Yuba City
Something similar seems to have happened at National Pastime Theater–though on a much smaller scale. In June the company found itself facing insurmountable odds. Artistic director Laurence Bryan was planning a stage adaptation of the classic Hollywood western High Noon as the opening show of the company’s new season. Rehearsals were to begin in two weeks. But with the cast assembled and hundreds of feet of film in the can–the company had shot cowboys on horses galloping through deserts on location in Arizona–Bryan discovered he couldn’t get the rights to the story: Aaron Spelling’s company had recently acquired them.
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But Sokoloff’s new script, Yuba City, was in hand by the time rehearsals started on July 7. And though it’s no work of genius and won’t change our conception of the world, Sokoloff like Einstein let his imagination digress from the orthodox and created a marvel–a marvel easily mistaken for a dud.
Bryan, who directs, wisely establishes a quasi-mythological unreality right from the start. The first “scene” lasts a fraction of a second, as a blast of white light illuminates Willie center stage in a stovepipe hat, rectangular sunglasses, and a cascade of auburn locks; the retinal afterimage of Willie lasts longer than his physical presence. Bryan repeats this process three times, adding a new character with each new explosion of light, plunging the spectator into a bewildering, ephemeral world. Then a match is struck in the darkness, and as Willie begins to smoke his pipe, images of cowboys galloping through the desert are splashed across the back of the stage. Meanwhile live guitars and conga drums throb offstage.
