Larry Eisenberg’s personal experience gives him insights that make him the ideal director for Theatre 40’s current production of A Jukebox for The Algonquin. Paul Stroili’s comedy with heart is having its West Coast premiere now through Sunday, Aug. 24 at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40. (For details see below).
The play’s action takes place at Placid Pines Senior Care Center in the Adirondack region of upstate New York. The Algonquin Room setting is a second-hand space that’s the result of the rehabilitation of the main lounge, with a CD player, well-used furniture and little else. It’s a recreation room that hardly any residents use, except a small diverse and devoted group.
The jukebox in the title is the dream of Johnny, who’s started a donation jar trying to raise money to buy a vintage Wurlitzer. For him, a jukebox is the life-affirming means to bring back music and memories of the comrades’ younger days. Being on fixed incomes, they lack the funds to make it happen. So they embark on a novel plan that makes the play’s setting in 2003, before the state legalized marijuana, especially important.
Their quest turns into a comic and moving adventure.
A profound thing
When Theatre 40 scheduled the play last year, Managing Director & Artistic Director David Hunt Stafford approached Eisenberg about helming the production. “I read it and I liked it, but I wasn’t drawn to it and passed on it,” Eisenberg recalls.
Then a close friend of Eisenberg’s was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and is now in memory care at Sunrise of Westlake Village, Assisted Living and Memory Care. Eisenberg has volunteered as disc jockey for the center’s dance parties every Thursday for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. “It’s a moving experience to see how old music they recognize brightens their lives,” Eisenberg says.
About the time rehearsals were about to begin this June, the original director found herself unable to take the assignment and Stafford called Eisenberg. “The characters in the play are not suffering from Alzheimer’s, but yearning for the tunes of their youth,” Eisenberg adds. “I looked at the script again and realized the play is a profound thing that’s come into my life. And I can wholly relate to it.”
Eisenberg has been involved with Theatre 40 for more than a decade as a director ((Steven Peterson’s Affluence, Terrence McNally’s It’s Only A Play) and as an actor (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Death, with Benefits and Strangers On A Train). “David and I have a professional relationship. I think he knows I’m the perfect person to direct this show. He knows my friend. I think that’s part of the reason he offered me the script.”
Following are excerpts from my interview with Eisenberg about bringing Jukebox to the stage.
What’s the appeal of the characters and their relationship?
All the characters are damaged. Dennis is in a wheelchair and Annie’s legally blind and a bleeding heart with special names for the fish in the center’s tank. Dennis has tried to educate his fellow residents by turning the room into a mini library. I’ve approached the play with the notion that this is their last house on the block. These people are stuck in the building, and this is where they’ve ended up. And they all have a yearning and for one thing–a need to avoid that loneliness when approaching the end of life.
The play is about how at that point the people around you become your family. They share the need for each other and the ability to get joy from each other.
Did you have to learn about jukeboxes?
The music-playing machine in the title is almost mystical. And in the play, Johnny is quite specific about what he wants. “It’s a 1940 Wurlitzer Commercial Phonograph Player Model 1015, that holds 36 78 RPM records with a visible record-changer, scuff proof nickel plate base and low-wattage automatic fluorescents.” If audiences don’t know anything about jukeboxes, they will by the end of the play.
What does the jukebox represent?
For Johnny and his friends, it becomes more than a mission. It’s carrying your past with you–like dancing to a jukebox—and not shutting it off, but making it part of your present. This play is saying you don’t have to regret your past and be afraid of the future. You can assimilate all of it into a present that is positive, joyous, giving and loving. Each of the characters has nothing left for them. Through the presence of a jukebox they can help reconcile the past, present and future.
References to the Round Table
There are parallels between the famous Algonquin Round Table and the characters in the play. The Algonquin Round Table was a group of leading writers, critics, and wits who met at New York City’s Algonquin Hotel during the 1920s and early 1930s. With regulars like Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott Robert Benchley and George S. Kaufman and guests like Talullah Bankhead, the group was known for lively and often sarcastic banter, wordplay, and sophisticated humor.
They represent witty conversation the characters long for. One of them, Dennis, gay and wheelchair bound, is a huge fan of Parker and quotes her often. The Round Table was a gathering of like-minded individuals who enjoyed each other’s company and intellectual sparring, much what these characters crave.
It’s the music
The show is peppered with references to music of the character’s past. Johnny reminds facility director Josefina that music improves brain function and cognitive processes. In his pursuit of the music maker of his youth, playing music from Benny Goodman to David Bowie, Johnny longs for “a nice scratchy record” and complains “there hasn’t been a good song since1977.”
Debates ensue over Johnny Mathis against Nat King Cole and Sam Cooke, whose music figures prominently in the show, vs. Ottis Redding. Songs like Love Me Do, Hound Dog, Rockin’ Robin and Only the Lonely are remembered lovingly.
Moments with Danny Boy and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face are especially affecting.
Can you comment on the casting?
Part of this experience has been tapping into the personal nature of my eight cast members. Several of them are people I know, and I’ve worked before. And a moving part of this experience has been looking into your own past and accepting your mortality. Rather than depressing, it’s been life-affirming.
The playwright’s instructions have the same actress playing Mrs. McDarren, who early in the play is looking for a place for her mother-in-law, and Peg Connelly, Placid Pines’ latest resident. Peg drives a lot of the plot. I felt that if the actress had to play two parts, it would dilute her story. So, Diane Linder is Mrs. McDarren and Mouchette van Helsingin plays Peg. She’s the heartbeat of the play. She falls in love with all the others and the affection she has for them is the affection audiences have for all the characters.
The rest of the cast is Tricia Cruz as Josefina, Milda Dacys as Annie, Herb Hall, who spent nearly three decades teaching at Beverly Hills High, as Johnny; Michael Mullen as Chuck, Lloyd Pedersen as Dennis and Ethan Rockwell as Tyler. I’ve known him since he was 8 or 9 and I directed him in Lost in Yonkers.
Have you had any interaction with the playwright?
Not only is the play Paul’s, but he’s also acted in it, as the complicated janitor Chuck, and directed a production. I wanted to bring my own touch to it, so we had limited communication. Usually when working with new material and a play in development I work closely with the playwright. In this case the play is published and I’m not altering text or suggesting any major changes.
We exchanged emails and Paul welcomed my questions about technical issues, like the staging of the jukebox, and props.
We did speak at length about approaching the material. A lot of the comedy comes from old folks becoming drug dealers and the play is hysterically funny. But if you just go for the laughs, you miss the poignancy. Paul’s been supportive of my perspective.
How has this directing experience affected you
The play says a lot about what those of us getting older have to deal with. Like me with my friend and my brother passing away suddenly. It’s been an enlarging experience for me. It’s taught me that there are opportunities to get closer to people that you know and friendships you didn’t take advantage of before.
The play taps into the root of human kindness. I could get very cynical and jaundiced about the political climate in America today and the American heart. But I’ve found this story and the experience of working with the cast and crew very uplifting. I didn’t watch the news. I went to rehearsal.
Theater 40 performances are in the Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Dr., on the Beverly Hills High School campus. Performances through Aug. 24 are 7:30 p.m., Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $35. For reservations and tickets, call 310-364-0535 or visit http://theatre40.org
Steve Simmons is an accomplished writer and editor who writes about a wide array of topics including entertainment. His successful experience at The Beverly Hills Courier and other publications set the stage for his blog. Contact Steve at steve.simmons0211@gmail.com or 626-788-6734.
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