Theater Review: ‘Casa Valentina’ director finds himself differentiating the present from the past
Stage director David Lee thought he knew what he was getting into when he first stepped into a Broadway theater to see the latest play from Harvey Fierstein, “Casa Valentina.” Lee knew there were to be men in women’s clothing and plenty of laughs from the Tony-winning playwright.
That was two Broadway seasons ago, and Lee’s first impression remains a vivid one. “I smugly went into the theater thinking I sort of knew what it was about,” he recalls. “At intermission I walked out and said, ‘I had no idea.’ I found the whole subject matter absolutely fascinating — the world of male heterosexual cross-dressers.”
In the last year Lee began thinking about the play again over coffee with Sheldon Epps, artistic director at the Pasadena Playhouse. Lee has been a frequent director of plays at the theater since 1999, and Epps asked if he’d like to helm the West Coast premiere of Fierstein’s latest.
“It took about a nanosecond to say yes,” says Lee.
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The Playhouse production of “Casa Valentina” opened March 15 with a nine-person cast, most of them male actors dressed as women arriving at a vacation house in the Catskills in 1962. The male characters are neither gay nor transgender, but merely want the freedom to wear women’s clothing. Most are married and hold regular jobs back home.
The play was inspired by the discovery at a flea market of a collection of snapshots of vacationers at a place in the Catskills called Casa Susana. It was run by a man and his wife. Fierstein learned that during a series of meetings there, an effort was made to form a society that advocated for male heterosexual cross-dressers.
Since becoming involved with the play, Lee has found it necessary to put these men in context with their time, and differentiate them from current pop-culture awareness of transgender people.
“In so many interviews it’s, ‘Oh, with so much in the news with this sort of thing ...’ All right, I have to stop and correct people and go, ‘I’m sorry, its not in the news. This is not Caitlin Jenner. This is not “Drag Queen.” It’s not trans-gender and its not transsexual. It’s male heterosexual cross-dressers, and I don’t think that’s been in the news at all.’”
To tell the story in a striking but intimate way, Lee employed the use of a rotating set, which is essentially the home in the Catskills where the men are staying and meeting. Characters move from one room to another within the same structure as the scenes evolve, giving the environment a homey, multidimensional presence.
For the opening scenes of the wife making dinner, and of the men eating dinner and desert, of shaving or fixing hair and makeup, the actors are within a realistic space.
“Honestly, one thing I’d never done is a turntable, and I had this fantasy of finding something where actors could leave one scene and walk across another and end up on yet another set and we would follow them on their journey,” says Lee.
That journey of “Casa Valentina” was imagined by Fierstein with his usual blend of human drama and humor. Lee is certain Fierstein would have written it regardless of what was happening in society. Lee had a long phone conversation with the playwright about the script at the beginning of recreating it onstage in Pasadena.
“I don’t think he was reacting to anything that was going on,” Lee says. “He just found this story and thought it was worth telling. Ultimately it’s a really human story. It’s not only about the personal price of being authentic, but it’s also in the end about the price you exact on those who love you for your authentic life. In any number of situations, people can relate to that.”
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What: “Casa Valentina”
Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Avenue, Pasadena
When: Through April 10
More info: (626) 356-7529, www.pasadenaplayhouse.org
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Steve Appleford, steve.appleford@latimes.com
Twitter: @SteveAppleford
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