33 VARIATIONS! YOU MUST SEE THIS PLAY!

Why? 

Why Theatre?  

In LA..  it’s about many things that include looking for work, but there are actors who, when they come together with exceptional writing and actually get the play; get the characters and the characters’ lives and loves and stories and a director gets the script and there’s music and talent and love of the moment.. the moment before the lighting booth brings the house to half, the curtain speech is spoken and then, house to dark and the stage manager calls “Places” and the cast is ready and the play is ready and the audience is ready, probably not knowing what it’s in for and that moment of breath before it all begins .. and then.. something happens.  It’s not the text or the actors or the effects, it’s some synergy that brings the people in their seats and the crew and the actors all together in an unspoken agreement that we are all here for one purpose: we abandon our disbelief and let the play begin.  Let the magic happen. This one unique moment when we leave the outside world to do what it will still be doing later..  the blinking off thank god of all the little screens.. of all the after thoughts of future to attain the moment of the play.. That time ..when it really works.. not only as the lights come up and the story unfolds and the criticism of a gait or voice or other things that critics like me enjoy or find some fault with.. it all becomes The Play.  It all becomes this time. It all becomes.

Bruce Ladd and Nan McNamara  PHOTO CREDIT:  Lindsay Schnebly

Invited as a guest to see 33 Variations by a dear pal, I had not intended to write a word.  I’d sit and let the play just be the play and the actors (with an understudy, no less) do the work and just allow it all to wash over me and the guy who attends to make a report would be well absent, down the block or back at home.  But, moments after Dylan Price strode boldly across the stage to become the heart of Moises Kaufman’s  33 Variations settled at the grand piano, the story emerged: we meet the characters who arrive from the present time and from a time long ago now and the actors disappeared as their characters came to life with focused care and individual presence that simply ascended them into our lives.

It’s rare to become so involved in a play that the deep feelings that permeate the lives of the characters truly lift the audience to the moment.  “The Moment” is what every actor strives for and in this play the moments unfold with passion and if there is a shred of ‘acting’ going on, it totally eluded me.  These lovely characters: in the present becoming echoes of the past and brilliantly melding in harmonies that flow from Ludwig Von to his champion, Katherine B., and back again explore their paradigm with dignity and humor and love in such a way we seldom see in two hours time away from where we live.

33 Variations is a must see.  Extended for only one more week (or longer if Los Angeles is lucky), it’s a play so well crafted and so well directed and so well acted that for human beings who truly love The Theatre to not find a way to First Presbyterian to become immersed in what the Art of Theatre is truly about… Well, that could be a real shame. 

I have deliberately left the stuff of reviews out of this because the real review will be the one you leave the theater with in your heart. 

Please quickly make a reservation and go. Just go.
     

33 VARIATIONS

 by Moises Kaufman

Actors Co-Op

David Schall Theatre

First Presbyterian Church

1760 N. Gower St.

Los Angeles, CA 90028

Through March 26, 2017

Tickets and Information:

Phone (323) 462-8460
http://actorsco-op.org/wp3/ticket-info/