On The Stage

Santa Monica's Secret Treasure

Michael Rosenthal 

   There is a secret treasure in Santa Monica. In the alley east of the Third Street Promenade, between Arizona and Santa Monica, is the home of the City Garage theatre company. Since its founding in 1987 this ensemble of actors, directors and technicians has staged over 70 productions. In 1994, the company moved to its current location in a garage once used by the City of Santa Monica and the Police Department. 
   The intimate theatre has only 60 seats, making everyone in the audience a participant in the theatrical experience. As the company's program states, "Nothing else combines the spoken word, gesture, visual image, sound, light, movement, and music the same way. It happens right before your eyes. You have a human being in front of you, quite alive, working very hard to make you see something, understand something, feel something. It happens in the moment, in the company of strangers. When it works well, it is magical."
   Cabale by Enzo Cormann is one of three French plays currently being performed by the City Garage company on Friday and Saturday nights (8:00 p.m.) and Sunday afternoons (5:30 p.m.). Starring Liz Davies and Richard Grove it tells a story of love, camaraderie, and politics between two people recently acquainted who are preparing to carry out a terrorist act. Claire (Davies) wants to feel life, to learn to kill and be part of "war". She describes her life as an "empty refrigerator waiting to be filled". She challenges her mate Seamus (Grove) to stop living his life as a series of yeses and nos, and begin to understand its nuances, its passion. For his part, Seamus stresses the realities of life as he has lived it -- prison, politics, a cause worth going to prison for, even worth dying for. 
   In the 80-minute production, interpersonal relations dealing with trust, intimacy and laughter demonstrate that all of us are trapped by the history of our lives. The passion of Davies and Grove opens the audience's mind and forces audience members to examine their own lives. I left the play realizing how valuable it is to feel and think deeply. 
   As one character says, "We're not called on much to think anymore in the world. We're called on to respond. Consume. We're called on to perform our functions, do our jobs, fulfill the expectations that we've accepted as ones we can live with...no one asks us to suddenly imagine the world another way" At City Garage, be prepared to think.
   Cabale runs through March 19. The other two plays, The Fetishist with Bo Roberts and Night Just Before the Forest, play on Wednesday and Thursday nights at 8:00 PM through March 23. 

Waiting At The Matrix 

Anne Saxenmeyer

Special to the Mirror 

   VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
   ESTRAGON: Yes, lets go.
   They do not move. 
   Ah, yes. This was the scene in my apartment on the rainy Sunday evening I had planned to see Waiting for Godot at the Matrix Theater Company. My husband was glued to the last minutes of a Rangers game, and I changed my jacket three times before we managed to leave. Life may be a series of empty diversions, each ultimately indistinguishable from the last, but luckily for me and a full house of rain damp theater patrons, some diversions are still worth leaving the house for. So as Vladimir says to Estragon, "Let us not waste our time in idle discourse!" I'll do my best.
   If you're not familiar with Samuel Beckett's tragicomic masterpiece, here's what to expect. Stranded in a barren landscape, two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait around for their absentee savior. They fidget, tell jokes, contemplate suicide, and talk of going but do not move. They are joined for a while by the imperious Pozzo and his manservant, Lucky, who is ordered to dance and "think" for the entertainment of the group. 
   The second act offers no progress. Time loses its substance, and the characters deteriorate. The play ends as it began, at an impasse, but along the way it accumulates all the desperate poetry of the human situation. 
   Brisk direction and a fine cast characterize the Matrix Theater Company's production. In the capable hands of Andrew J. Robinson, the play does not fall into the trap of its own stasis. Robinson exploits the comic elements of Act One and eases the rug out from under us in Act Two. He is supported by a production staff of unified vision. Set designer, Victoria Profitt, and lighting designer, J. Kent Inasy, contribute invaluably to the absurd universe of the play, creating the necessary sense of geographical limbo. Maggie Morgan provides appropriate costumes.
   In order to accommodate the schedules of a company of working film and television actors, the Matrix double casts all roles. On the night I attended, Vladimir and Estragon were played with wit and sensitivity by David Dukes and John Vickery. Dukes invests his Vladimir with a poignant sense of expectation, and frustrated inadequacy, and Vickery is engaging and comically precise as the physically obsessed Estragon. Tony Amendola is compelling as Pozzo, at once horrifying and full of frailties. He is well paired with JD Cullum (Lucky), who breaks his silence in impressive fashion. Brief but memorable is the appearance of Will Rothhaar (A Boy), whose luminous innocence throws the other characters into relief. 
   There's such a clear standard of excellence at the Matrix, and I'd feel confident recommending either cast. "Don't let's do anything. It's safer," says Estragon. But even on the rainiest of evenings, this production is worth the risk.
   Matrix Theater Company, 7657 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood; Thurs-Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 3 and 7p.m.; through April 30. (323)852-1445.