Mark Taper Forum

Three men have been sent to Jamaica to spark an uprising of the slaves against the British, on behalf of the French. A master, a slave and a peasant morph into alter-identities, maneuvering about in a strikingly surreal world where the principles of colonialism hold sway as palpably as those of Marx and Freud. This is Heiner Muller's "The Task," staged by L. Kenneth Richardson. Two young women hang out at a Southern California mall, where they run into a young con-man/hustler and his sidekick.

Exercising his last opportunity to pick a play for the Mark Taper Forum after 38 years as its artistic director, Gordon Davidson will direct "Stuff Happens," David Hare's British hit about the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The U.S. premiere will employ 22 actors in 96 roles. The play combines verbatim quotes -- such as the title phrase from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- with imagined dialogue. But Davidson said "Stuff Happens" isn't a docudrama.

To begin at the beginning, what is a carpa ? For the uninitiated, it is the Spanish word for tent . But in Mexico it has come to stand more for tent show , the word used to describe the small traveling vaudevilles that once toured Mexico and the Southwestern United States. This is not a secret. You'll find the information in the program for "Carpa Clash," the new satirical Chicano vaudeville that opened Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum.

Edward Albee's Tony-winning "The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?" and plays by Luis Alfaro and John Kani will appear at the Mark Taper Forum in the final season planned by the theater's founder and outgoing artistic director, Gordon Davidson. "It's an emotional season, and why not? It's my last," said Davidson, who will hand over the artistic director title to Michael Ritchie on Jan. 1 and assume the title of founding artistic director.

The underground wing of the Mark Taper Forum is going public. No, it's not a revolutionary movement out to overthrow Taper artistic director Gordon Davidson. It's the Taper's corps of play developers, who work on projects that usually are not ready or aesthetically appropriate for the Taper main stage. This week, the Taper underground emerges from its usual lairs to produce a modest festival of fully staged productions, under the banner of an old Taper moniker--Taper, Too.

No tapering toward retirement for Gordon Davidson. Shouldering a hefty workload, he will direct three of the six plays in the Mark Taper Forum's 2003-04 season -- his second-to-last running the theater he has led since 1967. Davidson will stage the world premiere (Dec. 4-Jan. 25) of an as-yet untitled musical about the world of jazz, written by a team of Tony-, Grammy- and Osar-winning show-biz mainstays: composer Cy Coleman, lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and writer Larry Gelbart.

An anonymous donor has offered the Mark Taper Forum a chance to own a building in a Santa Monica arts complex for use as the Taper's long-sought mid-sized theater. The building is on the southwest side of the Bergamot Station gallery complex, near Michigan Avenue and Cloverfield Boulevard in Santa Monica. Formerly part of the American Appliance industrial center, the building would have to be converted into a theater. The Taper wants a facility seating between 300 and 400.

He still gets carded at bars, says Brian Geraghty. Sure enough, the remarkably fit actor looks about a decade younger than his 34 years (not the 35 he's listed as being online): "IMDb's wrong," he says. "I tried to change it but they wouldn't let me." As a struggling writer in an unconventional romance in "Easier With Practice," he plays late 20s. He also convincingly appears as a 21-year-old veteran in the current revival of "The Subject Was Roses" at the Mark Taper Forum. And his recent turn as the least hardened of the soldiers in the Oscar-nominated "The Hurt Locker" pretty much cements the twentysomething everyman niche he's settled into.

"It has taken a very long time to find the right casting," Manuel Puig said in his lilting Spanish accent. "The producers wanted to do this almost two years ago. But now, I think it's not the right casting." The Argentine-born writer paused for effect. "It is the ideal casting." The playwright was referring to Jane Alexander and Anne Bancroft, the stars of his two-character psychological drama "Mystery of the Rose Bouquet," opening tonight at the Mark Taper Forum.

Whether they loved it or loathed it, critics appear to agree on one thing about Martin McDonagh's black comedy "The Lieutenant of Inishmore," the Mark Taper Forum's current offering: It's the goriest play they've ever seen. The Times' Charles McNulty wrote about "violence, torture and a tidal wave of bloodshed." The word "carnage" pops up often in reviews. As Center Theatre Group Artistic Director Michael Ritchie wrote of his first reaction to the Broadway production of "Inishmore": "I literally remember thinking, '…you are NOT going to do that… you're not really going to do what I think you are about to… are you?