If one is interested in plays about the good old days of the early twentieth century of academia when students were just students with boy meets girl problems – like Andy Hardy – and the faculty were in charge to satisfy their lofty and imperious careers at their whim, perhaps you should put the kettle on and rent a DVD of “Goodbye Mr. Chips” from Netflix.

The world premiere of “Death of the Author”, which opened on May 28, on the stage of the Geffen’s Audrey Skirball Kenis Theatre in Westwood is an updated twenty-first century version of similar problems, but with a modern twist.  The students are almost, but not quite, in charge of the academic asylum. At least one student, however, thinks he has found a way to game the system by cutting corners – in a word plagiarism.  But there’s more to the core story than just plagiarism.  It merely sets the play’s action in motion.

This interesting, engaging, dramaedy written by playwright and Pulitzer Prize nominee Steven Drukman, comes to grips with the reality and intensity of just how important and essential it is for students of the 21st century to get those eye-popping grades that open doors at America’s elite Universities and Colleges.  After graduating, one can parlay that piece of sheepskin into a long and successful business career if one is clever and lucky enough.

Drukman’s multi-layered text of ambition, heartbreak, and cutthroat competition that is now center stage in American culture is not only cleverly written it is also funny.  The opening night audience, heavily weighted with young people in their twenties, and students from UCLA, caught and punctuated with laughter, every nuance and irony of the situations the characters found themselves in. It’s a toss-up as to whom the audience was rooting: rules vs. creative options.  Apparently, situation ethics is still alive and well in academia.

“Death of the Author”, is helmed by talented award winning director Bart DeLorenzo who follows Jeff, a bright, young, adjunct college professor (understatedly played by David Clayton Rogers who inhabits the unsung plot role and thus has to do the heavy lifting)  suspects one of his students of plagiarism.  It’s only a few days before graduation.  His inquiry and subsequent meeting with graduating senior Bradley (solidly portrayed by Austin Butler) ignites a chain reaction of events that affect the lives of four characters in a very short time frame.  Jeff’s eccentric mentor and legendary/celebrity department head J. Trumbull Sykes, a scheming, witty and sly survivor of many academic and bureaucratic wars who prefers dry martinis and off campus conversation to actually running a department, is portrayed by scene-stealing Orson Bean in a little gem of a performance.

The lone female in this ensemble cast is Lyndon Smith, who as Sarah, plays the ex-girlfriend of Bradley and has the pivotal role that affects all the characters.  Anything more comes close a spoiler alert.  Plays that have plagiarism as a subject usually leave the veracity or conclusion of the issue up to the audience to decide for themselves.  Ambiguity is usually a safe zone for playwrights.  I think this observation applies to “Death of the Author”.

The creative team led by DeLorenzo includes: Scenic Designer Takeshi Kata, who makes an interesting choice in designing three walls of his set in floor to ceiling mirrors, which then presents his Lighting Designer Lap Chi Chu with the challenge of lighting an all-mirrored set. Costume Designer Christina Haatainen Jones, provides the proper look in her costuming of all the academic characters.

Playwright Drukman and director Bart DeLorenzo deliver lots options for the audience to ponder in this intriguing and entertaining production.  “Death of the Author” at the Geffen Playhouse is performed without an intermission and runs through June 29th.

There’s no doubt about it.  Actors love Christopher Durang plays whether they are in them or just watching them, as was the case of Durang’s fast-paced and wildly wacky play “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike”, on opening night, May 22nd, at San Diego’s venerable Old Globe Theatre.

Durang has been poking his playwright fingers into society’s eyes for years with the result being he now has a loyal and growing fan base.  And with good reason too.  He’s a brilliant, highly educated, critical -thinking writer and playwright who loves his chosen profession.  And he’s not afraid to write over-the-top material for actors.

The current Durang comedy-bombshell hilarious staged by director Jessica Stone (based on the Broadway direction of Nicholas Martin) is blessed with a cast that knows their way around a farce play when they find themselves in one.  Timing on the part of actors is critical to any production.  One cannot teach timing to actors.  Either they have it or they don’t, and timing is an imperative in a Durang farce.  And the ensemble cast of this production has the timing down in spades.

If you wondered about the title of the play you’re not alone.  The characters have also pondered why their artsy parents named them after Chekhov characters (which is explained to the audience during the play).  The story revolves around three siblings: Vanya, Sonia, and Masha.   Vanya, is played with quiet, but deceptive, rectitude by Martin Moran.  Sonia, the long suffering socially-challenged sister is brilliantly portrayed by Marcia De Bonis, and Masha, the glamorous sibling who has enjoyed a successful B- movie career, is played to the hilt by Candy Buckley.

Vanya and Sonia have been relegated to stay-at-home siblings and “caretakers” of a lovely Bucks county estate over the years, while their landlord sister Masha has been all over the globe making movies as well as leaving five husbands in her wake. To say that Vanya and Sonia are jealous of their sister’s lifestyle would be an understatement.  As a way of ameliorating their caretaker roles, Masha hires Cassandra, a housekeeper with comedy voodoo attitudes energetically played by Haneefah Wood, as a way of easing their “pain” of sitting around the house with nothing to do.
When word reaches the house that Masha is returning for a visit with Spike, her young, self-absorbed, actor boy-toy in tow (a tall, buff, Tyler Lansing Weaks),  Vanya and Sonia learn that Masha is intent on selling the estate. Yikes!  What’s going to happen to the family?  What happens is the stuff of almost non-stop laughter by the audience.  Into this madcap romp comes Nina, a young, and attractive neighbor played by Allison Layman who immediately catches Spike’s eye, much to the discomfort of Masha.  As Cassandra says to no one in particular in Act one, “Beware the Ides of March.  What follows in Act two are several Ides of March moments.

