Dracula Extended Again!

Talk about immortal. The production of "Dracula" at the NoHo Arts Center has been extended until May 17. Let the blood-sucking continue. See our review.

Deborah Strang

Meet the coal miner’s daughter who’s the leading lady in “Ghosts” at A Noise Within.

Hard day at the office: Deborah Strang has acted in more than 40 productions in her 17 years as a resident artist at A Noise Within, the only classical repertory company in Southern California. She’s appeared in countless TV shows and films – in roles as diverse as a Vulcan in “Deep Space Nine,” a detective in “The X-Files,” and a mother in “Eagle Eye.” That doesn’t mean her job has gotten any easier. “I never approach a role without thinking there’s no way I’m going to be able to do it this time,” she says, sitting in the front row of the Glendale theater on a recent weekday afternoon.

Current challenge: In her latest incarnation, Strang plays Mrs. Alving in Henrik Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” on stage at A Noise Within through May 9. When the artistic directors, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliot, asked her to take on the role of the widow with an ailing son, Strang admits she was hesitant. “I was trying to find ways to get out of it actually,” she says with a laugh. “I wanted an easier path.” Part of the reason the play is so difficult is that “Ibsen walks a very thin line between realism and naturalism and melodrama,” Strang says. “It’s nonstop, it’s that heightened emotional state, it’s talk talk talk talk talk, and just figuring out how do you make that palpable to our modern-day ears?”

No spoiler alert necessary: Written by the Norwegian playwright in 1881, “Ghosts” was considered shocking and scandalous when it was staged the following year. Without giving away the plot, let’s just say infidelity, venereal disease, incest, and death all play a part in this intense drama, but it's ultimately a universal story. “What our director Michael [Murray] wanted it to be about,” Strang says, “was a debate … between two ways of living: living an authentic, true life where you’re following your soul and your heart or living a life where you’re just living the dictates of religion or government or the people who have power over you, like a husband in her case, or your parents. That’s what this woman is teetering in between: what she knows to be right and what has been instilled in her all of her life.”

Mrs. Alving in “Ghosts”: “We’re haunted by the ghosts of our mothers and fathers – and by all kinds of old, dead ideas and dead beliefs that are piled up inside us.” In many of his plays, Ibsen created strong female characters trapped by Victorian traditions, perhaps influenced by his mother-in-law, Magdalene Thoreson, a leader of the feminist movement in Norway.

From shocks to sparks: Strang’s boyfriend and fellow resident artist, Joel Swetow, plays the role of Pastor Manders. “You always kind of fall in love with your leading man,” Strang says, “so how fun can it be to fall in love with the man you’ve already been in love with for 26 years. It’s like having a little honeymoon or something. It’s opening up all those love channels and you don’t have to repress it at all. It’s great and I think -- I may be wrong -- but I think we’re pretty hot together onstage.”

The place Strang calls "home": Founded in 1991, A Noise Within is one of the few companies in the nation dedicated to classical drama. It presents works in the repertory tradition and has won 26 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards. Strang has been there practically from the beginning (she missed the first season when three plays were produced).

Surprise favorite: When Strang read Alfred Jerry’s absurd and surreal 1896 play, “Ubu Roi,” she let the artistic directors know she did not want to be in it. Naturally, she was cast as Ma Ubu in the 2006 production. When Director Rodriguez-Elliott mentioned in the first rehearsal that she wanted to start the play off with Ma and Pa Ubu sitting on toilets, Strang said, “Oh no, I’m not gonna sit on a toilet. I just don’t even want to go there.” It turned out, she says, she had the best time of her life doing that play. “Once you sit on a toilet in front of an audience full of people, you are free to do anything. I was up in the audience sitting on people, I was singing on top of a piano. It was so freeing and so much fun to do and I had no idea.”

