THEATER REVIEWS : ‘Chesterfield’: A Witty Look at Actor’s Life

“Chesterfield” is a hilarious, clever and, above all, original look at an unemployed actor. It’s also a brilliant solo performance piece.

Playwright Daniel McDonald (who developed the work at the Actors Studio) performs and co-directs (with Manu Tupou) what amounts to an actor’s private notebook, at the Court Theatre.

Alone in his room--a highly theatrical blend of classical and modern decor from designer Daniel Bradford--McDonald is lavishly adorned, complete with powdered wig, as the Fourth Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773). As McDonald preens about his room in the guise of the parliamentarian reading letters of worldly wisdom to his illegitimate son, suddenly the phone rings.

It’s his Hollywood agent, excitedly telling him (via his answering machine) that that diaper commercial is his. But the actor hasn’t got the courage to answer.

McDonald never breaks stride as Chesterfield--well, almost never. There is that moment of panic as he realizes that all those classes in Shakespeare, Chekhov, classical stage combat, dance, diction and breathing, all that work at the Actors Studio for God’s sake, has left him with a diaper commercial.

He fantasizes watching Brando on TV in “On the Waterfront” and then catching himself pitching diapers during the commercial break.

Quickly, with surprising athletic grace, McDonald, still in lace and ruffles, grabs a knotted rope hanging from the ceiling and swings across the stage as if in a jungle gym. Upside down at one point, his powdered wig falling off, he loops to the top of the rafters, swooping down onto a table in the hunched, grunting figure of an ape. It is the perfect actor’s moment, the agonizing private catharsis of the actor as caged animal.

* “Chesterfield,” Court Theatre, 722 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles. Mondays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends March 24. $10. (213) 243-5252. Running time: 1 hour.

Strindberg Update Smothers Tragedy

Notice, the title isn’t “Miss Julie” as in Strindberg but “Ms. Julie.” The father of modern drama, who wrote this erotic tragedy in the 1880s, would probably smile at the Ms. attached to his play at the Open Fist Theatre.

But the spidery lingerie and fish netting draped on his carnal heroine might elicit a growl from Strindberg’s grave.

Indeed, in the open spirit of Strindberg, director Dean Yacalis modernizes the text, indulging rough sex in that steamy kitchen where Jean the valet, Christine the scullery maid and mistress Julie maneuver like panthers.

But a funny thing happens: The drama’s sexual and class warfare is diluted. By taking the play out of its strained, Victorian milieu, by employing strobe lights, voodoo-like rituals from Christine (Kathy Dunn) and cloaking the whip-cracking Julie (Melissa Lechner) in drunken laughter, the requisite sense of tragedy is smothered.

The performances, though--notably the gritty Tim Pulice as the cock-o’-the-walk in Ms. Julie’s life--are distinctive and feral.

* “Ms. Julie,” Open Fist Theatre, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends March 12. $15. (213) 882-6912. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Sifting the Dirt in ‘Chocolate Quarry’

San Francisco performance artist Stephen Rappaport, in torn jeans and flannel shirt, sits on a vomity-looking couch on a stage littered with candy wrappings, picks up an accordion and sings a tune that seems half Tom Waits and half Allen Ginsberg.

At another point he dons a hard hat, hammer and spike and talks about working in a slaughterhouse--a remarkable litany of imagery--and the epiphany he experienced enfolding himself inside the carcass of a hanging steer.

Rappaport’s “Chocolate Quarry” at Theatre/Theater escalates the solo performance genre by the sheer density of its language, its seamless structure and its mining of the soul that finds sweet chocolate under Earth’s filth.

A wiry, raggedy figure, Rappaport is an original thinker and artist, playing here (under Mary Forcade’s direction) a character who calls himself “the microphone for God.” But unlike the abused misfits of society whom he resembles on the surface, Rappaport paves a path through life’s labyrinths, hacking at the weeds, materializing one moment as R.D. Laing, at another as Samuel Beckett, finally, indubitably, as himself.

* “The Chocolate Quarry,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood . Wednesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends March 12. $12. (213) 469-9689. Running time: 50 minutes.

Gay Lives Bared in Mesmerizing ‘Pair’

The spiky Davidson Lloyd and the open-faced Tom Keegan, longtime collaborators-lovers and arguably America’s most talented gay couple, have honed their quicksilver gifts.

In “Two Lives: One Pair of Pants” at the St. Genesius Theatre, the writing-acting team, in duo and solo pieces, dramatize with wit and invention the experience of being openly gay. In a section called “Domestic Partners I: Men, Matrimony and 9th Avenue Mystics,” they re-create their marriage.

In a mesmerizing set of solo turns, Keegan talks about his militaristic, dysfunctional father and Lloyd takes us back “as a post-modern queer” to his high school reunion in Galveston, Tex. Told with beguiling, coiled emotion, the episodes underscore the clarity and honesty of their writing. Contributing greatly to their whimsy are their highly choreographed physical movements.

The concluding wacky moments, under the cover of “Sex, Suicide and the Media,” deal with electric shock from a blender, a cadaver in a plastic bag and being bumped by NBC off a Jane Pauley Valentine’s Day special (“They wanted to do this whole thing about diversity and commitment”) because they were deemed too risky once shooting began in the Gulf War. Don’t ask. It makes a great story.

* “Two Lives: One Pair of Pants,” St. Genesius Theatre, 1047 N. Havenhurst Ave., Hollywood . Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends March 14. $12. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours. (At San Diego’s Sushi Gallery , 852 8th Ave., March 26-27, 8 p.m.).

‘Loretta’ Pleads a One-Note Dilemma

Barbara Nell Beery’s autobiographical drama, “Loretta (I’m Sorry),” has already been honored with the 1993 Women in Theatre New Play Grant. Which is strange, because it’s pretty insubstantial.

Divided between 1967 and the present, the four-character production at the Cast Theatre is solidly performed and firmly directed by Deborah LaVine. The material, however, is a one-note dilemma. It’s enough to construct a scene around, but not emotionally hefty enough for a whole play.

Ruth (Cecily Adams), a shy high school coed, becomes dear friends with gawky, lanky Loretta (Ursula Martin). It’s a dependent friendship that only lonely teen-age girls can feel, and the playwright knows this territory well.

Ruth’s blissfully disconnected Jewish mother (Joanna Lipari) adds some vinegar. And trouble comes in the form of Ruth’s callow Big Man on Campus brother (the convincingly abrasive Andy Hirsch) who needles his sister into dumping Loretta in order to get with it socially (and save himself from social embarrassment). Thus, the title, translated into a lifetime of baggage.

* “Loretta (I’m Sorry, ) “ Cast Theatre, 804 N. El Centro Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends March 21. $12. (213) 462-0265. Running time: 1 hour.