Lavender graces the hillside. Copper pots hang in the kitchen. Proven’al-inspired fabric brightens the antique wooden chairs. One could easily be describing a domestic scene in France, but this home sits squarely in the Palisades. It belongs to Francophile Helena Ruffin and her partner, Rose Greene. The couple’s thirst for everything French is quenched by two annual treks to their favored country, sojourns they’ve ritually made for the past 14 years. But the most evocative celebration of French culture is found in Ruffin’s photographs, hundreds of which she’s composed during her travels. A selection of these images is currently on view at Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, an exhibition that will continue through September 30. Her range shifts from the iconic’vibrant flower markets, dramatic rooftops, the Eiffel Tower’to the enigmatic, especially with snapshots taken on the Paris Metro. These images’essentially happy accidents’capture “the decisive moment” Henri Cartier-Bresson so famously exalted. The Frenchman’s influence is clear, with one of his renowned prints hanging in Ruffin’s living room together with a collection of other notable photographs. “My goal is to transport the viewer, not just to another country, but to another time and another emotional state,” Ruffin explains. This is Ruffin’s first exhibition, marking a turn from serious hobbyist to full-fledged artist. Her creative growth spurt was prompted by the worst of circumstances. Earlier this year, Rose, her partner for the past 12 years, was diagnosed with cancer. Ruffin poured herself into preparing for the exhibition partly as a way to cope. “I’m happy to say she’s doing terrifically well,” Ruffin says. “It’s a lesson for people who are caring for loved ones suffering from cancer. Caregivers also need a break.” The “big break” came to Ruffin through her friend, Rabbi Denise Eger of Congregation Kol Ami, who encouraged Ruffin to take her art to the next level by organizing an exhibition. She also provided the venue: the lobby space of her temple. “She saw that I needed some kind of outlet. It really was a gift,” Ruffin says. Ruffin, a native of Detroit, first began taking pictures in college as a campus photographer for Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. While she continued on as an avid shutterbug and traveler, her career took a different turn. She held a variety of marketing and sales positions for companies such as Arbitron Ratings and CBS/Viacom, living in Ann Arbor, Chicago and New York City before finally landing in Los Angeles in 1988. Currently, she heads the insurance division of Rose Greene Financial Services. “I wanted to make money; I didn’t listen to my passion,” Ruffin says with a smile. While she still shoots film, Ruffin is slowly making the conversion to digital. Her last trip to France was an all-digital occasion. “I’m happy enough with what I’ve seen in terms of density of color and richness that I’ll probably continue with it [digital],” she says. Both film and digital come into play with “Monet’s Garden,” for which Ruffin imaginatively combined images taken at Giverny over a two-year period to create a monumental collage (the large-scale print measures 23″ x 35″). In contrast to this precisely manipulated composition, “Voyeur,” an award-winning shot taken on the Metro in Paris, happened entirely by chance. “I looked up and just snapped,” recalls Ruffin. “I guess someone was looking down on me.” All the works in the show are limited editions and are for sale. Prices, including frames, range from $375 to $950 depending upon size. Congregation Kol Ami is located at 1200 N. La Brea in West Hollywood. Contact: (323) 606-0996. Ruffin’s images can also be seen on her Web site: ruffprints.smugmug.com.

