Wanting It All
Our critic calls Sarah Palin’s office
By Don Shirley
With Sarah Palin making her debut on the national stage, the time is ripe for examining the depiction of women’s choices on the L.A. stage. Of course the Palin pick is about a pandering John McCain as much as it’s about Palin’s choice to understudy him. But thoughts of Palin kept straying into my weekend theatergoing.
Palin surely could relate to the three characters who sing “I want it all,” a hyper-energized trio from the 1983 Richard Maltby Jr./David Shire musical Baby, in a B-level revival at West Valley Playhouse.
The trio of women, each about 10 years apart, believe they’re pregnant (although one of them is misinformed). Meeting by chance in their ob-gyn office, they compare their aspirations – and exaggerate them. One of them – who is no anthropologist – claims she wants to be Margaret Mead and a great mom. The oldest, who’s already a seasoned mother and later will consider an abortion, is skeptical about “having it all,” but soon she’s singing along.
Palin seems to have adopted the song’s sentiment quite literally. Except for the right to abort, the fledgling governor also wants it all. She’s the mother of five kids, including a newborn who has Down syndrome and a pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old. She’s currently undergoing an investigation into a possible abuse of her power. But she apparently has enough free time to take on a 24/7 campaign that would be grueling even if she had been studying national and international issues for decades. Is this brave or foolhardy? Will the Peter Principle be re-named the Palin Principle?
Meanwhile, at Pasadena Playhouse, the girls who become women during the musical version of Jack Heifner’s play Vanities are first glimpsed practicing their cheerleader routines on Nov. 22, 1963, oblivious to any larger issues – including the fact that the vice president has just become the president. Among the three girls are a super-organized leader (Anneliese van der Pol) and a conventional follower (Sarah Stiles) who’s interested only in marriage and kids. If Palin were transported into the play, these two might have been her friends. But she probably wouldn’t have associated with the relatively wild one (Lauren Kennedy). Or hey, maybe she would.
The remaining scenes in Vanities take the characters to tentative divisions during their senior year in college and to bitter schisms six years later, with abortion one among many issues. Then, in a new scene written for the musical, the women reunite happily when they’re 44. We’re curious about their fates, but this finale asks us to swallow so many quickly sketched interim events – and leaves out so many pertinent details – that it can’t help but feel phony. Apparently someone thinks musicals require happy endings.
Still, in a sense these Vanities characters feel strangely authentic. At least the musical acknowledges that the women face hard choices and that each choice has potential risks as well as rewards. David Kirshenbaum’s score helps bridge the chronological gaps and focus the emotions. Judith Ivey’s taut staging feels more pointed than Heifner’s text.
Also just opened is an early, auto-biographical play by Josefina Lopez, Boyle Heights, that outlines the yearning of a young woman (Nicole Ortega) to escape her own family’s tradition of out-of-wedlock pregnancies followed by coerced marriages – which sounds a lot like what might be happening inside another family we’ve been hearing about. Boyle Heights is a sloppily structured work, and its protagonist needs something to do beyond sitting on a rooftop reciting her own juvenile poetry. However, it vividly depicts how women’s lives can wither when all of their choices – including abortion – are tightly circumscribed. Perhaps if Palin has a few free hours in L.A., she might want to take a look.
Baby, West Valley Playhouse, Canoga Park, (818) 884-1907. wvplayhouse.com. Closes Sept. 7.
Vanities, Pasadena Playhouse, (626) 356-PLAY. pasadenaplayhouse.org. Closes Sept. 28.
Boyle Heights, Casa 0101, Boyle Heights, (323) 263-7684. casa0101.org. Closes Sept. 14.
For more theater commentary, go to lacitybeat.com.
Published: 09/03/2008
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