Time Warped

Published: Friday, May 29, 1998

Friday, May 29, 1998

Time Warped

THEATER: Playwright David Ives is a little wacky, which is why the cast and crew of

the Geffen Playhouse's

"All in the Timing"

fit right in

By Stephanie Sheh

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

In the ivy-covered court of the Geffen Playhouse, one can hear the UCLA bell chime eleven. It's time to discuss David Ives' collection of comedies, "All in the Timing," which opens next week.

Listening to the director and actors chat about their project, one can't help thinking the conversation turns more and more into a wacky play, with the three bouncing off one another, shifting between the serious and the playful. Now if only there were some sexual tension.

Enter stage left, actor Arnie Burton dressed in a grey V-neck. Burton talks animatedly with his hands. He recently finished the San Diego production of "All in the Timing," which means for two weeks he performed the play at night and drove to Los Angeles to rehearse during the day.

"The cast down in San Diego kept thinking of my L.A. cast as my mistress," Burton says. Is this the tension we've been looking for? Perhaps.

Every relationship has its challenges. He admits that it was a bit "schizo for a few weeks," but didn't impose his new experiences onto the San Diego cast.

"Hey, we've got this great new thing that the great new actors in L.A. did," Burton jokes. A beat. He continues, "You know that would be really creepy."

A voice: "Sorry to interrupt."

Enter stage left, actor Jim Fyfe. Taking a seat, he adjusts the shades on his glasses.

Burton: "No, no. I was just talking about you, Jim."

Fyfe: "Great. Keep going."

These are a few of the actors that will bring Ives' bizarre worlds to life - a place where monkeys type "Hamlet," Trotsky reads of his impending death in an encyclopedia and people order pig's feet.

"David's got many fixations," Burton says. "One is a love of language, another is his fixation on his idea of time. He loves to turn it around to try to manipulate it. But underneath all the word play and what people think are gimmicks, there's a real kind of yearning for a connection."

Burton enjoys the fact that Ives "writes on so many different levels." In "Words, Words, Words," also referred to as The Monkey Play, three chimps named Swifty, Kafka and Milton take on the personalities of their namesakes. But Burton points out that they are also a take-off on the great comedy writers of the '50s.

"He's juggling all these different balls. The audience can take what they want," Burton says. "Forget about the philosophy or whatever. It's just silly to see three actors acting like monkeys. Then if you read his play you go, 'Oh my god, there's all this that's also going on.'"

Fyfe, who's seen other productions of the show agrees, "There's real heart there, and that connects with an audience. That's what really makes it stick rather than, 'Oh, that was fun. Let's go eat.'"

Burton chimes in, "But that's also John's strength, I think, and why ..."

An approaching voice: "Is that me you're talking about?"

"Yeah, I got all the dirt out," Burton replies.

Enter stage left, director and UCLA alumnus John Rando. This marks his fourth time directing "All in the Timing."

Rando credits UCLA with teaching him the vocabulary he needed to think about text, actors and design, among other things, the way a director does.

Rando: "It's a homecoming. It's fantastic. This is a good thing to come back and to get paid to do what I love to do. And to it with people that I love to work with and then to do it here next to UCLA."

They have finally all gathered. Is this banter typical of rehearsal patterns?

Rando: "No, we don't do this at all."

Burton: "We actually don't like each other. We don't talk during rehearsal. We're just putting on this act for you."

Rando: "We all have to wear orange suits during rehearsal."

Burton: "And it's rife with sexual tension."

Slightly more serious, Rando explains that the silliness comes from the plays themselves.

Rando: "It's important to do this work with people that want to be together and work together, that want a creative feeling about each other. That translates into a wonderful feeling of performance that rubs off. It's infectious for the audience."

Burton: "It's also - (to Rando) - I'm going to compliment you so you can hide your ears. But having worked with him, he lets that atmosphere flower."

Rando: "Okay, that's $40."

Now it's Burton and Rando's turns to gush about Ives. Both have worked with him before.

Rando, who also knows Ives personally, talks of the man who creates worlds of logical lunacy, "He's a very funny witty man. He's exceptionally intelligent. He's great to work with. He's also very demanding. He's very serious about his work. Especially the funny stuff. He's ruthless with his plays. He tends to cut and hack them a lot. They're already short and then they always get shorter."

Burton says that this is unusual for a playwright because their words are usually so precious to them. But when he worked on "Mere Mortals," another Ives work, the playwright was flexible and would add in material that came from improvisational sessions.

Rando points out that Ives also writes for specific actors.

"Actors have certain rhythms in their speech, in the way they carry themselves," Rando explains. "David's writing has a very specific rhythm, music to it. You can tell right away if that person can play that music."

Fyfe: "I agree. I saw 'All in the Timing' last summer and I thought, 'This is for me. I could be in this play.' Cause then there's other stuff I see and I go, 'Nah, I don't think so.'"

Rando: "Yeah, it's true isn't it..."

Burton: "It matches you or it doesn't."

Rando: "David writes for specific actors. He wrote a play for Arnie and another actress ... Those people have a certain cadence to their speech, a certain quality to their humanness.."

During auditions, Rando saw the quality in Fyfe, a comedic actor.

In explaining the roots of his comedy Fyfe offers, "Well, a glance in the mirror pretty much solves that question for me. In our business, we really do live by the adage that biology is determinism."

The group bursts into laughter. And comedy helps explain why Ives' plays are such crowd pleasers.

Rando: "Because their fuuunny."

Fyfe: "They're smart in that they allow the audience to be smart. So many things, especially things produced for a mass commercial audience, have to explain everything. A really smart writer knows it's okay to have you guess for a second, because when you get it you go, 'Oh I get that. Oh wait, and I'll bet this is this.' (With David's work), you're part of the cleverness."

Rando: "The other big crowd pleasing thing is male nudity."

Burton: "Which we do a lot of. The male genitalia is funny."

Fyfe: "Inherently."

Burton: "Where the female isn't, but the male is. (To Fyfe) Especially yours is very funny."

Fyfe: "Like I said, 'Biology is destiny.' Got to go with what you got."

Reporter: "Does the play call for good comedic timing?"

Fyfe: "No. We're trying to do it without timing."

Burton: "We're taking a whole new slant on it."

Fyfe: "If the audience laughs we stop and stare at them. Until they stop. Then we go on."

Burton: "Our goal is to make them cry. To come to terms with something in their lives."

Fyfe: "Our goal is to make them feel deeply, deeply sad. It's not easy."

Burton: "So far we've been very good at that."

Rando: "I do feel very sad. (Then seriously) What is truly on in the timing is human connection and human heart. David, I think, would concur."

Reporter: "Anything else?"

Burton: "The sexual tension in the play."

Rando: "The dental work."

Fyfe: "The sexual tension within myself."

Curtain.

THEATER: "All in the Timing" is currently in previews at the Geffen Playhouse. The show opens June 3rd and runs through the 28th. For more information call (310) 208-5454.

Photos by LYNN NISHIMURA

Tom McGowan (left) and Arnie Burton in the "The Philadelphia," a segment of "All in the Timing."

LYNN NISHIMURA

Trotsky (Tom McGowan, right) and his wife (Clea Lewis, left) in "Variations on the Death

of Trotsky."