On ‘Safari’ in a Suburban Back Yard

“What I do performing is sort of a live version of what I write,� explained South African-born Barry Yourgrau, who arrives at the Saxon-Lee Gallery in “Barry Yourgrau’s Safari� on Saturday. “Actually, the performing thing just sort of developed. I’m a writer first; my pieces exist first on paper. I don’t write them with an idea of performing them. And I don’t write to supply material for my performing. A lot of the things I write I don’t perform.�

The stories making up “Safari� are mostly taken from his book, “Wearing Dad’s Head� (Peregrine Smith Books), “which is about the experience of having parents, being with parents--and losing them, too.� Added the former New Yorker (who played to raves at the Wallenboyd earlier this year): “ ‘Safari’ is the featured piece in the evening, the longest story. It’s a rite of passage/big-game hunt that’s set in a suburban back yard. Father and son are on the hunt, with mother making appearances.�

Yourgrau’s inspirations, he says, “come from all over the place--like Chaplin, who for his early movies would go to a studio and find a prop, then construct a story from that. I start with a sentence, idea, image--and use it to go trolling in various waters. The hook is usually comic, because I think of myself as a comic writer. But the material that comes out is often dark and poignant.�

Creative influences range from P. G. Wodehouse to “hard-boiled things like Hemingway to childhood stuff like Milne; Peter Sellers, ‘Beyond the Fringe’ and early Bob Hope. I think my work shows strains of all of them.�

Tuba player Bill Roper opens the evening.

CRITICAL CROSSFIRE: A revival of Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker� recently opened at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Alan Mandell directs John Vickery and Jim Piddock as a pair of enigmatic brothers, with Robin Gammell as the bum they take into their home.

Said The Times’ Dan Sullivan: “A less immaculate reading would give a more convincing sense of its dark corners, and these actors are capable of it. We listen all the way, and we come out with our little theories, but this ‘Caretaker’ is too careful not to get its skirts dirty.�

From the Herald Examiner’s Richard Stayton: “Among the many revelations during this impeccable revival is how suspenseful the spare story can be when rigorously staged. This is quintessential Pinter, not ‘Pinteresque,’ as fine a production of his second major work and first critical success as anyone could hope to experience.�

Agreed Tom Jacobs in the Daily News: “Aside from an ending that needs more power, the production is outstanding. The three fine actors handle Pinter’s language well, and they create characters real enough to identify with, but strange enough to be scared by.�

Said Steve Mikulan in the L.A. Weekly: “Mandell has wisely steered this production away from the lure of representation, though he hasn’t proposed an alternative. He hasn’t given us an interpretation as much as simply a re-enactment of a now-famous play. This lack of approach is deadly.�

Noted Drama-Logue’s F. Kathleen Foley: “We can see another layer of thought operating just under the surface of the seemingly innocuous banter, but the subtext is never belabored and the mystery is preserved intact. What results is a lean, hungry Cassius of a production without an ounce of fat on its towering frame.