St3439 by Signal Tribune

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4 SIGNAL TRIBUNE

Thoughts from the Publisher

by Neena Strichart

Although I get in my fair share of local entertainment, I am often envious of our writers who have the opportunity to see theatre productions and then tell the world in print what they thought of them. Once in a while one of our reviewers needs to take a night off, and I am happy to fill his or her seat. Other times I assert my authority, the little I have, put in my dibs to see and then write the play review myself. When I learned that Oklahoma! was being produced by Musical Theatre West (MTW), I knew I’d be in for a night of bliss if I had the chance to attend. As it turned out, I got the gig. The reason we are running the review in my column rather than in the body of the paper on a Culture page is that I didn’t feel it would be appropriate to do anything else. Oklahoma! is my favorite musical. Whether I saw it on stage at a dinner theatre in Orange County (back in the ‘70s) or more opulently in Los Angeles at the Pantages Theatre in the 21st century, I loved it. I will watch the movie version on television every chance I get or pop in the DVD on a whim. The story and music take me away to somewhere wonderful, magical and a little unsettling. Thank goodness Mom enjoys it almost as much as I do. As she tells it, she saw it in on stage in New York back in the ‘40s, so naturally I chose her to be my date. For those who know the storyline, I won’t go into too much detail. Suffice it to say it revolves around two pairs of young sweethearts in the summer of 1907. Oklahoma was still a territory at that time, and the land was still a bit wild and free. The farmers and cowmen did a bit of feuding between themselves over the topic of fences, and folks were gearing up for the territory to be named a state. In this production, the audience was brought up to speed quickly with a beautifully lighted stage with enough scenery and props to help move the story along without being overbearing. The colors were so crisp and vibrant, I felt as though I was seeing the show in Technicolor. The skill of the sound director was evident as every word of the more than a dozen songs and clever dialogue were clear as a bell. Heck, Mom didn’t even need her hearing aids!

OPINION

Being able to hear and see what is happening on stage is certainly important for any theatre-goer, but more, or at least equally important, is the quality of what is heard and seen. The singing voices of MTW’s actors playing Curly (Bryant Martin) and Laurey (Madison Clare Parks) were phenomenal. I ended up with goosebumps from head to toe listening to them belt out their rendition of “People Will Say We’re in Love.” Knowing every word of every song adds to the fun for me, but imagine my surprise when they started playing a tune I didn’t recognize. “Lonely Room” was then sung by the only real antagonist character in the play, Jud Fry (Christopher Newell). A hired hand on Laurey’s Aunt Eller's ranch, Jud is an unkempt and scary kind of loner. In most productions, Jud’s only singing part is part of a duo with Curly in a tongue-in-cheek ditty, “Poor Jud is Daid.” However, MTW’s powers-that-be took the rather serious song from the original stage play and added it for Jud, in my eyes, making him a bit of a more sympathetic character. Other stand-out performances were given by the wonderful actors portraying Aunt Eller (Saundra McClain), Will Parker (Luke Hawkins), Ado Annie (Teya Patt) and Ali Hakim (Amin El Gamal). These fine actors all came together in a way rarely seen in casts working together on stage for such a short run. Now, don’t think Oklahoma! is just lots of singing and dialogue, although there’s nothing wrong with that! The dancing is as good as anything I’ve ever seen in a musical production. Especially memorable is the rather nightmarish Dream Ballet. No singing there, folks, just beautifully haunting modern and ballet-style dancing. Toward the end of the evening, I knew the title song, “Oklahoma,” was just around the corner, and I was so looking forward to it. As the music rose louder and the voices came together, I found myself sobbing into my hands. Holy cow, I hadn’t expected that! I did feel a bit vindicated later when the lights came up and I saw other women dabbing tissues at the corners of their eyes. This is the final weekend for MTW’s Oklahoma!, and I encourage you to see it with someone you love, or like, or go with a casual stranger, or go by yourself– just don’t miss it. Oklahoma! continues at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 E. Atherton St., on the campus of Cal State Long Beach, through March 3. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2pm. Due to overwhelming demand, shows have been added Saturday, March 2 at 2pm and Sunday, March 3 at 7pm. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased through the MTW Box Office at (562) 856-1999 ext. 4 or online at musical.org .

MARCH 1, 2013

Courtesy MTW

Bryant Martin as Curly McClain and Madison Claire Parks as Laurey Williams in Musical Theatre West’s current production of Oklahoma!

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Positive signs?

I am very excited about the City Council election on March 5 and encourage everyone to vote. We have had the same Council for nearly 20 years and what I find exciting is seeing how many candidate signs there are for both incumbents AND challengers in the SAME yard! Historically, many voters made their decision based on the incumbent or challenger identity. This time, I feel people are voting based upon the best candidate, which includes both incumbents and challengers. From personal experience, it is not easy to run for City Council, and all of the candidates are working hard to make our city even better. The best way to applaud all of the candidates’ efforts is to go out and vote!

