How swanky is the rejuvenated Mark Taper Forum? Let’s put it this way: The urinals in the men’s toilet (of all things) aren’t stainless steel or the usual boring white ceramic, but black. That’s right, black. In a lithe and sexy designer environment – think retro sci-fi lounge chic with a touch of glam – it’s the kind of small touch that acts like sequins on a little black dress. But the curious side-effect of the Forum’s year-long remodeling effort is as much a highlight of the (original) Forum’s architectural shortcomings as a glossing over. While the iconic exterior, with its defining circularity and cement mural by Jacques Overhoff, has been preserved, the interior suffers from flow control issues stemming from the crowding of circulation spaces on the edge of the Forum by the central theatre space. A staircase leading to a strangely utilitarian, mildly inhospitable second floor corridor – the claustrophobia is relieved mostly by large windows with views overlooking the Dorothy Chandler and the city – is tucked away to the left of the lobby entrance. It’s not quite inconspicuous, but it’s hardly a focal point, either. If this is the improvement, it’s hard to conceive how difficult the theatre was prior to the renovation.
John Pankow and Kate Burton at the Taper
The theatrical space itself, however, despite possible sight-line issues on the fringe of the audience seating, is elegant, snug, and engaging – intimate as the Kirk Douglas but on a grander, airier scale. And when the new Taper’s bottle of bubbly, John Guare’s House of Blue Leaves hits the bow, the theatre gets into motion with a flourish. The play begins with Artie Shaw (John Pankow) sitting at a piano set on top a foundation of wooden floor boards – ostensibly performing at the El Dorado Bar & Grill. He belts out a few amiable tunes in a tasteful example of breaking of the fourth wall. Then, suddenly, the curtain rises and, as if pulled by invisible strings, the piano and its foundation get pulled into the complete set – a Queens apartment beautifully designed by David Korins – whose assembly of walls, furniture-laden floors, et al, evokes all the excitement of a kid watching a car transform into a robot.
Blue Leaves Soaring…
The play’s the thing, of course, and architectural reservations are soon set aside as a cast that generates its own gravity field turns up the drama in Guare’s classic play. Drama? Comedy, that is. The House of Blue Leaves is peculiar in that it is a comedy – black, screwball, tender, madcap – with surprisingly dark shadows, a comedy with a tragic, even shocking ending. A comic tragedy? But the tragedy is not necessarily the Shakespearean kind, where a character is undone by a character flaw, but of the kind that grows out of our universal, all-too-human fallibility. Artie Shaw is a zookeeper, “too old to be a young talent,” with dreams of being a Hollywood songwriter, surrounded by a schizophrenic wife everyone calls Bananas and a mistress, Bunny, who seems more attuned to his ambitions than he does. Set during the Pope’s 1965 visit to New York, when miracles purported to fill the air with divinity and destiny, House of Blue Leaves examines, through Artie, the perils of dreams and aspirations.
Perhaps, in a way, we could drag in the existentialist concept of bad faith and inauthentic living as a means of exploring the play’s themes, but it’s enough to point out how the play does a far superior job of addressing the dilemma posed by Woody Allen in Melinda and Melinda than Allen himself. Is life inherently comic or tragic? Guare upends the question by blurring the distinction between the two. Melancholy introspection lies beneath the hilarity, and the poignancy with which the characters, Artie especially, grapple with the unbearable heaviness of ambition and longing, is the stuff our lives are made of. How appropriate, then, to launch a newly refurbished theatre with the polished revival of a superlative play.
The House of Blue Leaves, by John Guare. Directed by Nicholas Martin. Starring Diedrich Bader, Mia Barron, Kate Burton, Angela Goethals, James B. Harnagel, James Immekus, Jane Kaczmarek, James Joseph O’Neil, John Pankow, Rusty Schwimmer and Mary Kay Wulf. On stage at the New Mark Taper Forum until Oct. 19. Visit. www.centertheatregroup.org for more information.