GOOD EEEVENING ... SEXY 'HITCHCOCK AND THE BLONDE' INTRIGUES, SURPRISES.Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic IT'S A MYSTERY. It's an obsessive love Obsessive love is a form of love where one person is emotionally obsessed with another. What is obsessive love? Forward and Buck believe that rejection is the trigger of obsessive love. story. It's a play about and for people who flat out love the movies. Heck, thanks to some of the most artful bits of technical staging in recent memory, it even places us inside the picture. It's Terry Johnson's ``Hitchcock Blonde,'' directed by the playwright in its American premiere at South Coast Repertory South Coast Repertory (SCR) is a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California. SCR, founded in 1964 and continuing today under the leadership of Artistic Directors David Emmes and Martin Benson, is widely regarded as one of America’s foremost . And it's a knockout It's a Knockout was a popular British television gameshow. Commentators included Eddie Waring, David Vine and Stuart Hall - who was famous for collapsing into genuine hysterical laughter mid-way through commentating on any particular game on a regular basis. . In the present day, a film professor lures his graduate student assistant to his villa in the Greek islands, ostensibly os·ten·si·ble adj. Represented or appearing as such; ostensive: His ostensible purpose was charity, but his real goal was popularity. to parse through some newly discovered film reels from 1919 that may contain a lost film by Alfred Hitchcock. The prof might also have some less honorable motives behind the invitation. Cross cut to 1959, where Hitch himself - a man of considerable and varied appetites - negotiates with the young lady who will be Janet Leigh's body double in the ``Psycho'' shower scene. Yes, the scene will require many takes and considerable nudity (which, be forewarned, ``Hitchcock Blonde'' also contains). And the double, referred to simply as the Blonde, has some rather complicated issues of her own at play. Johnson partially presupposes his audience's knowledge of Hitch's thing for fair-haired members of the opposite sex. What we don't already know, he has professor Alex (played by Robin Sachs Robin David Sachs (born 5 February 1951 in London, UK) is an English actor. Background He is the son of the actors Leonard Sachs and Eleanor Summerfield and he has been twice married:
n. The art of the theater, especially the writing of plays. dram  a·tur department - among the strongest of any regional theater - also offers extensive research via the playbill play·bill n. A poster announcing a theatrical performance. playbill Noun a poster or bill advertising a play Noun 1. . Hitchcock appears in the play, with that mincing walk, double chin and dead-on duplication of speech patterns and mannerisms by the always excellent Dakin Matthews. Last year, Matthews played Vice President Dick Cheney in David Hare's ``Stuff Happens'' at the Mark Taper Forum The Mark Taper Forum is a small thrust stage with 745 seats at the Los Angeles Music Center built by Welton Beckett and Associates. It has presented innovative plays since 1967. The world premiere of Angels In America was produced here. . And it's a giant step indeed from the sourpuss sour·puss n. Slang A habitually gloomy or sullen person. [sour + puss2. veep of ``Stuff'' to the corpulent cor·pu·lent adj. Excessively fat. and slightly prissy master of suspense of Johnson's play. Fine, fine work. Hitch may not be ``Blonde's'' central character, but the director's stamp is on every element of the production, from Ian Dickinson's incidental music to the swooping video sequences credited to William Dudley and Ian Galloway for Mesmer. Chris Pary does some wonderful work with water and light; Hitchcock himself would have been appreciative. Truly, the production is every bit a visual feast. It's strongly acted, too. The five characters are playing mostly realistic characters, but also people who wouldn't be entirely out of place in a Hitchcock film. Meaning they're capable of obsessiveness and the occasional double cross. DeMeo leans a bit over-hard on Jennifer's know-it-all brashness and, later, her desperation. Sachs, on the other hand, is stoic and quite canny as the professor. Obsessive? You bet, but which craving/fixation to satisfy first? Playing the Blonde, Sarah Aldrich is quite dazzling. She begins the play wearing a slip and stammering stammering: see stuttering. her concerns over what this make-or-break ``Psycho'' role might do for her career. But as the play develops and the character convincingly deepens, Aldrich gives us every indication that the ladies were capable of running Hitchcock's show instead of the other way around. She and Matthews develop a nice and rather erotic rapport. They ought to make a movie together. Come to think of it, ``Hitchcock Blonde'' could be a movie. For now, though, it works extremely well as an exciting and thought provoking play. Evan Henerson, (818) 713-3651 evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com HITCHCOCK BLONDE - Four stars Where: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through March 12. Tickets: $28 to $58. (714) 708-5555 or www.scr.org. In a nutshell: A stellar production with - and without - a Hitch. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Hitch (Dakin Matthews) asks The Blonde (Sarah Aldrich) to reenact a provocative but personal scene from his past in the South Coast Repertory production of ``Hitchcock and the Blonde.'' |
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