finding Nick by Nicholas Guest

An actor travels many places, lives many lives, and absorbs what the creator sends their way. Coming into the hallowed halls of the Zephyr theatre on this night were Francis Fisher, Ed Begley, Jr., Fred Willard, and, I believe, Alan Rachins, all working actors venturing out this night finding Nicholas Guest finding himself in his new play “finding Nick”.

The Zephyr Theatre, currently owned by Lee Sankowich, also the director of “finding Nick”, is one of my favorite theatres for several reasons.

Upon entering the theatre, there is a little ramp that forces one gingerly onto the stage before finding a seat.  Looking around, one notices little in the way of set design, but there is enough here to accompany the storyteller for a one-man show.  Certainly the coat rack upstage right plays an important part.  There is a small desk littered with songbooks and a French book.  A chair sits comfortably near the desk and guitar stand begs for center stage.  Upstage center are screens for projections that will later project the beautiful images in Nick’s life.  And upstage left are two chairs, music stands, a place for two professional musicians, the stunning cellist (Hillary Smith) and guitarist (Tony Carafone) who employs a full head of curly hair and a wry smile.

One sees Nick, offstage, before the play begins, holding a guitar and standing behind the curtain, in the wings, ready to come on.  A theatre patron pulls back the curtain and waves.  Nick gives her a thumbs up sign before venturing onto the stage singing “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream” by Ed McCurdy and, as funny as it may seem, Nick takes us back into his past, starting in New York City 1967, and off we go into the story of his young life as though it were a dream, relived, replayed, rewound, all for the purpose of giving us a sample of a moment, played back in his precise humanistic details.

“finding Nick” is an exceptional one-man show about a young man who is lost as he tries to find his way in the world.  The music is fabulous; the impersonations genuine, and the passionate moments will lift you out of your seat craving for more.  Certainly, and especially for fathers with daughters, the night ends on a very emotional high note.  

The play starts in 1967 and ends, one might say, at the end of the performance 2015 because in reality Nick is still finding Nick.

There are people who say, or maybe I saw it in a movie, maybe “City Slickers”, that life is about finding that “one thing”.  I guess the trick is knowing the moment when that “one thing” is discovered.  But, the one thing we discover in the play is that Nick, as a young man, is adrift, the product of an abiding faith in his immature youth. 

And as the play begins, we find that Nick is a bad student. Geometry is not his strong suit. That seems to make little difference in this private progressive school in the upper west side of New York City. 

Nick is in high school and not having a grand time.  But dressed in his corduroy jacket, without the elbow patches and protesting the war, he watches beautiful girls marching along side him and really gets into the make love not war theme without having experienced the love part, or the war part for that matter.

But Nick’s urbane father, creating an inviolable sanctuary for his son, tells Nick they are moving to Switzerland and politely orders Nick to brush up on his French.  Nick, in protest, shoves the French book with his fingertips and says he knows French.  (Typical teenager.)

But when in Switzerland, Nick finds himself at the Ecole Internationale de Geneve under the tutelage of a Russian history teacher, with a very thick accent, who is aware of his spotty transcript.

The best Nick can do is to tell him about the French Revolution using the modern day vernacular of it was “heavy” and a “trip”.

At school, Nick meets Isabelle who takes him to the park and sings him a song and about not leaving him.

Ne me quitte pas

Il faut oublier

Tout peut s’oublier

Qui s’enfuit deja

Oublier le temps

Des malentendus

Et le temps perdu

A savoir comment

Oublier ces heures

Qui tuaient parfois

A coups de porquoi

Le coeur du bonheur

Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quit pas – Jacques Brel

And then she leaves him. Infatuated, Nick tries to find her again but only gets as far as Isabelle’s father and only on the phone. Ultimately it is a project lost in its futility.

There is more to be learned from an American teacher with a crew cut who wants to discuss America’s involvement in Vietnam but thinks that Nick should write poetry. 

(One detects a theme here.)

Now Nick’s time in Switzerland takes another dramatic turn when his family moves back to New York, Greenwich Village, and MacDougal St., next door to Bob Dylan. 

Nick, still doing terribly in school, gets a glimmer of the acting world.

His counselor, Carol, looking at Nick’s record, see no math, no science, ergo no hope, but does recommend two colleges, one in St. Louis, and the other in Paris, France.

Nick chooses Paris, where his French instructor notices something about this peculiar student.

Nick, as a young man, was lost and every moment from then on was an awakening of sorts.  And as the play progresses, the moments find their sweet spot, and the production soars.

Guest has a strong voice and a special knack for mimicry and imitation.  He creates strong characters of the people from his past especially his father, the Russian Teacher, The French Teacher and Bill Hickey to name only a few. The imitation of Eldridge Cleaver had the hair standing on the back of my neck. His objective here is very simple, finding Nick, the conflict is mostly an inner conflict, and the other characters are there to help Nick find the way. So how does Nick find Nick? Simply by osmosis, which is absorbing the lessons learned from the instrumental people in his life, the ones who have focused a great deal of their time turning Nick’s life around.  The trick here, or with any actor in the theatre, is having the character engage in the lesson, taking that extraordinary piece and creating a change in the relationship, at that moment, that instant, in that time, and then carrying that forward. If there is one thing learned here is that finding Nick is a lifetime event but, in the immediate world of theatre, one would like to see all of that play out on stage as the younger Nick matures.

All right that said, there is something to be said about one-man shows and Lee Sankowich, the director, gives a lot inspiration to this play.  One quibbles about a moment, a stamp from both the director and the actor. The wonderful imitation of Nick’s father needs a reaction from Nick. Isabella’s relationship with Nick is a sexual awakening without the intense hormones begging for her to come back. And the scene in the villa, the Jimi Hendricks scene, needs further exploration, between the older son, the father, and Nick that I didn’t quite get. But these are little things to add to an exceptional body of work.

The music by Guest, Tony Carafone and Hillary Smith will bring you to tears. Other songs not mentioned are “Tomorrow is a Long Time” by Bob Dylan, “Le Plat Pays” by Jacques Brel, “Song of Automne” by author unknown, “Ma Liberte” by Georges Moustaki, “L’Internationale” Lyrics by Eugene Pottier (1871) and Music by Pierre Degeyter (1888), “Bandiera Rosa” Lyrics by Carlo Tuzzi (1908), “Le Temps De Vivre” by Georges Moustaki, “A Rainy Night in Paris” by Nicholas Guest, and “The Hobo Song” by Woody Guthrie.

Also, making a special appearance on this night was Elizabeth Guest putting an exclamation point on “finding Nick.”

Racquel Lehrman,Theatre Planners was the Producer of the show and Victoria Watson, Theatre Planner was the Associate Producer.  

Other members of the production crew are as follows:

Donny Jackson– Lighting Designer

Norman Kern– Projection Design

Davidson & Choy Publicity– Press Representatives

Kiff Scholl, AFK Design– Graphic Design

Angelica Estevez– Stage Manager

Pamela Guest– Muse

Run! Run! Run!  Bring someone you lost but recently found.

Reservations:  323-960-4420  www.plays411.com/nick

Thursday & Fridays at 8 p.m.

Added shows: Saturdays on March 21 and March 28th. 

Zephyr Theatre

7456 Melrose Ave

Los Angeles, CA