EVERYBODY'S GOT ONE 

by TRAVIS MICHAEL HOLDER  

"Critics watch a battle from a high place then come down to shoot the survivors."   ~ Ernest Hemingway   

Photo by Ashley Erikson 

THROUGH JUNE 29: Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St., Burbank. www.colonytheatre.org

Photo by Jeff Lorch 

Mark Taper Forum

All I can say is they I must have better drugs than the rest of my colleagues. Playwright/director Robert O’Hara’s irreverent adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, commissioned and developed right here by the Center Theatre Group and now world premiering at the Taper, has been almost unanimously eviscerated by my fellow members of the LA press community—and I cannot possibly disagree more.

“This is a fucked-up place right here,” a character comments about the proceedings early on, an observation I personally found tremendously promising.

If there’s anything about this production I might have qualms about, it’s the title. If there are any potential patrons out there who aren't familiar with the work of O’Hara, they might think they’re about to see a traditional mounting of one of our most familiar classics, not realizing they’re about to see the title character going down on his Ophelia at first lights-up or watch him push the face of his on-the-side boytoy Horatio into his crotch, giving a whole new meaning to asking his bestie to “Swear on my sword” and “Play on my pipe.”

Later, in a conversation with Ophelia during the time when their mutual love interest has been shipped off to England, he tells her Hamlet has sent him letters too—and in iambic pentameter.

“Oh yeah,” she agrees, “that’s kinda his thing.”

I’ve heard a couple of remarks that ol’ Will must be spinning in his 409-year-old grave thanks to O’Hara’s assault on tradition, but I suspect it would be the contrary; I’m not entirely sure that often bawdy and sly ol’ Bard didn’t have this exact same thing in mind way back in 1599. I’ll bet he’d applaud this bold and unhallowed interpretation but then, as old as I am, despite rumors suggesting otherwise I actually never met the guy.

Still, maybe it would have been better if O’Hara’s revision had been titled Hamlet Redux or Hamlet Deconstructed so everyone interested would instantly know they weren’t seeing a stripped-down version told in two hours without an intermission and that the production’s last third turns out to be an all-new and rather comedic riff on the original.

Although the final third suddenly morphs into an investigation of the pile of bodies stacked up at final curtain led by one Inspector Fortinbras (played by Joe Crest, who also impressively doubles as the Oz-like projected head of Hamlet’s Ghost) that becomes an inventive crossover between Columbo and The Pink Panther, while the first two-thirds of O’Hara’s Inappropriate Night’s Dream remain a CliffNotes version of the tale.

The story is here filtered through what we see as a darkly atmospheric old film noir produced by something called the Elsinore Picture Corporation, a device further conjured by the production’s incredible design aspects. Clint Ramos’ grandly sweeping yet classically austere set design becomes the quintessential blank canvas for Yee Eun Nam’s moody and often jarring (and certainly potentially award-winning) projections, Lap Chi Chu’s starkly spectral lighting, and Lindsay Jones’ often unearthly sound and original music.

As Hamlet, someone another character observes “thinks he is in a Shakespeare play,” Patrick Ball (an actor unknown to me but makes my now want to start streaming The Pitt) bravely takes on a role even the most seasoned of thespians are reluctant to tackle because of all the pitfalls that most actors, regardless of their station, can fall into headfirst. It usually requires an enormous ego for anyone to play the emotionally tortured Prince of Denmark, but Ball finds a fascinating new accessibility in the character without looking as though his performance is more ego-driven than heartfelt.

His task is aided considerably by O’Hara’s decision to give Hamlet’s familiar soliloquies a fresh new twist, interspersing Ball’s delivery by alternating passages in echoing voiceovers. It’s as though Hamlet is in a conflicted conversation with his irresolute subconscious and the result is riveting.

Gina Torres is also a major standout as his mother Gertrude, giving a solid weight to the often fanciful and melodramatic ambiance O’Hara adopts in his direction, and Coral Pena adds an exciting street-smartness to her lusty, vaping Ophelia, who at one point sardonically proclaims she has no intention of marrying a Prince who’s “thirty-something and still in film school.”

Hakeem Powell is endearing as the passed-around Horatio (“Everyone’s fucking Horatio,” Ophelia observes), soliciting a collective awwww from the audience when he speculates his relationship with Hamlet seems to be doomed. Fidel Gomez is hilarious as the Gravedigger who constantly corrects his job title as “Groundskeeper and occasionally Gravedigger,” while Ty Molbak and Danny Zuhlke provide more comic relief as Dumb and Dumber-inspired Rosencrantz and Guilenstern.