On the tube: Despite the numerous TV shows she’s worked on, including most recently “Cold Case,” “Close to Home,” and “Numb3rs,” Strang has yet to be cast as a series regular. “I don’t expect it to happen now. I mean you never know, a ‘Golden Girls’ might come along or something like that,” jokes the middle-aged actress. She currently has a recurring voiceover on “The Spectacular Spider-Man” as Aunt May, a job she got through one of A Noise Within’s subscribers who wrote and produced the animated series.

Coal miner’s daughter: Strang begins her explanation of how a coal miner’s daughter from Appalachia, Virginia, became a stage and screen actress in LA by mentioning the woman who recently caused an international sensation on “Britain’s Got Talent,” the overseas version of “American Idol.” “Have you seen Susan Boyle… the woman who’s on YouTube everywhere now? The poor little woman who just sang her heart out? You’ve got to look at that video. It’s very, very moving.
“You know, there are just a whole lot of people all over the world that have these kinds of dreams and they’re in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes they fall through the door that leads them on the route to their dreams and sometimes they don’t. I think I just fell through the door. It wasn’t through anything that I necessarily made happen. I always pursued my bliss.”

Opening doors: Strang went to a small liberal arts college in her native state to study social work. “I wanted to follow John Kennedy’s ‘Ask what you can do for your country,’ I wanted to join the Peace Corps. … I ended up auditioning for plays and followed that bliss.” She graduated with a BFA from Emory & Henry College and went on to get an MFA in Dramatic Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Once in LA, she went to Santa Monica College and UCLA to pursue a doctorate – but not in theater. “I wanted a Ph.D. in biology, but to go into the environmental world because I was bored with film and television. … But at the same time, this was developing more and more and I didn’t get recycling coordinator at Universal Studios, I got Olga in ‘Three Sisters.’”

Not too many people can say this: “I think I’m probably happier than just about anybody else I know,” Strang says. Following your bliss “is what the play’s about, whether or not we follow what we feel we want or what we ought to do. I do think I’ve generally done what I’ve wanted to do.”

“Ghosts” continues through May 9 in repertory with Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” (through May 17) and Jean Anouilh’s “The Rehearsal” (through May 24). Remaining dates are:

Sat., April 25, 2 pm
Sat., April 25, 8 pm
Sun., April 26, 2 pm
Sun., April 26, 7 pm
Wed., April 29, 8 pm
Thurs., April 30, 8 pm
Fri., May 1, 8 pm
Fri., May 8, 8 pm
Sat., May 9, 2 pm
Sat., May 9, 8 pm

A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale 91204, (818) 240-0910, ext. 1, www.anoisewithin.org.

Photos of Deborah Strang (and Joel Swetow) by Craig Schwartz/courtesy of A Noise Within

Dramatic, Creative "Universes"

This weekend, the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA presents Universes: Ameriville Unplugged. Universes is an ensemble of writers and performers redefining the theater experience by blending such artistic elements as poetry, hip-hop, dance, and jazz with drama. Its latest production, “Ameriville Unplugged,” explores attitudes toward race, poverty, and politics in the context of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans. Before the show starts at 8:30 p.m. at the Intimate Theatre, there will be a pre-show event with music, open mic, and open bar, at 7:30 p.m. outdoors on the Luckman Street of the Arts. Tickets are $35; call (323) 343-6600.

Thurs., April 16, through Sun., April 19, 8:30 p.m. (plus 7:30 pre-show event)
The Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, 90032, (323) 343-6600, www.luckmanarts.org

Affordable Play After Tax Day

On Wed., April 15, the taxes will be done and in the mail. It’s time to reward yourself. But that refund’s not here yet, or, worse, you just sent off a check to the government. So how do you do it? Take advantage of A Noise Within’s Pay What You Can night (Thurs., April 16) during previews of Jean Anouilh’s “The Rehearsal.”

The play takes place in 1950s France and concerns a Count bored with pursuing pleasure and excess and suddenly taken with an innocent young woman. His jaded court, of course, does not want the Count to give up his old ways for purity and virtuosity. Humorous, witty, and also intensely dramatic, “The Rehearsal” is Anouilh’s most critically acclaimed work.

Tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis, with a limit of two per person, and must be purchased in person at the box office after 2 p.m. on the day of the performance with cash only. There is a suggested $10 minimum; regular prices are $28 for previews and $40-$44 once the play opens on Saturday, April 18.

Thurs., April 16, 8 p.m.
A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale 91204, (818) 240-0910, ext. 1, www.ANoiseWithin.org

"Photograph 51" Presents Snapshot of History

Considering that British biophysicist Rosalind Franklin played a crucial role in one of the 20th century's greatest scientific discoveries, it’s incredible that she is virtually unknown. That’s one reason that Anna Ziegler’s “Photograph 51,” playing at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood through May 3, is so engaging.

The play, like Franklin’s life, is definitely a tragedy. In the early ’50s, Franklin came extremely close to figuring out the structure of DNA in her research using x-ray diffraction images. The most significant of those images, Photograph 51, was the key to geneticist James Watson and biophysicist Francis Crick’s successful model of the double helix. Franklin did not know that her research partner Maurice Wilkins had showed Watson and Crick the photo, and therefore had no regrets that she had lost the race to discover the “secret of life,” in which Caltech’s Linus Pauling, another famous male scientist, was also a competitor. When Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in 1962, Franklin again had no regrets – she had died four years earlier of ovarian cancer at the age of 37.

Aria Alpert is properly stoic as our heroine, who arrives at King’s College in London in 1951 and rather quickly puts her weaker colleague Wilkins in his place. But Alpert rarely seems to break from that emotional indifference. I wished the script could have revealed more of the private side of Franklin, because, as it’s written, Alpert is barely able to give us glimpses of that in the soliloquies. Though this is Franklin’s story, her character remains something of a mystery to us.

Daniel Billet’s socially awkward Wilkins elicits some sympathy as the rejected love interest who never falls out of love with Franklin. When he secretly shares her photograph with Watson and Crick, who constantly pump him and Franklin for any information they can get, he does so out of excitement rather than an attempt at sabotage. But when he calls the ambitious Watson (an entertaining, high-energy Ian Gould) and Crick (a comparatively reserved Kerby Joe Grubb) “rogues,” it’s hard not to think he is no less of one, or maybe more of one, for keeping the woman he loves in the dark and, later, not making sure her extraordinary contributions are recognized.

It’s not as if Franklin is a stereotypical asocial lab scientist. Doctoral student Ray Gosling (Graham Norris) gets along with Franklin remarkably well in the lab and talks to the audience (perhaps unnecessarily) while adding some moments of humor. Ross Hellwig is the gallant Don Caspar, the Yale scientist with whom Franklin corresponds through letters and finally has a date.

The play ponders whether Franklin was a victim of a sexist system or of her own failure to establish professional relationships. But it is indeed difficult to fault Franklin for her desire to work alone and analyze her own data in a world where King’s College had a dining room that did not allow women, Watson and Crick are shown analyzing her looks while she gives a scientific presentation, and Wilkins, despite his personal feelings, never seemed to respect her as a colleague.

Director Simon Levy effectively steers the actors through a human drama, and there is an emotional swell at the end. Yet there is also a sense of disappointment. It is oddly jarring to have all five male characters surround the deceased Franklin and throw out possible reasons she failed to be recognized for her work. Furthermore, the final dream sequence with a sorrowful Wilkins trying to figure out where he went wrong loving her is a strange note on which to end the show, further emphasizing how we learn much more about his private thoughts than our heroine’s.

For more information, see the April 2 post.

Photo of Aria Alpert holding Photograph 51 (with Graham Norris in background) by Ed Krieger/courtesy of Fountain Theatre

Dracula Extended!

"Dracula" has been extended through April 26 at the NoHo Arts Center. No surprise -- it's incredible. See our review.

