“Put Your House In Order” or Who’s That Knocking At Your Door?

When you find yourself laughing because you are nervous about what might happen next in Ike Holter’s new play, now in a world premiere production,  “Put Your House In Order” at the Mandell Weiss Forum semi circular space at The La Jolla Playhouse through June 30^th, it may or may not be a good sign for what’s to come.  

Holter’s play takes place outside of Caroline’s family’s (Shannon Matesky) fashionable Craftsman’ home in the burbs of Chicago, (Evanston, to be exact). What looks like a peaceful setting turns out in the end to be somewhat of a war zone.

Shannon Mateskyand Behzad Dabu

Early on, subtle hints and sounds move into, over and above the staged arena. Whirling helicopter blades, sirens flashing and trash strewn in the spacious back yard of Caroline’s parents manicured lawns becomes an every day occurrence for the residents. Caroline's  huge supply of water bottles and juice boxes in a cooler on the lawn will ultimately become necessary to hoard.  

Space invaders? Illegal aliens? Government takeover? Intimidation?

Billed as a millennial rom-com meets apocalyptic thriller, yours truly found that those phrases were way past her grade level. As Joe Friday, the character in a long ago TV series, “Dragnet” so often said, ‘Just give me the facts”, Ma’am’.

It may be a stretch of the imagination to compare the “House” in Chicago with “The House” in DC where another horror story is taking place, but it did pop into my mind. Separating the facts from the noise is getting to be a challenge these days. There are children locked up in cages, parents separated from their children, and a wall, a wall and a wall separating one country from another, and I could go on.  Could this be happening to the folks in Evanston as well?

‘Go know’ as they used to say in my old Worcester, Mass. neighborhood.

Behzad and Shannon Matesky

Two good looking millennia’s Caroline and Rolan are on a first, second or third date (depending on whose story you buy) in the backyard of her luxurious home trying to get to know one another, trust one another and or possibly bed each other.

From the outset any one of those scenarios could play out.  But a funny thing happened on the way their getting to know each other. Romance turned to thriller, thriller turned to horror and God knows what else.   

Sooner rather than later, Caroline’s neighbor Josephine (an eery looking wild eyed Linda Libby) comes calling with bags of groceries for Caroline’s fridge. Josephine knows a bit about Caroline’s family. She also knows that her parents have been gone from the house for some time so she brings food from her fridge to theirs.  

She tells them that food on the outside is scarce, which Caroline already knew.  Something weird was happening. Josephine notices that Caroline and Rolan (a very cute Behzad Dabu) are pretty much in the middle of a challenge bolting the yard gate from allowing anything or anyone from coming in and possibly going out. News flash! All is not well outside the gates.

Lot’s of noise happens, panic overcomes the three after Josephine returns from a trip outside to visit her kids in the city. Returning, she looked like she came back from playing war games, and with an insatiable thirst… and wild stories.

Her bicycle was smashed (she used it as a weapon, says she) and she was almost delirious. To touch her, or not to touch her was the question for both Caroline and Rolan? We never know what her condition is but it doesn’t go away and it might possibly be contagious.

At this point in time, well into the play, trying to figure out what the hell was happening became a major theme that played out until play’s end. What was it? You be the judge. Who are the ‘they’ causing the unrest?  Don’t know!  You can, if you wish imagine the spookiest, the most destructive, the weirdest, and leave the rest to the imagination. Mine went there for a Nano –second and then I decided, no way. 

I’m comfortable with the scary of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” or “Psycho” or “North By Northwest”…you get the picture. At least I can bite my fingernails and know that soon it will be over. In Holter’s play, I went in knowing nothing and came out knowing even less, scratching my head trying to figure out what I had just seen. I was kind of hoping for the romance to get a bit more heated. But then again I am a romantic. I usually don't delve into the supernatural of the  first second or third encounter. 

Shannon Matesky and ?

No fault with the acting. It was intense, credible and age appropriate. Libby, Dabu and Matesky all convincing but I found Ms. Matesky’s speech patterns difficult to follow. Lili-Anne Brown’s direction manages to weave both suspense and horror throughout. The fear factor was much more convincing than the romance. Sigh!