I would have easily added this ensemble cast to my possibilities for end-of-the-years honors except for the unnecessarily hammy and bellowing performance of Ariel Shafir as Claudius and Ramiz Monsef’s slapstick Polonius, which I found indulgent and unwatchable in a Jimmy Fallon sorta way.

There are so many things to praise about O’Hara’s delightfully heretical reinvention, something surely expected for anyone who remembers his Bootycandy or his Tony-nominated direction of the controversial Slave Play a few seasons back.

Here, Hamlet shouts out to Alexa to play music to accompany a rap version of the First Player’s monologue (a showstopping turn by Jaime Lincoln Smith) and when Hamlet is asked as he sits staring at his cellphone, “What do you read, my lord?”, the original “Words, words, words” is again the perfect answer.

I understand how some purists are shocked and offended by Robert O’Hara’s borderline blasphemous vision of one of the most well-known theatrical milestones, but I was all ready for it. Even perhaps the most famous line in any play in the history of theatre is not spared here.

“To be or not to be?” a character sarcastically slams. “That’s not a question… it’s a statement.”

THROUGH JULY 6: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Av., LA. 213.628.2772 or CenterTheatreGroup.org

Photo by Jason Williams 

Skylight Theatre Company

Recently in my review of A Doll’s House, Part 2 at Pasadena Playhouse, I mentioned if asked to name the best of the exciting new generation of playwrights whose work I felt will stand the test of time, Lucas Hnath would definitely be among them. Also high on the list for me would be Roger Q. Mason, a rule-defying and fearless wordsmith I believe is one of the best and boldest theatre artists of our time.

It seems especially clear that Mason could easily be identified as a direct descendant of the innovative and death-defying spirit of Tennessee Williams in his later days—you know, that time when Tenn explored deeply impudent topics and adopted a lyrical style that backfired for him and caused everybody to insist the last century’s best dramatist had lost his touch. I steadfastly then and still believe he was simply way ahead of his time.

I don’t often begin a review by mentioning the work of the director. In this case, however, Jessica Hanna deserves an early shout out. The main influence that turned the critics and the public against Williams was a major career-defining moment in his work which happened just prior to the creation of The Night of the Iguana. It was at that point in his celebrated career that he began his lifelong feud with his great mentor and collaborator, master director Eli Kazan. Without Kazan at his side to help corral so many diverse flashes of thought and the genius of Williams into a cohesive narrative, his plays were all over the place.

Fascinating as their journey may be, I suspect from what I’ve seen that Roger Q. Mason can occasionally get lost in their themes and strikingly contemporary poetry. Like a modernday Kazan, in helming Mason’s Hide & Hide, now in its world premiere at the Skylight, Hanna has proven herself to be the perfect accomplice to help them frame their thoughts and ideas and make it all more accessible. Together, Mason and Hanna are posterchildren for what this kind of electric artistic collaboration can bring to fruition.

Hide & Hide could go sparking off into so many different directions but between Hanna’s inventive staging and the incredibly creative lighting design by Brandon Baruch, Mason’s continuous flashes of genius are both glorified and yet contained in a way that’s as important to the storytelling as the writing itself.

Set in the darkest shadows of Los Angeles’ often harsh Land of Unequal Opportunity in the 1980s, Constanza (Amielynn Abellera) and Billy (Ben Larson) are both newly arrived outsiders to our world of potential plenty, she a bright and educated Filipina here illegally and wary of deportation, he a teenage runaway escaping from a Texas gay conversion camp surviving on the mean streets as a rentboy.

The two meet at the infamous now-defunct Studio One nightclub in West Hollywood and form an unlikely bond, forged from their mutual need to find their individual though highly diverse identities, their universal struggle to be free, and their pursuit of the illusive American Dream—something in 2025 which now sadly seems more an ancient myth than anything attainable except in the rarest of cases.

Their possible quick fix is a shaky one as they enter into a sham marriage that will give Constanza her citizenship and offer Billy some desperately needed stability. It’s a solution that's clearly doomed when viewed by an audience hardened to the facts of life some 45 years in the future and compounded by the dastardly dealings of a destructive ego-maniac intent on destroying our country and banishing the term “Land of the Free” for all time to come.

Abellera is stunning not only as our rapidly crumpling heroine slowly losing all sense of self-worth, but in a series of side characters, including her greedy aunt advising her how to make her fortune as she did by giving up her ideals and as Ricky, a sleazy lawyer and human trafficer who drains everything he can get from Constanza, including her self-respect, and takes advantage of Billy’s youth and any scrap of dignity he has left.

Larson, a recent graduate of USC’s School of Dramatic Arts, makes an auspicious professional LA stage debut as the sweet and compromised kid from the boonies who can turn in a heartbeat into a potentially savage caged animal ready and willing to strike. With a little more seasoning, opportunity, and encouragement, Larson will certainly grow into an actor I for one will be excited to watch evolve.

