8 SECTION TWO
Larchmont Chronicle
JULY 2023
Revival suggests the times have become more forgiving Given the stress under which our civil society finds itself (Politico 4/21/23, etc.), I thought I might take the long view on two recent, excellent plays. Both — A Soldier’s Play (that closed at the Ahmanson June 25) — and Back Porch — running at the Victory Theater through July 9 — deserve attention for their solid writing, fine performances, thoughtful design and steady direction. Each play made me think (believe? hope?) that the moral arc of the universe just might really bend toward justice. First, Back Porch: Eric Anderson’s play is an homage to William Inge’s “Picnic,” both in its setting of the small Kansas town where the 1955 film starring William Holden and Kim Novak (based on the 1953 Pulitzer-winning play) was shot, and in its gay variation on Inge’s original in both the film and play. Hal, Holden’s drifter, comes
Theater Review by
Louis Fantasia to the repressed Midwest town looking for work. He lights a sexual prairie fire in young Madge (Novak) so that, when he moves on, she runs from small-town respectability and goes after him. Anderson’s play follows Inge’s structure, but instead of Holden, it’s Bill, his rugged but gay stand-in (Jordan Morgan), who hits the town. Instead of Novak, it’s the sensitive Gary (Isaac W. Jay), on his summer break before going to the local college, who is awakened sexually to the point that he wants to move to Los Angeles and live with Bill. Gary doesn’t go, but his life is forever changed.
The current rants against the LGBTQ+ community or woke leftists hark back to the 1950s of another McCarthy (and beyond, of course) for their origins. But here is a play that puts the right to love front and center with admirable honesty, clarity and caritas (love). Inge led a complicated, closeted life, committing suicide in 1973. Anderson’s play recognizes such struggles and paints them in all their small-town, self-righteous, small-mindedness, while warmly, almost nostalgically, celebrating a love that could “dare not speak its name” just a few decades ago. We’ve come from there, both in place and time, Anderson seems to say, and we don’t need to go back. Victory Theater, Burbank; 818-841-5421; onstage411.com/BackPorch. Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play presents us with a double lens. First, the play is set on a southern U.S. Army base
What to watch for
Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” will be playing for three more weeks on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. until July 16 at CASA 0101 Theater, 2102 E. First St., Boyle Heights; 323-263-7684; casa0101.org. “Last Summer at Bluefish Cove” is another 40th anniversary revival, this one about women finding themselves in a summer of love. Fountain Theater through Aug 27; 323-663-1525; fountaintheatre.com. The season of Sondheim about town draws to a close with “Into the Woods” at the Ahmanson, through July 30; 213-628-2772. Theater 40 opens its season with Canadian playwright Norm Foster’s “Doris and Ivy in the Home,” a comic look at how love blooms at a senior living facility! July 20 through Aug. 23 at the Reuben Cordova Theatre at Beverly Hills High School; 310-364-0535; Theatre40.org. during WWII, at a time when few people could imagine Black officers leading white troops (including the lawyer who leads the play’s murder investigation). Written in 1981, the play ran then on a kind of Black-on-Black anger, especially in the central per-
formance of Adolph Caesar as the murdered sergeant whose bitter criticism of so-called lazy “Negro” behavior gets him killed by a Black enlisted man. The current revival shifts the center of the play away from the sergeant, ably played here by Eugene Lee (who was in the original cast), to Norm Lewis as a military attorney trying to get to the truth. As a result, Kenny Leon’s excellent revival becomes a softer focused, oddly kinder and more forgiving play. Perhaps it suggests that the times themselves have become more forgiving. Fuller’s play opened 36 years after WWII ended and 17 years after the 1964 Voting Rights Act passed. This revival comes 40 years after its premiere and 76 years after the war. It is hard to believe we once ran our armed forces like that. It’s not so hard to believe the rest, when, for example, the Supreme Court has to reaffirm Black Alabamans’ right to vote today (Reuters 6/8/22). Yes, we have made progress. Just not enough. Fuller loosely based his play on Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd,” where the corrosiveness of repressed homosexuality leads to injustice and the death of innocents, if not innocence. Both plays speak eloquently to the corrosiveness of repression and hate — a corrosiveness that attacks not just the individual, but the very fabric of our society.
Disney Museum (Continued from page 6)
The exhibition from Japan features more than 300 archival reproduction works of on-screen favorites, from Mickey Mouse’s pal Pluto to Walt Disney’s own German shepherd, Peggy. There will also be pop-up events including pet adoptions and a pet portrait drawing station. Disney enthusiasts can participate from anywhere in the world by submitting photos of pets for a chance at inclusion in the exhibition’s digital display. Submissions can be made at waltdisney.org/catsand-dogs-featured-pet.