's created an intriguing and captivating adaptation. His casting of a minority female against a pair of imperious white men adds a sharp edge to the dynamic, and in a modern twist, the action plays out in a hotel kitchen with the wedding outside. The production rests on a Mount Olympus of talent, it just needs to find the humanity beneath Medea's inhumanity. Theater @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; thru March 27. (626) 683-6883. Written 02/25/2005 (Amy Nicholson)
A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Medea
By Ariana Mufson
One whole day to make three enemies three corpses.
--- Medea
Medea, a brilliant Lisa Tharps, is decked in silken red, aflame with rage. Her husband, Jason (a compelling Andrew Borba), whom she has aided in his quest for the golden fleece and saved from her father's murderous wrath, has abandoned her to marry the virgin daughter of King Creon. Jason chooses prestige and position over Medea's love and devotion, and she is incensed.
Boston Court's world premiere translation of Medea brings Euripides' violent and ancient text to life. Many productions hold us at arms length, so that we judge Medea and her vengeful deeds with horror. Instead, the heightened text has been slightly modernized by Paul Roche, so that it gels perfectly with the setting and allows us to understand the show and jump right in. With the aid of a brilliant cast and Stefan Novinski's tight direction we are thrust into Medea's world head first, so that we have trouble separating good from evil and right from wrong. The direction and acting is so skilled that when Medea conspires to kill Jason's bride for a brief second we want her to succeed.
The play has been edited down to a sparse hour and forty-five minutes which keeps things at a tight pace, while still allowing us to adjust to the heightened language. The production has already begun when we enter the theater-the chorus, made up of kitchen staff, furiously works in the background in a top of the line industrial kitchen ofa grand hotel. Off stage, the wedding takes place. However, we stay behind the scenes, separate from the wedding party, just as Medea is excluded and must work in secret to take revenge. The chopping, dicing, and sizzling create an eerie atmosphere that hints at the violence to come. Just as wait staff often know the secrets of any royal family, this chorus enlightens us because they are privy to Medea's disclosures.
When we finally meet Medea, in red and black, hair swept back, she glows like an ember. A "fury," she lights up the stage--beautiful, fearsome and wounded. Emotion flows through her, from hurt and pain to loathing and revenge. Her movements are effortless and fluid. She owns the stage. Anyone in her way will surely pay the price. Thorp adds depth to each line, nodding to herself, and questioning the chorus around her. Even when she flatters Creon's ego or appeals to Aegeus' masculinity we know she is completely in control.
The difficult script is handled with expertise by the talented cast. Every role is fleshed out with nuance. Alaina Reed Hall shines as the nurse, an often forgettable role. Along with Todd Schroeder's music, she gives us a reprieve from sometimes tedious monologues. The words and rhyme have new meaning and new impact when they are coupled with the bluesy, eerie a cappella.
Never has the language seemed quite so clear, and quite so heart wrenching, especially in terms of gender. Medea scoffs at men, telling us how much easier fighting a war would be compared to childbirth. When she sees Jason she runs at him fists flying, and we admire her for her forthright courage, as she epitomizes the jilted lover. The strength of the play, and this production in particular, lies in its connection to what we have all felt, and rarely admitted, when our love has been forsaken. Medea's heartbreak resonates, and we experience sinful delight in watching her carry out what would be reprehensible in real life.
Not only gender but race takes a prominent part in Roche's adaptation. When Jason mentions rescuing Medea from her "barbarian land" she shoots him a look that could kill--insulted that he would think her home "barbarian" but also because he has implicated her race and heritage.
Despite the plays overall strength, Novinski still has difficulty with the transition from raving Medea to murderess. Tharps reveals her emotional turmoil, but, perhaps because of the shortened length of the text, her decision seems hasty. The dŽnouement, full of visual and sound effects, reveals Medea high above Jason in the open oven flue, hovering above her bloody children while Jason falls to his knees in pain below. Though we are riveted, the scene does is not in synch with the rest of the show. By separating her from both the ground and the audience, we finally view Medea as a literal and almost super literal and almost supernatural "fury." She is a madwoman now, which Novinski has rightfully avoided throughout. Had Tharps been allowed her own moment, free of visual effects and confronting Jason on his own plane, we would have felt more empathy despite her murderous rage. Luckily, Tharps and Borba keep us riveted with their inspired performances.