Hanna’s sharply choreographed staging makes the actors’ lightning-speed transitions between characters and the places they inhabit cleverly accessible, again complimented by Baruch’s arresting lighting plot, set designer Christopher Scott Murillo’s stark vision of an eerily dystopic Los Angeles, and Amelia Anello’s excellent and often discordant sound.

Mason’s writing is gritty, bold, and often downright hilarious, never losing sight of the message that anyone outside of society’s norm in our culture has a continuous uphill battle to keep their head above the ever-encroaching waves. While the overworked concept of the American Dream originally promised an ethos that every person in our poor maligned country had the right to personal freedom and the opportunity to attain a better life, Hide & Hide reminds us that such a once-perfect ideal has twisted and devolved into an ugly grab for wealth, power, and social mobility, leaving far too many worthy individuals ready to give up and take a midnight walk into those very waves that taunt us all relentlessly.

*  *  *

I would also like to share an essay here sparked by Hide & Hide written by H. A. Eaglehart, my life partner and prolific wordsmith in his own right. Interesting that Hugh also immediately saw the connection between Roger and Tennessee Williams, and so completely and passionately observed the importance of a voice so near—and yet so far—from his own. This isn’t meant as another review of the play, yet there are significant crossovers here I thought readers would find interesting. It’s wondrous how similarly—and differently—art can impact each of us:

Every year traveling across Navajo Nation in tour coach buses packed full of 12-year-olds eager to raft the Colorado River, the ninos always ask me why I left my homeland. “Where you live matters,” is always my answer. If I wasn't living in Los Angeles, it wouldn't be possible to take 12-year-old Angelenos to the last place in America still free, almost the last place still clinging to pride. Pride and freedom walk hand in hand with Navajo.

Playwright Roger Q. Mason wrote a play Hide and Hide, which just opened at the Skylight Theatre in Hollywood. I highly recommend seeing this production. The story takes place in Los Angeles and in my personal opinion it's influenced by the work of Tennessee Williams in many ways. My only qualm with the play is I'm tired of theatre and film portraying Los Angeles as a dangerous place for youth.

Everywhere is dangerous for humans, period, and in many places like Boulder Colorado, Palestine, or Ukraine it's a lot more dangerous for children. I'm tired of Los Angeles being portrayed as this place lacking in values and creating a horrific void hungrily devouring innocent people left and right. Give me a break. Some of the most wholesome down-to-earth folks I know live in Los Angeles and almost all of the awful people I know wear red ball caps and live in Middle America.

Hide & Hide has a Midwest character traumatized from an exploratory experience at a summer camp while growing up. Seeking an identity leads him to LA where he is further taken advantage of. Roger, the playwright, gives this character a jaw-dropping monologue at the end of the play which brilliantly reflects Tennessee's line in The Night of the Iguana as Shannon attempts to “take the long swim to China.”

I would love an honest play based in the reality depicting the real Los Angeles as a place where kids are allowed to be kids and explore the epitome of self-discovery without being subjected to the self-hatred destroying the rest of this country and planet. If the character in Roger’s play had gone to Griffith Park Boys Camp back in that summer of his youth, there would have been no stigma to create the trauma embodied within him.

The first chapter of my autobiography, Urban Native: the Musings of a Queer Navajo Cowboy in Hollywood, states I'm sick of Los Angeles being stigmatized as the Throne of Satan, while America's Heartland gets portrayed as Andy Griffith's Mayberry despite its residents busily doing the devil’s work by reelecting Trump to once again legalize gay conversion therapy summer camps. I want a play where Los Angeles is portrayed in the role normally given to small town America steeped in common sense and good old values, while the evil role full of debauchery always pinned on LA instead gets handed to small town America. I mean, Griffith Park Boys Camp actually has “Griffith” in the name, for crying out loud! Where do you think they filmed The Andy Griffith Show? North Carolina?

It's not bragging to talk about the amount of success we are having in experiential education right now. We're designing after school programs, creating outdoor adventure departments, impacting thousands of kids every month, and building new challenge courses in SoCal at historic rates. We are almost to the point where kids in Los Angeles have more access to outdoor adventure programming than kids who live in rural states. This is why I currently do not live on the Navajo Nation, because I can champion my people's values more loudly in Hollywood.

Normally I'm not into Pride parades—and you could say this is hilarious considering where we live. This year is different, however, as so much hate is brewing across the world against LGBTQ rights. The LA Pride Parade is the oldest Pride event in the world and Travis and I live inside the rectangle of the parade route. I couldn't be more proud of my mailing address than I am right now, because there's nothing more hated by Trump's voting goons than a big giant Pride Parade broadcast around the world.