A Play With Good DNA

James Watson and Francis Crick received the Nobel Prize for their model of DNA, but biophysicist Rosalind Franklin, whose research (specifically the X-ray diffraction image that gives this play its name) aided that scientific breakthrough, died in relative obscurity. It sounds like the stuff of good drama, and indeed it is in Anna Ziegler’s “Photograph 51.” Simon Levy directs and Aria Alpert (daughter of Herb Alpert and Lani Hall) stars in the West Coast premiere, which continues at the Fountain Theatre through May 3.

“Photograph 51” comes with a scientific and dramatic stamp of approval. The winner of the 2008 STAGE (Scientists, Technologists and Artists Generating Exploration) award for Best New Play about Science and Technology, Ziegler’s play was chosen from nearly 150 entries by a panel of judges that included Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner David Auburn; Tony, Olivier, and Obie Award winner John Guare; Nobel Laureate in physics Sir Anthony Leggett; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire; and Nobel Laureate in physics Dr. Douglas Osheroff.

The Fountain Theatre itself is no stranger to prestigious awards. It has won more than 160 for theater excellence, including every major theater award in Los Angeles.

Performances run Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $25 (Thursdays and Fridays), $28 (Saturdays and Sundays), $23 for seniors over 62 (Thursdays and Fridays only), $18 for students with ID (Thursdays and Fridays only). Parking is $5.

The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave. (at Normandie), Los Angeles 90029, (323) 663-1525, www.FountainTheatre.com.

photo of Graham Norris and Aria Alpert by Ed Krieger/courtesy of Fountain Theatre

"Spamalot"

The Center Theatre Group hosts a Spam fest on April Fool's Day from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Music Center Plaza downtown. Not only will tickets go on sale for "Monty Python's Spamalot," the comic musical that lands at the Ahmanson Theatre July 7 through Sept. 6, but Spamwiches, Spam tacos and mead will be available for purchase at the Patina Spotlight Cafe. That's right: Spam at Patina. It may be the first time in history Spam gets a gourmet pricetag. Be sure to dress accordingly for the Fool's Faire, as 98.7 FM's Josh Venable will host the King of Fools Costume Contest with a grand prize of $350 and a little something for all who enter. Of course, the whole reason for celebrating is the box office grand opening, when for one day (and only in person) you can buy tickets at a discounted rate and get a free gift. We hope it's not Spam.

Music Center Plaza, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles 90012
For more information, (213) 972-4400 or www.CenterTheatreGroup.org.

Wowee, Wow, Wow!

I've got a fever. And the only prescription is more... Walken.

Thank goodness "All About Walken: The Impersonators of Christopher Walken" -- which has been developing a following for quite some time and recently ran for four performances at Theatre 68 on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood last November and December -- returns for two shows at the LA Improv (annex) on Saturday, March 28, at 8 and 10 p.m.

Created, produced and directed by Patrick O'Sullivan, this show is actually as awesome as it sounds. Nearly a dozen actors take on the Academy Award-winning actor who trained as a dancer in musical theater but has a cult following because of his fascinatingly bizarre movie roles, his turns as host of "Saturday Night Live," and, of course, his distinctive speech rhythms and pauses.

The "All About Walken" players don't just run through rote imitations; they have crafted a show that abounds with creativity and plays intelligently with Walken's famous roles, idiosyncratic speech and quirky personality. O'Sullivan and crew -- including Amy Kelly, Dionysio Basco, Kenzo Lee, Lily Holleman, Aryiel Hartman, Joe Dallo, Kate Frisbee, Naathan Phan, Pat McAleenan, Ivet Corvea, and Sascha Rasmussuen -- perform songs, improv, skits, and more. Yes, there is a cowbell, and they do the watch scene, among other favorites.

The show kicks off with O'Sullivan (in a wig that is a character on its own) as Walken doing a version of Nancy Sinatra's hit with a minor adjustment to the lyrics: "These boots were made for ME."

Amy Kelly -- yes, a woman -- does a hilarious fake commercial with Walken as spokesperson for a hygiene product. But she is also a dead ringer for Robert DeNiro in a few scenes that play on the "Taxi Driver" movie, so much so that her role as DeNiro practically overshadows her turns as Walken -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

While everyone is amazing, another woman, a wide-eyed blond named Lily Holleman, also deserves special mention for her spot-on impersonation of Walken.

