L.A. Theaters Are Singing the Holiday Blues; ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ Journeys to TV

If everyone is hearing the seasonal refrain “ ‘Tis the season to be jolly,” the commercial theater right now is hearing “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” From a commercial standpoint, it almost appears that a blackout has been mysteriously imposed in the greater Los Angeles area.

The Shubert, the Wilshire and the Henry Fonda are dark (“I’m Not Rappaport,” with the original Broadway cast of Cleavon Little and Judd Hirsch, will come to the Fonda--in June). So are the Las Palmas and the L.A. Public. Nothing so far follows Jackie Mason into the Canon. Sales are weak for “Singin’ in the Rain.” The Ahmanson is struggling. The Civic Light Opera has no Los Angeles base any more.

Product has to be part of the problem (the big houses have had too many cultural neutron bombs, such as “Legends,” that kill audiences and leave the theaters standing), but not all of it (why haven’t “Kvetch” and “Bouncers” found their way out of Equity Waiver theaters into commercial houses?).

Stephen Albert, General Manager of the CTG/Mark Taper Forum, recently speculated on some of the causes of L.A. theater’s malaise.

“The attitude of the current Administration certainly hasn’t helped,” noted Albert, “but there are numerous reasons why the theater is in a crisis state--though I’m exempting the non-profit resident theaters.

“The economy is suffering too much of a burden, particularly when the theater has to compete with hospitals, social services and community centers--and with opera and ballet. You’re pitting specific needs against the more general needs of underwriting a vision of society.

“Also, there’s a great deal of competition for the consumer dollar. People have to be more choosy about restaurants and other forms of entertainment. I think the most critical problem is deep in the cultural environment; it’s harder and harder for our institutional trustees to dream and aspire. The environment that produced a Mrs. Norman Chandler to get behind the creation of the Music Center, or the cooperative environment that produced MOCA--a seven-year-old dream--is not part of the theater right now. I see it as a question of leadership.”

Showtime/The Movie Channel Inc. has taped Jack Lemmon in a reprise of his Broadway role of James Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” which was a cause celebre in its recent revival in New York and London. Bethel Leslie, Kevin Spacey, Peter Gallagher and Jodie Lynne McClintock, who were also in the cast, are in the tape as well. Jonathan Miller again directs. The tape will air sometime in early 1987.

What do Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus do on the morning after their night before? Check out the Llhasa Club Dec. 26, where Harry Kipper and Melanie Boone enact “Mr. and Mrs. Claus in the Day After Xmas.” Harry Kipper is one of the world’s most bizarre performance artists (he has extensive European as well as American credits). One of the last times he performed locally was at the Mermaid in Topanga Canyon, where he stripped to the buff (he resembles a circus wrestler), put on a very loose-fitting nurse’s outfit and poured food all over himself.

“My work is just as bizarre as when you saw it in 1975 but I suppose I am an adult now,” he recently wrote. “But of course still a Kipper Kid.”

Onward and upward.