The Confused ‘Climate’ of U.S. Values

Jonathan Tolins looks at modern life and the 20-to-30-year-old set in his two-person comedy, “The Climate,” newly opened at Theatre/Theater in Hollywood.

“There are nine vignettes and 15 different characters,” explained the playwright, 24, who co-stars in the piece with Dyanne DiRosario. “It’s about people who came of sexual age at the time of AIDS; the return to ‘traditional American values’ leaves them confused after having lived through the ‘80s. It’s also about the pressure of trying to be different all the time, and of diminished expectations in terms of career opportunities. Hopefully,” he added with a laugh, “it’s not a whining polemic.”

Tolins, a Harvard grad and struggling screenwriter (he’s also on the artistic board of Theatre of NOTE and editor of Opera Monthly), wrote the show’s opening monologue--about a Jerry Lewis telethon fanatic--1 1/2 years ago; he’s tied together the subsequent, disparate scenes with two characters, Peter and Joy. They appear in the first act as college freshmen, “virgins obsessed with sex,” and in the second act, five years later, as adults “out in the real world--and we see how they’ve changed.”

As for the show’s title, said Tolins (who’ll simultaneously be performing the late-night “Lives of the Neo-Modern Fang People” at NOTE), “It sounds more high-falutin’ than I meant: (it refers to) the social/political climate in this country. But it also has to do with life being cold--and the characters clinging together for warmth.”

WAR STORIES: Art is mirroring life at the Attic Theatre, where Derek Horton is presenting “Johnny 2,” a collection of writings about war by (among others) Anne Frank, Antonin Artaud and Julian Beck. Horton’s initial inspiration was the Hank Williams song “The Battle of Armageddon,” although he put the piece together long before Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. A subsequent two-performance staging at the Attic last December, he says, created an “overwhelming response.”

Last weekend, Horton performed the piece for the first time since the U.S. bombing of Iraq.

“It went better than it ever has,” he reported, “probably because I connected with everything I was saying; it had more weight.”

An impromptu attempt to solicit audience response during the show was less successful. “I tried to get people to come onstage and no one would,” he lamented. “I turned to them and said, ‘What is the use of the war?’ I think no one came up because they didn’t have an answer.”

THEATER BITS: A special Monday-night performance of “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” at the Century City Shubert this week will benefit the Actor’s Fund. Everyone connected with the show works for free that night, and 100% of box office receipts will go to the fund. Tickets are available (at the regular $30-$50 price) at the theater box office and at all Ticketron outlets.

Actor Roscoe Lee Browne kicks off the Public Corporation for the Arts Lecture Series on Feb. 12 at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center; next-ups are producer-writer Armand Deutsch (March 5), journalist Georgie Anne Geyer (April 2), multimedia artist-writer-filmmaker June Wayne (April 30) and former museum director David Wood (May 21).

Upcoming in Bilingual Foundation of the Arts’ 1991 season: Nelly Fernandez Tiscornia’s comedy about immigrant couples, “Made in Lanus,” opens at Theatre/Teatro on Feb. 12, followed by Edward Gallardo’s “Mujeres Sin Hombres” (“Women Without Men”) on April 30, and Mariano Azuela’s “Los De Abajo” (“The Underdogs”) on Sept. 24. As usual, productions will be presented in separate English- and Spanish-language stagings.

OUT-OF-TOWN NEWS: San Francisco’s Magic Theatre has been awarded a $40,000 challenge grant by the California Arts Council; the money will become the centerpiece of the theater’s new New Play Development Fund. . . . Former executive managing director of the Mark Taper Forum, William P. Wingate, who recently headed the fact-finding commission on fiscal troubles of the Los Angeles Theatre Center, has been appointed interim executive director of the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton while a search is undertaken for a permanent replacement. This follows the resignation of former managing director John Herochik. . . . Two plays by Hungarian President Arpad Goncz--”Persephone” and “Hungarian Medea”--will make their American debut this week at the University of Georgia. . . . And the premiere production of Simon Gray’s “The Holy Terror” will open Feb. 15 at the Arizona Theatre Company in Tucson. The playwright will direct.