It might be hard to imagine men and women of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities all becoming Walken, so don't try. Go to the show instead, and get ready to laugh your boots off.

Sat., March 28, at 8 p.m., LA Improv, 8162 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles 90046.
For more information, (310) 663-4050, www.myspace.com/allaboutwalken.

1950s 'Shrew'

"The Taming of the Shrew" opens at A Noise Within tonight. Shakespeare's comedy about love, marriage and relationships gets a 1950s Italian spin, with music by crooners such as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett helping to set the mood.

The production, directed by co-founder/artistic director Geoff Elliott, will feature Allegra Fulton (Katherine), Steve Weingartner (Petruchio), Apollo Dukakis (Baptista), Alan Blumenfeld (Grumio) and Tom Fitzpatrick (Gremio).

Founded in 1991 by Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, A Noise Within is the only classical repertory company in Southern California and one of only a handful in the country dedicated solely to producing classical drama from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams. The company has produced more than 120 plays and earned 26 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards.

Sat., March 7, 8 pm
Sun., March 8, 2 and 7 pm
Wed., March 25, 8 pm
Thurs., March 26, 8 pm
Fri., March 27, 8 pm
Sat., March 28, 2 and 8 pm
Wed., April 22, 8 pm
Thurs., April 23, 8 pm
Fri., April 24, 8 pm
Sun., May 3, 2 and 7 pm
Wed., May 6, 8 pm
Thursday, May 7, 8 pm
Sat., May 16, 2 and 8 pm
Sunday, May 17, 2 and 7 pm

Tickets: $44 (Friday and Saturday evenings, Sunday matinees), $40 (Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings, Saturday matinees)

A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale 91204.
For more information: (818) 240-0910, ext. 1, www.ANoiseWithin.org.

Up next at A Noise Within... Ibsen's "Ghosts" runs Sat., March 21, through Sat., May 9.

‘Frost/Nixon’ Live

If you saw Ron Howard’s Oscar-nominated film, “Frost/Nixon,” you know what a dramatic duel of words and wit David Frost’s 1977 television interviews with President Richard Nixon were. Now, Center Theatre Group gives LA the chance to see the play on which that movie was based and experience the optimal format for this battle of wills. “Frost/Nixon” runs March 12-29 (preview March 11) at the Ahmanson Theatre.

Olivier Award-winning director Michael Grandage, who directed Michael Sheen and Frank Langella in the original London production of Peter Morgan’s 2006 play, comes to the downtown LA stage with a cast of 10, including Alan Cox and Stacy Keach in the respective title roles. Morgan, who wrote the screenplay for Howard’s film, was also the screenwriter for films such as “The Queen” and “The Last King of Scotland.” “Frost/Nixon,” his first play, received three Tony nominations (best play, direction and actor) and won one (Frank Langella as Nixon).

Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles 90012, (213) 628-2772, www.CenterTheatreGroup.org.

Photo by Carol Rosegg/Courtesy of CTG: Alan Cox as Frost and Stacy Keach as Nixon

Kirk Douglas and His Namesake Theater

Not since the grand opening in 2004 of Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre has the man it’s named for graced its stage. Since he didn’t perform that time, CTG Artistic Director Michael Ritchie has been waiting for Douglas’ return to the Culver City venue. That wish has finally been fulfilled, as the 92-year-old Hollywood legend will perform a new one-man show about his life, “Before I Forget,” directed by Jeff Kanew. Douglas has plenty of interesting material, which he has explored in a few autobiographies, starting with 1988’s “The Ragman’s Son.” Born in New York to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Douglas worked his way out of his familial poverty to become an Academy Award-nominated screen star with work in such films as “Champion,” “The Bad and the Beautiful,” and “Lust for Life,” as well as other classics like “Spartacus.” Douglas’ most recent memoir, “Let's Face it: 90 Years of Living, Loving, and Learning,” was published in 2007.

