A Black and White Cookie by Gary Morgenstein

 

From L to Right - Laura Trent, Tommy Franklin, and Morry Schorr - photos by Shelby Janes

By Joe Straw

 

A met an actor long ago. We had a common thread growing up in Tennessee and then coming to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.  I studied with various teachers, read Stanislavski, Hagen, Adler, Clurman, Kazan, and Strasberg and he traveled another route. Actors make their own way and survive in Hollywood one way or another.

 

Skypilot Theatre Company presents the west coast premiere of A Black and White Cookie written by Gary Morgenstein, directed by Tudi Roche, and produced by Shelby Janes through August 20 at the 905 Cole Theatre in Los Angeles.

 

The 905 Cole Theatre is a beautiful black box theatre with plenty of street parking surrounding the space. The people working there are nice and accommodating. Pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are attached to strings in the lobby to peruse at your leisure. It was a wonderful night to go to the theatre.

 

A Black and White Cookie written by Gary Morgenstein and directed by Rudi Roche got off to a rocky start last night early in the run.   Somebody lost their place and there was an uncomfortable feeling about the stage until someone managed to get back on track.  Opening weekend jitters are sometimes hazardous when all sorts of things can go slightly haywire.

 

Harold Wilson (Tommy Franklin), a 71-year-old Vietnam veteran, has owned a newsstand for thirty years.  After the COVID layoff he returns to work only to find his rent has increased significantly.  Back to visit again is Albie (Morry Schorr), an un–Bar Mitzva’d, nominally Jewish man, who tests the waters of an un-violated viral airspace to his favorite newsstand. He’s back to his old practices to get a free one-day old New York Times paper and a visually dry ham and cheese sandwich for $4.99.

 

And, although Albie Sands has been coming for many years the two really don’t know each other.  

 

But today is different in that Harold’s newsstand has a sign that he is going out of business being pushed out by The Man. But Albie says that can’t happen and that he must fight for his right to stay there, fight corporate America, and live happily for his right to exist. The idea for Albie to walk two more blocks to get the news and scrounge for a ham and cheese sandwich is unconscionable.

 

Albie says he will help Harold.  He’s had experience fighting corporate greed and was once part of Gus Hall’s presidential campaign.

 

Harold wants no part of his plan.  He is accepting of the things that come his way as part of the American dream fulfilled or unfulfilled.  He’s a Republican and will be for the rest of his life.

 

Detesting the Republican ground he walks on, Albie doesn’t want to be any part of that discussion but decides he will help Harold anyway.  

 

Harold says no.

 

Later that night, surround by half empty moving boxes, Harold listens to the lovely sounds of kids screaming and running outside his house.  Shooing them away was an exercise in futility.  Harold’s niece Carol (Aisha Kabia) pays an expected visit.  She readies him to move in with her in Clearwater, Florida but finds that nothing has been boxed.  

 

Carol also notes that his house is getting into a state of disrepair, and he would be better off taking the $25,000 they are offering him to move. Harold says his new friend Albie will help him fight the eviction, but Carol says the Jewish man only wants to take his money and she’s been down that route before.  

 

Later Albie enlists Mitchell (Dylan Bower), writer of a proletariat newspaper to put a story in his paper to garner sympathies for Harold’s plight. Mitchell doesn’t want to write it, but he will post whatever Albie and Harold come up with.  

 

Gary Morgenstein’s comedy is a whole lot of fun. The characters are a fioriture of a humbling Brooklynites moving with a concealed purpose.  And although they are so diametrically opposed, they somehow find that purpose in life, the one thing that unites them - to have the right to live in the way they want to live. If they could only get everyone on board.  But people are naturally opposed to any kind of change, for whatever reason, until they find the thing that makes them fluid and it takes a lot of persuasion to get them that way.

 

Tudi Roche, the director, has found the humanity in the characters but there may be other things that move the characters beyond the conflict. While the play moves successfully through to the end, the players have yet to find those identifiable moments that propel them to change their minds to pursue other paths.  What is the moment that causes Harold to go out in the middle of the night to find his friend? Why does Carol have a change of heart? What makes Albie move to fight another day? This night was also filled with off stage pauses that stop the momentum, mostly for costume changes that could have well happened onstage.  

 

Tommy Franklin is Harold, an African American Republican, who accepts his lot in life.  There’s a reason why they’re raising the rent for his corner newsstand because they need the extra money, and he’s okay with that way of thinking. He doesn’t see the other side, particularly his side.  Harold goes along with anyone who has a better idea and at this point of his life, he doesn’t have one. Harold is happy to live his life peacefully, listening to the Mets play and having a hotdog with sauerkraut. But there is more to this character that Franklin may not have gotten. He is a particular character, a Republican, that always votes against his best interest without giving a single thought to his interest. Franklin does a nice job, but there are better choices to be made, conflicts in the scene, finding the moment that makes the character change directions to roam the streets and alleyways.

 

Morry Schorr is relentless as Albie. His ideas are a coruscation of life, his life. He is always up for the good fight and getting on up in age he’s still got one more fight in him. What is life if it’s not for the definitive battle? He is always fighting for the little guy, the underdog, and knows the true cost of a battle well waged is the battle for the good. When seeing something wrong, he puts wallpaper on it. Schorr is very funny in the role and knows when the battle is lost but is willing to continue to win the war whether it’s this day or tomorrow.    

 

Aisha Kabia and Morry Schorr

 

 

Aisha Kabia plays Carol and has some ferocious prejudice words about her uncle’s friend.  She also wages a battle trying to convince her uncle that the house is running down and that he’s better off getting the money, not waging the battle, and coming to live with her in Clearwater, Florida. Because of her history, she execrates that Jewish man wanting to help her uncle, thinking he is doing it for the money, his money. Kabia has a very nice stage presence and a very dogged determination to get what she wants but it is the internal struggle within her being, the conflict with her uncle, that needs a little something extra. Still, a very nice job. 

 

Laura Trent is wonderful as J.N. Pham. She has a dry sense of humor that jumps out from her sincere expressions. Pham has a better understanding of the play as she feels compassion for her fellow human, but understands it is her business to conduct business. She has an open mind when bringing down the rent increase and may have gotten the rent renewed if someone was willing to meet her halfway. And although it is a small role, Pham excels in that role.

 

Dylan Bowers has a very good look as Mitchell.  He is willing to listen for a half a second but is not willing to go the extra mile in helping someone. There must be more to this role and character than standing and listening to two men speak about their problems. He must definitively know what he wants and how he’s going to get it.

 

Other actors contributing to the production are Corbin Timbrook (Sportscaster), Anthony Backman and Shelby Janes (Newscasters) and Chuck Lacey (Homeless man).  

 

Stephen Juhl is the stage manager. Selena Price is the lighting designer and Ben Rock is the sound designer.

 

Anthony Backman and Tina Walsch contributed to the graphic design and program design.

 

There is a lot of baseball talk in Morgenstein’s play and it’s always a joy and pleasure to listen to dialogue of the ’69 Mets.  

 

The Skypilot Theatre Company is a 501(c)3 Non-profit organization.  To donate or for tickets go to skypilottheatre.com.