Theater Review

War lasts a long time. It lingers in the air long after the final troops return home and others have been laid to rest. It visits soldiers in their sleep and haunts families still waiting for their boy to return’years later. Such is the postwar atmosphere in which Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” is set. The 1947 family drama preceded “Death of a Salesman” by two years, establishing some of the themes that Miller would further develop in his later works. The Theatre Palisades production, directed by Sherry Coon and performed by a talented cast, successfully captures the multi-layered traumatic effects of loss on one family struggling to face the ghosts of their past. The show runs through October 9 at Pierson Playhouse. The entire play is appropriately set in the Keller’s cozy backyard, symbolic of Midwestern comfort and hospitality. It’s a gathering place for friends and family who pop in and out, expected or not. A tall, white lattice fence encloses the yard, which connects to a dusty blue two-story house with white trim, flower boxes in the window sills, a swinging screen door and a porch complete with a rocking chair. Designed by Sherman Wayne, this set earns applause at first sight. Joe Keller (Jack Winnick) and his wife, Kate (Joanna Churgin), don’t seem to mind living in the bubble of their Ohio backyard, where they can keep a disturbing family secret close to home. Kate is in deep denial over the loss of their son, Larry, who’s been missing in action for about three years now, and also over their other son Chris’s plan to marry Ann Deever, Larry’s sweetheart. When Chris (Jim Felton) returns home with Ann (Kate Woodruff), a tree planted in Larry’s honor has fallen over, and everybody reads some symbolism into it. “We all got hit by the same lightening,” Ann says about Larry’s death. In a poignant twist, her father and Joe were business partners whose company knowingly sold faulty equipment to the Army. However, while Joe managed to avoid prison, her own father is serving time. Ann acts as a sort of peacemaker throughout the play, even though she has questions about Joe’s honor. However, her brother, George (Stephen Peirick), arrives on the scene filled with resentment towards Joe, with the intention of preventing his sister’s marriage to Chris. In the leading roles, Winnick and Churgin deliver powerful and moving performances. As Joe, Winnick crafts a desperate father painfully unable to confront his guilt and express grief over the soldiers who died in airplane crashes caused by his company’s faulty parts. He achieves a delicate balance of pride, playful unease and defensiveness as he inappropriately agrees to play “jail” with the neighborhood kid and attempts to hold down the family fort by ignoring the change around him. Churgin is utterly convincing as a grief-stricken mother who’s overwhelmed with sorrow but also with the burden of her husband’s guilty conscience and her need to protect him. She manipulatively attempts to preserve the past because the painful reality of the present is unbearable. Churgin’s gripping performance makes us feel her pain in a very real way, especially in the scenes where she desperately tries to project her characters’ emotions on others. Through the characters of Chris, Ann and George, we are made to understand that the children of war not only inherit their parents’ suffering but also the guilt of tragic decisions made during wartime. As Ann, Kate Woodruff cleverly portrays a sweet and sensitive but also an assertive young woman who is able to confront Mrs. Keller and stand up for herself under the harsh scrutiny of neighbor Sue Bayliss (Dale Waddington Horowitz). These strong female characters aren’t afraid to put each other in place and challenge the seemingly more dependent male characters. It’s hard to see what Ann loves so much about Chris, but she tells us it’s his honesty and “the way he relaxes me,” and we believe her. Chris, who served as a commander in the war, proves that he loves her by bringing her home to his parents even though he is ashamed that everything about them and their home has remained eerily the same. For Chris, a man’s morals are more significant than family loyalty, which becomes a major conflict for him as the play progresses. In part, his struggle reveals a gap between generations because where his father, of the Depression era, made decisions based on financial concerns and the desire to maintain a successful business to pass on to his son, Chris believes that a man’s morals should guide his actions. But in the Keller world, forgiveness’of oneself and others’is rare, which makes this play a heavy, albeit powerful one. While the characters’ emotions understandably run high, some of their arguments and messages could perhaps be delivered a little more subtlety, with less shouting. Overall, the cohesive production, produced by Shirley Churgin, is one of the best I’ve seen at Pierson Playhouse. The costumes (Sherry Coon), along with the music (designed by Cindy Dellinger and edited by Jeff Scott), transport us directly to the 1940s. It’s also great to see some young talent in the play; Monica Gilsanz played Bert, the neighborhood kid, in last weekend’s performance, and Lili Boyle and Dylan LaRocque will appear in upcoming performances. The play runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 454-1970 or visit the box office at Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd., Wednesday through Saturday, 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.