There are photographs of newlywed Navajo gay couples predating the Civil War, meaning Shiprock, New Mexico has got Los Angeles and New York beat by centuries when it comes to LGBTQ rights. And I was born in one place and have lived in the other two. How gay is that? My mom remembers when she was in high school and the Shiprock HS basketball ball team, the Chieftains, would champion the LGBTQ community during home games. Whenever off-reservation white high school teams came to play against the Chieftains in Shiprock (where I was born), all the Navajo would attend holding hands with someone of the same sex. Even heterosexual Navajo would attend holding hands with other heterosexuals. The Evangelical parents of the white team players were always horrified, which made the Navajo community very happy.

Fun fact: the first challenge course I ever worked on is at the Shiprock High School in New Mexico and the first summer camp where I became the challenge course manager is in Hollywood, CA. This is why I say it matters where you live.

THROUGH JUNE 29: Skylight Theatre, 1816½ N. Vermont Av., LA. www.skylighttheatre.org/hide-and-hide 

Photo by Jeff Lorch 

Pasadena Playhouse

Playwright Lucas Hnath has a lot of nerve.

And he’s also fucking brilliant.

It demands a kind of tightrope walker’s chutzpah to take one of the most celebrated and rule-changing classic dramas of the last century-and-a-half and write a sequel that’s brash, timeframe fluid, and surprisingly, at times, downright hilarious.

It was December 21, 1879 at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen when Henrik Ibsen’s favorite leading lady, Betty Hennings, first slammed the door of her family’s home as Nora Helmer in the master playwright’s revolutionary A Doll’s House and almost overnight changed the course of modern drama—if not provided the spark that flamed the advent of women’s rights around the world.

Nora is a frustrated, unfulfilled provincial Norwegian housewife existing in a completely male-dominated society and no one before Ibsen had the audacity to present what a dismal and unacceptable condition that was. When she at the end of the play walks out on her rigid and controlling banker husband and three young children, the shock from the public everywhere the play was presented was universally so intense that one theatre where it debuted was torched and burned to cinders by the outraged patrons who could not imagine a world where any woman would ever consider doing such a thing.

What Hnath has envisioned as a sequel to A Doll’s House is revolutionary in an all-new way, imagining Nora (bravely overplayed by Elizabeth Reaser) returning to her former home 15 years later to confront her husband Torvald (Jason Butler Harner) after she discovered he had never filed for divorce.

At a time when a single unmarried woman basically had the choice of either being a servant or a prostitute, Nora instead adopted a pseudonym and has become a successful author of feminist-ish literature expounding the virtues of members of the fairer sex as freethinking individuals not “beholding of all these bad rules” and blasting the virtues of the marital state.

“I’ve signed contracts,” she proudly declares to her shocked ex and the loyal housekeeper (Kimberly Scott) who stayed behind to raise her abandoned kinder. “I’ve done business on my own and I have had lovers—several.”

Hnath has created a perfect scenario for Nora to continue her quest and has thrusted her story beyond what has become known throughout theatrical history as the “slam heard ‘round the world”—and director Jennifer Chang has intensified the scrutiny of her behavior by placing extra audience members in courtroom-style bleachers placed upstage behind the actors on designer Wilson Chin’s austere minimalist set.

Harner gets a hearty laugh as he deadpans to his long-absent wife, “We should talk.” And talk they do, in a splendid scene where both sides of their disastrous time together are shared, a place where Hnath makes his most glaring revelation by speculating that as bad as it may have been for Nora for 15 years struggling in the cold and heartless misogynistic outside world, what she left behind at her prison of a home was a whole lot worse.

Torvald threatens to expose Nora by letting the world know she is the secret author of her controversial books, but she also now has something on him. “Ruin me,” she taunts, “but this time if you do it, you will be a part of it.”

Reaser and Harner are especially good when sparing with one another, while Scott’s lusty f-word spouting yet fiercely loyal nanny is a tremendous standout in this smoothly intrepid cast of four. Kahyun Kim is impressive in her one scene as Nora’s grown estranged daughter, someone who in contrast seems ready to set her sights on the bourgeois lifestyle her mother finds impossible to embrace.

As fine as these gifted actors are in these roles, however, I think the credit for what makes this cast such a cohesive ensemble must go to Chang’s spot-on staging. Every movement, every sharp head turn, every gesture appears to have been highly choreographed and well rehearsed, making the rapidfire risk-taking by the actors viable because their visionary director has obviously completely gained their trust. It is simply remarkable achievement in direction.