Boston Court's stellar cast as well as the truth that Euripedes' words still have in a modern day setting make this production worthwhile. The proverb "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" has never rung so true.
Medea
Playwright: Euripides Translation By: Paul Roche
Director: Stefan Novinski
Musical Director/Composer: Todd Schroeder
Cast: Alaina Reed Hall, Nick Salamone, Lisa Tharps,
Adam Gregor, Andrew Borba, Peter Trencher, Jeff
Marlow, Damante Ballard, Jonathan Biggs, Gerrett Julian,
Ryan Weltzien, Diana Burbano, Jennifer Chu, Jennifer
Pennington, Pamela Shaddock, Veronica Thompson,
Eileen T'Kaye
Scenic Design: Donna Marquet
Lighting Design: Rand Ryan
Costume Design: Barbara Lempel
Sound Design: Drew Dalzell
Running Time: 1 hour 45 minutes without intermission
Running Dates: 2/18/05 - 3/27/05. Thursdays through
Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 3 p.m. < br> Where:
Boston Court, 70 North Mentor Avenue at Boston Court,
Pasadena.
Tickets: $30. www.bostoncourt.org or (626) 683-6883
Reviewed by Ariana Mufson on Saturday, February 26,
2005.
and
TICKETHOLDERS
by Travis Michael Holder
Medea
Theatre @ Boston Court
To me, the gloriously-appointed Theatre @ Boston Court is the one to watch in Los Angeles, for not only do they repeatedly turn out stunningly lush productions celebrating the work of our town's best designers, they take creative chances no one else would imagine when starting a new theatrical enterpriseÑespecially in Pasadena, where the average age of Pasadena Playhouse subscription patrons is about 87. After the stubborn success of their inaugural season, which featured colorblind mountings of Romeo & Juliet set in Antebellum New Orleans and the Southern California debut of Charles L. Mee's Summertime, as well as the American premiere of Chay Yew's A Winter People, and the world premieres of Cold/Tender by Cody Henderson and Light by Jean-Claude van Italie, T@BC was honored with three Ovation Awards, an LA Weekly Award, a NAACP Award, and four current nominations from the LA Drama Critics Circle.
Beginning T@BC's second season is another triumph, the world premiere of Paul Roche's remarkable translation of Euripides' classic Medea, sharply directed by Stefan Novinski, who garnered LA Weekly Awards for his amazing Skin of Our Teeth at the Evidence Room last year and previously for Fen and Cosmonaut's Last Message at the Open Fist. To say this guy is an innovator in our culturally deprived city is a given, especially when he keeps topping himself again and again. On Donna Marquet's strikingly high-tech steel and concrete block professional kitchen set, the title character (Lisa Tharps, in another instance of bold casting) plots her revenge against her husband Jason (Andrew Borba), who is about to marry the king's daughter and send Medea off into exile with their two young sons. As the wedding banquet rages on in the adjacent unseen ballroom, the kitchen workers replace the traditional Greek Chorus behind Medea's rage as they dice cucumbers and prepare the appetizers, a concept which is a stroke of theatrical genius. Amid the stores of industrial-sized canned foods and the long bank of stovetops, under the ominous hanging hoods of florescent lighting and augmented by the sounds of the gleaming stainless cutlery that constantly chops and dices and portends of dastardly things to come, Medea conjures her infamous plot.
