Play by Play

As 1998 winds down, it’s time to reflect on the year’s local theater. By our reckoning, more than 80 plays--from Ojai to Simi Valley--were reviewed in this space since January. Any way you look at it, that’s a lot of plays, plus occasional interviews, casting notices and news flashes.

In addition to a particularly high ratio of new or seldom-staged plays, this was a rare year in which competing companies didn’t produce versions of the same play as they did with last year’s battling “The Pirates of Penzance,” a situation that will be repeated next year. The exception this year was to be expected--as usual “A Christmas Carol,” popped up a couple of times, as it always does. This time the two versions were by the Santa Susana Repertory Company and the Moorpark Playhouse.

Speaking of which, the old Moorpark Melodrama reverted to its longtime owner, Linda Bredemann, who for legal reasons was forced to change the venue’s name. Playhouse productions included a strong version of “The Fantasticks,” a musical revue, several one-night performances by variety acts (magicians, vintage rockers) and their recent Charles Dickens semi-burlesque. As long as we are in Moorpark, this would be a good time to acknowledge Moorpark College, which scored with “Equus” and “Once Upon a Mattress.”

Several new groups arose, vowing to bring “professional” theater to a city--Ventura, that is--that time after time has demonstrated a total indifference to theater of any sort. Ventura’s Michael Maynez’s Plaza Players did manage to produce one play, allowing the company to commemorate its 50th anniversary.

Ventura’s newly formed Rubicon group brought in several “name” actors from various professional productions of “Jesus Christ, Superstar” in a fund-raiser for itself. The group shows some promise. The principals are at least familiar with the local scene, and “Superstar” sold out three shows at the Ventura Theater.

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Ojai-based Flying H Productions staged an impressive new musical based on the venerable “Beggar’s Opera”, and produced a regional debut of the drama “Song of Survival” based on the true story of inmates in a World War II Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. They also staged strong versions of the youth-oriented “The Outsiders” and the Hollywood satire, “Speed-the-Plow,” by David Mamet.

Also in Ojai, the Arts Center staged a fine “The Gin Game,” starring Paddy Rees and Doug Friedlander, and Theater 150 staged Sam Shepard’s “True West,” with the playwright in attendance one night.

Over in Thousand Oaks, Cabrillo Music Theatre got Dick Van Dyke to show up for its terrific “Bye, Bye Birdie,” while the Conejo Players scored especially well with two musicals: “Working,” as part of their Conejo Afternoon Theater series and a recent rendition of the seldom-performed “Kismet.”

The Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center hosted numerous fine productions, including a version of the rarely performed comedy “What About Luv” by Fool Moon Productions (a group that failed to draw audiences when it tried to bring professional theater to Ventura a couple of years ago). The center also presented Comedy Tonight’s mini-Gilbert & Sullivan Festival and an ambitiously staged “A Chorus Line.”

Oxnard-based Elite’s accomplishments included a winning version of the comedy “Sylvia”--with a terrific performance by Judy Walters as the titular dog. Santa Paula Theater Center’s “An Inspector Calls” was in some ways more impressive than the relatively recent New York and London stagings of the old thriller, and its “On Golden Pond” and “Little Shop of Horrors” played with equal effect to audiences respectively old and young.

Next week, we’ll talk about next year; dueling “Pirates of Penzance” and all.