THEATER REVIEW : Reopening Leaves a Lot of Room for Growth

There was a sprinkling of Hollywood make-believe in the reopening of the 61-year-old Carlsbad Theatre here Thursday night.

The first offering of the new tenants, the Carlsbad Theatre Company, was a play, “The Lady Cries Murder.” But the theater marquee still looks like a movie marquee--appropriate for a theater that debuted Feb. 28, 1927, with Clara Bow’s silent film classic “It.” The ushers were a show in themselves, wearing identical white clinging gowns, lined with rhinestones, gliding as they guided patrons into the 600-seat space.

The play itself is a paean to and a sendup of Hollywood detective stories that had its world premiere at the San Diego Repertory Theatre in 1980. The playwright, John William See, has since gone on to work in the Hollywood he mocks here. It seems that he has gone onto better things--episodes for “Hill Street Blues” and an upcoming screenplay, “Nick and Nora,” starring Molly Ringwald and Mel Gibson, due to be released early next year.

One can only hope that similar growth is in store for the Carlsbad Theatre Company.

Right now, what’s on stage is community theater all the way--down to the inclusion of little philosophy-of-life quotations at the bottom of each actor’s biography.

The precocious script casts private eye Phillip Diamond in implausible parody situations on the order of Firesign Theatre’s “Nick Danger, Third Eye” and Carl Reiner’s “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.”

In the larger scheme, however, Diamond is no more than a hard-boiled pawn of two antagonists who are, in comparison with Diamond, Olympians at war: Raymond Chandler, who wrote the original manuscript Diamond figures in, and a radio producer, Sartone, who rewrites Chandler’s work into metaphysical mush, jerking Diamond around until he doesn’t know whether he’s working in San Francisco, Los Angeles or New York.

In 1936, when this venue was first converted to a theater by the local Army and Navy Academy, a student named Robert Walker was cast in “I Am a Jew.”

Walker went on to become a film star, playing opposite such luminaries as Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn, Jennifer Jones (whom he married) and Spencer Tracy. One could develop serious eyestrain looking for future Walkers here. And yet, some serious talent is striding the boards.

Most of it belongs to Reg Rogers as a world-weary Diamond who plays the part as he should--completely straight--and to his steamy client, the tall, sensuous Cristina Soria.

The rest of the 13-member cast sparkles and dims unevenly like a chandelier with some of its lights knocked out. Brett Weir as the supercilious butler, Mary Prantil as the gum-chewing secretary, Royal A. Lihzis as the thug who can’t get his knife to stand up straight and Lisa Gulino as the hip-grinding Shanghai Sue all provide many serious chuckles.

But the effect of the whole, from the homemade set to the amateurish lighting and indecipherable voice-overs, spell community theater in neon lights as bright as Diamond’s private-eye sign.

Not that there is any shame in being a community theater. That is something Carlsbad can put to excellent use. But this is a theater with aspirations. A theater that is promising an ambitious season of plays, both curiously with film tie-ins: “Amadeus” and the as-yet-unsecured (and unlikely to be secured) stage rights to Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo.”

What this theater will eventually accomplish only time and the company’s executive producer and chief dream-maker, Jacob Henry, can tell. And, as in the early scenes of “The Lady Cries Murder,” nobody is spilling the beans.

“THE LADY CRIES MURDER”

By John William See. Directed by Christopher “R” Rose. Sets, Daniel M. Cork. Lighting, Perry Excell. Sound by Christopher “R” Rose. Costumes by Carlsbad Theatre Company. Special effects, B. J. Mestepey. Stage manager, Jennifer Drissell. With Mary Prantil, Brett Weir, Karen Bender Lust, Warren Harker, Fred Ives, Reg Rogers, Cristina Soria, Woody Bixby, Royal A. Lihzis, Lisa Gulino, Jake Schmidt, Corey Menotti and Steve Redden. At 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, Sunday matinees at 2, through Sept. 18. At 2822 State St., Carlsbad.