Mideast Diplomacy on the Boards

Israeli and Palestinian poetry share the stage in “Sand and Stone,” opening tonight at the Itchey Foot Ristorante. The piece was developed to run alongside the touring production of Israeli writer Joshua Sobol’s “The Soul of a Jew,” which opens Tuesday at the Mark Taper Forum.

“I refer to (‘Sand and Stone’) as a play--because it’s definitely not a poetry reading,” said Marc Steven Dworkin, who adapted the work and added original material. “There are four actors: the narrator, the Israeli poet, the Palestinian poet and a woman who doesn’t hold either secular position. She’s the universal character of suffering in the land.

“The point of the play is that in order to get out of your own suffering, you have to be able to see the suffering of the person across the street. By having the Israeli and Palestinian talking to each other it’s the starting point for that dialogue. So it doesn’t begin with ideologies--just hearing the other person’s point of view. The narrator’s voice is probably mine, speaking to confusion and hopes I feel.”

Dworkin, who found the Palestinian material “scrounging around an Arab bookstore in London,” says that his identity as an American Jew did come into play: “I had to remind myself that I’d come to this with a historical perspective and biases. So it was a struggle. But the play is a real attempt to give balance to each side. I don’t have any knowledge of the (poetry of these) two cultures being put together like this. It may start a whole new interest in Middle East literature.”

Julie Ariola and Greg Mullavey play Jane and Albert, two lost souls finding love in a bank vault in Marc Mantell’s “Duck Dancing,” opening tonight at the Court Theatre. Rae Allen, last seen locally in “A Lie of the Mind” at the Taper, directs.

“She abducts him,” Allen said. “She was looking for someone else, but takes him because he was there. Over the weekend, they fall in love, fight, have discussions, make love. And they come out stronger people.”

As for the title, “They’re like little ducklings in there, just being born. The dance they do with each other is a dance of life. It’s fun, farcical, very sweet in nature. And it’s got nice sex too: joyous, sexy sex.”

“A very big show in a little theater” is how producer/set and lighting designer Tom O’Neill (he created the Electric Light Parade at Disneyland) describes the 1922 Will Evans/Valentine farce “Tons of Money,” opening Friday at the Woodshop Theatre in the Richmond Shepard complex. Charles Vernon directs and stars.

“When I was in London two years ago, I saw a production of the play at the National Theatre,” O’Neill said. “Alan Ayckbourn had revised it, updated the gags, (adapted) the risque jokes to fit the ‘80s. But we’re not doing that version. This is the original. And I thought if we did it, we must do it with a British cast and a British director--because nobody does farce better than the British.”

The story centers on Aubrey Arlington “and the household he’d die to protect.” In the course of shielding a newly acquired inheritance and staving off creditors, Aubrey and his wife nearly do just that, in a succession of “accidents” (explosives, drowning) designed to simulate his death. “It’s as timely today as it was in 1922,” O’Neill said. “And it’s a family show, a clean play, no four-letter words. I think we need to laugh these days.”

A Louisiana beauty parlor is the setting for Robert Harling’s autobiographically inspired comedy “Steel Magnolias” at the Pasadena Playhouse. Pamela Berlin directs Eve Brent, Carole Cook, Ronnie Claire Edwards, Dana Hill, Barbara Rush and Tracy Shaffer.

Said The Times’ Dan Sullivan: “Harling may have invented the beauty shop, but he didn’t invent the mother and daughter. Nor did he invent the bond that can develop between women who have known each other forever. But he does evoke that bond, more successfully than some female playwrights have done.”

From Richard Stayton in the Herald-Examiner: “This West Coast premiere has six gifted actresses working hilariously and poignantly as a single, unified ensemble. ‘Magnolias’ is that rarest of theater events, the imperfect play that overwhelms its limitations through emotional honesty.”

The Daily News’ Tom Jacobs booed: “ ‘Magnolias’ isn’t so much a play as a TV sitcom placed on the stage--three acts of one-liners followed by a tear-jerking finale. . . . Plot developments seem contrived and manipulative, presumably because the characters are so one-dimensional. Rather than making them real or human, Harling stuffs their mouths with one-liners.”

Agreed Thomas O’Connor in the Orange County Register: “Even if Neil Simon has moved over to farce, there will probably always be a market for highly commercial, formulaic comedy, and as such, ‘Magnolias’ gets modestly high marks. Harling milks his small-town Louisiana ladies for just enough cranked-up laughs before he opens the weeper ducts.”

Said Maryl Jo Fox in the L.A. Weekly: “If this play were about black women, cries of racism would be heard. However, since it’s about white women, stereotypes are ignored. How comforting to chuckle at this myopic domestic world where the ladies can carry on through tragedy as long as their makeup is on straight.”

Cheered Daily Variety’s Jane Galbraith: “Harling has managed to create an intimate portrait piece that also delivers considerable emotional punch. And he does it without pandering to the stereotypical and cliched view that women who speak with a drawl are also stupid, vapid and all identical.”

Last from F. Kathleen Foley in Drama-Logue: “Berlin hones her stellar cast to a razor’s edge, never overbalancing into easy sentimentality or cheap humor. Her direction is clean, clear and marvelously unfussy. No fan fluttering or Southern histrionics here. These women are too tough and wise for that nonsense.”