‘Kathy and Mo’: A Point of Many Views

Welcome, Kathy and Mo. Just-opened at the Los Angeles Theatre Center is “The Kathy & Mo Show: Parallel Lives,” a series of sketches written by and starring Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney.

“We each play 10 characters, male and female,” explained Najimy. “And we’re both feminists, so it has that perspective.” The show, which the pair have been performing for the last 3 1/2 years, began in their native San Diego, before moving to New York (and seven months Off Broadway), Baltimore, San Francisco and San Diego.

The appeal? “Maybe that we’re regular people,” Najimy said. “I think a lot of people are fed up with the ‘Dynasty’ thing--people who are not like you, will never be like you. This is relatable . And audiences are appreciative of something with a point of view, without feeling that you’re stupider than the people performing. Also, perhaps we bring an open mind to things you may be thinking about: (gender) roles, fear, thinking you’re supposed to be a certain way. We question that a lot.

“In one piece, a woman fantasizes about being the perfect ‘80s woman, kind of like Linda Evans in that hair color commercial. The piece is called ‘Mrs. Kenny Rogers and the Prostitute.’ I don’t know Marianne Rogers; she’s probably a very nice woman. But whenever you see her in magazines, she’s looking very natural--natural that took four hours to get that way. Plus she’s there for her man--but being strong, not a housewife.”

Other sketches introduce Holly and Molly, “who recite a poem at a lesbian vegetarian cafe; a pair of punks; and Hank and Karen Sue, middle-aged alcoholics in a bar in Texas. And since Mo and I were both brought up in large Catholic families, that shows up a lot in our writing. There’s a continuing confession throughout the piece of things you were supposed to do wrong. It’s what it’s like to grow up with Catholic guilt.”

Also opening at the Theatre Center--tonight--is Czech actor Boleslav Polivka in “The Jester and the Queen,” which he also wrote and directed. Chantal Poullain co-stars.

“I don’t like to speak about the show,” Polivka said in heavily accented English. When pressed, however, he allowed that “The jester is there to amuse the Queen. And the jester’s job is also the actor’s job. For me, being so long in professional theater, this is a reflection of what I do--and why. I try to amuse myself, and it’s very difficult.” As for language, he admits, “There is some, but it’s also very physical. (In the past), my performances were without words. In ‘The Jester and the Queen,’ I speak more. Reflection without words is difficult.”

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: Anthony Minghella’s “Made in Bangkok,” which finds five Britishers sampling the sexual wares of Thailand, recently opened at the Mark Taper Forum under the direction of Robert Egan.

Said The Times’ Dan Sullivan: “The characters aren’t particularly interesting, once we have understood their function as emissaries from the corrupted West. There are times, in fact, when Minghella’s play seems designed to illustrate the Noel Coward song, ‘Why Do the Wrong People Travel?’ ”

The Daily News’ Tom Jacobs cheered: “In a society where everything and everyone is for sale, the value of human life is lost. And when we lose that, Minghella suggests, we’ve lost everything. Minghella has created fascinating, complex characters. He knows how to build dramatic momentum and his use of language is excellent.”

From Richard Stayton in the Herald-Examiner: “Although Minghella is an impressive technician, the schematic craftsmanship suffocates the drama. Despite much talk about sex, what gets made in Minghella’s Bangkok are Marxist metaphors, not people.”

Said Daily Variety’s Kathleen O’Steen: “Bangkok may have its steamy underbelly that luridly lures all-too-willing Americans into its fold, but Minghella’s ‘Bangkok’ is a marginal treatment of a serious problem concerning exploitation that serves as a reminder rather than a thought-provoker.”

From Thomas O’Connor in the Orange County Register: “Minghella’s way of folding comic character development into a broader political context is rigorously conventional, and at times clumsy. The facts of Euro-American exploitation of Asian labor for profit and sexual fun are exposed with the sort of regularity and unsubtlety that used to characterize ‘Lou Grant’s’ TV Problem of the Week.”

Said Jay Reiner in the Hollywood Reporter: “Minghella has written a complex and provocative drama that asks more questions than it answers, but also one that manages to entertain as it explores. In some ways, it’s the most intriguing piece of work seen at the Taper for quite a while.”

On KABC-TV, Gary Franklin gave “Bangkok” a 10, with high praise for the Taper, as “just about the only theater in Los Angeles that not only consistently experiments, but experiments without going overboard into the murky waters of obscure and impossible to understand and abstractionism, and instead gives us a drama that is fresh and with which most of us can identify and learn from.”