The Ones That Got Away; Gray’s ‘Monster’ Wins Out

Some of the most tantalizing theater being created by Los Angeles playwrights is being staged far from L.A. this summer.

Exhibit A is “The Kentucky Cycle,” by Robert Schenkkan of Van Nuys. A two-evening, nine-act epic about 200 years in the history of three Kentucky families, it was developed in readings at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum, both in Los Angeles. The Taper ran it through its New Work Festival twice, in 1988 and 1989. The director, Warner Shook and five of the leading actors in the current premiere production are from Los Angeles.

Reviews of that premiere are glowing. But it’s not taking place in Los Angeles. It’s at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle. And the theater that has “a very limited option” on the project after it closes is not the Taper, but the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.--the primary backer of the Fund for New American Plays, which invested $135,000 in the Intiman production.

Schenkkan said that he “is not bitter” that the Taper didn’t seize his script immediately. He pointed out that “a two-part piece is not easy to shoehorn into the schedule” of a theater like the Taper. Besides, Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson plans to see “Kentucky” next month for future consideration.

Asked why the premiere is in Seattle instead of at the Taper, Davidson replied that the play “needed a lot of work in its second half. We were happy for the Intiman to do it.”

“The idea of premieritis has long faded” from the ranks of America’s top theaters, he added. “We’re much more concerned with the process of development. Sometimes you can do it all, sometimes you can’t. There is an advantage in doing (“Kentucky”) away from the scrutiny and the burdens that would be placed on it” in Los Angeles.

But what about a more experienced L.A.-based playwright? Take Larry Gelbart, who has worked in television (“MASH”) here for years and whose “City of Angels” just reached the town after which it’s named, following a successful year in New York. Certainly Gelbart could withstand the “scrutiny” of an L.A. premiere.

Yet his “Power Failure” just opened in Cambridge, Mass., at American Repertory Theater, as did his recent “Mastergate.”

Comparing himself to “the girl nobody asked to dance,” Gelbart said his plays opened at ART because that theater’s director Robert Brustein asked for them.

Added Davidson: “I wanted very much to do ‘Mastergate’ ” at the Taper and “I was ready to do it” after its Cambridge opening, “but (Gelbart) chose the New York route.” Reviews in New York weren’t as favorable as in Cambridge, and it closed quickly. However, after a mutual chat last week, Gelbart is sending Davidson a copy of “Power Failure.”

Another one that got away was “Ad Wars,” by Vince McKewin of Sherman Oaks. This satire about an advertising campaign for a new bomb was on Pasadena Playhouse’s schedule last winter. But then, after American forces were sent to the Gulf (and after a change in artistic directors at the playhouse), the playhouse dropped “Ad Wars.” Managing director Lars Hansen claimed it would be inappropriate for the period.

Now comes the news that “Ad Wars” will open in the 96-seat Other Stage at the Williamstown (Mass.) Theater Festival for a June 22-30 run, billed as a “work in progress.” Ed Begley Jr. will star with Gordon Hunt directing; both, naturally, are from Los Angeles.

It will be followed on the same Williamstown series by two other plays by L.A.-based writers: “Man in His Underwear,” by TV comedy producer Jay Tarses (July 6-14) and what the Williamstown brochure describes as the world premiere of “Defying Gravity,” by Jane Anderson (July 17-28). Actually, “Defying Gravity” was produced at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in Los Angeles in 1987.

A ‘Monster’ Without ‘Terrors’: When it was announced last fall that Spalding Gray would appear at Los Angeles Theatre Center next week, two of Gray’s monologues were on the bill of fare: “The Terrors of Pleasure” and his latest, “Monster in a Box.” Both would have been Los Angeles premieres; they would have been done at alternating performances.

But “The Terrors of Pleasure” has been dropped.

“The new one (“Monster”) is more immediate, more vital,” said Gray. “And it’s such a short run (12 performances), I wanted everyone to see it.”

Besides, “Terrors of Pleasure” is already available on video, and Gray recently recorded an audio version of it for Windham Hill.

“Monster” recounts the distractions faced by Gray while trying to write a novel.

‘Two Trains’ Winning: August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running,” last seen at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego earlier in the spring, has won the annual award from the American Theatre Critics Assn. for outstanding new play produced outside Manhattan. Runners-up were Mac Wellman’s “Sincerity Forever” and Adrienne Kennedy’s “The Ohio State Murders.” Wilson will receive a $1,000 cash award, and all three plays will be excerpted in the annual edition of the Burns Mantle Theater Yearbook.