If anyone asked me to name five dramatists writing today I’d expect to make the biggest Ibsen-Chekhov-O’Neill-Williams-esque noise in the future, Lucas Hnath would definitely feature prominently on my list. It’s quite a triumph to match and successfully modernize the voice of Henrik Ibsen without sounding either as dour or as preachy as the original. The Guggenheim Fellowship honored Hnath, whose work has already received an Obie, an Outer Critics Circle and a Lucille Lortel Award, as well as a Tony nomination as Best Play for this stunning Part 2, is already well on his way.

The other future notoriety sure to be attached to this production is where it’s playing. A Doll’s House, Part 2 was commissioned by and world premiered here at South Coast Rep in April of 2017, with a second production opening on Broadway later that same month which received eight Tony nominations, winning Best Actress honors for Laurie Metcalf in the demanding role of Nora.

Now, after many other regional productions, this new innovative incarnation keeps the glorious resurrection of Pasadena Playhouse steadily on the rise. Its opening night on Sunday, May 18, also marked the 100th anniversary to the day of the original opening of the incredible Playhouse building itself, as well as serving as a celebration since the ownership of the grand Spanish Colonial Revival structure has finally returned to Playhouse leadership control for the first time in 17 years.

For me, this is a monumental achievement made more special and sentimental since the long-defunct Pasadena Playhouse College of the Theatre Arts is my alma mater, the place where I happily spent the most inspirational time in my educational journey way back in the mid-1960s.

The memories whenever I walk onto the Playhouse’s cobblestone plaza are always many and fond—and it does my heart good that so many others in the future will be able to find or refine the same indelible bond with the wonder of live performance as I did there. It is something for me that, 60 years later, remains one of the most palpable components of what makes the compromised world around us all seem not altogether doomed.

THROUGH JUNE 8: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Av., Pasadena. 626.356.PLAY or pasadenaplayhouse.org 

Photo by Evan Zimmerman 

Ahmanson Theatre / Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s international Booker Prize-winning novel and Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning film Life of Pi is not really the star of this multi-award-winning production, which has settled in nicely at the Ahmanson and later will be moving on to the Segerstrom Center through mid-June to dazzle Southland children of all ages.

Originating and garnering immediate success in London in 2019, Life of Pi has since gone on to be awarded five of the West End’s Olivier Awards, including Best New Play, Best Scenic Design, and Best Lighting, as well as three Tony Awards, four Drama Desk Awards, and two Outer Critics Circle Awards when the massive production reached New York in 2023. What makes this production something for everyone to enjoy is not the script or the performances, however, but the phenomenal puppetry and design elements that were the major recipients of most of those well-deserved honors.

Life of Pi is the story of a teenage boy (a marathon turn by Taha Mandviwala) migrating with his politically displaced family and their crated zoo animals from Pondicherry, India to Canada to start a new life when a storm sinks their cargo ship in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. Aside from Pi, the only other survivors of the disaster are a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450-lb. Royal Bengal Tiger called Richard Parker (so named due to a mix up on shipping labels).

As the animals are systematically and quite graphically dispatched in the usual survival-of-the-fittest manner, Pi is left with the most formidable and fearsome of predatory adversaries: Richard Parker himself.

In the demanding leading role, Mandviwala is sensational. According to his program bio, the young actor’s direction has been as a movement artist and to say that’s clearly apparent here is an understatement. If he were to be honored with any kind of recognition in this exhaustively demanding role, playing a pivotal character who literally never leaves the stage or for that matter ever stops moving, he could certainly be recognized for his stamina and unearthly athleticism.

This is something not said as a detriment to his exceptional performance, but his physical presence and abilities are assets that overshadow nearly everything in this production aside from the visual achievements. If nothing else, at the end of this extensive North American national tour next October, Mandviwala should at least be awarded with a long and restful vacation, perhaps at that Thai wellness resort where this season’s White Lotus was set—as long as Gary promises to leave him alone.

The acting in general is reminiscent of a children’s theater presentation and there’s nothing wrong with that except bringing the yung’uns to this production might mean sending them back home with a few nightmares due to the omnipresent theme of the abuse of animals. First encountered in the early scenes on dry land when Pi’s father (Rishi Jaiswal) feeds his kids’ pet goat to Richard Parker to teach his offspring a lesson about the Circle of Life and all that, it’s the part of the tale I had a hard time enjoying—at least beyond appreciating the ingenuity it took to create the effect.

Although the death and mutilation are performed El Topo-style upon Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell’s astounding lifesize puppets, I still cringed and sometimes had difficulty watching. For a lot of children in the audience, I couldn’t help thinking the death and carnage might be a little too grisly—yet as a lover of the most horrifying of horror films, I ironically would have had no problem if the graphic rending of flesh had been performed on members of my own species.

