“Great direction and great cast provide a fascinating fresh look at an old demon.”
- BroadwayWorld

“…kaleidoscopic swirl of history, so well performed and cleanly staged by Jules Aaron.”
- LA WEEKLY

“Hunger is a very funny and ironic piece.”
- LA SPLASH

“…a dazzling experience.”
- CRITIC’S PICK: BACKSTAGE WEST

JANUARY 31, 2012

Photo by Michael Lamont

With all the trappings of a confectionary acid trip, director Jules Aaron crafts a sensory teasing hallucinatory peek into the backstory of one of America’s most enigmatic figures in Joan Beber’s “Hunger: In Bed With Roy Cohn.” Communist hunter Cohn, known for his association with Senator Joseph McCarthy and the trial and executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, is no stranger to theatrical imaginings. Those expecting another in-depth assay may find Beber’s world premiere a bit lacking in substance, but that doesn’t seem to be her goal. Instead, she uses Cohn’s tortured life as a jumping-off point. It’s Aaron’s excellent direction, aided by Kay Cole’s captivating choreography, that makes this Brechtian leap, which Beber sets in purgatory, such a dazzling experience.

Barry Pearl is terrific as he presents Cohn’s tragically constructed inner workings. Eschewing a fey take, Pearl is more the Bob Newhart Everyman engulfed in a surrealistic swirl of caricatured figures. By anchoring the production, Pearl offers some small port in an otherwise outrageously mind-bending storm of imagery. Furthermore, his extensive background in musical theater proves useful given Beber’s inclusion of several vaudevillian interludes.

Remaining cast members inhabit an array of historical and imaginary characters. Cheryl David is a scenery-chewing delight as Cohn’s controlling mother, Dora. Tom Galup provides a solid version of Pearl’s friend and alleged lover G. David Schine. Liza de Weerd’s Barbara Walters, the famous journalist, who was once romantically involved with the sexually conflicted Cohn, and David Sessions’ stumbling Ronald Reagan are less impression and more charming goofiness. Jon Levenson, as the hauntingly hilarious specter of Julius Rosenberg, smoothly employs his impressive basso profundo voice. And in an epic display of physical expertise, Jeffrey Scott Parsons and Presciliana Esparolini give wing to Cole’s erotically charged dances as Cohn’s younger alter ego and his maid Lizette.

John Iacovelli’s tiled boudoir set, complete with a Pandora’s box of a bed, profits from Jeremy Pivnick’s outstanding lighting, and Adam Flemming provides eye-catching projections. Shon Le Blanc’s costumes and Max Kinberg’s original music are two more feathers in this production’s cap.

Presented by Linda Tolliver, Gary Guidinger, and Undercover Productions at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A. Jan. 21–March 11. Fri. and Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (Additional performances Thu., Feb. 23 and March 1, 8 p.m.) (310) 477-2055 or www.odysseytheatre.com.

Can one of America’s most controversial and despised men come to terms with what might have been? Roy Cohn: wrong time, wrong place, wrong orientation!

Linda Toliver, Gary Guidinger and Undercover Productions present the World Premiere of Joan Beber’s fantasy play, directed by Jules Aaron. With choreography by Kay Cole and original music by Max Kinberg, the production features Barry Pearl as Roy Cohn, the brilliant attorney whose hunger for power and prominence ultimately destroyed him.

Waiting in oblivion and holding court on his bed, he is haunted by comic visitations of Ronald Reagan and Barbara Walters; his lover, G. David Shine and Julius Rosenberg, with Ethel on the phone. Only when his dancing inner child implores him to “come out” do we get to see Roy as he could have been.

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Barry Pearl as Roy Cohn in “Hunger: In Bed with Roy Cohn”; photo by Michael Lamont

Joan Beber received a B.A. in English from Northwestern University at age 21 — and an M.F.A in playwriting from the University of Southern California 46 years later, at age 67. The premiere of her first fully produced play, Hunger: In Bed with Roy Cohn, which she wrote at age 73, is about to open at the Odyssey Theatre, directed by the award-winning Jules Aaron.

Described as a fantasy play with music, the plot centers on the life of Roy Cohn, the attorney who helped prosecute Ethel Rosenberg for espionage and then became famous as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, where he helped his boss Sen. Joseph McCarthy look for Communists. He later became a celebrity attorney, but he was disbarred for ethical lapses shortly before dying from AIDS in 1986.