It’s a pleasure to see talented actors relishing the situations that playwright Durang places them in by giving each one a blisteringly hilarious, breath-defying ten minute monologue in the second act that leaves the audience limp from laughter.   Even gifted actors in farce, however, don’t do it alone.  The steady but inventive and fluent hand of director Stone has a lot to do with it.  And she keeps all of the proceedings on track and on point.

The creative team led by Stone, really shines in Set Designer David Korins’ beautifully rendered Bucks County, PA estate house.  Lighting Designer David Weiner delivers the bucolic set in various shades of light and shadows enhancing the overall look and feel of this terrific production.
The selection of “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” as part of the Globe’s 2014 theatre season, further burnishes the image of Artistic Director Barry Edelstein and his selection team as they continue to present plays of substance and plays that please Old Globe audiences all across all genres. Now that’s a winning combination.

The production now on the Donald and Darlene Shiley stage runs through June 22nd.  Don’t miss the hottest theatre ticket in San Diego.

How does that age-old adage about talent go?  Oh, yes. Jack of all trades master of none.  “Palo Alto”, the film based on a selection of short stories that had been incorporated into a very slender book chronicling a series of episodes of bored and boring Silicon Valley teenagers by James Franco, becomes the subject for the film debut of yet another Coppola family member – Gia Coppola.   Gia, grand-daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, however, displays and very ably represents, her famous family in her film directorial debut “Palo Alto”  I just wish she had better source material to highlight her talent as a first time director.

Technically, the film is proficient with good camera work, and acting.  Her style validates her famous family pedigree and penchant for delivering auteur written and directed films.  Her cousin, Sofia’s second written and directed by feature credit in 2003’s “Lost in Translation”, produced four Academy Award nominations nabbing a Best Oscar statuette for Sofia for Best Original Screenplay  Alas, that’s not going to happen with “Palo Alto”.  But that’s not entirely Gia’s fault.  True, directors have to bite the bullet and take the hit when the film doesn’t live up to the director’s expectation.  In the case of “Palo Alto” which hits southern California screens sometime this May, at least it arrives at the beginning of the movie summer season. It’s available for teens and young adults to sample its somewhat predictable storyline that is supposed to resonate with them.  Hey Dude, I don’t think so.  There are over 100 million young people in the age demographic “Palo Alto” is targeting and I doubt this film will truly resonate, except in the fantasies of young people waiting to grow up and join the rest of us in the rat race of adulthood.   If you thought your High School days were boring, wait to you see these paragons of the student body in action.

Coppola and Franco’s views on the “secret and desperate” lives of America’s adolescents are so preoccupied with booze, drugs and sex that their days really don’t leave much time for the serious business of merely living and growing up.  I haven’t seen that many cigarettes fired up and that much alcohol consumed, or that many sexual liaisons since episodes of TV’s “Mad Men” burst on an unsuspecting America viewing public ten years ago.

The not so stellar stories excised from Franco’s book and cobbled together by Coppola, revolve around a shy, sensitive, and virginal April (Emma Roberts) a sometime baby sitter for her high school soccer coach Mr. B (creepily played by James Franco, who also produced the film). Teddy, a secret admirer of April (nicely played by new comer Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer) is an introspective artist whose best friend and loose cannon sidekick Fred, played by Nat Wolff in an over-the-top effort reminiscent of the James Dean character in “Rebel Without a Cause”, together and separately all managed somehow to screw up their lives in a society that doesn’t understand their inner problems, which by the way, are never explored or explained.  Emily (Zoe Levin), is a promiscuous high school loner who seeks validation through sexual encounters (shades of “Saturday Night Fever”).  One high school party after another – without a parent in sight – bleeds into a series of reckless behaviors on the part of our intrepid upscale party-going teenagers until everything spins into chaos, without offering a single resolution or explanation.

When it comes to the casting of the roles, however, Gia Coppola and her casting director get high marks.  They have peopled the screen with interesting actors.  Roberts (a niece of Julia Roberts) is especially compelling, conflicted, moody, and vulnerable in the role of a teenager about to enter the world of adults and all that that implies.  In reality Roberts is a youthful looking 23 year-old that the camera just loves.

Is the torch of older filmmakers and ageing movie audiences being passed to filmmakers of the 21st century like the Coppola’s and other emerging writers and directors?  If it is, I sincerely hope that they come up with better quality stories to tell.  As for films about teenagers yes, there is definitely a place for them in the commercial arena.  Our hope is that the material be a little more compelling and grounded in reality.

In the case of “Palo Alto”, it remains to be seen if the summer movie genre – mainly made up of young girls – can raise the movie to the level of a summer box office winner.  It’s a little dark,  edgy, and fragmented, which are pluses for younger audiences.  On the down side, at times it moves at a pace bordering on glacial.  That’s not a good sign for America’s attention-challenged young viewers or for the box office receipts.  Time will tell.

The City of Desert Hot Springs and the Community and Cultural Affairs Commission  would like to invite the public to attend our City’s Memorial Day Commemoration May 26, 2014.

The ceremony begins at 10 a. m. at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Desert Hot Springs located at the corner of Palm Drive and Mission Lakes Boulevard.

Please come and share this day, to honor those who have given so much to their country and to guard the freedoms we enjoy as Americans today.