Elegantly Crafted Tale of Doomed Love at the Court

A superstitious film producer believes it’s bad luck to face a bed north. But hustlers make strange bedfellows, especially if a casual assignation leads to commitment. When the producer invites the man who came to dinner into his bedroom, more than a bed gets turned around at the Court Theatre.

David Knapp’s “A Bed Facing North” is an elegantly crafted tale of doomed love between a conservative older man and a promiscuous youth. Despite the tragic context, its exceptional writing, acting and directing make this gay love story unexpectedly funny and poignant.

Although this is Knapp’s first play, he’s a veteran actor and producer with an obvious love of the theater and a gift for sophisticated dialogue. There’s not a single hint that the text is influenced by film or television dramas. “A Bed Facing North” is the real thing: authentically observed experience dramatically revealed on the stage.

The story is supported beautifully by Granville Van Dusen as the cautious professional Doug who until recently maintained a low profile in the gay world. “You’re a closet heterosexual,” says his latest lover, and Doug admits that he preferred the pre-gay liberation days “when everyone was still in the closet.” Van Dusen portrays the cynical industry executive like he’s an Oscar Wilde of the Hollywood Hills.

Kevin Stapleton is the Dorian Gray to Van Dusen’s Wilde. As the voracious male hustler without a conscience, Stapleton shrewdly offers no clues. Is he a sociopath? A guide into the sensual underground of gay L.A.? Alternately seductive and pathetic, always complex, this “free spirit” exhibits minimal guilt while casually breaking hearts.

Kid Self-Destructive collides with Mr. Self-Protective. “I’m immoral,” Doug says. “ You’re amoral.”

But the truth, as the producer reluctantly admits, is that the Adonis he worships is an enigma. “Not to know him is to know him,” he sadly discovers.

The supporting cast is first-rate, especially David Sessions as the dimwitted “stoner” and Paul Haber as an uptight screenwriter.

Problematic performances are given by the cast’s token women--Marianne McAndrew, Eleanor Comegys, Deborah Seidel--not because of their work, which is impressive, but because of their peripheral, expositional characterizations.

The female characters emerge still-born from the literary tradition of “all women are either Madonnas or whores.” McAndrew is required to portray the mother from hell. Comegys is the tolerant, sensitive, self-sacrificing girlfriend who accepts her part-time boyfriend’s bisexuality without fear or anger. This is more than dubious behavior on her part. It’s wishful thinking on a male’s part.

Directed with wit and wisdom by Stewart Moss in a spare presentational style on a minimal set, “A Bed Facing North” resembles intimate confessional plays such as “Blue Window” by Craig Lucas or “Three Hotels” by Jon Robin Baitz. It contains the ethical impact of those minor masterpieces, and has the potential--with judicious editing--to belong in their league. As it is now, Knapp’s play is a compelling, haunting ode to love in the turning years.

* “A Bed Facing North,” Court Theatre, 722 North La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sunday matinees, 3 p.m. Ends Feb. 20. $16-$20. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

‘Lulu’ Captures Essence of Brooks

Louise Brooks, the legendary star of the silent film “Pandora’s Box,” is vividly resurrected in the cabaret-styled “Yours, Lulu--Broadway to Berlin” at Theatre/ Theater. Pamela Shafer’s physical resemblance to the cinema’s first femme fatale ends with the trademark “helmet hair,” but Shafer still manages to evoke Brooks’ primal persona. There’s an elusive, coy, intriguing mystery that Shafer has somehow caught. This isn’t done with smoke and mirrors, but with style, music and audacity.

Shafer is accompanied by pianist-composer Charles Geyer, who portrays a variety of significant others in Brooks’ erratic career while adding original Sondheim-influenced tunes. Shafer has a strong stage presence, and quickly adopts the numerous roles, particularly critic Kenneth Tynan, who rediscovered the secluded, forgotten actress at the end of her life.

Tynan’s obsession with the screen image of Lulu, the temptress in “Pandora’s Box,” led to a famous New Yorker article. His biographical material provides the evening’s narrative spine, but the fragmented style of Shafer-Geyer’s script (co-written with director John Moser) leads to dramatic confusion, especially in a pretentious opening sequence designed to create an image of Brooks as an eternal archetype.

But the melodramatic plot isn’t why audiences watch “Pandora’s Box,” nor is story why we might care about this “Lulu.” Brooks was feminine before feminism, an enchantress who hypnotized without guile, and at Theatre/Theater her ghost still casts a spell.

* “Yours, Lulu--Broadway to Berlin,” Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 18. $12. (213) 469-9689. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Solid One-Acts at Playwright’s Arena

Playwrights’ Arena is celebrating its first year of existence with a festival of promising one acts, divided into two presentations of three works. In the Freeway Series, Martin Shea’s “Life of the Theater” is an extended sketch about an escapee from a psychiatric hospital who poses as a playwright. Its absurdity never rises to the level of farce that the material demands.

Dennis Gersten’s “Willie Said To,” however, is an impeccably performed, tough-minded play about a black tutor’s struggles to educate ghetto kids. And Lisa Loomer’s “Chain of Life” confirms the Los Angeles theater community’s excitement about her unique playwriting voice. Here, Loomer satirizes the psychic wasteland left by a television-dominated culture, employing the episodic style that makes the medium such a dangerous message.

* Playwrights’ Arena First Annual Festival of One Acts, 5262 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. Freeway Series (Bill B), Tonight, 8 p.m., Sunday 2 & 8 p.m. Ends Sunday. Running time: 3 hours.

A Fine, Fast Staging of Orton’s ‘Butler’

The times seem to have caught up with Joe Orton.

Over two decades after his death, British bad boy Orton continues to shock and insult polite society, this time around in a respectable revival of “What the Butler Saw” at Theatre 40. Director Bruce Gray wisely propels his superior ensemble through the farce as if everyone’s late for the last train out of Bosnia, and in Orton’s psychiatric hospital that’s appropriate.

Orton’s numerous epigrams remain astonishingly current, while the cultural changes now allow us to view his “scandalous” themes as almost conventional behavior. The fine cast is anchored by Marcus Smythe and Robin Groves as the psychiatrist and his Mrs., whose bickering feud and compromised marriage make perfect sense today.

* “What the Butler Saw,” Theatre 40, 241 Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. Sundays-Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Feb. 8. $10. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours.

Vivid Is One Thing This ‘Life’ Is Not

Maybe her life is too vivid for Carol Metcalf, but it’s not for an audience witnessing her demonstration of limited range and unlimited ambition. Metcalf’s autobiographical showcase at the St. Genesius Theatre, “My Life Is Too Vivid,” is hopefully cathartic for the performer, since she imitates a variety of family members from her Texas childhood. Unfortunately, her exorcisms blur together. Fundamentalist Christians resemble ex-Playboy bunnies and vitamin therapists.

“My Life Is Too Vivid” vividly demonstrates that truth is sometimes duller than fiction.

* “My Life Is Too Vivid,” St. Genesius Theatre, 1047 N. Havenhurst Ave., West Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 10 p.m. (through Feb. 5), Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. (Feb. 10-13 only). Ends Feb. 13. $5-$10. (213) 650-7808. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.