The set, what I could see of it from my vantage point looked (Arnel Sancianco) great. The loud and original music and sound effects (Victoria Deiorio) might serve well those with head -sets blaring in their ears all day as in the young millennial who might already have hearing loss, I found it too loud.

The lighting with flashing red lights (Amanda Zieve) drove me to distraction and some projections seen on the set at the opening were out of my sight lines, so no comment.  

The buzz after the show was most interesting, comparing shows like The ‘Walking Dead’, Zombies, and Aliens ‘from out of space’, “Invasion of The Body Snatchers”, or “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind” to this latest incarnation of horror, but my limited knowledge kept me out of the conversation.

I moved on to a safer place well out of Caroline’s ‘neighborhood’s firing line. I went to the Gelato line.

Playwright Holler and this new ‘thriller’ of his, leaves much to be desired with too little information and not enough fear factor to cover one’s eyes, However if you are so inclined, do drop in, and give it a try.

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through June 30th

Organization: The La Jolla Playhouse

Phone: 858-560-1010

Production Type: Romance Thriller

Where: 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla CA,

Ticket Prices: Start at $39.00

Web: lajollaplayhouse.org

Venue: Mandell Weiss Forum

Photo: Jim Carmody

“A Walk In The Woods” Still Resonates Thirty Something Years Later.

The shortest distance between two points is a “Walk In The Woods”. Call it fortuitous. In 1983 a Soviet diplomat and an American diplomat met in Geneva, Switzerland to try to work out an arms treaty satisfactory to all parties. Instead of sitting across a long formal table from one another, they strolled in the woods alone, where they tried to chisel out an agreement that would slow down or limit the proliferation of nuclear missiles aimed at one another.

Both countries have enough nuclear weapons to wipe everyone off the face of the earth. 

To paraphrase Tevye the milkman, when his fellow citizens of Anatevka wanted to get even with the Czar for causing Pogroms, they shouted ‘an eye for an eye’. To that end Tevye replied, “And we’ll all be blind and toothless”.

David Ellenstein and J. Todd Adams 

Playwright Lee Blessings notes the idea for the came from a real life incident he read about in an article in1982. At that time playwrights were urged to step out of the familiar family type plays and venture into something more provoking. So he did!

Pulitzer Prize winning “A Walk In The Woods” was produced at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1987 under the direction of then, artistic director Des McAnuff. Yours truly was privileged to have seen it twice then and still marvel at the currency of the topic over the years, where today we are still negotiating the same treaties, only now with the same and other adversaries and no end in sight for the number of missiles any one country might have. Imagine the implications?

This important play is now in an exceptionally well acted, well crafted and well directed production as staged by Richard Baird, at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach through June 23^rd.

Ellenstein and Adams

North Coast’s artistic director David Ellenstein is the Russian, Andrey Botvinnik and J. Todd Adams is John Honeyman, the American diplomat. For two hours on stage they do diplomacy, not behind closed doors, but in a wooded area in Geneva Switzerland. Blessing gives the gift; the cast and crew do the rest.

The talks take place over the course of one year. With the four seasons represented by changes in weather as in Matt Novotny’ lighting, Michael Roth’s original music, Elisa Benzoni costume changes and of course Marty Burnett’s serene set design with floor to ceiling birch trees and one lonely bench. Taken as a whole, they give a clear understanding that peace talks do no happen in a vacuum or overnight.   

Both men approach their diplomacy and bargaining powers according to personalities: The American Honeyman (J. Tod Adams) is uptight, no nonsense, no humor, actually no personality type.

Botvinnik (Ellenstein) the more experienced tries to soften his counterpart by putting a little humor into the meetings, (“They know I make jokes) and or changing the subject that absolutely gets Honeyman’s goat.

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Botvinnik’s personality and distractions are clear to seasoned deal makers by changing the subject to catch your opponent off guard or perhaps that’s just the nature of his personality. He talks about clothes styles, Italian shoes, their favorite music, Disneyland and finally suggesting that they become friends. This completely unnerves Honeyman.  

H: “Is it good do you think for arms negotiators to be friends?”

