Andreane Neofitou

Not a beat was lost in the busy backstage rhythm of the Brooks Atkinson Theatre one recent evening as actor Stephen R. Buntrock yelled, in mock outrage, "She's got her hands down my pants!" Andreane Neofitou did indeed have her hands, if not exactly down, at least on the back of Buntrock's trousers. But then, this was the last technical rehearsal for the Broadway musical "Jane Eyre," which opened Dec. 10.

Not a beat was lost in the busy backstage rhythm of the Brooks Atkinson Theatre one recent evening as actor Stephen R. Buntrock yelled, in mock outrage, "She's got her hands down my pants!" Andreane Neofitou did indeed have her hands, if not exactly down, at least on the back of Buntrock's trousers. But then, this was the last technical rehearsal for the Broadway musical "Jane Eyre," which opened Dec. 10.

"The Crucible" at South Coast Repertory, "Fences" at the Doolittle Theatre and "El Salvador" at the Gnu Theatre were awarded top honors by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle on Sunday. Each show garnered four awards, including one each for distinguished production, 1988. South Coast Repertory led all Los Angeles and Orange County theaters with five awards. The Los Angeles Theatre Center and the Pasadena Playhouse tied with three awards each. International City Theatre's "Distant Fires" and "South Central Rain," presented by the Pacific Theatre Ensemble at the Tamarind Theatre, each received two. There were no other multiple winners.

The Royal Shakespeare Company's mammoth, monumental staging of "Les Miserables" has logged thousands of miles since its 1985 premiere at England's Barbican Center. The musical has played to sold-out audiences in Japan, Australia, Canada and 70 U.S. cities. In New York, "Les Miserables" opened on Broadway in March, 1987, and won eight Tony Awards that year, including best musical.

When "Jane Eyre" opened in Toronto in 1996, the show was an earnest, conscientious, respectful addition to the Masterpiece Musical genre that "Les Miserables" established with such crowd-pleasing self-seriousness. Now, after four years of fine-tuning and a box-office success at California's La Jolla Playhouse in 1999, the adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's beloved 1847 novel has opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre with the earlier production's intentions intact.

Another night passes in secret-ridden Thornfield Hall, out on the moors. Jane Eyre, a young English governess who has been through a lot, believes her love for Edward Rochester, master of the house, to be unrequited. Despairingly, she sketches a self-portrait and assesses the results as "plain and uneven." Now in its U.S. premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse, the musical "Jane Eyre" is a bit better than that.

There's a moment in the first act of "Les Miserables" at the Orange County Performing Arts Center that encapsulates the theatrical power of this operatic adaptation of Victor Hugo's great novel: The beleaguered protagonist, Jean Valjean, realizing that he must reveal himself in order to save an innocent man from suffering in his stead, is transported instantly, at the zenith of his soliloquy, to a French tribunal. There, he confesses his identity--and flees his fate.

Now on stage at the Ahmanson Theatre: "Who Wants to Marry a 16th Century Protestant?" Our contestants include two soldiers claiming to be the real Martin Guerre, native of Artigat, "village of bitter fools," as one judgmental character (a judge, actually) calls it. In truth the musical in question carries the title "Martin Guerre." Since its 1996 London production, its subsequent revised London production and the 1998 revision of the revision, it has played U.S.

"Me and My Girl" and "Les Miserables," two lavish British musicals, topped the list of 1987 Tony award nominations, announced Monday by the American Theater Wing. The wing also announced that this year's resident-theater Tony will go to the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Another special Tony will go to Jackie Mason, whose "The World According to Me" began in Los Angeles.

For the second year in a row, Costa Mesa's Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory tops the list of nominations for the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards for distinguished achievement in theater for 1988. Altogether, SCR (whose 1987 production of "Misalliance" was the big winner at last year's awards) leads the number of nominations with a total of 13. The Los Angeles Theatre Center has nine, the Pasadena Playhouse eight and the Taper and the Ahmanson, two each.

The miserable ones are back, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, nail those high notes and ride that turntable. "Les Miserables," certainly the most durable show-business treaty ever signed by the French and the English, greets the new century at the Ahmanson Theatre, where the latest Los Angeles touring engagement continues through Feb. 12. It's in excellent shape.