Director Jules Aaron, photo by Michael Lamont

“How I think of it as the director,” Aaron says, “is that we’re in some kind of purgatory in Roy’s mind.  The play actually takes place in a 24-hour period where we move in and out of different time periods, ranging from the ’50s to the present day.  Part of the fun of the play is that since we’re in his mind, it allows us to make different leaps that we wouldn’t be able to in a strictly biographical play. It starts with him as a young attorney and moves through his death from AIDS. What Joan has created is a kind of fluid structure that allows us to move through time and place in a very unusual and theatrical way.”

The historical characters in the play include not only Cohn, played by Barry Pearl — but also  Ronald Reagan, G. David Schine (the Cohn friend whose Army service became a point of contention in the Army-McCarthy hearings), Julius Rosenberg and Barbara Walters.

“Julius’s wife Ethel appears as a shadow in the doorway,” Aaron adds, “and is mainly someone Julius is talking to.”

Beber says of Barbara Walters, “Evidently, she and Roy were friends and they dated. And I believe they were engaged to be married at one time, but it didn’t go very far.  I don’t know the exact details of it, how long they were engaged, but apparently he was more interested in men. I heard recently that Roy’s mother was very much against their dating, which would stand to reason because she was a very dominating woman.  She didn’t want anyone to have Roy. She wanted to dictate every bit of his life.”

Playwright Joan Beber; Photo by Gary Guidinger

Aaron continues, “For the sake of our play, Barbara remains kind of an iconic figure as she travels through time with Roy. So we see her in a variety of different periods.”
Beber discusses her play’s two Roys.  “There’s young Roy who appears on stage with the older Roy. There’s a strong emphasis on the contrast between the two of them.  The younger Roy wants to push older Roy in a certain direction, and the older Roy is resisting. And you see this push-pull throughout the whole play.”

Aaron adds, “Young Roy becomes what Roy might have been had Dora, his mother, not been as strong as she was.”

Beber continues, “Besides Dora there’s Lizette, his housekeeper.  He actually had two housekeepers that he was very close to.  Since he was an only child and often left alone, these housekeepers mothered him.  I just picked one housekeeper for the play.”
Aaron interjects, “Lizette is someone who is very close to him throughout the play, kind of a major domo who is running his household.”

Her choreography and staging credits include Nightmare Alley,Broads, It’s the Housewives, Great Expectations, Assassins, Pirates Of Penzance, Cabaret, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, South Pacific, Triumph of Love, I Do I Do, Actor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, Dancing at Lughnasa,  Take Me Along, The Baker’s Wife,  Chang and Eng.  Pasadena Playhouse: Under One Umbrella, 110 in the Shade, Do I Hear A Waltz.  Hollywood Bowl: Sound of Music, Bernsteins’ Mass,  Mame,  My Fair Lady, Music Man, Camelot. Reprise! Broadway: Three Penny Opera,  Fiorello, City of Angels,  Company, On The 20^th Century, Follies,  Sweeney Todd,  Most Happy Fella.  Geffen Playhouse:  Atlanta, Paint Your Wagon, Six Dances Lessons in Six Weeks. Hudson Theatre: Grave White Way.  Kirk Douglas Theatre: Gaytino, Dogeaters. Antaeus Theatre: Tonight at 8:30. Playwrights Arena: The Next Step, Songs For A New World.  Shakespeare LA: As You Like It,  Comedy of Errors. Broadway: Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (Belasco Theatre). London West End: The Fantasticks , Snoopy, Blockheads.  She recently moved into film and television, directing Professor Crunch and the Daffies, Country Rules, THQ, Waiting in Line, and choreographing  Guidepost Junction, Ella,  Jekyll and Disney’s Santa Clause 3. She also teaches Acting for Film and Television at Emerson College LA Annex and UCLA’s  Summer Musical Theatre Conservatory. She is the proud recipient of the 2006 Playwrights Arena Award for her outstanding contribution to Los Angeles

He has directed Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, Bruce Davison, Carrie Snodgress, Zelda Rubinstein, Greg Itzin, Sam Anderson, Mercedes Ruehl, Lee Meriwether, Jeff Demun, Ralph Waite, Marian Mercer, Michael Learned among many others.  He has won 20 Drama-Logue awards, three Garland Awards, an LA drama Critics award (with several nominations), Special Chair at UC Davis.  He has a Ph.D in Dramaturgy, Theatre History and Criticism from NYU.  He has Been Artistic Director of the Unit Theatre (in N.Y. and L.A.), as well as Artistic Director at Grove Shakespeare Theatre.  He was Head of the M.A. program at UC Riverside and Head of the MFA Directing Program at California institute of the Arts for seventeen years.  He is now on the Adjunct Faculty at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.