ADRIENNE BARBEAU TO PRODUCE MORE ‘SNOW’

“I was standing onstage at La Mirada during the last week of the show,” said Adrienne Barbeau of Steve Metcalfe’s “Strange Snow,” “thinking, ‘I’d like to do this for another year’--when it dawned on me that I could. I just had to produce it myself.”

And so Barbeau’s done just that: Eight weeks after her last bow at La Mirada Civic Theatre, she’s reassembled the cast (herself, Michael Keys Hall and James Horan) and director Glenn Casale for Saturday’s opening at the Hollywood Playhouse.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to go back and dig deeper into the characters,” she added. “And for a first-time producer, I had lots of help. The actors were rehearsed, we used the same set--just cut it down. The only difference is that when we did it at La Mirada, we had to clean up some of the language. Also, it helps to be in a smaller house, not having to scream at the top of your lungs.”

Barbeau plays Martha, a spinster schoolteacher whose staid and stagnant life with her brother Dave is upset by the impromptu appearance of Megs, an old Vietnam War buddy of Dave’s. Originally staged at the Old Globe in 1984, “Snow” has been mounted locally since in productions at the Odyssey and at the Coast Playhouse.

When she first read the play, she heard that the Coast version was in pre-production. “But I stayed away purposely,” Barbeau recalled. “I didn’t want to think I should be doing it that way. Steve Metcalfe has written parts that are very open, that can be interpreted many ways. And Martha is not the kind of role I normally do. I’m playing her stern and severe, a woman who has always thought of herself as unattractive and shapeless. People often carry those ideas from childhood, and use them later to explain why their life’s not working out, or to keep people away. Yet there is a little girl in Martha, and she flowers under this man’s attention.

“For me, it’s a play about love, how love can heal: Martha and Megs, Megs and Dave,” she noted. “And since ‘Platoon’ was released, there’s been a real renewed interest in Vietnam. Of course, this is very different from the movie; it’s about the coming home. We had a lot of vets in the audiences at La Mirada. One night, in a discussion after the show, a man stood up and said, ‘This is the way it was. (Like Dave), I never talk about it.” (On May 10, there will be a special benefit for the Veterans Food Bank.)

As for the prospect of a long run, Barbeau (who was last seen onstage locally in the smashing 1983 production of “Women Behind Bars” at the Roxy) recalled: “When I started on Broadway, I was a struggling young actress, working as a disco dancer. So when they offered me a year’s contract in ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ I signed; I was so happy to have steady employment. Actually, I stayed longer than a year, and it did start to work against me. But with this production, (having too long a run) should be my worst worry.”

Another social issue of our time, the plight of the homeless, is brought back to the stage in “No Stone for Studs Schwartz,” reopening Friday at downtown’s Boyd St. Theatre. The catch here is that this is a production by the homeless: an ensemble group, headed by John Malpede, named the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD).

“It’s a story, but it’s not written down,” explained Malpede, who in 1985 was given a grant by the California Arts Council to set up an acting workshop on Skid Row for the homeless. “It’s improvised in performance, like an oral history. And within the story line, there are a lot of changes, riffs and lines that develop. Just (as) in every show, there are differences of interpretation--but unlike the others, these (12 performers) get to act on it.

“Jim Beame is the narrator of the story and I play his alter ego,” he continued. “I keep him on track, because Jim has a way of getting sidetracked. And when it gets too pat, I get to introduce the craziness. That’s what I really like, maintaining the balance between sanity and insanity.” The actual story (hold on to your hats here) “cribs from ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ It begins with a body on the floor, who gets up and starts narrating his adventures, this 1972 B-adventure movie. He’s a gambler/itinerant waiter/beach bum who claims to be working with a union organizer--but he made a mistake and now they want to send him to work on a kibbutz.

“The plot is the white bread, the improvisation is the butter,” Malpede offered. “You get to see people playing these characters--and you also get to see a little bit of the people themselves.”

LATE CUES: On Friday, the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts hosts its annual fund-raiser at the Biltmore Hotel. “Ole Tango!” will feature a cabaret night in Buenos Aires with dancing and Argentine cuisine--plus appearances by Anthony Quinn and Lalo Schifrin, who are among this year’s recipients of the El Angel Award for Lifetime Achievement. Tickets ($175) are available by calling (213) 225-4044.

Dura Temple’s dark comedy, “God’s Blind Eye,” has been selected the winner of the 21st St. Theatre Company’s second annual playwrights’ competition. The winning work, chosen from 300 entries, is scheduled for a June production at the theater.

A second production of Jerry Mayer’s comedy, “Almost Perfect”--now in its seventh month at the Santa Monica Playhouse--recently opened at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre in Florida. A third production is planned for this summer in Kansas City.

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: Martin Sherman’s “Bent,” a strong and compelling story about the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany, opened recently at the Coast Playhouse to equally potent reviews.

In this paper, Sylvie Drake warned that the play “won’t be everyone’s cup of hemlock. We are made to experience the odyssey of Max (David Marshall Grant, who also directed) . . . from arrest, transportation and survival in Dachau. As theater, this borders on voyeuristic sensationalism. But the impulse behind it is not phony. For all of its overindulgence--its violent images, its heightened sense of melodrama and explicit sexual recitatives--’Bent’ fiercely holds on to a dignity that ultimately is the key to its success.”

In the Herald-Examiner, Michael Lassell was also moved and, while quibbling with some of the characterizations, found the acting “uniformly excellent.” In conclusion, he wrote: “All in all, it is a brilliant play in a stunning production, the kind of event that kills you with the love of life at the same time it crushes you with the pain of living. It’s remarkable, enduring, important, visionary.” Variety likewise dubbed the show “an excellent technical production,” yet found fault with Grant’s casting and the absence of German accents.

In Drama-Logue, Lee Melville noted that Grant “understands this play, knows how to make it work to its best advantage, and guides it superbly.” Melville also praised the acting (by Grant, Peter Frechette, Ian Abercrombie, Richard Frank and Viggo Mortenson), as well as the set, costume and lighting design. “Everything has been done to cover over the flaws in a script that still has much to say to a world that continually needs reminding.”