Gabler

Mater Dei won a game and lost a player Monday when senior guard Travis Gabler underwent emergency surgery for what is believed to be appendicitis. The Monarchs' 91-38 first-round victory over Baton Rouge (La.) Parkview Baptist in the Millennium Cup division of the Holiday Prep Classic became insignificant after Gabler became ill and was taken to a local hospital. "Say a prayer for him," Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight told his players after the game.

The touring company of "Cabaret," which transformed the seldom-used Wilshire Theatre into a slice of Weimar Republic night life, received nine nominations for this year's annual Ovation Awards--more than any other production. Nominees in 26 categories were announced at a ceremony Monday afternoon at the Coronet Theatre. The awards will be presented on Nov. 8 at La Mirada Theatre. Jason Alexander will emcee.

Author Neal Gabler is watching a car chase on TV. It's not an episode of "NYPD Blue" or a rerun of "Starsky and Hutch." It's real. Well, it's sort of real, and that's Gabler's point. Yes, it's real and immediate to the police officers and the suspect racing through the streets of San Pedro. Any one of them could die at any moment. But to home viewers, who are being fed an increasingly steady diet of live car chases, the scene seems less than real.

Neal Gabler, in " 'Private Ryan' Satisfies Our Longing for Unity" (Opinion, Aug. 9), couldn't see the trees for the forest. People don't go to see the film because people have told them that it makes you feel good about our country or unified or because it reconciles past political differences. It is a great film because it is not judgmental about the history or politics of the war but shows it in all its inhumanity, horror, pain and death, and it shows soldiers, Americans and Germans alike, as real people each trying in his own way to cope with sense of duty, loyalty, fears and mortality.

In Casey Biggs and Jeannine Welles' new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler," a former society darling strikes out angrily at her boring marriage only to increase the measure of her folly. This handsome Hudson Guild production is filled with subtle nuances and irony, well played by a skillful cast. Only five months into her marriage, Hedda (Alyssa Bresnahan) spits out "love" as "a nauseating word."

Regarding "Public Grief: Seeking Peace in the Media Ether," Opinion, Oct. 6: While Neal Gabler questions victims' reasons for grieving on television, he thinks it's pointless to question the media's obvious motives in covering such public displays. He points out that reporters are "simply doing what they've always done." If the media are doing what they have always done, there must also be victims who are doing what they've always done--that is, provide grief for public consumption. While it's tempting to believe that the undeniable increase in televised grieving is largely attributable to the breakdown of decorum, the accessibility to television coverage plays a greater role.

It's a fair bet Hedda Gabler wouldn't have much cared for the new production of "Hedda Gabler" by East L.A. Classic Theatre. The company, which casts primarily Latino actors in classic drama, showed daring merely by choosing this particular Ibsen play. Hedda is not a likable or easily understood heroine. But she is bold and unforgettable, a searching soul whose hatred of boredom finally proves her undoing. While competent, director Emmett Jacobs' version at the Arena Theatre at Cal State L.A. is neither bold nor unforgettable.

Re "How We Know What We Know: Logic Meets Illogic at Simpson Trial," Opinion, Aug. 6: Neal Gabler complains about the way we come to know things, which he attributes to television, yet admits to forming his belief that O.J. Simpson is guilty through watching TV. A police conspiracy is easy to believe, in light of the Rodney King beating. The good old boys got together there and created false reports which, to this day, would be accepted as the truth had it not been for the videotape showing what really happened.