Exit Strategy by Ike Holter

By Joe Straw

Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center and Sixth Avenue proudly presents the West Coast Premiere of Exit Strategy written by Ike Holter and directed by Deena Selenow in the Davidson/Valentini Theatre through November 5^th, 2017.

Jon Imparato with the Los Angeles LGBT Center and Adam Silver with Sixth Avenue magnificently produced the show.

Exit Strategy is presented in the square; the audience is seated on all four sides of the playing area, the actors are a nose away from the audience, and this is a perfect venue for this play.  The place is a teacher’s lounge for the most part, the set is about as minimal as you can get but, the show is not about the place, it is about the people, the teacher, administrator, and the student, most fighting for a cause, and one who is not.

There’s always somebody higher up that makes the decisions, in collogue to rid the city of a nuisance. They are always looking at the big picture, the test scores, and crimes in the area.  In this case, it is Chicago where there’s more than one death by gunshot every day, 700 in 2016. They are infused with the troublous times where two human beings die each day from gunshot wounds in Chicago, near the campus, or the surrounding neighborhood.     

Best solution?  Tear down that low achieving, rat infested, racially mixed school and save the money to hire a Spago chef for the high-achieving white school.  

But let’s look deeper, educators are working there, some are almost at the end of their career, others are not near retirement age and need to look elsewhere – a new community, a new location.

So, what’s that solution? Fight for the school until you’ve changed minds and the school remains.  But there’s a huge problem – they don’t get along, not even on their best days. Forget about working on the same page, there’s no paper, including toilet paper.  It’s enough to make everyone irritable.

Ricky (Adam Silver) has broken the news to everyone except Pam (Jane Macfie). Ricky is polite about it all, dress conservatively, tie and all.  He is soft spoken and has the political wherewithal to release the news in his own time.

Pam is having none of it. She stalks him in a gruff and bearlike manner.   She wants him to get right to the point.  She has an unconquerable obstinacy, has seen too many years, has run into too many of his kind, and demands that Ricky get right to the point.

Pam pulls out a box of Marlboro and dares Ricky to stop her from lighting.

Nice one.

It doesn’t take much to know that Ricky is a player and smart too as Pam appreciates his gesture.  And then she opens his Starbucks cup and drops a few ashes into his drink, just as a matter of unholy politeness.  

Things go downhill from there but they come to an understanding, sort of. Ricky wants to know if she’ll be all right. He asks her to knock on the wall to let him know that she’s all right.  Pam says she will.  She does, and then she shoots herself, dead.

Arnold (Darrett Sanders) is always the first to arrive at school, has been for many years. Luce (Remy Ortiz) thought he would be the first but no such luck. Luce, with undemonstrative pity, appears to be sensitive to the pain Arnold must be feeling, with the death of Pam, and he shows it.

Sadie (LaNisa Renee Frederick) saunters into the lunchroom, unctuous pose and all, with a few shopping bags of food and rat poison with the idea that one thing needs to be taken care of at that school. What that could be, remains to be seen.  Just Luce’s luck, that in one of those bags is a juice box for his supreme enjoyment.

Luce jumps around happy that someone has asked him about his summer when Jania (Maria Romero) comes in and brings the whole room down with her negativity, on crime, thugs, and bullet holes in car bumpers. 

Arnold, presenting a tragic figure, walks into the room.  He has an agenda about memorializing Pam. All in the room are sympathetic to his plight but none have a way to comfort him.  

Can’t say too much about the play that would be giving it all away. It is done without an intermission and it moves along quickly with witty repartee.

Exit Strategy by Ike Holter has an exceptional cast, each providing a special brand of character, an ethic mix of educators with an altruistic sense of self and propriety. Deena Selenow wonderfully directs it in an amusing likeness of real and not-so-real school antics. There is so much detail in Selenow’s direction; it is the little things that put this production way over the top in form and execution. Every moment is a joy to watch and the acting is astonishing.

Jane Macfie plays a mean Pam.  Well, she’s not so mean under that rough exterior.  She has been in the system so long that she demands undemonstrative respect. Sadly her tenure as a schoolteacher is just about over and she has nothing to show for it. She succumbs to the advice of a man who was in diapers when she started. She sees this, doesn’t like it, and moves on.  Macfie is terrific in the role. This is one actor that I would have like to have seen from all four perspectives.