West Coast Jewish Theatre and The Group at Strasberg in association with Gail Katz Productions present “Lessons,” a new play written by Wendy Graf and directed by Adam Davidson, opening on Friday, July 29, in the Marilyn Monroe Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Institute, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. Produced by Gail Katz and starring Mare Winningham and Hal Linden, “Lessons” is a play about Ben, who finally decides to have a bar mitzvah, and Ruth, the woman he’s hired to tutor him, a former rabbi who’s lost her faith. Through their developing relationship, each searches for healing and forgiveness as they wrestle with their own deep-rooted secrets. Graf, a Mandeville Canyon resident, was inspired to write the play by a sermon delivered by Kehillat Israel Rabbi Sheryl Lewart following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Lewart addressed the loss of faith that many were feeling in response to the violence here and in Israel. “It’s a play that reflects what’s going on right now,” Graf told the Palisadian-Post in March 2003, preceding the first staged reading at KI. “How we’re standing on the precipice of violence and terror, holding onto hope and faith.” In the play, a rabbi who had given up her faith and turned her back on God is confronted by a newfound Jew, struggling to embrace life. They discover they both need each other: one to live and the other to die. “I wanted to do something about how a rabbi’s faith could be tested,” Graf said. “It was right after September 11, so it was about loss of faith, and finding faith and finding hope. I interviewed many female rabbis, both in Los Angeles and other areas in order to write Ruth’s character.” A former stand-up comic and TV writer who previously wrote for such shows as “Murder She Wrote,” “ALF” and “Full House,” Graf premiered her first play “The Book of Esther” in the summer of 2001 at Theatre East in Studio City. She is currently developing a new play, “Leipzig,” the last in the trilogy which again deals with questions of faith, hope, and identity. Director Adam Davidson, born and raised in Pacific Palisades, attended Kenyon College, where he received a bachelor’s degree with honors in history. He received his MFA from Columbia University with a concentration in film. His parents are Gordon Davidson, artistic director of the Center Theatre Group, and Judi Davidson, founder of Davidson, Choy Publicity. While a film student, Davidson created a short film which he himself financed with the hope that he would get class credit for it and gain the experience of putting a story on film, working with actors and completing the editing process. He titled the film “The Lunch Date.” Davidson then went on to write several other scripts that were in development for Hollywood Pictures, including his first feature film as a writer/director, an adaptation of Jess Mowry’s award-winning novel, “Way Past Cool.” It was released last year on Artisan Entertainment. His second short, “The Monster,” was voted the Paul Robeson Award at the 2001 Newark Black Film Festival and recently aired on Showtime. He is also working on another project as a writer/director, a screenplay based on a true story of the CIA’s testing of LSD on unsuspecting individuals in the 1950s. Davidson has directed a number of television programs, including episodes of “Law and Order,” “Cover Me,” “The Chronicle,” “The Invisible Man,” and, most recently, “Six Feet Under.” He is currently writing a political thriller for Paramount entitled “Protect and Defend.” Since “Lessons” first reading at KI, Graf has developed into a more layered work with deeper emotional resonance, she says. She has received technical assistance from KI Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben, whose read it for liturgical points, and from Mare [Winningham], who having converted three years ago to Judaism was flawless in her Hebrew.

Theater Review

Not much is left unsaid when two men with several generations between them meet for a job interview, and their opposing intellectual viewpoints clash. One is a classicist, whose strict Eurocentrism offends and challenges the young modernist’s perspectives on life and literature. Both characters have something to teach and learn from the other in the world premiere of Canadian playwright Oren Safdie’s “The Last Word…,” which runs through July 31 at the Malibu Stage. Safdie’s previous play, “Private Jokes, Public Places,” was first developed at the Malibu Stage Company in 2001 and ran off Broadway last year. In “The Last Word…,” Henry Grunwald (Daniel J. Travanti) is a retired advertising executive who has decided to finally pursue his dream of being a playwright. His ad for an assistant is answered by Len Artz (Peter Smith), a New York University student and aspiring writer with a drastically different taste in drama. Where Henry prefers fantasy, Len desires reality, though the confident youth has a thing or two to learn about writing a realistic play. Len calls Shakespeare “simplistic…a glorified ‘Three’s Company’,” adding that at least the characters in the Greek tragedies actually have to live with their pain and grief. The interview quickly becomes an emotionally charged and comedic debate between two unlikely companions, which successfully pulls at the heartstrings while keeping the audience entertained. In many respects, Henry and Len are alike: intellectually stimulated, opinionated and temperamental. Both are Jewish, a bond that carries considerable weight for Henry, a Viennese Jew who escaped the Nazis. As the nearly blind Henry, Travanti (of “Hill Street Blues”) crafts a sympathetic character whose cynicism is balanced by his persistent hope for artistic success. In a relatively flawless Viennese accent, he expresses his disappointment in the modern world, with its crudity, unsophisticated fast pace and subsequent carelessness. Meanwhile, Len struggles with Henry’s outdated understanding of relationships between men and women. Smith delicately portrays Len, who is at first more of a passive character, and then reveals a more aggressive and sensitive side as he defends his own ideology and shares something about his life. Safdie’s clever dialogue steers the play, which moves quickly, with neither actor missing a beat. “What is play writing but music put to words?” Henry says. And in a climactic scene, he dramatically dictates his latest play, “Escape from Germany,” to Len, who types furiously while Henry, eyes closed and arms crossed, moves slowly across the room to the rhythm of his own, melodic punctuation (he indicates an ellipsis as a breathless “three dots”). Some of the most powerful scenes, however, are the moments of awkward silence during which Henry and Len impatiently wait for the laptop computer to reboot and accidentally slip into more meaningful conversation. The symbolic set design’two staggered desks, one large (center stage) and one small (stage right)’reflects the gap between two generations. Each with something to say, these two are brought together in an intimate setting where they confront their insecurities and connect over their drive for artistic expression. Safdie directs the talented duo, who previously appeared together in “Old Wicked Songs” at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. Produced by Jackie Bridgeman, the show runs just under one hour and 30 minutes. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. at the Malibu Stage, 29243 PCH, just north of Heathercliff Road. Tickets are $25; $20 on Thursdays. Contact: 589-1998 or visit www.malibustagecompany.org.