Novinski's rare Medea features uniformly genuine performances in both the large and smaller roles. Tharps is mesmeric throughout, segueing from incredible sorrow to exhausted humor to incredibly cold heartlessness in the silvery flash of that ominous butcher knife symbolically stuck in a cutting board, and Borba is especially moving after his spurned wife takes away everything he loves and Marquet's set has turned particularly Kafka-esque. Alaina Reed Hall uses her large voice to full effect as the Nurse, and a quartet of some of LA's best character men, Adam Gregor, Nick Salamone, Peter Trencher and Jeff Marlow, each make incredible points in brief appearances as, respectively, King Creon, Aegeus, the sons' tutor, and the poor messenger who must relate the details of Medea's murderous rampage to its very architect. Jonathan Biggs and Garrett Julian (alternating with Damante Ballard, Ryan Weltzien and Ryan Dozier) are sufficiently heartbreaking as the innocent doomed sons, but it's the women of that pioneering chorus of food preparersÑDiana Burbano, Jennifer Chu, Jennifer Pennington, Pamela Shaddock, Veronica Thompson and Eileen T'KayeÑwho are the backbone of this production. Their ever-varying and highly individual changes in attitude toward what they are watching unfold, their shifting body language and alternating looks of indignation, empathy and anguish, are what the audience identifies with the clearest. It is their simple, subtle expressions of humanity and horror that makes this incredibly powerful Medea so accessible to contemporary audiences.
The Theatre @ Boston Court is located at 70 N. Mentor, Pasadena. For tickets, call (626) 683-6883.
West
Southern CA February 23, 2005
Medea
Reviewed By Terry Morgan
Director Stefan Novinski has set his production of Euripides' tragedy in a large kitchen, and, as the show begins, we see the shiny metal of the sinks and the stoves, the white of the tile and the aprons worn by the workers as they chop vegetables and prepare dishes--a gleaming antiseptic hive of culinary activity. And then we hear the low, deep moans coming from what looks like a supervisor's office, moans that turn into bestial growls. Before a word is spoken, we know that something very bad is in that room.
However, when Medea (Lisa Tharps), resplendent in crimson attire, is finally enticed out by her concerned staff, she seems reasonable enough. The beast is at bay, for the moment. She has work to do: Her husband Jason (Andrew Borba) has betrayed her by leaving her to marry the King's daughter, after Medea has sacrificed much of her life to him. Vengeance is the order of the day, and before she is done Medea will turn that spotless kitchen into a charnel house.
Novinski's concept of setting the play in a big kitchen works visually and symbolically, and Paul Roche's world premiere translation is as clear and pointed as can be. Tharps is a marvel as Medea, eloquent in her rage in a thrillingly dynamic performance. Borba makes for a wonderfully condescending Jason, and his desolation at the play's end is powerful. Peter Trencher is quite amusing as the trusting Aegeus, and Jeff Marlow is fantastic, taking a relatively small part and performing it so well that his scene reverberates through the rest of the play. The rest of the cast is very good, but this is Tharps' show, and for two hours she owns that stage with ferocity and wit.
Mention must be made of Donna Marquet's outstanding set design: Anyone who hadn't been to the theatre before would assume that the set was entirely real and had been there for a long time. For those who feel like there's no life left in the old classics, check out this Medea: It's a killer.
ACCESSIBLY LIVE
The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena presents the Greek tragedy MEDEA, first penned by Euripides (c. 431 BC), and adapted & translated by Paul Roche, (along with making its contemporary world premier), is told in its original story line but set far from its Greek roots.
In the original tale, Medea had left her husband Jason, and had taken her two sons with her. When Jason later weds Glauce, the daughter of Creon, King of Corinth, Media feels betrayed and jealous, since Glauce is much younger that she. Seeking revenge, she slays her two sons. That is the basis of the story. In this version, the setting takes place in the modern kitchen of a large hotel. The wedding reception is taking place in the ballroom. Media, played by Lisa Tharps, is a robust woman and shows her anger toward all involved this demise. Andrew Borba plays Jason, who will be marring someone much younger. Adam Gregor is Creon, King Of Corinth, who attempts to banish Medea so she would not cause any injury to herself, or her sons.
This production is very unique in many ways. It tells an age-old tale of love, jealously, betrayal, and death, but within a modern stance. Media is seen as a middle aged African-American woman, who is earthy and shows that she means business! The dialogue is told in the original prose and holds true to its present day settings. But the real star of this show is the setting of an industrial kitchen portrayed on stage, complete with large stoves, sinks, cutting boards, and kitchen knives--big kitchen knives. The set design is the work of Donna Marquet.