B: “Someone has to.”

Ellenstein stepped out of his usual title as Artistic Director to don his actor’s hat for this role. His first love was/is acting and following in his famous father’s footsteps became an actor, a teacher and now for the past 12 + years has been artistic director of North Coast Rep.

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This towering hulk of a man has his personality etched clearly in his face; the twinkle in his eyes, the way he is comfortable in his own body and his body language talks volume’s.  

Don't be misled by outside appearances though, just because you can read one's face doesn’t mean you can read one's mind. As the senior negotiator dealing with the American, he can come across as a softie, a father image, a favorite uncle, but deep down he is just a cynical as his counterpart.

B: “We don’t trust you.”

H: “You don’t trust us?”

B: “Do you trust us?”

B: “Even if there were checks on the checks on the checks, we wouldn’t trust them.”

Adams’ Honeyman has a hard time convincing Andrey that they can make a deal. Even with his stiff shield around him one can see his reluctance, but on several instances falls in line with Andrey’s games, by playing some of the silly small talk. Actually, he has no choice. We can also see him almost coming in to his own and breaking his stiff upper lip, thanks to Adams’ fine acting and Baird’s robust direction.

In the end, both believed that something was better than nothing and a deal was reached between the two alternating rivals. When the deal was proposed it was rejected by the powers that be…Moscow and Washington. 

Sitting on the one lonely bench in that wood or pacing in the woods that Marty Burnett constructed, and letting the light give rise to hope, hope shone through, and after a quiet moment, both exit the woods. Some thirty years later,  we are still negotiating.

What we do know is that two men took the road not taken and that made all the difference back then. A deal was reached and rejected through no fault of their own.

Credit director Richard Baird for his evenhandedness balancing humor and serious talk giving way to the enormous job in front of them and making it look like a Sunday walk in the woods.

By giving each actor just enough juice to present themselves as true to form negotiators based on all the records of that time in history, Blessings’ “Walk” should be a guide to all future negotiators: Get away from the table and walk and talk. Most folks are capable of doing that. Well…for the most part.

Was their time in the woods an exercise in futility? I think not. Whenever one can take time to know another, it’s time well spent. Does every friendship strike a slap on the back and go forward? Not really. But changing the dynamic, and accepting that change can be a good thing might even work.  What we need now is for some of the bad actors get out of the way of the real life negotiators and let them do their jobs.

A must see.

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through June 23rd

Organization: North Coast Repertory Theatre

Phone: 858-4811055

Production Type: Drama

Where:  987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach, CA 92075

Ticket Prices: Start at $49.00

Web: northcoastrep.org

Photo: Aaron Rumley

Tom Zohar Hits It “Out” in Diversionary “Significant Other”

Being the third, fourth or fifth cog in the friendship wheel of friends, sucks. Not that Jordan Berman (Tom Zohar) is just anybody in Joshua Harmon’s “Significant Other”, now in a San Diego Premier at Diversionary through June 23^rd.

No! He's Vanessa, Laura and Kiki’s best friend, but Laura is his BFF. The foursome work together like a quartet, in harmony. They did everything, including being one time roomies at one time.

Andrea Agosto, Tom Zohar, Megan Carmitchel and Jamie Criss

In the beginning, everyone was over the moon celebrating Kiki’s (Jamie Criss) up coming marriage. (“When I was looking, I never found anyone… and then I woke up one morning, and I was like, I’m a genius. I’m gorgeous. I’m amazing.”)

Then there was Vanessa’s (Andreá Agosto) wedding, and then there were two. But it was OK because Jordan had his bud, Laura (Megan Carmitchel)  “We should just marry each other.”

They even planned a family together in one of their moments of fantasy- gay guy marrying straight woman with turkey baster as the conduit. Funny? I know, but Jordan loved Laura about as deeply as any one could love another. In fact he was actually affronted, more like over the top, pissed when she didn’t ask him to be one her brides-mates at her now up-coming wedding. 