On the south side of LAX is an unknown gem of a museum filled with flight attendant outfits, a scanner of the actual voices from the tower tracking in- and outbound planes, and a mural that salutes the Centennial of Flight and the 75th anniversary of the airport. The Flight Path Museum is one of the rare ones that holds the interest of both parents and children. Located in the Imperial Terminal, which was home to World Airways and then the now-defunct MGM Grand Airlines, the museum sits on the tarmac of LAX and provides one of the most accessible public views of jets landing and taking off. Charter flights for teams like the Clippers and Lakers take off from this area, and visitors to the museum have been thrilled to see favorite athletes boarding a plane. On the museum’s floor are five airplane seats facing the windows offering a premier location to watch various jets land and take off on Runway 25 left and 25 right. Those who enjoy the rumble of planes and hearing noise of gigantic outward-bound jets can go outside, practically placing you on the runway. Immediately next door to the museum is the K-9 bomb-sniffing operation. Museum patrons are allowed to stand outside behind the fence and watch the dogs during training. Approximately 50 suitcases are put down and a dog sniffs around each bag. When he finds any suspected contraband, the dog lies down. As a reward, the trainer takes a ball or toy out of his pocket and they play for a few minutes before the dog goes back to work. As children watch the planes, parents will be interested in the collection of 15 black-and white photos taken by the official airport photographer, Wen Roberts. In the 1960s, he took photos of famous people traveling by air. It was a different era, when passengers traveled dressed up in their best clothes. Roberts caught the naughty come-hither look of Jane Mansfield, Marlon Brando’s bored smoldering sexuality and the sweetness of Audrey Hepburn. Another attraction are colorful antique posters the airlines issued to lure passengers to travel. Lee Nicholas, the Flight Path’s executive director, remembers when teachers brought the posters into classrooms that depicted Hawaii and London and other faraway geographic destinations. Travel agents used to put them in windows, but with the advent of Web sites and bookings over the Internet, these artistic posters are no longer created. The history of LAX can be studied through photos. The dedication photo in 1930 shows LAX (then known as Mines Field), a small runway surrounded by open land on all sides. Small private planes went in and out, but there was no commercial traffic because the major airport in the Los Angeles area was in Burbank. About 1940, the name was changed to Los Angeles Muncipal Airport. During World War II, the military used the fields. After 1946, the airport was opened to commercial traffic. A 1961 oil painting shows an era when LAX had almost a regional appearance. A single roadway runs in front of six ticketing and baggage buildings. Originally, a passenger would go to ticketing, then into one of the underground tunnels that led to the satellite oval buildings near the runways to await departure. With the advent of larger planes, the space between ticketing and departure/arrival became unusable and long hallways were built from ticketing to gates. There is a 1/100th scale model of the super-jumbo Airbus A380 jetliner’the first of its kind on display in Southern California, according to Rowena Ake, Flight Path president. “It will hold 800 passengers if they all fly economy,” Nicholas said. “The plane will probably carry closer to 500 to 600 people.” It’s set to arrive at LAX in November 2006, and once again the gates will have to be refigured to accommodate the larger plane. The museum has a real grab-bag of diverse small exhibits. Fine china, linen napkins and real silverware detail the glory days of commercial air flight. A ceiling-to-floor case is filled with models of different aircraft of Southern California and large oil paintings of planes, donated by the Marina City Club. A small room is filled with Flying Tiger memorabilia. Ann Proctor, the head of volunteers, showed a room filled with flight-attendant uniforms. Recently the museum sponsored a fashion show. “We only used the outfits up to 1990,” Proctor said. “After that they were all dark and Navy colors.” The variety and color of the uniforms are amazing. The large flower print of the muumuu’s came from the inception of flights to Hawaii. A bright-green dress with yellow embroidery, complete with gold shoes, was the outfit for the first flights between Mexico and the U.S. Different uniforms are featured throughout the museum and rotated frequently. Currently the entire collection is being catalogued. Carolyn Woods, who was a flight attendant for United Airlines for 44 years, gave the museum every outfit she had been required to wear during those years. Perfectly tailored suits, with size six labels (but looking closer to a size two) hang on a mannequin. Proctor, who was a flight attendant with TWA from 1957 to 1964, confessed, “I was on weight check.” A thin svelte woman, she explained, “It was my first time away from home and I gained some weight. Every time I showed up for work, they made me step on a scale’if they could find me,” she said laughing. Proctor worked with TWA because it was the first airline to allow married attendants. “You had to quit when you got married,” Proctor said. “Some foreign airlines still have that