Performances will be on Fridays, March 6 and 13, at 8 p.m.; and Sundays, March 8 and 15, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25.

“Before I Forget” is part of DouglasPlus, a series of theater events including readings and other minimally staged shows. A family show called “Darwin” on Saturday, March 14, at 10:30 am and 2 pm will feature the adventures of a scientist and his creation, “an electro-luminescent wire dinosaur” named after the English naturalist whose 200th birthday (Feb. 12) is being celebrated across the world. This hybrid of theater, puppetry, music and dance created by Corbin Popp and Ian Carney is free to Culver City residents (all others $20). Next up is Mike Daisey’s monologue, “How Theater Failed America" March 18-21, followed by Michael Sargent and Bart DeLorenzo's world-premiere play “The Projectionist” March 26-28 and April 2-3, and then Matt Sax and Eric Rosen’s “Venice,” a hip-hop musical loosely based on “Othello.” Tickets to each of those shows are $20.

Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City 90232, (213) 628-2772, www.CenterTheatreGroup.org. The theater also has a great Lounge (with a full bar and food) that becomes a post-performance hang-out with DJs spinning tunes on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Photo courtesy of CTG

Dracula

Dracula lovers, your ship has come in – and yes, it’s carrying the irresistible Count and his coffins of Transylvanian soil. It’s docked in North Hollywood, where “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” plays at the Noho Arts Center through March 22.

Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” the bible of vampire literature, has spawned countless retellings, not all of them worthy of their literary ancestor. Fortunately, director Ken Sawyer adapted Hamilton Deane’s 1924 play, authorized by Stoker’s widow and revised by John Balderston in 1927. The Noho production feels authentic and contemporary at the same time, and has a great balance of horror, romance and even a few laughs.

In this version, Mina (understudy Erica Hess at last Sunday's show) is Count Dracula's (Robert Arbogast) first victim, and Lucy Seward (Mara Marini), Jonathan Harker’s (J.R. Mangels) fiancée, becomes the Count’s next conquest (and, it turns out, his reincarnated love from centuries past). Lucy’s mother, Dr. Lily Seward (Karesa McElheny), runs the asylum, where Renfield (Alex Robert Holmes) tries to resist being a slave to the “Master.” Dr. Seward’s friend, professor Van Helsing (Joe Hart), who has a helpful knowledge of folklore, leads her and Harker in a quest to kill the vampire.

Yes, there are plot and character condensations, and no scenes in Transylvania, but those are not to be considered flaws, even by this Stoker purist who has not found satisfactory updates in Anne Rice’s books or Buffy and Angel and has not checked out “Twilight” for fear of similar disappointment. The essence of the classic in the Noho Arts Center Ensemble/David Elzer production is as potent as wolfsbane or garlic is to vampires.

All of the actors, without exception, are outstanding. But, of course, Dracula is the star. Arbogast, with his lean chiseled body and low-riding tight leather pants, is a reincarnation of the sexy, seductive and pretentiously evil vampires played by Frank Langella or Gary Oldman. But Arbogast’s version is no imitation; only once, and to good effect, did a line recall Oldman’s delivery in the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola movie. And a sexy “Dracula” is only appropriate given the themes of the classic novel, including the Victorian notion that female sexuality is a sin and that women willing to be tempted by the evil Count must have their souls saved.

Marini (who usually plays Mina but was cast last Sunday as Lucy) could work as a horror movie screamer and made a convincing transformation from meek innocent to voluptuous vampire. Holmes has a meaty role as an asylum patient who climbs walls and eats flies, but is sane enough to know evil when he sees it. Even the smaller roles of Butterworth and Wells, played by Chad Coe and Tahni Delong, are distinct and interesting characters.

The set design by Desma Murphy is worthy of a film with plenty of lush, romantic details and ingenious devices, like torn “ship sails” that economically transform part of the stage into the ship on which Dracula traveled from Transylvania to England. The literary touch of painting a copy of Henry Fuseli’s 1781 “Nightmare” on the set’s back wall was a creative and thoughtful addition. Throughout the play, a soft light usually stayed on the incubus sitting on a sleeping woman’s chest.

