Posts from — August 2011

How Kyle Barisich mastered 20 roles in the classic Broadway musical

The playwright’s new show blurs the lines between research and romance

Romance and science may seem like an unlikely pair, but if you look closer, you’ll find a surprising amount of overlap. The links are especially vivid in Itamar Moses’ new play Completeness, in which the hard facts of the lab intertwine with the intangibles of love.

Moses’ plays are known for exploring big ideas: Bach at Leipzig, for instance, questions the conventions of music, and The Four of Us contemplates the nature of writing. In Completeness, now in previews at Playwrights Horizons, he uses the sciences to frame a love story between a molecular biologist and a computer scientist.

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The “Follies” star delivers a showstopping performance

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Welcome to Building Character, TDF’s ongoing series about actors and how they create their roles
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Follies proves the power of supporting roles.

Written by Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman, the musical imagines a cast reunion of the Weismann Follies, a fictional revue that ran between the world wars. There are four main characters, but the show bursts with secondary roles: retired performers who saunter on stage, sing a number, then strut away. We don’t learn much about them, but they create a sense of community. They remind us that people can still be captivating, still be essential, even when their younger days are behind them.

Terri White makes that clear in the current Broadway revival, now in previews at the Marriott Marquis. She plays Stella Deems, whose lively tap number “Who’s that Woman?” is about realizing the person inside you is different from the person in the mirror. At a recent performance, her routine made the audience go wild.

In that showstopping song and a few brief dialogue scenes, White gives Stella a feisty, no-apologies attitude. Obvious joy radiates from her face and defines her movements. So what made Stella this way? How did White decide she’d be a happy survivor?

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Thanks to six seasons on the sitcom “3rd Rock From the Sun,” French Stewart is bona fide star, yet he still loves performing in tiny theatres, where he’ll never get a large paycheck and may have to smoke in an alley. Recently, he wrote an essay for the L.A. Stage Times explaining why. We’re pleased to republish that essay in TDF Stages: It’s a great testament to why the theatre will always be exciting. [Note: The play that Stewart refers to at the end of the story closed earlier this month.]

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By FRENCH STEWART

About 25 years ago I did my first play in L.A., in a stinky dump called Galaxy Stage near Western and Santa Monica. We were required to clean toilets, mop the floor, and not ask questions about money. At night they used our set to film porn, and on your way out of the theatre, a certain “pant-less gentleman” might pee at you. Yes. At you!

It’s pretty common in the world of small theatre. It’s what you’d call “local color.” With no centralized drama district to speak of, our theatres float in weird neighborhoods like weird little pirate ships. Over the years, just outside some of L.A.’s small theatres, I’ve been lucky enough to witness (and this is true)—an angry Honduran man whipping a crackhead with jumper cables, a shirtless octogenarian “looking for a date”, and a raccoon who walked upright to intimidate people.

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A new show pushes the boundaries between the circus and the stage

Les 7 Doigts de la Main, the Montreal circus troupe colloquially known as 7 Fingers, makes a point of pushing its virtuosic performers beyond the typical three-ring feats.

Take Traces, which opened earlier this month to rave reviews at the Union Square Theatre. This kinetic production interweaves the expected gasp-worthy acrobatics with self-effacing bits of dialogue, charmingly modest musical interludes, and stylized fisticuffs that make the Jets and Sharks look like coach potatoes.

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