Adam Silver does a wonderful job as Ricky, a nebbish, slightly nerdy, sagacious man whose job is to fire teachers, give them a pamphlet, and send them on their merry way. Ricky gives them the school year to get their act together without actually booting them out into the streets.  But then, he has a change of heart, a way that he can work things out, save the school, and come out ahead. He is also a brainiac who has a vision and acts on unutterable impulses when the time is right.  Silver gives a brilliant performance and is an actor that is completely comfortable in this role.  And it is in the little moments that he truly shines.

Darrett Sandersis Arnold, a man who has seen it, done it, read it, heard it, and smelled it all before. He’s not too keen about jumping ship to join the others plan that he thinks is a useless endeavor.  He sees their proposal as a pie in the sky, the vitreous glitter on a worthless piece of chocolate, chocolate cake, and not worth a dime of his time. Sanders is slow and methodical in his choices. The hand gestures are sublime, ambling a western motif, and a Ben Johnson style of acting. This character though needs a little refinement, something the represents the good of old, the wisdom of age, an unreadable stare that speaks volumes, and then climbing out of a ubiquitous fog to make his mark.  There is more to the sunglass and chair scene in which he must make his mark. And, that is only to add to an already remarkable performance.

There’s a lot going on with Maria Romero as Jania. There is certainly more going on underneath than we are privy to.  Romero is a stunning actor filling those moments. But, some of her dialogue is lost to the other three walls and those are moments that we need to hear clearly.  There is more to the character, her youth as a teacher is a plus and probably can get a job somewhere else.  But there must be a driving conflict in character that keeps her in this game that one doesn’t really see.

LaNisa Renee Frederick is Sadie, a giving teacher, who also understands the necessity of discipline. She plays by the rules and maybe they are her own rules but what the heck, somebody’s got to make the rules to make this school work.  Unfortunately, her help is not working, compromising productive growth, and Sadie needs to figure out why. Frederick does a lot of wonderful work in this production.  She is as natural as one can be but what is the conflict that drives this character?

Luke Tennie presents a very tall and opposing figure as Donnie.  Tennie is very impressive in this role.  He is smart, articulate, and has an extremely viable craft.  Donnie get himself into a lot of trouble, the good kind of trouble, and in his own vainglorious mode is able to talk his way out of it.  But as powerful as he is in the first scene, he seems to lose that power being an underling in the later scenes.  Donnie becomes less powerful but must not lose the reason he is there. There must be a better balance to complete a change in character.

Deena Selenow, the director, starts the show off with a bang, two being appearing out of nowhere, engaged in verbal conflict and she never lets up on the action, which includes fascinating bodywork on the scene changes. At one time characters are stretched against the wall in an effort to hide, or as a way to present the significant moment of a character. Is this a moment that shows unity?  One is not sure. The character Pam joins the audience and we really have to see her in character throughout those moments. (Macfie seemed to be enjoying the show as much as we were.)  

Selenow’s work is combined with the brilliant Sound Design by Jesse Mandapat that keeps you there in the moment, during the scene changes.  And then there’s the blaring roar of heavy machinery that grinds the audience into a state of shock.  (The sirens in the background never stopped and I found that slightly disconcerting.)  

Ike Holter’s work is brilliant. As the writer, he manages to capture the flavor of each character and their reason for being. The fascinating thing about the characters is they are metaphorically all out of focus.  It’s like looking into a camera lens and seeing blurry figures. When things got tough those figures lacked the focus to turn things around. They’ve all been living their lives without a unified direction except Arnold who knows what he doesn’t want, but doesn’t know how to save the school. The ending lacks the emotional catharsis, the human element of longing that we must get from at least one of the characters.

All right, but here’s the thing – my one negative note, the overlapping dialogue makes it hard to hear everything, and the sound of voices, only feet away, bounce off the bare walls and at time that dialogue is lost.

The minimal but very effective Scenic Design was created by Se Hyun Oh.

Lena Sands’Costume Design placed the actors in Chicago.

Matt Richter’sLighting Design moved the play along in time and space and was extremely enjoyable.

Other members of the crew are as follows:

Maggie Marx– Production Stage Manager

Adam Earle– Assistant Director

Ken WertherPublicity - Press Representative

Edwin Peraza - Master Electrician

Red Colegrove - Master Carpenter

Eric Babb - Prop Master/Assistant Manager

Veronica Mullins - Sound Assistant

Tor Brown, Maggie Marx, Edwin Peraza - Scenic House Crew

Run! Run! Run! And take an educator.  They will love it as much as me. Or, is it "I"?