Tom Zohar and Brian Banville

And Jordan? He wants a significant other, but needy, neurotic and insecure, self- pitying and passive aggressive are not exactly qualities others are looking for in a date, let alone a permanent partner/significant other. (“I hate being a person. I wish I was a rock, you know? Or anything.  A Salamander. Dental floss. Rain.”)

His three buds counsel him on how to act/react to his sought after gay work buddy Will (Brian Banville), and they listen with bated breath as he describes watching the water trickle down Will’s body after a dip in the pool, or his going out of his way to find a World War II movie to take him to on a planned date, so he chose a movie about the Franco-Prussian War.  Will was reading a book on Pearl Harbor (Jordan’s choice was ‘kinda Pearl-Harbor-esque)

Next we see him with a box of size 12 forest green, Converse sneakers (he keeps in a box on his overly collectable’s shelves designed by Justin Humphries), the same one’s Will wore, so why not idolize a pair of forest green size 12 Converse?

Tom Zohar and Dagmar Krause Fields

Harmon, whose “Bad Jews” (I found offensive then, and still do) ran at Cygnet a few years ago, had Zohar playing one of the protagonists in that San Diego Premiere.

Zohar has been elevated in “Significant Other” to outperforming, in director Anthony Methvin’s already excellent cast by just staying power, as he gives a ‘tour de force’ performance especially in the second act when he really lets Laura know what’s on his mind about his not being in her wedding.

Let’s just say he was not very ingratiating or congratulatory. In fact Jordan goes on and on and on; nothing less than a spoiled child, thinking of only himself and his own feelings as he corners Laura about not being one of her brides maids. But that monologue is Zohar’s piece de resistance! No standing ovation, but extremely well recieved.

Tom Zohar and Wil Bethmann

While I have more than praises for Methvin’s direction, Zohar’s point on Jordan Berman’s ego -centric persona, Brian Banville’s (Will/Conrad/Tony) roles of male objectives, Wil Bethmann’s Zach/Evan/Tony in the other smaller male roles, Dagmar Krause Fields’ wonderful turn as Jordan’s supportive but lost in another century grandmother, and Jordan’s three significant and perfectly positioned girlfriends (also of the self -centered ME generation), the play itself didn’t tickle my funny bone as it did other’s on opening night.

Harmon’s 2015 “Significant Other” is too repetitive, bloated, wanna be funnier that it is,  talky and self-serving, somewhat dated with TMI confessions (K: “For a second I thought I just peed.”) and is in need of shortening, say about twenty minutes worth. As it was it drew many more laughs than it otherwise might have under different circumstance. No doubt, almost all in the audience come from different experiences than yours truly. 

Andrea Acosta, Tom Zohar

Some of the goings -on are, in fact funny as when the three dance in celebration (Katie Banville- movement coordinator) of and for each others’ good fortune, and the fast repartee of knowing someone well enough to pass judgment and well meaning criticism, or having a song-a-long to Céline Dion’s “Because You Love Me”, or the poignancy as when Jordan calls his besties to give them an update on his latest thoughts, and finds himself unable to reach anyone at home because they are out doing their thing, and he’s alone.

J: “I wish we still lived together.” L: “Grownups live alone.”  J: “We’re grownups, I forget that.” 

Can the same be said about single women living alone or choosing marriage and family over singlehood, or looking for her bestie or significant other or entering into the fray of the feminist movement? OH! I forget Wendy Wasserstein opened those door eons ago.

Megan Carmitchell and Tom Zohar

Oft times its hard to remember that long ago when one of my friends thoughtlessly reminded me, after I lost my husband, “It’s a couples world.” Some things never change, but in this changing world, it’s OK to be alone, if you like yourself. It’s also OK to have a significant other if it’s Bershet. 

Costume designer Elisa Benzoni’s period clothes and Melanie Chen Cole’s sound with ever changing the background look of Joel Britt’s lighting design gives “Significant Other” a fine way to end season 33 of the only ‘significant’ LGBTQ community theatre in the San Diego area.

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through June 23rd

Organization: Diversionary Theatre

Phone: 619-220-0097

Production Type: Comedy

Where: 4545 Park Blvd., San Diego, CA 92116

Ticket Prices: Start at $15.00

Web: diversionary.org

Photo: Simpatika