Alhecama Theater – Ted Mills

In 2013 the Circle Bar B Dinner Theatre presented Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest." Circle Bar B Theatre photo — In 2013 the Circle Bar B Dinner Theatre presented Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.”
Circle Bar B Theatre photo

This year’s big story was the end of Ensemble Theater’s run in the cozy Alhecama Theater and its move to the renovated and brand-spankin’-new New Vic, an $11.5 million-dollar adventure that took many years to finally happen and has brought Jonathan Fox’s company to a space on par with the Garvin and Hatlen theaters. With state-of-the-art toys to play with, it’ll be interesting to see what Director Jonathan Fox does with the space. So far, Santa Barbarans have seen the Stephen Sondheim musical, “A Little Night Music” with Stephanie Zimbalist and Piper Laurie, and it was quite lovely.

Their farewell performances at Alhecama were also worth noting: David Ives’ “The Liar” was one of their funniest productions in a long time, witty and silly in measure. “The Year of Magical Thinking,” with Linda Purl stepping in for the recently deceased Bonnie Franklin in the role of Joan Didion, was the kind of one-woman show for which the Alhecama space was perfect. “Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune” was a good revival, although maybe not a necessary one.

From left, Ned Schmidtke as Truscott and Wyatt Fenner as Dennis. DAVID BAZEMORE PHOTOS — From left, Ned Schmidtke as Truscott and Wyatt Fenner as Dennis.
DAVID BAZEMORE PHOTOS

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,” said L.P. Hartley in his opening lines to “The Go-Between.” Joe Orton’s “Loot,” which opened this past weekend at the Alhecama Theatre, is very foreign indeed. The farce makes traveling back to the Swinging London of the mid-1960s feel as long a trip as one to Oscar Wilde’s 19th-century Britain. As they say about traveling in new cars, your mileage may vary.

Orton was the enfant terrible of the new playwrights of his time, busting genres like Tom Stoppard but poking the establishment where it irritated them most. With his life cut short at age 34, we wonder where Orton might have gone — more political like Stoppard or Harold Pinter? Would he have been an ambassador of bad taste, like our filmmaker John Waters? Or just petered out?

Tag: Alhecama Theater

A Wealth of Stage Riches – THEATER IN 2013 WAS ALL ABOUT TRANSITIONS

Getting away with it : ‘Loot’ returns to Swinging London for a tale of murder and robbery … and laughs