Chakrabarti’s adaptation is the CliffsNotes version of Martel’s original novel and Lee’s film, rudimentarily touching briefly on what might be dubbed Philosophy Lite, but the stars of Life of Pi are the breathtakingly innovative design elements, created under the direction of Max Webster (with tour direction by Ashley Brooke Monroe). The visual magic that surprises us all on Tim Hatley‘s incredibly mobile set is continuously jaw-dropping, with worldclass contributions from Tim Lutkin and Tim Deiling’s fantastic lighting to Andrzei Goulding’s dazzling video and animation designs.

There’s no doubt the biggest wonder of all is the puppet design by Barnes and Caldwell, as well as the movement of their enchanted creatures by Caldwell manipulated sometimes by three clearly visible puppeteers per animal, whose presence soon vanishes as we are wholeheartedly swept up into the fantasy. Perhaps the subtlety of their movements and facial expressions are part of what made me squirm when the zebra is disemboweled while still groaning and twitching or the orangutan loses his head but still, the imagination utilized to make every animal interaction so real is the absolute best thing about this Life of Pi.

Don’t worry about finding the proper depth in the storyline; the Cirque du Soleil meets Warhorse nature of this production will be something you’ll never forget.

THROUGH JUNE 1: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Av., LA. 213.628.2772 or CenterTheatreGroup.org

JUNE 3 - 15: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa. 714.556.2787 or SCFTA. org

Photo by Jason Williams 

Skylight Theatre

I have to admit that after seven-plus decades being obsessed with all things live and lively theatrical, I do have a tendency to select other projects to see or be a part of than the venerable plays of William Shakespeare.

It’s not that I’m unappreciative of the great classics and not properly in awe of their profound influence on everything that came after, but I’ve seen ‘em all and acted in many of ‘em for so many years that I could practically recite the most famous passages along with the actors.

As for variations of the masterworks, I’ve seen some memorable efforts and yes, some agonizingly misguided transformations. There have been productions set in the old west, in a teenage detention center, n the middle of a political coup, in colonial India, in an Italian circus, and of course there’s that musical version of one of the Bard's most well-known plays that takes place in the mean streets of New York City where poor doomed Tony is sure something good is coming.

Some adaptations work; most don’t. In the case of Tracy Young and Lisa Wolpe’s contemporary take on of one of Shakespeare's most difficult plays, The Winter’s Tale, Young’s uncanny ability to successfully translate the 400-year-old verse into something far more accessible to the modern ear—without losing the iambic pentameter—breathes a refreshing new life into the convoluted tale.

The first half of the play has always seemed at odds with the second, beginning as a piece reminiscent of ol’ Will’s most tragic tragedies, while the second part suddenly morphs into one of his improbable mistaken identity-driven comedies.

Young, so long a visionary from her earliest notoriety creating outrageously off-kilter and imaginative work for adventurously rule-breaking companies such as The Actors’ Gang and Cornerstone, has an incredible knack for reinvention, both as a writer and director.

Here she guides a game and often charmingly over-the-top cast in the story of rage-filled jealousy, suspected infidelity with dire consequences, and eventual improbable redemption, by beginning the more dour part with a spirited holiday gathering complete with Pee-Wee’s Playhouse-esque dancing and the participants joyously singing along to that overworked Mariah Carey number we’ve all grown to hate resurface each November.

Somehow, this device defuses the horror unleashed by the green-eyed King Leontes (Daniel DeYoung) upon his wife Hermione (Spencer Jamison) and his childhood bestie Polixenes (Iman Nazemzadeh) he suspects are Doing the Deed behind his royal back.

Performed without an intermission and still clocking in at over two hours, this Tale has infinitely less Winter’s gloom than usual and more of a welcoming Cirque du Soleil attitude complimenting Young’s exceptionally comprehensible translation, made even more fun because the actors appear to be having so much of it.

There is a bit of unevenness in how the performers approach their roles, sometimes feeling more as if we’re watching several one-person shows simultaneously rather than a cohesive whole, yet miraculously under Young’s tongue-in-cheek leadership it comes together.

There's one particularly arresting performance from the ethereally gender-free Misha Osherovich as Perdita, the unsuspecting heir to Leontes’ throne, and some eye-catching supporting work in multiple roles from veteran scene-stealers KT Vogt, Victoria Hoffman, and Audrey Cirzan, among others.

Although this Winter’s Tale would be better performed as a summer’s tale at an outdoor venue and not in such close proximity to the audience as the Skylight stage demands—something that also makes the design work less impressive than it could be—it’s easy to get swept up into the silliness and the invention, affording a unique opportunity to discover something old can, with talent and infectious enthusiasm, indeed become new again.