Paula Higgins’ costumes evoke a Victorian era with a contemporary twist. And the atmosphere’s thrills and chills are intensified by Sawyer’s sound and Ovation Award winner Luke Moyer’s lighting. The theater is filled variously with bat sounds, lightning, howling wolves, smoke and more.

The only weakness in the production came near the end. I was unsure what happened to Lucy because Van Helsing says they cut out her heart to save her soul -- but then that doesn’t appear to be true. Even so, that’s easily forgiven after an hour and a half of brilliant theater.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 3 pm through March 22.
Noho Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, (818) 508-7101, ext. 7, www.thenohoartscenter.com

Robert Arbogast as Dracula and Joe Hart as Van Helsing in the Noho Arts Center Ensemble production of “Dracula,” directed by Ken Sawyer. Photo by Michael Lamont/courtesy of Demand PR

Gedde Up!

Gedde Watanabe stars in East West Players' next production "Ixnay." (For details, see the previous post.)

Watanabe, who just finished a film and is part of a TV pilot in development, sat down in the lobby of EWP’s David Henry Hwang Theater one evening before rehearsal for “Ixnay” to chat with me. The laughter punctuating his comments was so hearty and infectious, he could sell tickets to listen to him just talk and laugh on stage.

Tell me about your character Tadashi Ozaki.
Tadashi Ozaki is head of the Reincarnation Station No. 92, which is when people die, they come and see me before they transition.

Do you choose what they become?
I don’t really choose, but probably from my own sense I can choose who goes back as Asian American. And a lot of them didn’t want to. [laughs] One of the characters [Raymond Kobayashi, played by Aaron Takahashi] doesn’t want to go back as one, and I’m totally befuddled by the fact that he doesn’t want to go back as an Asian American.

Why doesn’t he?
I think he just had a really hard life [laughs] as an Asian American. You know, the discrimination. He wants to experience being a white person. It’s kind of profound in that sense. I totally get it. But my character is totally befuddled at him. Consequently, he shows his racist side because he pushes it so hard…. I try to reason with this kid about why it’s so important why he needs to go back as one. I give him lots of lists, and it’s like [laughs] the reasonings are kind of comical. But in an odd way, they’re kind of real too. … One line says the Japanese-American race is kind of disappearing because of interracial marriages and all that kind of stuff. In the year of Obama, you kind of wonder.

Is this a laugh-out-loud comedy?
I have no idea how this audience is going to react to this. It’s kind of like [Albert Brooks’] “Defending Your Life” Japanese style, in a way. [laughs] It will be interesting to see what the audience, what the generations are going to think of this.

How are rehearsals going for this word premiere?
There’s an open door for me in this play and I realize that [director Jeff Liu] is letting me do that and I respect that. It’s been neat. He knows that I’m always trying to figure something out. I will always question something when it’s just not working…. This is what’s so great about East West is that you can explore that. You don’t have to be perfect. I think they want to make a good play and they want to figure out how to make sense of it.

Is that why you like working here? [Note: Watanabe also performed in EWP's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" in 2001 and last year's "Pippin."]
I think the reason why I like working here is that it’s just comfortable. … They all know me. They can slap me in the face when I’m really being ridiculous. They can tell me to go to hell. Or I can tell them to go to hell. [laughs] So it’s sort of comfortable. It’s like you’re in your living room. And what better place to do theater than in your living room? At least when I was a kid we all did theater in the living room.

Were you funny when you were a kid?
No. My sisters thought I was funny. I was very serious and very brooding. I fought people a lot. So maybe that’s what made me funny. I defended a lot of people. You grew up in Utah, so all the white people you just wanted to slap in the face. Excuse me, sorry. It’s true. [laughs] All the Mormons, sorry. I wanted to slap them in the face. [laughs] Especially the girls that were always complaining about girls that didn’t wear bras. I thought, “Oh god, get over yourself.” That’s all the Mormon girls cared about: “She’s not wearing a bra.” My best friend was a girl from Boston and she never wore a bra and she was the most brilliant girl in that whole class, just sophisticated. Her mother brought her to Utah and she said, “What the f!$* am I doing here?” -- excuse me -- and we became friends immediately.