Theater Review

“Kiss Me, Kate,” that witty play within a play enlivened by Cole Porter’s music, is currently playing at the Morgan-Wixson Theater through August 14. An overnight success when it opened on Broadway December 30, 1948, the play takes up the egotistical Fred Graham and his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi and their fiery, tempestuous, on-again, off-again relationship, which spills from backstage onto their on-stage performance of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” The original play was modeled on the quintessential Broadway couple Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne whose jealous antics behind the scenes were well-known. Producer Saint Subber hired Sam and Bella Spewack to write the book. The Spewacks’ relationship was also rocky and they had been separated for a while before they came together solely for the purpose of writing “Kiss Me, Kate.” They got back together after they wrote it. The musical score by Cole Porter borrows from Shakespeare’s dialogue but uses the syntax of the day in the numbers behind the scenes, such as “It’s Too Darn Hot.” The bridge goes: “According to the Kinsey report, ev’ry average man you know much prefers to play his favorite sport when the temperature is low.” The musical contains 17 classic Porter numbers, including “Another Op’nin, Another Show,” “Why Can’t You Behave,” and “I Hate Men.” The play, which ran for 1,077 performances and won five Tony Awards, including “Best Musical,” “Best Script,” and “Best Score,” is not often done in regional and community theaters. Thomas S. Hischak, a recognized scholar on American theater, speculates that “The vocal demands and the lack of female roles probably make it less appealing.” Director Anne Gesling has gotten around the lack of female roles by having the two daughters in the Shakespeare on-stage play answer to a mother in the role of father/Baptista, Valerie Lippincott. Lippincott’s strong voice make her enjoyable to watch as she tries her best to marry off her shrill-tongued eldest daughter, Katherine. The two gangsters are also usually cast as men, but Valeri Braun, cast as one of the gangsters, holds her own and then some. Whenever Barry Silver and Braun are on stage in their vain attempts to recoup a gambling debt, their presence and deadpan antics leave the audience laughing. They never let the lead character, Graham, out of sight, even if it means they have to don Shakespearean dress and go panic-stricken in front of an audience. Their show-stopping song “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” is pure fun. In the lead as the egotistical Fred Graham/Petruccio, Steve Hall is enjoyable to watch. Leading lady AnnaLisa Erickson sings “I Hate Men” with such conviction that the audience is entirely convinced that this woman will never marry. Both leads are fine in their individual parts; unfortunately, the much needed chemistry the play pivots on isn’t there. Krystal Karpel is wonderfully spunky in the role of Bianca, with a beautifully feigned innocence as she explains to her jealous boyfriend, Bill Calhoun (Joshua Aaron), that she is “Always True to You In My Fashion.” Anytime Karpel comes on stage, it lights up with her presence. Aaron, a lank, lean sweet presence, is also a good hoofer. His tap dance in the number “Bianca” is effortlessly perfect. The choreography by Karpel is imaginative and seamless. The set design for “Kiss Me, Kate” could be problematic on a smaller stage because it has to incorporate the play within a play. Designer Thomas A. Brown has made wise choices that enhance the production. The Shakespearean costumes, designed by Gesling, are particularly lovely. This production needs tightening, but “Kiss Me, Kate” is a classic not done often enough. “Kiss Me, Kate” runs through Sunday, August 14, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sunday matinees at 2 p.m., and one Saturday matinee July 23 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 for general admission, $15 for seniors and $12 for students. The Morgan-Wixson Theater is located at 2627 Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica. Contact 828-7519.