2 McNally Plays Explore the Imperative of Love

Love gone right and love gone wrong--those are the subjects of a pair of plays by Terrence McNally opening tonight in San Diego and Los Angeles.

The San Diego premiere of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” is, as McNally described it on the phone from L.A., “about love succeeding . . . about one guy fighting to make a relationship happen.” The show will mark the official reopening of the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre.

The West Coast premiere of “The Lisbon Traviata,” a story about four gay men, at the Mark Taper Forum is “about someone trying to make a relationship work that is failing,” McNally said.

So do the plays mark him an optimist or pessimist about love?

“I think successful, healthy relationships are eminently possible. But I think there are also unhealthy relationships that happen and dissolve and cause a lot of grief. I’ve gone through the experiences of both. And, as a writer, I like writing about both.”

In a way, both plays came out of his observations of what he calls the “increasing difficulty of relationships” in the modern, technological age.

“I know people in their 40s who aren’t dating anymore, who are fortifying themselves with VCR tapes. We’ve created a society in which it is easy to use everything from answering machines to VCRs not to deal with people. I wanted to write about people who are determined not to let that happen to them.”

McNally, 51, has put in more than a quarter of a century as a playwright and written more than 30 plays. But he seems as excited about the two upcoming productions--both of which he intends to see--as if he were just starting out.

He has done much rewriting on “The Lisbon Traviata” since its premier in New York in June of 1989. He will be at the Mark Taper tonight for the debut.

McNally said he was intrigued by the new spin director Will Roberson has put on “Frankie and Johnny” by casting the play interracially with African-American actress Pam Grier and white actor William Anton. It’s the first time the show has ever been done that way in the many times it has been performed nationwide since it opened in New York three years ago.

“I think it (interracial casting) will only strengthen it. I’m very happy about it. But the main reason I’m happy is that she (Grier) is a good actress. I think the play is universal enough to support this.”

The success of “Frankie and Johnny,” both in its 1988 Off-Broadway production and its subsequent mountings around the country, have taken McNally by surprise.

The simple two-character story about a short-order cook who tries to turn a one-night stand with a waitress into a lasting relationship was one McNally thought “would only interest me. I thought it would be a play that I wrote for my own pleasure. I had no idea that it would be successful.”

McNally is now working on a screenplay for “Frankie and Johnny” to star Michelle Pfeiffer and to be directed by Garry Marshall (director of “Pretty Woman”) for Paramount Studios.

“It just goes to show that you should write what you care about and leave the rest to fate. If you try to write the things that you think will be popular . . .,” he said, trailing off.

McNally has written his share of those, too.

The most recent example, close to home, was the much-ballyhooed debut of “Up in Saratoga” last year at the Old Globe Theatre.

The show came with high hopes. The Old Globe commissioned it. Broadway producer Elizabeth McCann announced her interest. Then it opened to disastrous reviews.

But McNally has still not given up on “Up in Saratoga.” He has not given up on any of his plays.

“Most of my plays for the past 10 years have been reviewed before they were where I want them to be,” he said. “The critics reviewed the third performance of ‘Up in Saratoga.’ At the end of the six-week run, the play was different, and I think we had a good show. I hope it’s going to be done again.”

McNally said he is talking to Jack O’Brien, artistic director of the Old Globe Theatre, about a project that might be one or two years off.

O’Brien introduced McNally to Roberson, who has directed two shows at the Old Globe, “Suds” and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.”

McNally came to see the Old Globe production of “Hamlet” and took time out to chat with Roberson about the Gaslamp’s production of “Frankie and Johnny.”

“I told him a few things I learned about the play. One of the reasons I want to get down to see the show is that I know Will is a very good director.”

McNally may like all his plays, especially “The Lisbon Traviata,” his latest, but he describes “Frankie and Johnny” as “one of my favorites . . . . It was fun writing it.

“I think ‘Frankie and Johnny’ is a very positive play. They’re together, and they are in daylight, brushing their teeth as opposed to being in moonlight. And that’s what life has to survive--day-to-day reality.”

PROGRAM NOTES: The Mystery Cafe’s “Murder at Cafe Noir,” which opened in May, is the longest currently running show in San Diego. The company serves dinner and jokes with its interactive murder mystery spoof, and has extended its show through New Year’s Eve at the Imperial House restaurant. The company has a new show on the menu for mid-January, “Killing Mr. Withers.” . . .

Josefina Lopez, the 21-year-old Los Angeles playwright who made a sensation with her one-act, “Simply Maria or the American Dream” at the San Diego-based Playwrights Project a few years back, is getting rave reviews for her first full-length play, “Real Women Have Curves.” The story about five Mexican-American women forced to meet a nearly impossible production deadline in a Los Angeles sweatshop just closed Nov. 18 at the Guadalupe Theater in San Antonio, Tex. It received praise from the Express-News for its “tangy bilingual humor and strongly pro-feminine themes.” Lopez is now working on a screenplay of the show for Warner Brothers. . . .

The Coronado Playhouse is launching a children’s theater company called the Young People’s Theatre Nov. 30 with “The Tailor of Gloucester.” The show is an adaptation of a Beatrix Potter story about a host of mice who help a tailor finish a magnificent cherry-colored coat in the wee hours of Christmas morning. The show runs through Dec. 22.