stage matters / By William Kowinski

‘The Golden State’ Heads South: Dell’Arte returns to L.A.

Plus: North Coast Prep’s ‘Twelfth Night’

(Feb. 14, 2008)  “It was a performance in Los Angeles in 1981 that kind of put Dell’Arte on the map,” Michael Fields, the Dell’Arte Company’s producing artistic director, recalled last week. “We were doing Intrigue at Ah-Pah at the Odyssey Theatre.” After the first weekend, when Fields was sleeping on a borrowed floor, someone handed him a copy of the Los Angeles Times. Dell’Arte was on the cover of the calendar section with a rave. After that, “The show sold out six weekends of performances — in three hours.”

“So we developed a relationship with Los Angeles,” Fields said. “We used to go there every year or two, and we had a following down there. But due to a lot of factors, like economics and relations with theaters that changed hands, we stopped going, except for an occasional university one night stand.”

Bernadette Sabath, Tyler Olsen and Keight Gleason in the Dell’Arte Company’s ‘The Golden State’. Photo By Carol Eckstein.

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But last week the romance was reignited. After warming up with performances in Blue Lake and at Occidental College, the Dell’Arte Company began a three week run of The Golden State at the 24th Street Theatre in Los Angeles.

New to L.A., this contemporary adaptation of Moliere’s The Miser was first seen on the North Coast in 2004, and local audiences got a recent one-weekend preview of the new production at the Carlo Theatre. Right after a sold-out Saturday performance, the show was packed up to hit the road the next day.

The new production reprised the performers in the roles of an affluent southern California family: Joan Schirle as the miserly mother, Barbara Geary as her despondently randy daughter and Tyler Rich as her generously confused son. Keight Gleason also returns as Ursula, the Russian émigré executive maid.

New additions include Adrian Meija as the fabulously fey Federico, Laurabeth Greenwald as the sassy, sexy Latina maid and John Achorn as the matron-ex-machina, Bunny Schimpf. The role of Luis, the Latino gardener (the closest this show has to a hero), was originally written for Guillermo Calderon, but this is the first time he has been available to perform it. A 1999 Dell’Arte graduate, he teaches and acts primarily in Chile. Michael Fields directed, with set, costume and design by Guillo Cesare Perrone.

But most notable about The Golden State is the script by Lauren Wilson, a Dell’Arte graduate who was a member of the company when she was commissioned to write it.Her comic tragedy (in which everyone dies happily ever after) provides dimensional characters, an ironic, absorbing narrative and witty dialog which support and inspire the physical performances. Wilson now lives in New York, where, according to Fields, she’s doing well.

“She’s been published in an anthology of short plays with Steve Martin, among others,” said Fields. “She’s kind of an emerging playwright in this country, so we were lucky to get her when she was part of our group.”

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