Last Chance Theater

Last Chance Theater

“Flower Drum Song”--Totalitarian repression, cheesecake and Lea Salonga: These were the primary ingredients of the pop gruel known as “Miss Saigon.” The ingredients were recombined for a new dish, “Flower Drum Song” (although Jennifer Paz took over the role during the run at the Taper). A few tons shy of a mega-musical--no fake helicopter here, no power ballads saccharine enough to stop communism dead in its tracks--it’s a raffishly entertaining response to the 1958 original. Rodgers & Hammerstein purists may freak out (in their genteel way, of course) regarding what librettist David Henry Hwang has done to “their” show, based on the C.Y. Lee novel. Along with an entirely new story line, Hwang delivers some pretty wild mood swings. One minute, the Chinese refugee Mei-Li (Paz) is talking about her father’s death at the hands of Chairman Mao’s thugs; the next, we’re inside Club Chop Suey, on Grant Avenue, San Francisco, California, U.S.A....The production is big for the Taper, though smallish for a Broadway-minded revival. Working with scenic designer Robin Wagner’s simple, pagoda-dominated unit set, director Robert Longbottom keeps the action zipping.

*

Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A., (213) 628-2772. Today-Saturday, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30 p.m. only. $55-$60.

Also closing Sunday:

“The World From Here: Treasures of the Great Libraries of Los Angeles” at the UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, (310) 443-7000.

“Contemporary Projects 6: Los Carpinteros’ Transportable City” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., (323) 857-6000.

“Just Another Poster? Chicano Graphic Arts in California” at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 405 Hilgard Ave., Westwood, (310) 825-4361.

“Bamboo Masterworks: Japanese Baskets From the Lloyd Cotsen Collection” at the Pacific Asia Museum, 46 N. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena, (626) 449-2742.

“The Age of Rembrandt: Etchings From Holland’s Golden Century” at the San Diego Museum of Art, 1450 El Prado, San Diego, (619) 232-7931.

“Blast Off! Space Toys and the American Imagination” and “To the Moon and Beyond: Astronomers and Photographers Explore the Heavens” at the California Center for the Arts Museum, 340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido, (760) 839-4120.

--Michael Phillips