The rest of the cast includes Alaina Reed Hall as the Nurse, Nick Salamone as the Tudor to the sons of Media, Peter Trencher as Segeus, King of Athens, Jeff Marlow as the Messigner, Damante Ballard, Jonathan Biggs, Garrett Julian, and Ryan Weltzien (rotating per performance) as Medan's sons, and Diana Burbano, Jennifer Chu, Jennifer Pennington, Pamela Shaddock, Veronica Thompson, and Eileen T'Kaye as the Greek Chorus, playing the kitchen staff!
Directed by Stefan Novinski, MEDEA holds up to today's world as if first did in Euripides' time. This production shows that one doesn't have to be tuned out for experiencing classic theatre. It's just the way that it's presented, and this presentation has it all! As with Greek tragedies, this tale does not hold a happy ending. That what makes theatre of this kind appealing to its final moments.
MEDEA performs at the Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 North Mentor Avenue (at Boston Court), Pasadena, until March 27th. Showtimes are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights @ 8:00 PM, and Sunday afternoons @ 3:00 PM. Reservations and information, call (626) 683-6883. Visit the web site at http://www.bostoncourt.org.
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ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE
(Vol. 10-No. 8-Week of February 21st, 2005)
THE BURBANK TIMES
Medea
at Theatre @ Boston Court
By C..S. Fowler
Director Stefan Novanski's Medea is staging at The Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor at Boston Court in Pasadena now through March 27, 2005. It's bound to be a hit!
Set in a hotel kitchen, Medea (Lisa Tharps) is "bigtime" ticked-off that Jason (Andrew Borba), the father of her sons, is marrying a trophy wife. As the wedding party celebrates, Medea plots her revenge and it ain't pretty. Quick, hide all the kitchen sharps!
Rounding out the cast is Damante Ballard, Diana Burbano, Jennifer Chu, Adam Gregor, Garrett Julian, Jeff Marlow, Jennifer Pennington, Nick Salome, Pamela Shaddock, Veronica Thompson, Eileen T'Kaye, Peter Trencher and Ryan Weltzien.
Alaina Reed Hall (Nurse) is pure talent with a kickin' voice.
Young Jonathan Biggs (as Jason & Medea's son), who has starred in some of his school's plays, is someone we're sure to see a lot more of in the future. He's articulate, respectful and sweet. Kudos to his parents!
Lisa Tharps' delivery of a Ôwoman scorned' is right onÉand much more.
Andrew Borba definitely pulled at a few heart strings!
For more information, or to purchase tickets, please call (626) 683-6883 or visit their website at: www.bostoncourt.org
Medea at Boston Court
By Gene Warech, Theater Reviewer
Her name is on the play's door, so if the Medea fills the bill then the rest, mostly, falls into line. Lisa Tharps is a striking woman. She is the lioness of a woman called for by the script - dangerous in her caress, acerbic in disputes, capable of anything. Beware this woman. She may be conflicted, especially about her children, but that makes her all the more dangerous.
Director Stafan Novinski plops the action into a hotel kitchen, which Doona Marquet has furnished in astonishing detail. Outside, in the hotel's gilded halls, Medea's ex Jason is smugly going to marry into royalty. He even has the gall to suggest that his royal marriage is for the protection of Medea and their children.
Inside, Medea wails and roars, with her female retainers clad in cook's duds Ð cooking in more than one sense. The kitchen setting is at leaset an interesting look, and resonated with the inferior drudgery expected of a women in this society Ð not this woman!
The children are present and playful. Their slaughter is explicit, you even see part of it, and their lifeless bodies are seen above a horrified Jason as the lioness Medea crouched over her lifeless brood. Andrew Borba is slick and bland as Medea's unfaithful mate, but when he is faced with the horrific revenge he builds his final grief to towering heights without reaching his limits. The nurse croons mournful gospel licks. All the cooks kick in from time to time, each adding their own anguish and pleading. The messenger, Jeff Marlow I believe (the program does no deign to provide a cast list), somehow makes logic out of a gruesome sight (the death of the trophy princess and her royal father) that he has come to report. Partucularly because of Tharps this is a non-stop kick in the guts. Through Mar. 27 at 70 North Mentor Ave. (at Boston Court) in Pasadena. For info and tickets: www.bonstoncourt.org.
