Art Of Acting Studio debuts two very different World Premiere one-acts, Richard Gustin’s Someone Like Me and George Kappaz’s In Whose Eyes?, and in the case of the former, you’ll be seeing a quite different play than the one reviewed here.

I’ll start off with the evening’s second act.

Kappaz’s surreal courtroom drama has real life historical figure Major Carlo DeRudio (1823-1910) on trial for murder, conspiracy, attempted murder, and genocide somewhere in the spirit world, and it will be up to the audience to determine his guilt or innocence, a decision which “Her Worship” Justice Peter informs us “will determine the final destination for the soul of the accused, either to Elysium or to the realm of eternal darkness.”

It’s a bit of a bizarre setup for a play that examines not just the crimes DeRudio has been accused of but the question of how the same man could fight an armed invader of his own country, Italy, and then, decades later, under the command of General George Custer, be an invader of lands that aren’t his to claim as his own.

It’s thought-provoking stuff, and though I found playwright Kappaz’s approach a bit too out-there for my tastes and DeRudio too obscure a figure for me to truly connect to (though projected historical images do help), director Johnny Patrick Yoder elicits fine work from Kappaz as the prosecuting attorney, Suzanne Ford as the judge, Kirsta Peterson as the defense lawyer, William Salyers and Walter Rodriguez as older and younger versions of DeRudio, and Elizabeth Ivy Southard as DeRudio’s wife Eliza.

Someone Like Me opens the evening with a classic romcom meet-cute in which a young man approaches a young woman seated in a local coffee house to ask if she is “available,” and though she quickly responds that she is not, the man isn’t about to take no for an answer.

New to the area, he’s trying to put himself out there, he explains, and what better way to do that than to start a conversation with a complete stranger, no matter that she claims to be “in a committed relationship.”

Not being one to give up, the young man launches into a speech about his love for Saturday Night Live reruns. (“Good for the soul. Belushi, Farley, Hartman – gone before their time.)

And yes, he might be (in his words) “borderline paranoid schizoid obsessive-compulsive,” but for some reason (the man’s cuteness or charm, or perhaps her own low self-esteem), the young woman doesn’t tell him to get lost.

Still it’s a situation that I’m guessing more than a few women might find themselves uncomfortable in, and one that more than a few audience members might find borderline creepy given the stranger’s persistence in the face of her apparent disinterest.

Imagine now if you will what it would be like if it were another woman doing the chatting up?

That’s precisely the version of Someone Like Me that audiences were treated to this past weekend as Angelika Giatras stepped into the role usually played by Marcus Wells opposite Bianca Foscht, and Someone Like Me becomes a very different play.

It’s a very different play when it’s a woman starting up a conversation with another woman whose warning lights are considerably less likely to go off, or at least not right away.

It’s a very different play when talks turns to how males (no longer the gender of the loquacious stranger) can see sleeping around as a positive when in a committed relationship.

And it’s a very different play when it’s another woman commiserating over a fiancé’s bad habits than it is when it’s a guy doing that with a much clearer ulterior motive.

I can’t say for sure how Someone Like Me works as it is usually performed, but it works quite well as a same-sex romcom, particularly given that under the playwright’s astute direction, Foscht’s “hot blonde” and Giatras’s “butch-ish brunette” are not only terrific in their roles but have great chemistry from the get-go, and even more so as the play progresses and Foscht’s character begins losing her guard when confronted by an increasingly appealing Giatras.

Both plays feature Oscar Garcia’s ingenious set design, one that transforms during intermission from coffeehouse to courtroom, a scenic design effectively lit by Ray Jones as are Gustin’s contemporary-casual costumes for Someone Like Me and Carra Yoder’s period-and-modern costumes (including a rather Prussian-looking soldier’s uniform) for In Whose Eyes?

 Someone Like Me and In Whose Eyes? are produced by Carra Yoder, and Encompassing Creative Endeavors. Gustin and Kappza are executive producers. Kaylee Frazier is assistant director. Mary Leveridge is production stage manager.

Though the latest from Art Of Acting Studio might work better with two thematically connected short plays, and though I preferred the version I saw of Someone Like Me to In Whose Eyes?, as acting showcases alone they are worth a look-see.

Art Of Acting Studio, 1017 N. Orange Drive, Hollywood.
www.artofactingstudio.com

–Steven Stanley
October 20, 2024
Top 4 photos: JoeySnap.com

Tags: Art of Acting Studio, George Kappaz, Los Angeles Theater Review, Richard Gustin