Learning to Take ‘Nickleby’ Sitting Down

There are those who see it as art by ordeal and won’t have a thing to do with it. Others wait and watch the nine-hour stage production of “Nicholas Nickleby” at the Ahmanson Theatre and take the show’s “trial by time” as part of the package. And they dress for it.

There aren’t a lot of tight skirts or fully buttoned shirts or new shoes in the audience. At least, not when the roving camera for Fashion86 has visited the theater.

Picnics at Intermission

Armed with picnics and plans to pull up a slab of concrete during intermission, most people seem to wear pants or billowing dresses, sport shoes and oversize shirts or sweaters.

Even the Center Theatre Group’s president, J. David Haft (a man who often slips into his tuxedo before dinner parties at home, and who finds himself in the limelight these days because he helped bring the “Nickleby” production to Los Angeles), tells us he dressed casually, for comfort, on opening day and night.

And he recommends that you do the same.