‘86 IN REVUE AS CURTAIN COMES DOWN

Let’s face it, the chance to reflect on the year’s best moments in Los Angeles theater on Christmas Day is a lucky break. The goodies were harder to come by in 1986--the risks greater and the money shorter. A good deal of retrenching happened on all levels--from major Equity houses to wavering Equity Waiver. Perhaps for that reason, what was good seemed all the better. The numbers may have been down; the quality was up.

Aside from the hors concours blockbuster, “Nicholas Nickleby” (a huge artistic achievement, even if its showing at the box office remained wanting), there were a fistful of other uncommon treats--none more satisfying in all particulars than “The Common Pursuit” at the Matrix, where playwright Simon Gray took up residence for six weeks to rework his piece, Joe Stern produced and Sam Weisman directed--with feeling.

Gray’s play, covering 20 years in the lives of a group of Cambridge University students who band together to publish a literary magazine, ran high on civility and wit, but also on some extremely judicious, high-octane acting by Wayne Alexander, John De Lancie, Judy Geeson, Nathan Lane, Christopher Neame and Kristoffer Tabori.

It was no accident that, a few months later, the Off-Broadway production of the play, this time co-directed by the playwright and Michael McGuire with three of the original cast members (Geeson, Lane and Tabori), was the hit of a slow-to-start New York season.

In the rest of the 1986 memory bank, nothing quite matched South Africa’s anti-apartheid “Asinamali!” (at the Mark Taper Forum) for sheer vitality. Only John Godber’s “Bouncers,” the L.A. Theatre Works’ first-rate presentation at the Tiffany Theatre, came close. Its four synchromeshed, hip, chip-on-the-shoulder urban toughs (Jack Coleman, Dan Gerrity, Gerrit Graham and Andrew Stevens) strutted their stuff in a dazzling cross between MTV and boot camp. Supercharged execution in both shows made up for a textual density sometimes difficult to sort out.

Abstract, non-linear plays continued to make inroads in 1986. Such unexpected entries as Reza Abdoh’s often spellbinding dream piece, “Rusty Sat on a Hill and Watched the Moon Go Down” (at Stages) or the gentle self-mockery of David Kaplan’s staging of Gertrude Stein’s “Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights” (at the Ensemble Studio Theatre) got to us purely through our senses. The glow had nothing to do with logic. (Abdoh had earlier devised a personal elaboration of the Medea story, unseen by this writer, that also had captured considerable attention.)

Some purely comic outings, such as “Tartuffe” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, traveled far on the strength of a wacky central performance (Ron Leibman’s), even when the rest of the show came perilously close to excesses (though Karl Eigsti’s stunning rococo set was not one of them).

Other comic outings, such as “Nite Club Confidential” on the Tiffany’s North Stage since February, built a hilarious spoof on the slenderest of central ideas thanks to some terrific musicianship (writer/composer/director Dennis Deal’s and musical director Corey Allen’s) and an unflappable sense of style (Fay DeWitt’s, then Edie Adams’ and now Jim Bailey’s).

Steven Berkoff’s “Kvetch,” running since March at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, is the work of a compleat original--a sort of Jewish “Strange Interlude” wherein four people alternate between polite exchanges of social inanities, followed at once by what they really think. Sounds easy, but don’t be fooled. The show has a devoted following, but the baldness of its language (remember “Greek” and “Decadence”?) keeps it from being everybody’s bowl of borscht.

There were other tasty morsels: the Acting Company’s touring “Orchards” (dramatic adaptations of seven Chekhov short stories by seven contemporary Americans, who managed to do justice to Chekhov and to their own voices); musician/comic Dale Gonyea’s zany “A 12 O’Clock Guy in a 9 O’Clock Town” (a flexing at the Public Stage on Canon of a lot of previous stunts, but stylishly done by this heir to Victor Borge)--and “Mrs. California” at the Coronet.

This Doris Baizley 1950s feminist satire (reprised by the Taper and L.A. Public Theatre from an earlier outing at the Taper) was weakened by a set of cartoonish male stereotypes, but it had a lot more on its mind than a few laughs. Jean Smart and Deborah May were knockouts as good buddies determined that one of them should be a winner.

Despite a calendar persistently veering toward light entertainment (or lurid overproduction, as in “Barabbas” at LATC), 1986 also gave us some exemplary dramas. In addition to “The Common Pursuit,” we saw some beautifully realized latter-day Harold Pinter in “Other Places,” three intense one-acts at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.

“Rat in the Skull,” Ron Hutchinson’s superbly acted (by Charles Hallahan and David Grant) if overwritten discourse between Irishmen in an English prison at Taper, Too, has stuck in the memory despite a more negative first impression. Steve Metcalfe’s “Strange Snow” at the Coast Playhouse breaks no new ground, but is remarkable for Brian Kerwin’s exceptional performance as an aching ex-Vietnam vet. And Peter Sellars left his mark on the Southland with a cerebral “Zangezi” (literary curio as performance art at MOCA, mostly notable for its word games and pictorial mise en scene ) and his anti-militaristic “Ajax” (at the La Jolla Playhouse--a theater that continues to offer some of the area’s most extravagant and valid risk-taking).

Combining the best of all theatrical elements (music, song, design, lighting, writing and drama) is the show we have left for last: Stephen Sondheim’s burnished “Sunday in the Park With George,” as presented by the Long Beach Civic Light Opera. Like the Grove Shakespeare Company, which is steadily growing in strength, this is a grass-roots outfit making surprising strides.

Continuing as endangered species are Los Angeles’ large booking houses that depend on vanishing Broadway product (the Shubert, Pantages, Wilshire, Fonda); the Pasadena Playhouse, which made a weak try at a comeback this year and will do it again next year under a new management team (artistic co-directors Susan Dietz and Steve Rothman)--and the Equity Waiver plan (whereby theaters of 99 seats or less “waive” Equity rules but not its jurisdiction). Changes are needed and wanted. What they’ll be, what effect they’ll have will be part of next year’s surprises.

Have a merry--and see you then.