Reassessing Future of ‘Romance Language’; Taps for ‘Tracers’ and a Reprieve for ‘Lady’

The reviews are in and “Romance Language” at the Mark Taper has taken--well, a bit of a beating.

Qualified, if you like.

While the critics acknowledged that there is power in the idea--a semi-playful allegory about the death of the American Dream--most still found Peter Parnell’s play, to quote The Times’ Dan Sullivan, “a mishmash.”

But a mishmash worth straightening out. Since this is a co-production of the Taper and the San Diego Old Globe (it closes here March 9, opens there March 23), will more work be done? It will.

“The two-year process on this play has been frustrating and fascinating,” said director Sheldon Larry, who staged the original at New York’s Playwrights Horizons in 1984. “It works by its own logic, which is, in many ways, a dream one. In New York we had limited time in terms of rehearsal and previews (five weeks of rehearsal, three weeks of previews).

“So I welcomed the chance to work on it again. But here, by the exigencies of the contract, we were a bit more limited (four weeks’ rehearsal, just over a week of previews). And once you open you’re limited in the number of rehearsal hours you can have (20 a week during previews, eight during performance), which is why we tried to move up the opening.”

Indeed, they did. And until the last moment at the Taper, playwright and director worked feverishly to iron out the kinks. So much so that Larry felt he had to take time off to get some distance and let the Globe’s Jack O’Brien insert last minute rewrites.

This led to the erroneous statement in Sullivan’s review that Larry had been replaced. He was not. The rewrite inserted by O’Brien removed a character--Whitman’s homosexual lover--who, when he existed in Act I, was hit over the head with a frying pan by Huck Finn and killed.

“When Peter wrote it originally.” Larry said, “it was in the style of a Huck Finn novel, where a random act in a Picaresque adventure got them moving. We knew we couldn’t take it too seriously, so we knew how to perceive the play.

“We tried excising the character because he raised questions about the style of the piece. Also, the character himself went nowhere. What we had never intended to do was remove Whitman’s sense of history or his sexuality. But we tampered a bit with the fabric.”

At least one critic objected in print to this removal. Are reviews useful, then, to work on the play?

“Critics who have the language and perspective can bring a sense of theatrical continuity that can be extraordinarily useful. My favorite critic was Harold Clurman, who was also a director. He wrote from an internal perspective and his reviews were always delightful to read, but also instructive.

“What’s been maddening here is that every time we’ve tried to solve a problem we’ve created another.”

Is it possible to work on a play so long that you make it worse?

“It’s always a risk, I suppose. I think Peter sees the play as an analogy of Whitman’s experience with ‘Leaves of Grass,’ which Whitman rewrote nine times,” Larry went on. “If I felt that my own perspectives were less clear on the piece, if we saw the problem less, I’d take a vacation from it.”

Which, of course, he did.

“I do a lot of film and a lot of television,” he continued. “What I find so giving in the theater--it’s so strongly an interdependent art--is that you work together with others to raise a consciousness. The commitment to try and evolve the work is what’s so challenging.”

And the immediate game plan?

“Assessing what we’ve got and what needs to be done.”

They’ll have two weeks of rehearsal in San Diego, essentially “to reblock it for the Old Globe stage,” Larry said, acknowledging that they’ll be tinkering with structure as well. Until then, he plans to take a little more time off.

“Just to get some air,” he said. “When you’re working on a text and have to deal with more than a hundred costumes, dances, movement, a song, a battle in which everybody dies, numerous lighting cues, you’re talking about a gargantuan week of tech. It’s really like a musical. A lot of time and energy had to go just into getting it on the stage.”

TAPS: John DiFusco’s Vietnam play, “Tracers,” is closing Sunday at the Coronet (on its way to Philadelphia) and the theater will be dark. There have been inquiries into the use of the space, but the L.A. Public Theatre’s Peg Yorkin, who holds the lease, said Tuesday that “it’s all too premature.”

Meanwhile, Yorkin and the L.A. Stage Company’s Susan Dietz would love to mount a three-way co-production of Doris Baizley’s “Mrs. California” with the Taper--most likely at the Coronet. Baizley’s play about women who worked during World War II and were expected back in the kitchen after, was a highlight of the Taper’s New Theatre For Now last fall.

Four Los Angeles Equity-Waiver theaters have received a total of $21,600 in matching grants from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. This constitutes a little over a fourth of the $71,105 apportioned to 18 county arts organizations by the National/State/County Partnership. The theaters (chosen from a field of eight applicants) are the New Victory ($6,000), Pipeline, Inc. ($6,000), Theatre of NOTE ($6,000) and the West Coast Ensemble ($3,600).

REPRIEVE: Who says there are no nice guys? Director Bobbi Holtzman’s well-received staging of Horton Foote’s “The Traveling Lady,” which was to have closed last Saturday at Actors Alley when the Equity Waiver rights were summarily suspended, has been reprieved by the author himself. In an eleventh-hour phone call, Foote, who apparently has other plans for the property, allowed the production to continue through Feb. 15.

WHAT’S IN AN AGE?: Emlyn Williams, who turned 80 last November, was at the Westwood Playhouse as Charles Dickens two weeks ago showing the world how young 80 can be. Last Friday it was happy birthday to Los Angeles-based German director Walter Wicclair who turned 85.

Director Martin Magner, who’s been in his 80s for six years, is getting ready to do Arthur Schnitzler’s “Professor Bernhardi” in association with the Goethe Institute next fall. And George Burns, of course, has bested everyone at 90. These gentlemen are not getting older. They’re just maintaining their lead.

POSTSCRIPT: To our reader William Lipnick in San Diego who wrote to say that Kuni-Leml (title of the musical opening Feb. 16 at the Westwood Playhouse) means Coney Island in Yiddish, our best experts on the subject insist a Kuni-Leml is quite simply a schlemiel-- not too bright and not too awful. Coney Island? . . .