Wit Play

After the 60 or so USC medical and premed students saw "Wit," the acclaimed play about a woman's struggle with cancer, they said it taught many lessons that would make them better doctors. For instance: Don't ask very sick people how they're feeling and ignore the answer. That familiar clinical greeting serves as a running joke in the often funny drama about disease and death.

The little girl cried out in the dark: "Don't let Jesus die!" Down below, on a vast outdoor stage, Roman soldiers in bright gold armor flogged Jesus Christ, laughing at the sport. A dusty crowd cheered with each crack of the whip until finally Pontius Pilate shouted "Enough!" But the mob, jostling close, would not quiet. "Crucify him!" they shouted. "Crucify the false prophet!" With a shrug, Pilate gave the order.

Every night, Kathleen Chalfant goes into her dressing room, puts on her makeup and prepares to die. She does this in homage to her brother, who died of cancer, and to all those others who have suffered through that disease. And in the process of portraying the last days of Vivian Bearing, the 50-year-old ovarian cancer-ridden professor of English literature who is the pivotal character in "Wit," Chalfant has won more acclaim than ever before in her career.

Witness protection isn't just the stuff of Hollywood movies and New York mobsters. Since the state attorney general's office started its program in January 1998, more than a thousand witnesses, including about 15 from Ventura County, have been relocated, given new identities or received other types of protection, according to a report released last week.

Trying to show that former Compton Councilwoman Patricia Moore was entrapped in a racist plot, her defense lawyer on Friday played for a federal court jury a tape-recording, accidentally made, in which the government's star witness talked about African Americans. In the rambling recording, which was turned over to the defense by the government, businessman-turned-FBI operative John Macardican can be heard telling an FBI agent, "Every black (sic) one's coming from everywhere."

There are a few advantages to being a cult favorite rather than a performer with a mass audience. For one thing, cult artists can count on their fans to be receptive when they try something new. Arena denizens rarely risk it: Mick Fleetwood has said that Fleetwood Mac bombed when it tried playing the songs from "Rumours" live before the album was released and turned into a zillion-seller. The Roches, however, have not yet managed to infest any arenas.

Despite the key role played by videotaped interviews with alleged child victims in the first McMartin Pre-School trial, the social worker responsible for those interviews spent only two days on the witness stand at the retrial of defendant Ray Buckey. Kee MacFarlane (Elias) of Children's Institute International, a Los Angeles child-abuse diagnostic and treatment center, was called by the prosecution the first time around two years ago and grilled for five weeks.

Witness protection isn't just the stuff of Hollywood movies and New York mobsters. Since the state attorney general's office started its program in January 1998, more than a thousand witnesses, including about 15 from Ventura County, have been relocated, given new identities or received other types of protection, according to a report released last week.

"Well, that was--loud," mutters Oscar Levant (Stan Freeman), after disassembling De Falla's "Ritual Fire Dance" during the first half of "At Wit's End" at the Coronet on La Cienega Boulevard. We can't disagree. This is supposed to be Oscar's comeback concert after a decade of pills and hospitals, but he is not in top form. The wit is still caustic, but the music-making is blurred and bangy. At one awful moment--the pianist's nightmare--it even seems that he can't go on.

To Tom Greenhalgh, co-founder of the politicized British underground rock band the Mekons, there are worse things in this world than utter pessimism. Phony optimism, for one. "I don't see any cause for optimism in the world at the moment," Greenhalgh said recently over the phone from a Mekons tour stop in Chicago (the band plays tonight at Bogart's). "To be sort of optimistic would be more discouraging (than being hopeless), in the sense that you would have just lost it.

After the 60 or so USC medical and premed students saw "Wit," the acclaimed play about a woman's struggle with cancer, they said it taught many lessons that would make them better doctors. For instance: Don't ask very sick people how they're feeling and ignore the answer. That familiar clinical greeting serves as a running joke in the often funny drama about disease and death.

Every night, Kathleen Chalfant goes into her dressing room, puts on her makeup and prepares to die. She does this in homage to her brother, who died of cancer, and to all those others who have suffered through that disease. And in the process of portraying the last days of Vivian Bearing, the 50-year-old ovarian cancer-ridden professor of English literature who is the pivotal character in "Wit," Chalfant has won more acclaim than ever before in her career.

There may come a day when the works of playwright Christopher Durang will be forgotten, like the early comic-book cowboy plays of Sam Shepard, which haven't been done in a quarter century. In the meantime, Durang's work is done frequently, including three of these short parodies in "OCC Rips the Classics," at Orange Coast College's Drama Lab. There is one gem in the program, but it isn't by Durang or Wendy Wasserstein.

Trying to show that former Compton Councilwoman Patricia Moore was entrapped in a racist plot, her defense lawyer on Friday played for a federal court jury a tape-recording, accidentally made, in which the government's star witness talked about African Americans. In the rambling recording, which was turned over to the defense by the government, businessman-turned-FBI operative John Macardican can be heard telling an FBI agent, "Every black (sic) one's coming from everywhere."

To Tom Greenhalgh, co-founder of the politicized British underground rock band the Mekons, there are worse things in this world than utter pessimism. Phony optimism, for one. "I don't see any cause for optimism in the world at the moment," Greenhalgh said recently over the phone from a Mekons tour stop in Chicago (the band plays tonight at Bogart's). "To be sort of optimistic would be more discouraging (than being hopeless), in the sense that you would have just lost it.

There are a few advantages to being a cult favorite rather than a performer with a mass audience. For one thing, cult artists can count on their fans to be receptive when they try something new. Arena denizens rarely risk it: Mick Fleetwood has said that Fleetwood Mac bombed when it tried playing the songs from "Rumours" live before the album was released and turned into a zillion-seller. The Roches, however, have not yet managed to infest any arenas.

There may come a day when the works of playwright Christopher Durang will be forgotten, like the early comic-book cowboy plays of Sam Shepard, which haven't been done in a quarter century. In the meantime, Durang's work is done frequently, including three of these short parodies in "OCC Rips the Classics," at Orange Coast College's Drama Lab. There is one gem in the program, but it isn't by Durang or Wendy Wasserstein.

The little girl cried out in the dark: "Don't let Jesus die!" Down below, on a vast outdoor stage, Roman soldiers in bright gold armor flogged Jesus Christ, laughing at the sport. A dusty crowd cheered with each crack of the whip until finally Pontius Pilate shouted "Enough!" But the mob, jostling close, would not quiet. "Crucify him!" they shouted. "Crucify the false prophet!" With a shrug, Pilate gave the order.

Despite the key role played by videotaped interviews with alleged child victims in the first McMartin Pre-School trial, the social worker responsible for those interviews spent only two days on the witness stand at the retrial of defendant Ray Buckey. Kee MacFarlane (Elias) of Children's Institute International, a Los Angeles child-abuse diagnostic and treatment center, was called by the prosecution the first time around two years ago and grilled for five weeks.

"Well, that was--loud," mutters Oscar Levant (Stan Freeman), after disassembling De Falla's "Ritual Fire Dance" during the first half of "At Wit's End" at the Coronet on La Cienega Boulevard. We can't disagree. This is supposed to be Oscar's comeback concert after a decade of pills and hospitals, but he is not in top form. The wit is still caustic, but the music-making is blurred and bangy. At one awful moment--the pianist's nightmare--it even seems that he can't go on.