requirement.” There are also some paper stewardess outfits in their collections, which were in vogue for about a year. Once airplanes headed to foreign destinations were in the air, the flight attendants in first class changed into outfits that look a bit like a colorful short toga. “The women who wore them told me they carried scotch tape and scissors,” Proctor said. “They also wore either a body stocking or a pair of shorts underneath.” The museum has a small library with aviation-related technical materials as well as books on commercial and civil aviation. Currently, the library is in the process of being catalogued and put on a database. The plans are to build a respectable research library. This museum will celebrate its second birthday on Wednesday, October 5, with a benefit that will feature news reel footage of Howard Hughes’ famous Spruce Goose airplane. A fully restored TWA Constellation airliner from the 1940s era will be available for guests to tour during the benefit. In addition to all the airline memorabilia, one of the most attractive aspects of Flight Path are the group of volunteers, all of whom have had careers in commercial aviation. At the front were three volunteers, all retired, two of whom had logged over 40 years with the airlines. All were eager to answer questions and share their vast knowledge. Since the museum is new and still relatively unknown, visitors can receive a lot of personal atttention The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays and the first Saturday of each month. School and group tours are available. The location is 6661 W. Imperial Hwy.; admission and parking is free. For driving and parking directions, go to the Web site www.flightpath.us or call 215-5291.

The Grape Vine

By Merv Hecht I had dinner last month with a physician who’s working on a software program that purports to scientifically correlate brain waves with the effects of mood-altering medications. His theory is that doctors currently prescribe these drugs based on loosey-goosey criteria, not based on a scientifically-proven regimen. If he can establish reliable correlations, he believes the basis for prescription of these drugs will become more “scientific.” We wish him good success. Wine making’and tasting’is sort of like that. The people making it are exercising a lot of judgment on what other people will like. And the people drinking it have trouble verbalizing what it is that they like or don’t like about many wines. It’s not science, it’s love. During August, two articles appeared in The New York Times that dealt with these issues as they relate to wine. One, “The Emperor of Wine: The New World Order” is a biography of Robert M. Parker, Jr., who is probably the most read and most influential wine critic in the world. Parker initiated the 100 point scale of wine evaluation. The bottom line of the article, as I read it, is that Parker tastes so many wines at a time that from a purely physiological point of view his palate can’t possibly hold up during a tasting of as many wines as he tastes at one time. So his expertise is not based on science, but a “unique semi-divine tasting ability.” Do you want to buy wine based on the recommendation of somebody using a “semi-divine” method? Do you invest in the stock market that way? The second article is even more interesting. “The Chemistry of a 90+ Wine” is a review of a California company called “Enologix,” which is the brainchild of Leo McCloskey. McCloskey’s theory is about the same as the physician I mentioned in the first paragraph. Instead of evaluating a wine by tasting it (a loosey-goosey methodology), he uses scientific instruments like mass spectrometers to measure the chemical compounds in the wines. The results are fed into a proprietary software program. Based on the chemical analysis, the program predicts, with great accuracy, he says, what the Parker score will be. By testing the grape juice at various stages, the producer can make changes to increase the “Parker score.” When I was a lawyer, in a different lifetime, I represented a very successful computer-dating company. The clients filled out an extensive psychological and personal evaluation sheet. The results were fed into the computer, and a computer program matched up likely marriage candidates. I spent a fair amount of time at their office handling legal and tax matters for the company (which had grown quite large). While there I noticed that one of the owners, whom I’ll refer to as Mrs. Smith, looked at the computer matches, but didn’t follow them with any regularity. She met with each client, made her own notes, and did a personal match-making. When I asked her why she didn’t rely on the computer, she explained it as follows: The computer can assimilate a limited amount of information because of the limits we are willing to go to input data. But even the data that is input doesn’t deal with bad breath, sloppy grooming or lisps. First these items have to be cleared up, she said. Then, she said, there’s a certain intuitive element that is the most important of all. I wonder if Mr. McCloskey adds or subtracts anything from his data, based on his intuition. I wonder if Mr. Parker has a checklist of the elements of taste that he reviews as he tastes the wine, or if he just has an overall impression: “Ahhh, this is a 95.” I wonder if the physician’s correlation tables will be accepted by the general psychiatric community. And most of all, I wonder if most wine drinkers care about any of this stuff.

