These Entrances and Exits Made a Difference

Here we are, closing out a year dominated by a rather dispiriting series of political vaudeville turns. Get the hook. We have many L.A. and Southern California theater stories in the wings, spoiling for an encore.

Among them:

* The arrival of two Chicago Steppenwolf Theatre alums, Randall Arney and Stephen Eich, at the Geffen Playhouse. Question for 2001: Can the duo, in concert with producing director Gilbert Cates, take the Geffen to the next level?

* The announcement and fund-raising update (already more than halfway there) of South Coast Repertory’s new second space, to open in two years at a cost of $40 million.

* The promising expansion of greater L.A.’s midsize-theater boundaries, including the emergence (and, now that it’s already under new artistic leadership, the second life) of the El Portal Center for the Arts.

* The birth of two new and viable musical comedies, “The Full Monty” at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre--now a certified hit on Broadway--and “Thoroughly Modern Millie” at the La Jolla Playhouse, awaiting revisions but already a charmer.

* The extremely brief La Jolla Playhouse artistic directorship of Anne Hamburger, who bailed before the end of her first season to take a job with Disney. (The least prescient thing this critic wrote in 2000, in a review of the playhouse’s “Blood Wedding”: “The Anne Hamburger years are off to a confident start.”)

* The sudden death of a fine actor, David Dukes, whose Matrix Theatre performance in “Waiting for Godot” said a lot about Samuel Beckett’s distillation of life.

A year-end list can’t suggest much in terms of an actor’s life, or a theater’s hopes for the future. It is horrendously incomplete that way.

Many memorable performances fell outside the parameters of the year’s most vibrant overall productions. We had Kaitlin Hopkins and Sara Botsford in the Pasadena Playhouse’s “Blithe Spirit”; Joy DeMichelle Moore in “The Darker Face of the Earth” at the American Renegade Theatre; Ron Campbell in International City Theatre’s “Noises Off”; Leland Crooke in the Odyssey Theatre’s “Taking Sides”; and Gillian Anderson and Lisa Gay Hamilton in the Wiltern one-night-only edition of “The Vagina Monologues.”

More, of course, but enough. Top 10, followed by 11-20, alphabetically listed.

The Akhmatova Project

A Russian poet’s life, not so much retold by Nancy Keystone and her ensemble as refracted, splintered and riffed-upon--elegantly. (Critical Mass at Actors’ Gang.)

Bad Behavior

Richard Foreman and co-scenarist Sophie Haviland play with string, vamps and free-floating anxiety to create a 55-minute spellbinder. (California Institute of the Arts.)

Death of a Salesman

The hit Broadway revival makes its West Coast appearance. Big, juicy performances, up and down. (Ahmanson Theatre.)

In Flagrante Gothico

“Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” play tag-team with “Rebecca” in a gothic spoof by Alice Dodd and Jillian Armenante. (Circle X at the McCadden Theatre.)

Jitney

An early August Wilson play--not major, but relatively lean and mean--receives optimal treatment from a Ferrari of a cast. (Mark Taper Forum.)

The Man Who Had All the Luck

A long way from perfect, Arthur Miller’s 1944 fable about Mr. Lucky and his small-town fortunes emerged from obscurity looking pretty slick. (Finesilver Shows and the Antaeus Company at the Ivy Substation.)

Metamorphoses

Mary Zimmerman adapted and directed Ovid’s fantastic tales with a Midas touch, and the Taper--plugging a hole left by the postponement of a Peter Parnell play--got a lovely show out of it. (Mark Taper Forum.)

A Streetcar Named Desire

The Tennessee Williams classic, lent a touch of visual music to go with all its verbal grace notes. (Deaf West Theatre.)

Waiting for Godot

Not ideally suited to the wide, cold Freud--not much is--but this company handed L.A. a reminder of how vital Beckett’s tramps remain. (Gate Theatre of Dublin at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse.)

Wit

Kathleen Chalfant practically made Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer winner about a valiant cancer patient and John Donne scholar. Her performance was good enough to make it seem that way, anyway. (Geffen Playhouse.)

*

Nos. 11-20 (in alphabetical order): An Antigone Story (A Hijack), Cornerstone Theater Company at Subway Terminal Building; The Beginning of August, South Coast Repertory; Blood Wedding, La Jolla Playhouse; Call Me Madam, Reprise! at UCLA Freud Playhouse; The Day Emily Married, the Lost World at Whittier College; The Full Monty, Old Globe Theatre; The Lion King, Pantages Theatre; The Master and Margarita, Zoo District Theater; The Misanthrope, A Noise Within; Thoroughly Modern Millie, La Jolla Playhouse. *

COMBO CAPTION FOR 3 PHOTOS: