It’s a dead man’s party at the Playhouse

Tom Titus

What do Edgar Allan Poe, John Barrymore and Jayne Mansfield all have

in common -- apart from the fact that they’re all dead?

Actually, that’s their primary common bond. Or at least it is in a

new dark night program at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse called “Old

Black Magic” by a group called Olio Theater Works. Those spirits, and

others, will rise again several times during October.

Terra Taylor Knudson, director of the playhouse’s current

production of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” has assembled these

luminaries in the form of actors from her Long Beach-based company to

perform Halloween-themed entertainment. She and actress Lauren Nave

created the original script, and both appear in the production.

Knudson has assigned herself the Mansfield role, for two rather

obvious reasons, and seems to enjoy sending up her character’s image

of an ultra-sexy actress forever to be remembered as “the other one”

-- in other words, not Marilyn Monroe.

Not everything in this makeshift production works to full

potential, but two actors render superior performances -- John

Sturgeon as Poe and Tim Thorn as Barrymore. Sturgeon crawls inside

the creepy poet to startling effect, while Thorn revels in the guise

of his hard-drinking, high-living theatrical legend, cutting down the

others with the surgical precision of repartee.

Unless you saw the movie “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing” back

in the 1950s, chances are you’re unacquainted with Evelyn Nesbit,

whose husband, Harry K. Thaw, shot and killed her entrepreneur lover,

Stanford White, about a century ago. Erin Young prances prettily as

the old-time actress, while Paul Karliak and Beach Vickers snarl at

each other as Thaw and White, respectively.

All the spirited guests aren’t from real life, however. There’s

also Waitress Judy (Mona Chatterjee), who made Leslie Gore cry

because she wanted to on the 1960s record “It’s My Party.” But in

this version, Leslie got revenge with a bit of literal backstabbing,

changing the lyrics to “It’s my party and she’ll die if she wants

to.”

Co-author Nave as a high-class madam and Stephanie Thomas in a

hilarious turn as a wannabe star whose budding career was crushed by

a falling chandelier complete the guest list. The evening of

otherworldly merriment is presided over by a spooky voodoo priestess

called Marie Laveau (Patricia Newman), whose daughter (Ren Lavanchy)

waits in the wings to take over her “duties.”

Original music by the playwrights spices up the show, but the plot

itself is a bit muddy, dependent as it is on celebrity

characterizations. Basically, all these infamous personages are

spinning their wheels in limbo awaiting the breakthrough that will

send them either upstairs or down, needing only a sympathetic ear to

listen to their stories.

Two more performances remain -- Wednesday and Thursday -- at 8

p.m. at the Civic Playhouse, 611 Hamilton St., Costa Mesa. Tickets

are $10, and more information is available at (310) 266-3872.

NEW VIEW AT OCC

Orange Coast College will offer a “View of the Dome” this weekend

when Theresa Rebeck’s sharply written comedy opens a two-weekend

engagement in the college’s Drama Lab Theater.

The play focuses on a minor campaign worker caught up in a

political sex scandal. As might be expected, it contains adult

language and situations.

Playwright Rebeck has written extensively for movies and

television. Her work on the TV show “NYPD Blue” won her a Writer’s

Guild of America award for episodic drama.

Curtain will be Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays

at 2 p.m. until Halloween. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for

students, senior citizens and children under 12. Call (714) 432-5880

for more information.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Fridays.