Aaron’s ‘Richard II’ Opens Grove Fest X

As usual, Jules Aaron is a very busy boy.

On Friday, his staging of “Richard II” opens, inaugurating the 10th annual Grove Shakespeare Festival. Then it’s off to Long Beach’s International City Theatre, where he will do Judie Fein’s “Channels,” opening Aug. 4. Then it’s off to Costa Mesa to direct an Aug. 13 reading of Charles Gomez’s “Bang Bang Blues” for South Coast Repertory’s annual Hispanic Playwrights Project. Then it’s off to Capital Repertory to stage Elizabeth Diggs’ “Saint Florence.” Then it’s off to the Philadelphia Theatre Center to work on Mayo Simon’s “Elizabeth’s Daughter.”

“I love directing--what can I say?” Aaron admitted. But Shakespeare, he said, really keeps him on his toes; “Richard” follows his 1987 staging of “Julius Caesar” for the Grove: “I’m back in awe, and totally exhausted--by the size, the depth, what it takes to do Shakespeare. With all history plays, there’s that resonance. They’re so modern. You see a play like ‘Richard’ and understand what it’s like to be a politician, to be the private person within the public role.

“That’s the heart of the play,” said Aaron, who juggles his free-lance assignments with running the directing program at CalArts. “Within the process of the play, Richard (played by Gregory Itzin) begins to face his own humanity: who he is, the role he plays, what it means to be a king--and to be a person within the parameters of his own existence. The audience will see the effect of these themes on the character; Richard’s throne eventually becomes the sepulcher in which he is buried. There’s also the subject of how people use time, confronting time, time passing.”

“In 5 . . .” is a new two-man musical comedy opening Wednesday at the Tiffany Theatre. Ron Link (late of “Shakers”) directs comedy partners Jay Fenichel and Kevin Peter Hall. Fenichel did the book, Kirby Tepper wrote the music and lyrics.

“It’s about friendship and personal compromise in show biz,” said Tepper, who co-wrote (with Robert Schrock) the 1986 hit “Back Home: A Los Angeles Musical.” “It’s loosely, loosely based on Peter and Jay, who play longtime partners doing a syndicated children’s TV show. One of them has realized his dissatisfaction at having begun to sell out, lose track of what they started out to do--which was to make people laugh. So he writes a play. But it literally takes place ‘in five’ (minutes, which they rob from their TV duties), then it’s time to do another (TV) sketch.”

Fenichel and Hall (he was the behemoth Harry in the film “Harry and the Hendersons”) approached the actor-director-composer after seeing “Back Home.” “They have thousands of routines dating back from when they were performing in malls 15 years ago,” Tepper said. “It’s like physical comedy meets ‘80s sensibility. Charming as hell.”

CRITICAL CROSS FIRE: They’re here . The much-ballyhooed musical version of Victor Hugo’s classic novel “Les Miserables” opened recently at the Shubert Theatre.

Said The Times’ Dan Sullivan: “ ‘Les Miz’ takes a mere 3 1/2 hours to perform, and it’s like playing the story on fast-forward. Here’s Jean Valjean on the chain gang. Zip. Now he’s mayor. Zip. Now he’s an old man. Next to the real thing, this is Classic Comics.”

From Tom Jacobs in the Daily News: “Here is a musical where style is matched with substance, where issues of politics and philosophy are unhesitantly raised. Here is a musical of ideas and emotions. . . . Here is also a musical with flaws. In the best Broadway tradition, it is, at times, as corny as Kansas in August.”

Drama-Logue’s Lee Melville praised the cast as “magnificent. Musically, each performer is keenly attuned to his or her role(s), delivering every number and every line of dialogue, underscored musically, with conviction. Foremost is William Solo’s towering performance as Jean Valjean.”

The Orange County Register’s James Chute noted that at times “the sets, music, costumes, concept ceased to matter. In ‘On My Own,’ Michelle Nicastro allowed you to peer into her heart. In general, however, ‘Les Miserables,’ no matter how impressive, no matter how glorious, kept you at a distance.”

The Hollywood Reporter’s Duane Byrge found “a full-stage assault that should capture the fancy of theatergoers who delight in grand-sweep pageantry.”

Last, from Kathleen O’Steen in Daily Variety: “One would have to combine elements of Dickens, Shakespeare and Chaucer to find a story that stirs this kind of magnitude and spirit. Again, it all comes down to a good dose of drama, tragedy and comedy that will move one to laughter and tears. This show manages it all.”