Busy Like a Fox

ON LOCAL STAGES, IT’S BRENDON FOX MONTH. He’s the director of two provocative productions, The Smell of the Kill at North Coast Repertory and A Bright Room Called Day at Diversionary. The dual accomplishment is typical of the busy pace Fox has kept since May, when he left his seven-year post as associate director at the Old Globe to freelance.

While at the Globe, where he helmed about a dozen productions, Fox found time to direct elsewhere, so the transition to other venues was smooth. As associate producer for Los Angeles Theatre Works, Fox is helping develop stage and radio plays—and in February, he’ll direct Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, as he did last year for Moonlight’s winter season at Vista’s Avo Theatre. He’ll also return to the Globe, beginning in November, to restage its annual holiday treat How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Smell of the Kill is Michelle Lowe’s dark comedy about three housewives considering ridding themselves of their husbands, one way or another, and A Bright Room Called Day is Tony (Angels in America) Kushner’s 1985 play about artists and intellectuals in 1930s Germany coping with the rise of Hitler. They seem dissimilar, but Fox points out parallels.

“Both are political, although Smell is not as overt. They both show that, as the saying goes, the personal is political,” he says. “Smell is very funny, with strong women characters speaking out and being bold, like Desperate Housewives. They’re a little bit naughty, even murderous.

“In Bright Room, the central character is a woman, as well. She and her companions are charismatic people, with a sense of foreboding.” Their central concern, Fox says, is “How much is too much?” The play, like Kushner’s Angels, is surreal and rich with modern parallels. It remains important that we gather and interact, Fox says, because “technology is leading us to isolation.”

Bright Room is a joint endeavor with Backyard Productions, an example of the trend of local companies collaborating to maximize resources. It’s what Fox lauds as the “symbiosis among theaters” and why he plans to continue working here even if he takes a full-time post in Los Angeles. “I’m not through with San Diego, and I hope San Diego’s not through with me,” he says.

ALSO NOTABLE FOR NOVEMBER:
Bob Korbett, like most theater operators, has struggled to bring patrons and profit to his little Adams Avenue Studio of the Arts. He’s booked numerous and varied shows, ranging from one-person performances to larger-cast musicals like Mack and Mabel. In September, Adams Avenue clicked with Mambo Italiano, a warm comedy about two men struggling with how to reveal their homosexuality to their Italian-immigrant parents. Wisely, Korbett has squeezed in a two-weekend reprise (November 4, 5, 11 and 12).

The local debut of Sister’s Christmas Catechism (November 26–December 31) follows Smell of the Kill at the North Coast Rep. It’s the holiday sequel to Late Nite Catechism, the popular spoof of Catholic school days that enjoyed an extended summer off-night run at NCR.

Cygnet Theatre staged a crackling version of a classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, last summer. Now, they’ll tackle another favorite about a scheming southern family, Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes (November 19–December 18). Auguring well is the director, the always-capable Rosina Reynolds.

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