I noticed on Tadashi’s Myspace page (www.myspace.com/tadashiozaki) that he said he hated “Sixteen Candles.” Now why is he disparaging that film?
He did? I never said that. [laughs] Somebody made that up.

Oh, you aren’t doing the updates?
No, I don’t even know what Myspace is. … That’s an interesting thought: Would he have liked “Sixteen Candles”? Yeah, he would have liked it. He would have adored it, because he is just out of his gourd about how he sees life. … Isn’t that weird? Interesting, huh? Yeah, he would have thought it was like Shakespeare probably. [laughs] That’s the character speaking, that’s not me speaking. [laughs] He would have loved it, and I’ll tell you why. Because he was making fun of another culture, which he does. He thinks everything is below Japanese American. So he would have loved it!

Well, you know, everybody still loves that movie. What’s it been, 25 years? People still love that movie and talk about your character Long Duk Dong. [Note: Some in the Asian-American community found it controversial.]
Can’t live it down.

No. But do you want to?
No, I don’t really think about that much anymore. The last thing I ever did that made any sense to me about it was I went to a benefit for homeless women who needed underwear and I just thought at the last moment, you know I’m going to raise them some money, so I took the microphone and I said I will sell any line that you want, put it on your cellphone if you give them $10. They made over $2,000 in the crowd, something like that. I thought, well, there you go. Who cares anymore?

If you could be reincarnated…
Oh god!

You know I have to ask this. I saw your Myspace video (www.myspace.com/tadashiozaki), but I figured I’d ask this fresh.
I would just like to be able to be reincarnated. Let’s just say if I decided to come back as an actor, I would love to come back in a time when color didn’t matter for the role. Because I think you don’t get considered for a lot of stuff. In one sense, you can’t really develop your talent, and I think that’s the hardest to live with when you are in this business.

East West Players

East West Players, the nation's premiere Asian-American theater, brings Long Duk Dong back to its Little Tokyo stage in "Ixnay," which opens Feb. 18. Well, not actually Long Duk Dong, but the actor who played him in the classic '80s film "Sixteen Candles," Gedde Watanabe. Beloved by a generation of now-middle-aged John Hughes fans who have seen the film over and over and can recite all of the actor’s hilarious lines, Watanabe appeared recently on East West Players' stage as the grandmother in the company's hip-hop/anime version of "Pippin."

If you missed the chance to see Watanabe in drag, be sure to catch him in "Ixnay," written by Paul Kikuchi (and developed and workshopped in EWP’s David Henry Hwang Writers Institute) and directed by EWP Literary Manager Jeff Liu. This world premiere play is the story of a Japanese-American man who wants to be reincarnated as a Caucasian. Watanabe plays the reincarnation station attendant. Other actors in the cast include June Kyoko Lu, one of the founders of EWP (“Lady in the Water”); Dante Basco (“Hook”); and Aaron Takahashi, member of Cold Tofu improv troupe (“Yes Man”).

“Ixnay” opens Wed., Feb.18, and closes Sun., March 15. Opening night will be accompanied by a pre-performance cocktail reception and a post-show reception with the cast and creative team ($60). Regular performances ($30, $35) are Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2pm. Previews ($20) are Feb. 12 - 14 at 8 and Feb. 15 at 2. The Pay-What-You-Can Performance will be Feb. 19 at 8.

East West Players’ David Henry Hwang Theater at the Union Center for the Arts, 120 Judge John Aiso St., (213) 625-7000, www.eastwestplayers.org.

Photo by Azusa Oda/courtesy of EWP: Aaron Takahashi surrounded by Dante Basco, Gedde Watanabe, June Kyoko Lu, and Matthew Yang King.