Matthew Simmons Signal Hill Former City Council candidate

Muddy waters

How dirty can dirty politics get? If you ever wondered the answer to this question, all you need to do is look at the “hit piece” most of us got in the mail last week. This ludicrious and possibly libelous piece of dirt was aimed at the three incumbents running for re-election to the [Signal Hill] city council. It seems that it maliciously accuses them of corruption and incompetence ad nauseam and makes a totally ridiculous and insulting comparison of Signal Hill to Bell and Vernon. It was sent out by a fake, mud-throwing group called “Coalition for Clean Affordable Water” with absolutely no tranparency as to who they are. I am both sad and incensed to see this kind of political pollution being used in our election. I hope the good people of Signal Hill will see this piece of trash for what it is and put it where it belongs– in the garbage can. Carole Yochum Signal Hill

Star-crossed?

America has its own Romeo and Juliet in the tragic death of that young couple, Keith Lawrence and Monica Quan. As Shakespeare would put it, a murder so foul it defies understanding. How appropriate that they were buried together. May they never be forgotten by the people who love and are loved.

Vivian C. Nelson Long Beach

Mea Culpa

In the article “Lawsuit filed by Signal Hill, other cities against WRD for refund of water-pumping fees nears trial” in the Feb. 22 issue of the Signal Tribune, the last name of the general manager of the Water Replenishment District of Southern California should have been spelled as “Whitaker.”

Getting ‘street smart’

Los Cerritos resident and long-time community activist John Deats calls the proposed Pacific Avenue Bike Corridor project, at least the part through his Los Cerritos neighborhood, insane. And he’s right. Unfortunately, it’s just the latest in a long line of money-wasting, worse-than-useless projects by a City that is already broke and can’t even afford sufficient police and fire protection. Long Beach thinks it’s reassuring to residents when they tell you that projects such as this will be financed all or partially with “grant money”– as if it still didn't ultimately come from taxpayers. The current fiasco proposes spending over $1 million on a bike path with “roundabouts” in Los Cerritos like those on Vista Street in Belmont Heights. Hopefully, it will be better planned. Can you believe the City actually constructed one of these small “traffic circles” on busy Ximeno Avenue where it intersects Vista Street, but made it too small for busses and emergency vehicles to navigate, and then had to rebuild it? The most absurd part of the current plan, however, is installing a new traffic signal at Pacific Avenue and Wardlow Road. Likely, this is another in a long line of expensive ideas dreamed up by a few Los Cerritos residents to discourage people from going through their neighborhood. Two years ago their plan was to get then-councilmember Rae Gabelich to close the pedestrian walkway under the San Diego Freeway that Wrigley area residents use to get to Los Cerritos School and Los Cerritos Park. One day, without notice, local residents just found the gates welded shut. A number of years before that, their idea was to erect a barricade on Pacific Avenue just north of the San Diego Freeway to completely bar traffic to or from Wardlow Road. A dozen residents from Los Cerritos and Wrigley Heights met every month for a year with a traffic consultant hired by the City– another waste of tens of thousands of dollars. It was clear from a preliminary study that traffic through Los Cerritos was actually very light. But apparently to appease the Los Cerritos residents, the meetings and studies continued. Maybe worse than the money wasted is what this new traffic signal will actually do. It makes the fourth signalized intersection drivers will have to navigate in just one-half mile on Wardlow between Magnolia Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard. As it is, during rush hours, traffic frequently backs up to the top of the bridge over the Los Angeles River, as one train after another causes crossing gates to repeatedly close. Many years before this bicycle path was even proposed, local residents petitioned the City and the MTA (now Metro) to give us a little relief from Blue Line trains blocking traffic so often and for so long. We were promised some improvement, but we’re still waiting. Instead the City now wants to add another traffic signal? Delays getting out of our neighborhood when going to work or school are bad enough; worse is how long it sometimes takes police and firefighters to reach our homes, since the Blue Line tracks separate our neighborhood from both the nearest police station and the closest fire house. Often, you can see emergency personnel just sitting in their vehicle waiting for trains to pass by.

Richard Gutmann Long Beach

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

MANAGING EDITOR

Stephen M. Strichart

Neena R. Strichart

ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS

Jane Fallon

Stephanie Raygoza

ASSISTANT EDITOR/STAFF WRITER

Sean Belk

COLUMNISTS

Jennifer E. Beaver Carol Berg Sloan, RD

Leighanna Nierle

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT/WEBSITE MANAGER

STAFF WRITERS

CJ Dablo

DESIGN EDITOR

Cory Bilicko

Nick Diamantides

Shoshanah Siegel

Tanya Paz

CULTURE WRITERS

Daniel Adams Vicki Paris Goodman Gregory Spooner CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Matt Sun

EDITORIAL INTERN

Ariana Gastelum

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rachael Rifkin

DESIGN INTERN

Kaelyn Bruno

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