Play's the thing, even in L.A.
By TOM SIME Staff Critic
Published March 16, 2005
Los Angeles is swarming with live theater. In the shadow of the movie business, plays are free-range chickens amid the big studios' factory farms.
Theater in Tinseltown has often been dismissed as a series of showcases for actors killing time between "industry" gigs and hoping only to see studio producers and casting directors in the audience. There's some truth to that, but there's also plenty of theater for its own sake. Insiders report that 20 to 25 professional productions open every week in Los Angeles.
The USC Annenberg/NEA Arts Journalism Fellowship in Theater and Musical Theater kept 25 critics from all over the country busy for nearly two weeks. We saw and wrote about theater, going over our reviews with writing coaches ranging from Broadway producer Jack Viertel to LA Weekly theater editor and playwright Steven Leigh Morris. We took acting, movement and playwriting workshops to foster empathy with those we review. We heard about theater's free-fall bottom line and countered with our own woeful tales of declining newspaper readership.
And we were all reminded why we love theater. Critics actually seem to love it more than theater artists, who are far pickier but don't tend to air their views in public. Ask any actor or director if he or she loves going to see other people's plays.
To see if a return visit changed our views, we saw Edward Albee's The Goat at the Mark Taper Forum twice. I'd already seen it in Houston, so this made three encounters. I came to like the play better, but its flaws grow all the more persistent and maddening with repeated viewing.
The classical works we saw proved most inspiring. Moliere's Tartuffe at the Actors' Gang in Hollywood was frenetic, inspired and utterly hilarious. Artistic director Tim Robbins giving the curtain speech added a touch of glamour. But it was P. Adam Walsh as Orgon who ruled the show with his unhinged improv humor. The moment when he dementedly clutched a hobbyhorse and warbled a tremulous "Wildfire" will remain with all of us forever. (Tartuffe runs through April 9; go to www.theactorsgang.com.)
Some of us - "we happy few" - skipped the Oscars broadcast to check out Sir Peter Hall's delightful production of Shakespeare's As You Like It with Sir Peter's daughter Rebecca Hall as Rosalind. The staging at the Ahmanson Theatre has drawn mixed reviews, but at least one visiting critic had his long-festering Shakespeare burnout completely cured. (The Goat runs through Sunday, As You Like It through March 27. Go to www.taperahmanson.com.)
An ambitious company in Glendale, A Noise Within, specializes in classical and early modern works presented in repertory in its multistory building, a former Masonic temple. While a great-looking Julius Caesar rehearsed upstairs, the critics were treated to perfectly rendered scenes from the company's recently closed production of Arthur Miller's The Price. Len Lesser, a regular on Everybody Loves Raymond and Seinfeld, was especially vivid as the elderly antique dealer. (Go to www.anoisewithin.org.)
Then there was Euripides' Medea at the Theatre at Boston Court in Pasadena, Calif. This world premiere of a new translation by Paul Roche - directed by Irving native Stefan Novinksi, who did some directing in Dallas in the mid-'90s and helped organize the Dallas Theater Center's Big D Festival of the Unexpected - proved conceptually brilliant. It takes place in a gleaming, super-realistic modern hotel kitchen, where Medea (Lisa Tharps) lurks, seeking vengeance against her estranged husband, who's getting married to a princess in the nearby ballroom.
Ms. Tharps' fierce lead performance is complemented by that of Alaina Reed Hall, familiar to viewers of Sesame Street and 227, as Medea's nurse. Ms. Hall's free-form gospel singing invests the choruses with hair-raising musicality.
And in a talk with Mr. Novinski, we learned that the flawless brushed-steel kitchen that looked like a million bucks was largely cobbled together from salvage. We heard how the enormous sink and counter had been wheeled down the street to the theater by hand after Mr. Novinski spotted it at a nearby demolition site.
That sort of resourcefulness is the mark of theater everywhere and shows why theater persists and thrives, even in a city where it would seem superfluous. If it's not extinct in L.A., it clearly never will be. (Medea runs through March 27. Go to www.bostoncourt.com.)
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