Commentary

Sharing the Theatrical Wealth
As the New York import “Slipping” slips away, what has Los Angeles learned?

by Bob Verini



Well, New York’s Rattlestick Playwrights Theater company has slipped away after treating LA to its production of Slipping, and wasn’t it good to have the company here? Not only did an exciting young group introduce us to a superior play and strong new talents, but the whole experience may offer, in miniature, a vision of the kind of synergy that could emerge between major American theatrical centers to, just possibly, help renew our beloved art form.
   Full disclosure: I became very friendly with writer-director Daniel Talbott and members of the Rattlestick company and cast, beginning when I enlisted their participation in this year’s Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards show, which I produced down at the LATC in March. But not being a publicist nor wanting to seem to serve as one, I was careful to maintain a healthy professional distance between myself and the production, and I’m confident in my relative objectivity in the thoughts that follow.
  I think most of my reviewing colleagues got the play pretty right, though I wouldn’t classify Slipping—as some of them did—as a “gay play” per se. To me, it’s a complex investigation of how an abusive or otherwise unsatisfactory first love can poison the well for more-promising relationships that follow. The unhappy dynamic between Eli (Seth Numrich) and his tortured secret partner Chris (Maxwell Hamilton), and then later between Eli and the curious Jake (MacLeod Andrews), could readily have been written and played in any pairing of genders. In addition, the theme is leavened by the hints of hetero mismatching between Jake and his (offstage) first sexual conquest, as well as between Eli’s mother, Jan (Wendy vanden Heuvel), and the husband and father whose suicide first sets all the slipping in motion.



All of which is to say that dismissing the play as the same old coming-out tale, the theme of some of the commentary I read, missed the boat from where I sat. Still, even those who had problems with Talbott’s script generally admired a set of splendid performances and carefully crafted production values. And when Seth left for an Old Vic engagement, the company reached out to one of the best young talents LA has to offer, and gave Wyatt Fenner a chance to shine in a very different but equally skillful performance. Talbott also hired a local new face, UCLA undergrad Brett Donaldson, as Eli’s understudy, earning kudos from those who saw him.
   But strong acting and production are a hallmark of a lot of homegrown LA theater. What makes this visit so special? Two things.
  First of all, the Rattlestick folks didn’t bring their show into any of the more obvious, showy venues. I’m not talking Pantages or Ahmanson, but surely most prestige imports would’ve targeted the Taper or Douglas, or either of the Geffen spaces. Instead, they slipped comfortably into our li’l old Lillian, deep in the heart of Santa Monica Boulevard, unpretentiously and unassumingly. Along with that wonderful gesture, the Rattlestick folks certainly made efforts to reach out to and engage with the community at large, before and during the run; I daresay if they’d been here for the Fringe, they would’ve been frequent spectators and enthusiastic supporters. That’s the kind of New York visitor we need more of.
  More important, what if this kind of thing were to catch on? What if another small or midsized play from an established company in Gotham or Chicago or D.C. or Atlanta were to bring it out here to one of our 99-Seat or larger houses? For that matter, what if some of our great stuff were to make affordable touring stops? To name only two current attractions, I’d put the Son of Semele Our Class or the 24th Street Theatre’s Walking the Tightrope up against the best any other city has to offer.
  If we’re ever going to have a genuine National Theater, maybe this is the way it has to grow. This national-network idea isn’t new, of course; it’s been debated, tried limply, and discarded as impractical and unaffordable on several occasions. But someone has always tried to set up a full-fledged network from scratch, and it’s always been doomed. What if the network began just as a grass-roots effort like Rattlestick’s, to import an interesting play or two to another locality, and see what happens? Maybe there could be a reciprocal exchange. Eventually the idea might catch on and expand. A theater could build into its seasons a visit to one or more other localities. (Britain’s RNT and RSC do this routinely.) In time, it might become a normal habit for a regional theater to take its new musical or musical revival to other regionals to make its money and build its rep, rather than send it right to Broadway.
   One swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one Rattlestick visit doesn’t set a grand national touring scheme in motion. But it hints at the makings of one. I repeat, I’m so glad they came. And if they had a mind to bring west their current premiere of Jonathan Tolins’s hysterically funny Buyer & Cellar with Michael Urie—even a more perfect West Coast fit than Slipping—or (dare we dream?) Vanessa Redgrave and Jesse Eisenberg in Jesse’s play The Revisionist….well, this is a habit our community could happily get used to.
                                                                                             May 20, 2013


All photos by Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging

Slipping creators and cast at rehearsal in Los Angeles