Now Playing June 19, 2008
By Don Shirley
Dog Sees God
Charles Schulz’s iconic Peanuts children become turbulent teenagers in contemporary America. Actually, these characters are close to Schulz’s, but use different names, because Bert V. Royal’s irresistible speculations are unauthorized by the Schulz estate. C.B. (Joseph Porter) ponders the death of his longtime pooch, his unexpected attraction to the now-loathed piano prodigy Beethoven (Wyatt Fenner) and the continuing metamorphoses of his sister (Andrea Bowen). The formerly blanket-addicted Van (Jaden Leigh) has found substitutes. Transformed Matt (Nick Ballard), whose story resembles that of Pigpen, has reacted to his past by becoming germ- and homo-phobic. Tricia (Christine Lakin) and Marcy (Lauren Robyne) dominate girl power in the absence of the locked-up Lucy … er, Van’s Sister (Megan McNulty). In the hands of director Nick DeGruccio (who played Snoopy at the Colony), it’s cool homage more than parody. Hudson Backstage, Hollywood. (323) 960-7774. Plays411.com/dogseesgod. Closes July 6.
Finally
Morlan Higgins plays two men, a teenaged girl and a dog in Stephen Belber’s hour-long play. Their different perspectives on recent violent disturbances in a middle American town are told in sequence. Higgins is wonderful, as usual, but I kept thinking that I’d rather see four actors instead of just one. Matt Shakman directed. Black Dahlia Theatre, mid-city L.A. (800) 838-3006. Thedahlia.com. Closes July 6.
The Impostor
In Rodolfo Usigli’s 1938 drama (El Gesticulador), a burned-out Mexican professor (translator/director Luis Avalos) who specializes in the early 20th-century revolution returns to his boyhood home in the Mexican provinces just in time to imply that he is the reclusive shell of a revolutionary hero to a visiting gringo historian. Soon the masses are convinced, too, and the poseur is pushed into politics, much to the distress of his wife and the bewilderment of his nearly grown kids. American Theatre Arts Foundation’s staging is intriguing if not totally credible. Too bad the villain (Armando di Lorenzo) seems to be playing Kramer in Seinfeld. LATC Theatre 4, downtown L.A. (213) 489-0994. Thenewlatcsotre.com. Closes June 22.
The Sweepers
John Picardi’s slice of Italian American ham, set in a lower-class Boston backyard in the waning days of World War II, has many implausible, melodramatic excesses. But they finally become juicily entertaining in caryn desai’s staging. Maybe it’s the fortissimo embraces of the characters by the cast (Susan Giosa, Jamie Hobert, Valerie Perri, Donna Pontoretto, Danielle Vernengo). Or maybe it’s because you can imagine how Carol Burnett might have handled this same material. International City Theatre at Long Beach Performing Arts Center. (562) 436-4610. Ictlongbeach.org. Closes July 6.
Published: 06/18/2008
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