THROUGH JUNE 14: Skylight Theatre, 1816½ N. Vermont Av., LA. www.skylighttheatre.org/thewinterstale 

Photo by Matthew Murphy 

Pantages Theatre

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past quarter-century, you have to know when you’re about to enter anything orbiting around the enchanted and fantastical realm of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling's inimitable Potterverse, you're in for something incredibly spectacular. The author calls Harry Potter and the Cursed Child the eighth installment of her Potter franchise and, although many have expected it to become yet another film in the series, she and her collaborators insist it will remain a work created strictly for the stage. 

After long and highly successful runs in London’s West End, on Broadway, the Curran in San Francisco, and many other major cities around the world, this unique original live theatrical installment of Rowling‘s complex saga of magicians and Muggles and just plain kids learning how to exist with integrity and a moral compass in our troubled and conflicted times, continues to sweep us all away—no matter what our age or station in life—into an immersive and beloved world like no other on earth.

I certainly expected the nonstop cavalcade of magic and illusions the show hurls out at its audience in a continuous bombardment of jaw-dropping wonders, but I didn’t expect the script by Jack Thorne, created from a story he developed with Rowling and the production’s director John Tiffany, to be an intricately woven study of how to live with the past and incorporate it into our daily lives in all its triumphs and all its disappointments. Cursed Child’s large assemblage of familiar characters and their descendants interact with all-too human emotions, uncannily able to ultimately deliver a missive about personal growth, tolerance, and acceptance that has the potential to impact the way we view the world around us.

Beginning 19 years after the place where Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows left off, the play follows Albus Severus Potter (Emmet Smith), the teenage son of Harry (John Skelley), who is himself now the middleaged Head of the Ministry's Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The characters we’ve come to know and love have grown into adults, rife with many of the problems and concerns that most every adult encounters when suddenly thrust into a society that’s not always fair or equitable. You know, like now.

Harry and his wife, the former Ginny Weasley (Trish Lindstrom) are now almost ordinary parents with children who must measure up to the Boy Who Lived's legend and heroism, not an easy task for Albus, who doesn’t ace his studies at Hogwarts with the same skill as his famous overachieving father. This causes a rift in their father and son relationship that, beyond the Cursed Child’s usual epic battle between good and evil, also dominates the story.

This production is visually astonishing in every regard, the huge scope of transporting it and setting it up possibly explaining the reason why it's landed here at the Pantages until June 22, a far lengthier run than most national tours booked into Nederlanderland. The majestic set by Christine Jones is wildly imposing and whimsically steampunk-ish, geared to metamorphose miraculously and conjure things the audience could not possibly hallucinate on their own.

The play is almost a musical except for its lack of singing, featuring an impressively rich score by Imogen Heap and featuring a large ensemble of silent performers choreographed by Stephen Hoggett who between scenes race across the stage in something reminiscent of the tight circles of peasants who so memorably energized the original production of Evita. Aside from scurrying around the massive Pantages stage in a rush of busy Koyaanisqutsi hurriedness, they cleverly make the show’s many short filmic scene changes happen as they do, camouflaging the clunkiness of bringing on and off tables and doorways and other prop pieces here hidden behind the distraction of a flurry of long black wizard-wear cloaks that conceal their actual mission.

Of course, the star of the show has to be Jamie Harrision’s worldclass and inexplicable illusions, the dazzling barrage of Copperfield-esque magic completely impossible to imagine could be happening live in real time. From flying tricks that would make Peter Pan stop in midflight to fire and smoke effects and a somewhat disquieting wavering device that makes the entire stage wobble whenever the characters time travel—topped by fantastic onstage transformations that zap actors into suddenly becoming other actors before our very eyes—the Los Angeles engagement of the Tony and Olivier-honored masterpiece is certainly an event that should stay sold out for its entire run. Whether attended by the usual troupe of avid theatregoers, the plethora of rampant Harry Potter fans, or those of us who periodically head to Las Vegas not to drop our life savings but to be dazzled by the lights and pageantry of the most lavish Cirque du Soleil extravaganzas on the Strip, this has it all.

The only omnipresent bit of an Achilles heel hampering the overall concept, something that perhaps can be explained by the long-running touring roadshow nature of the production, is that often the performances turned in by the majority of the principal castmembers make it feel more like a show mounted at a theme park than a theatre. Many of the actors are simply too loud and too over-the-top, leaving Thorne’s otherwise thoughtful and sincerely moving script to veer off into melodrama.

There are a few notable exceptions to this, particularly Aidan Close, who as Scorpius Malfoy, the outcast son of Harry’s old arch-nemesis Draco, brings a sweet and believable sincerity to his role, especially when the relationship between he and Albus begins to develop beyond friendship—which is itself a surprising storyline twist that sanctifies one of the play’s most endearing and poignant messages.

