Denker Finds a Play in Central Park

Henry Denker is a busy man. He’s written seven television specials, two screenplays, published 14 novels (two more are in the works). For 10 years he wrote, directed and produced “The Greatest Story Ever Told” on radio and television. Seven of his plays have been produced on Broadway--including “Horowitz and Mrs. Washington,” which has its West Coast premiere this weekend at the Main Stage Theatre.

“I work seven days a week--and I never run out of ideas,” said the writer/director (“A Case of Libel,” “A Far Country”) from his winter home in Palm Springs. “I look at newspapers, I read, I ask, I go to hospitals, courtrooms, I prowl around like a detective. I got the idea for this story (it was originally a novel by the same name) because I live on Central Park West and 84th Street in New York, and every afternoon when I’d walk downtown, I kept seeing the same sight: an elderly Jewish man either with a walker or in a chair and a black woman taking care of him.

“Having witnessed that scene for so many years, I thought, ‘There must be a story beyond that hour that they spend in the park.’ So this is about the relationship of two people, totally mismatched. The man’s in his 60s, a victim of a mugging--and a stroke. The only person his son can find to take care of him is Mrs. Washington. The antagonism the man has towards her is part of being incapacitated--he’s lost rudimentary things like picking up a spoon--and having it come from a woman who’s black. He hasn’t had any special prejudice, but the muggers were black, so he’s sensitive about that.”

Denker, who spent time researching stroke victims for the novel/play, had intended to direct this production at the Main Stage, but had to turn over the reins to Trudy Brooks, a week into rehearsals. “I would’ve loved to stay on if I could,” he said earnestly. “I like the play, I like the people, but I had to come back here because I owe two manuscripts: one to William Morrow (“The Retreat,” a Palm Springs-set novel, out this fall) and one to Reader’s Digest (“Gift of Life,” for next spring).

“There’s never a dull moment.”

Also opening this weekend: Doug Cox’s “White Squirrels,” a two-character romantic comedy making its premiere at the Zephyr Theatre on Saturday. William Schreiner (“Just Like the Pom Pom Girls”) directs.

“It’s set in a small town in Illinois that really has white squirrels,” said Cox, a founding--and continuing--member of the Groundlings. “My parents are from around there; I think I’m distantly related to about one-fourth of the town. Robyn Mundell plays Bonnie, who’s about to marry the town nerd--and the night before the wedding, Russell (his character) shows up. I left her at the altar four years ago, now I’m on my way to the bachelor party, and we get to talking--like why I left her, why she’s marrying a guy she doesn’t love.”

The idea originated from an improv game Groundlings director Tom Maxwell proposed at a workshop several years ago: “What would you be doing if you hadn’t come to L.A.?” So, Cox notes, “it’s not really autobiographical. It’s what would’ve happened, not what did.” And although he’s proud of the Groundlings association, it’s by no means limiting: Last year, Cox and fellow member John Moody wrote a screenplay for New World Pictures. Stylewise, he adds, “The Groundlings are broad and wacky--and this is not that. It’s a comedy, but serious. Briefly.”

LATE CUES: Warwick Moss’ “Down an Alley Filled With Cats” opens today at the Pasadena Playhouse. . . . Monday, the Omicho Theatre Company touches down at the Matrix for two nights in “When the Women Who Loved Insects Hid”. . . . Wednesday, Dan Goggin’s Off-Broadway hit “Nunsense” opens at the Henry Fonda and “All in Favor Said No” opens at the Morgan-Wixson as part of Cal-Arts in Town. . . . Thursday, the fourth annual benefit for AIDS Project L.A. kicks off two nights at the Variety Arts Center with a tribute to the music of Jule Styne. . . . Friday, Ed Sakamoto’s popular “Stew Rice” reopens at East West players. . . . Saturday, Harold Gould begins a two-night run in Lynn Roth’s “Freud” at Loyola Marymount.

CRITICAL CROSS FIRE: “The Promise,” Jose Rivera’s modern-day tale of star-crossed love and Mexican spiritualism, opened recently at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

Said The Times’ Dan Sullivan: “It will remind you a little of ‘The Dybbuk’ and a little of ‘The Tempest,’ and it will also strike you as wholly original. The Virgin Mary is in it, plus several ghosts, but the setting is as real as a backyard in Patchogue, Long Island.”

From the L.A. Weekly’s Bill Raden: “On its surface, ‘The Promise’ is heaped with the colorful, quasi-voodoo Christian mysticism of Puerto Rico’s native Santeria. But the real magic comes in Rivera’s alchemic attempt to change base melodramatic rhetoric and overt symbolism into the gold of a solid dramatic achievement. The results are frustratingly mixed.”

Kim Mitchell in Daily Variety dubbed it “a tale of love and betrayal so vivid and disturbing that Shakespeare himself would have clapped his hands in glee. ‘The Promise’ is frequently funny and touching, but not enough so as to deter the underlying tension and impending disaster. . . .”

Said Drama-Logue’s Polly Warfield: “ ‘The Promise’ holds promise, but there’s too little truth in it. Its substance is thin, the paella has a nice exotic tang, but its ingredients fail to blend. The play is something Federico Garcia-Lorca might have dreamed after seeing too many Sam Shepard plays.”

Last, from Tom Jacobs in the Daily News: “ ‘The Promise’ ends up being a hopelessly muddled play, though an undeniably stylish one. Rivera’s play often seems overwritten (‘She smells like broken promises’) and in many cases, it is definitely overacted. But it is an ambitious work, and at times a fascinating one.”