When artist Patrice Dworkin completed her monumental flying angel bas reliefs several years ago, she was pleased with what could be called a beautiful exploration of empowered women. She had equipped each of her “angels” with symbols of their shining talents’a briefcase for one, a trowel and garden gloves for another. While a few of these colorful papier-mach’ wall fixtures still hover like guardian angels in the studio of her Rustic Canyon home, Dworkin has continued her search for new content, admitting “that the best thing about the work is doing it, but as soon as I’m done, I’m done, and I’m ready to move on.” Dworkin confesses that she thought her angels were edging toward craft, and while she did enjoy such craft projects like making props for her children’s school projects, even volunteering to fabricate the man-eating plant for the Adderley School’s production of “The Little House of Horrors,” she eventually wanted to return to paint and ink. She sketched the world around her in her pocket tablet, worked with collage and paint, and experimented with different surfaces. Soon enough she found an imagery that would stimulate her imagination and invite introspection. “You never have to look very long for your creative ideas; they find you,” Dworkin says in tracing the origins of her new work. In her trials and experiments, she discovered Plexiglas, which attracted her because of its translucence and its durability, and for the past two years has been the “canvas” for her explosive creativity. To visualize Dworkin’s work, imagine a Chinese scroll with its delicate pastel watercolor images decorating a long, vertical parchment. Instead of paper, imagine Plexiglas with delicate, jewel-like lines incised on back and front against a pastel background. The panels pivot 360 degrees. The imagery mimics both the botanical and anatomical worlds, and is meant to resonate back and forth. Are those the delicate veins of the sycamore leaf or the fragile network of the circulatory system? Ever since Dworkin declared herself an artist a decade ago, snipping the safety tether to the Brentwood Art Center classes, she eagerly accepted the challenge of art, where there are no boundaries, no right, no wrong, but where she could go beyond the pretty and try to express the feelings which have no words. The new work combines Dworkin’s particular love of the plant world and the magnificent design of the human anatomy. “A single leaf my son Adam brought me inspired me and allowed me to go on more of an inner journey,” Dworkin says. While Dworkin’s paintings contain familiar imagery, they speak to her response to a period of grief and uncertainty. Her daughter Chloe was born with a heart anomaly, which required her to have a pulmonary valve removed when she was six months old. “Although she was chugging along with no symptoms without a pulmonary value, it became clear as she got older that there was an advantage to placing a value, which meant open-heart surgery,” Dworkin explains. Dworkin and her husband Stephen consulted heart specialists all over the world, and finally decided to go ahead with the operation. But the uncertainty over what to do, if anything, and then the uncertain success of the operation, was excruciating. “What do you do with all this?” Dworkin asks. “I realized that the only way to address this was in my work. You start to transfer something painful and turn it into something beautiful.” While Dworkin had resolved to use the imagery of the circulatory system in her work, although abstracted, she had to consider how Chloe would feel about it. “Chloe was thrilled and thought that my treating this very serious thing about her, her heart, not her pretty face, was wonderful.” You can see the remnants of the circulatory system Dworkin had been drawing over and over and over in earlier paintings, elements that she says have become very rich. The paintings have both botanical and anatomical references that are touch points for the meaning of the work. Chloe, who turns 15 in October, had successful heart surgery in June, bringing to an end the year of anxiety but also exuberant creativity for her mother. It is this work that the Los Angeles Art Association will feature in a solo exhibition, which opens with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, September 10 at Gallery 825/LAAA Annex at Bergamot Station. “Creating this show has been such a steadying influence,” Dworkin says, adding she is still intrigued by Plexiglas and her attachment to hearts and flowers (Chloe means blooming or growing). “For my future work I am considering a eucalyptus motif and more 6-ft. panels.” Although she has been absent from the studio this summer, caring for Chloe in recuperation and preparing Adam for his first year in college at Tufts, Patrice can’t wait to get back to work. “I’m compelled to do this,” she says. “If I don’t do this work, I get grumpy.”