THEATER NOTES : C’mon, Take a Drive: It’s Worth It

‘We think tonight’s awards will prove that Los Angeles theater is worth the drive,” said Mariette Hartley, delivering scripted remarks to a crowd numbering 1,093 at the beginning of last week’s Ovation Awards ceremony.

Later, just before the end of the program, Hartley saluted “all of you who continue to make L.A. theater worth the drive.”

Was she trying to tell us something?

It was the main theme of the prepared remarks on Ovation night: L.A. theater is great, but you might have to go out of your way to experience it.

“Here you need a Thomas Guide and a pit crew,” Hartley said. “Just getting to the theater is a day job.” The location of the Ovation ceremony itself, at Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in southeastern Los Angeles County, was a target of some of the jesting. “Welcome to Cerritos,” Hartley said. “I didn’t even know it was here.”

Presenter Caroline Aaron noted that L.A. has more than 20,000 miles of streets, and more than 1,000 shows are presented in L.A. each year, so there is “a show every 20 miles. . . . You’d think people would stop at the theaters just to get out of the traffic.”

Of course, one could think of finding those far-flung theaters as an adventure, a challenge, instead of an inconvenience. At the Ovations ceremony, this was best illustrated by the choice of James Bond movie music to accompany a video-and-slide montage of scenes from nominated shows.

The problem arises when people set off on such adventures but find lousy shows, as presenter Bill Pullman pointed out: “For all these great winners, there are a thousand other shows that went south or turned left. So all these nominees should be thanking their lucky stars.”

The shows that “turned left” weren’t in evidence at the ceremony, judging from the seven excerpts from nominated musicals. The excerpts ranged from solos--including one from “Beauty and the Beast’s” new Beast, Jim Barbour, dressed as a civilian instead of a beast--to elaborately staged and costumed group numbers from “Sweeney Todd” and “The Cradle Will Rock.”

One of the presenters, Geffen Playhouse producing director Gilbert Cates, was asked by Hartley to compare the Ovation show to the Oscars, which he produced the past six years. Cates replied that the Ovations “egos are a little smaller, the production numbers are much better,” and that Hartley is “prettier” than the most recent Oscar host, David Letterman--”and funnier too.” (Although these remarks were scripted for Cates, he said later that he agreed with them.)

The musical most conspicuously missing from any mention at the Ovations show (other than a brief orchestral reference) was “Miss Saigon.” Due to a complicated mix-up over who was responsible for doing what, “Miss Saigon” wasn’t registered for this year’s Ovations, even though it spent nine months at one of L.A.’s most prominent theaters, the Ahmanson.

Don’t expect to see it in Ovations contention next year either. That was technically possible, since the 1995-96 Ovations eligibility period began in September, when “Miss Saigon” was still playing--and at one point last month, the show’s producers were considering a last-minute registration, so the mega-musical would qualify for the next round of Ovations. But “Miss Saigon” didn’t register after all, said a spokesman for the show.

He explained that four of the principal actors--Jennifer C. Paz, Kevin Gray, Peter Lockyer and Tami Tappan--left the show two weeks before it closed here in order to provide extra pre-review performance time for the actors who would replace them as the “Miss Saigon” tour moved on to Chicago. It would have been unfair to the original L.A. cast members if Ovations voters, who would have attended the show during its final week, saw newcomers instead of the originals, said the spokesman.

The show itself and its design elements still could have qualified for next year’s Ovations. But “we felt we should have been considered for the current season,” said the spokesman. Indeed, considering that “Miss Saigon” opened before “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast,” which won three Ovations last week in categories in which “Miss Saigon” could have been a nominee, it would be odd if “Miss Saigon” finally became a contender next year.

Finally, every theater awards program needs a couple of critic jokes. Hartley remarked that the “Sweeney Todd” company had very nicely stocked the backstage area with “meat dumplings.” However, they tasted bitter, she went on--”must have been a critic.”