REDCAT AT 5: THEATER

Entering the down-low entrance of the Walt Disney Concert Hall for a show at REDCAT, I always feel a little more hip -- you know, in that neo-futurist kind of way. Even if the SoCal sun is blazing, the desire to be dressed in black -- preferably something French and black -- is inevitable. As I wend my way past the gallery with all those menacing objets d'art twisting and dangling in all directions and head into the oh-so-pomo lounge for an unpronounceable European beverage, it's as though I've truly become a cosmopolitan citizen of the new downtown.

For the last five years, under the leadership of Executive Director Mark Murphy, innovation and eclecticism have been enshrined at REDCAT. And in keeping with its California Institute of the Arts parent organization, this forward-flashing 21st century venue has taken a daringly interdisciplinary approach to its arts programming.

As a cultural observer, I applaud the commitment to this uncommon mission. Artistic disciplines in the States have become specialized to the point of complete insularity. A neo-Renaissance attitude is exactly the right antidote to his kind of arid creative provincialism.

But as a theater partisan, I have to admit to being somewhat underwhelmed by REDCAT's limited helter-skelter offerings. An amorphous amalgam of New York notables, relatively obscure international companies, community groups and local wild cards, the theatrical menu since I arrived in L.A. three years ago has yet to reveal a burning vision.

Now in setting out to be a meeting ground for all the muses, REDCAT can't allow one to hog the institutional spotlight. Fair enough: Drama queens can chill when they have to.

But from my perch, the pickin's have been slim: Michael Gordon and Richard Foreman's avant-garde opera "What to Wear" and the Wooster Group's multimedia "Hamlet" (not the artists' best work but welcome nevertheless). "The Last Escape," Wroclaw Puppet Theater's adaptation of a Bruno Schulz story (nonessential, but glad to make its acquaintance). A reprisal of the Actors' Gang production of "1984" (already produced at the company's enviable Culver City headquarters). Several well-intentioned semi-professional performance pieces, such as Elia Arce's wartime meditation, "The Fifth Commandment," and Los Angeles Poverty Department's activist examination of skid row gentrification, "Utopia/Dystopia" (both of which made up in topical concerns what they lacked in polish). A choreopoem or two.