Los Angeles Times - 09.11.2019

CALENDAR

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2019:: LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

E

BD Wong is, once again, deep in re-

hearsals for “The Great Leap.” The Pasadena Playhouse’s

production of Lauren Yee’s play is opening in a few weeks, and

the cast is running through its penultimate scene: a U.S.-

China exhibition basketball game in 1989. It’s layered and

complex and extremely fast-paced — in line delivery and in

blocking — and serves as the dramatic climax. The entire se-

quence spans 20 pages, and actors are flipping through them

quickly to keep up with the pace of the scene.

But Wong’s script, lying open on a music stand, remains

untouched. Having starred in two previous versions of the

play, he knows every line by heart. And this time, he’s calling

the shots in his new role: director.

“Very good — very, very good,” he tells the four actors, who

stretch and rehydrate and wipe their sweat. “It’s hard, so

don’t feel like you have to overact it; just stay on the page and

get the blocking in your body first. It sounds dumb, I know.

But the general shape feels right to me. The potential is

great.”

The same can be said of the Tony-winning Wong and his

own “Great Leap,” which is in previews now and opens Sun-

day. Drawn to the play for its “graceful coming-together of

deep emotion and humor,” he first played Wen Chang — an

officer of the Communist Party who coaches the China team

— last spring in New York, and then reprised the role in San

Francisco earlier this year.

The second production was not a transfer of the first; the

two were completely separate, with different directors and

actors. To star in two independent stagings of the same play,

and within such a short period of time, is quite rare and

rather unconventional for an actor, especially given what’s

required of a theater performer.

“There’s a very protective survival mechanism that hap-

pens to an actor in any show, which is

STAGE and TV actor BD Wong was acting in “The Great Leap” when “I thought, ‘I have to direct this. I have to have this experience.’ ”

Mel MelconLos Angeles Times

Now he’s the coach

BD Wong, who starred in the basketball play ‘The Great Leap’

in New York and San Francisco, talks directing it in Pasadena

BYASHLEYLEE>>>

[See Wong, E3]

Deflect. Play the victim.

Attack. Repeat.

The strategy was familiar,

as was the name. But the only

thing smooth about Donald

Trump Jr.’s appearance on

“The View” on Thursday was

the hair slick atop his head

and cohost Meghan Mc-

Cain’s composure.

There they were, the son

of a historically unpopular,

ethically challenged presi-

dent and the daughter of a

revered Washington legend,

seated across from each

other, dancing around their

fathers’ hatred of each other

at the Hot Topic table. Their

exchange — indeed, this en-

tire week on “The View” —

proved once again that

ABC’s long-running chat-

fest isn’t just a key stop on the

campaign trail. It might be

American television’s closest

approximation of the

“kitchen table” of stump-

speech fame, where we sit, sip

and squabble over politics.

By the time McCain refo-

cused the attention, of

course, the molten conversa-

tion was well underway:

Sunny Hostin had called

Trump Jr. a liar, and Whoopi

Goldberg refused to speak

his full name.

Trump Jr. was there to

promote his father’s 2020

campaign — and his own

book, “Triggered,” about how

hard it is being Trump. “The

View” hosts McCain, Gold-

berg, Hostin, Joy Behar and

Abby Huntsman were on a

mission to get straight an-

swers from him. Neither side

was particularly successful.

Voluminous, verbal bull-

dozing was Trump Jr.’s non-

winning tactic as he talked

over all the women on the

panel, including the one who

Here’s

where

we can

have it

all out

The Trump Jr. episode

shows why ‘The View’

has the best political

squabbling on TV.

[See‘View,’ E5]

LORRAINE ALI

TELEVISION CRITIC

Lauren Greenfield had

traveled over 7,000 miles —

from Venice Beach to the

Philippines — before she re-

alized that the subject of her

documentary was an unreli-

able narrator. The film-

maker was in Southeast

Asia to interview Imelda

Marcos, who’d been the first

lady of the archipelagic

country for 21 years.

Initially, Greenfield was

interested in making a film

about Calauit Island, where

in 1976, Marcos persuaded

her husband — Ferdinand

Marcos, the president of the

Philippines — to relocate 104

wild animals from Africa. Af-

ter going on safari in Kenya,

Imelda Marcos became en-

vious that her country did

not have exotic species and

decided to ship giraffes, ze-

bras, gazelles and more to

Calauit. The 245 families liv-

ing on the 14-square-mile is-

land in the South China Sea

were evicted to make room

for the animals.

Four decades later, how-

ever, the health of the wild-

life on Calauit was in decline.

After President Marcos was

forced out of power in 1986 —

he and his wife went into ex-

ile in Hawaii — the govern-

ment stopped looking out

for the animals. Greenfield

only learned of the island’s

existence after reading a 2013

Bloomberg article in which a

journalist visited the sickly,

inbred herds.

So when Greenfield fi-

nally sat face to face with

Imelda Marcos at a lavish

apartment in Manila, the di-

rector asked what she

thought about what had be-

Imelda Marcos’

extravagant truth

‘Kingmaker’ director

finds the Philippines’

ex-first lady’s facts

are often disputed.

By Amy Kaufman

[See‘Kingmaker,’E2]

For most of the last four
decades, Pattern and Deco-
ration art seemed wonder-
fully outré to many ob-
servers, an eccentric viola-
tion of the standards and
norms of serious painting
and sculpture that was itself
not to be taken too seriously.
P&D, as 1970s Pattern
and Decoration was soon
called, poked a well-placed
finger — or three — in the eye
of Minimal art’s crisp reduc-
tion of austere forms, the
sharp idea-orientation of
Conceptual art and the fash-
ionable but still critically iffy
appeal of Pop art. All those
florid fabric swatches, prolif-

ART REVIEW

There’s more to the pattern

“FAIRIES,”a 1980 acrylic on cotton work by Robert Kushner, is in the “With

Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art, 1972-1985” show at MOCA.

Chris Kendall

MOCA’s survey of

’70s and ’80s P&D art

is a revelation of the

movement’s legacy.

CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT
ART CRITIC

[SeeP&D art,E4]

It’s a comedy of

holiday politics

“Woke” people plan a

kids show in “The

Thanksgiving Play.”

Charles McNulty

reviews. E3

Comics...................E6-7

What’s on TV..........E8