Katherine Leask seamlessly morphs from the dastardly Professor Umbridge to deliver a welcoming tribute to the cherished memory of Maggie Smith’s McGonagall, Larry Yando contributes a wonderfully droll recreation of Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape, and in a brief cameo, Mackenzie Lesser-Roy gives the show’s most delightful comedic performance as the grandly over-dramatic Moaning Myrtle.

When award time comes to the Southland at the end of the year, there’s much to expect from this production, from its magnificent design aspects to a script that unwaveringly goes far beyond simply entertaining, not to mention Heap’s infectious score, Hoggett’s flashy choreography, and Tiffany’s quixotically kinetic staging. Still, it doesn’t take a latter-day Dumbledore to predict that what will bring the highest honors to the Los Angeles run of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will definitely be Harrison’s unearthly special effects which leave the audience dizzily mesmerized by a world that has to be experienced live to appreciate.

 THROUGH JUNE 22: Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 800.982.2787 or broadwayinhollywood.com  

El Portal Theatre

Longtime Los Angeles weatherman Fritz Coleman retired in 2020 after four decades delivering his signature uncannily cheery forecasts on a daily basis but at age 76, his solo show Unassisted Residency, which plays once monthly at the El Portal’s intimate Monroe Forum, proves he’s still got the chops to deliver a jocular and lighthearted tsunami to his eager and most loyal fans.

Coleman began his career coming to LA to pursue his passion for standup comedy in the early 80s after first achieving success as a well-loved deejay radio personality in Buffalo, New York.

As the story goes, a producer at NBC caught his act one night at a local club and began to woo him to become a weatherman at KNBC-TV since our weather here was so consistent that he felt it needed a little on-air boost of humor to make it more interesting.

Delivering the daily forecast with a twinkle in his eye beginning in 1984 didn’t stop Coleman from continuing to chase his original dream by performing on local stages in several successful live shows, including his hilarious award-winning turn in The Reception: It’s Me, Dad! which played around town for several years to sold out houses.

Now, after leaving NBC four years ago, Coleman is back but the demographics have changed—or I might politely say… matured.

In my own case, as someone a year older than Coleman, his focus on finding the humor in aging is most welcome. In Unassisted Residency, the comedian talks about the challenges life has to offer in these, our so-called golden years, from physical deterioration to losing contemporaries on a regular basis to navigating the brave new world of technology and social media.

As his opening warmup act, the very funny and professionally self-deprecating Wendy Liebman notes, while looking out at the sea of gray hair and Hawaiian camp shirts in their audience, that Coleman chose to present his show as Sunday matinees so his target audience can shuffle our drooping derrières on home before dark.

Along the way, he also tackles subjects such as retirement communities, nonstop doctors’ appointments, incontinence, and Viagra, not to mention having grown up sucking in our parents’ omnipresent clouds of secondhand tobacco smoke and that generation’s lackadaisical attitude toward our safety and our health, all before moving on discuss to his all-new admiration for those heroic modern educators who during the pandemic had the patience to deal with zoom-teaching his grandkids.

The one thing he doesn’t talk much about is the weather—that is beyond mentioning how grateful he is that our current heat wave didn’t deter those gathered from venturing out of our caves and offering as a throwaway that one of the reasons he retired four years ago was climate change. Although he never says it, he doesn’t really have to; we get that even for someone as funny as Coleman, everyone has their limits when it comes to the potentially catastrophic future for our poor misused and abused planet.

Then when he launches into reminiscing about the amazingly incessant search for sexual gratification in our younger years (that time Stephen King once wrote when the males of the species all look at life through a spermy haze) and how that has changed since then. As a now single guy still looking for love—with some choice remarks about online dating sites—he tells a rather steamy tale about one date that proves it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, something of which I can definitely relate.

I first met Coleman in 1988 or 1989 when I did a feature interview with him as a cover story for The Tolucan (the more industry-oriented and less Evening Women’s Club-ish-pandering predecessor of the Tolucan Times).

He was gracious and charming and kept me laughing so hard back then that I couldn’t take notes fast enough, a knack he not only hasn’t lost but has sharpened considerably over the past 40 years. I couldn’t help wondering how many of the audience members at the Forum have been following him since then and for whom the topic of not-so gently aging hits home as dead-center as it did me.

This doesn’t mean you have to be 70-something to appreciate Fritz Coleman’s hilarious gift for creating homespun storytelling in his ever-extending monthly outing called Unassisted Residency.

My partner Hugh, who is a mere 42 years my junior and was quite literally at least three decades younger than anyone else in the audience last Sunday, laughed longer and louder than anyone else in the audience—perhaps a reaction to hearing me bitch continuously about getting old for the last 12 years?

PLAYS one Sunday each month at the El Portal Theatre’s Monroe Forum Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., NoHo.  For schedule: www.elportaltheatre.com/fritzcoleman.html