Ovation Fellows are current students or recent alumni from Los Angeles area universities.  Fellows are paired with a Mentor, currently serving as an Ovation Award voter, and see productions and meet artists around Greater Los Angeles throughout the year.  Their articles, posted on LAStageBlog, are intended to be their personal responses to their experiences, and not as critical reviews or representing the views of LA Stage Alliance.

Martin Head is an Ovation Fellow from Los Angeles City College.

Four Places is a deep and provocative play I saw two weekends ago at the Rogue Machine Theatre. Written by Joel Drake Johnson and directed by Robin Larsen, this is a play I have reflected upon often and only now do I understand why I’ve put off writing about it for so long.

Martin Head, Tim Bagley and Marilyn McIntyre

The subject matter of ailing parents, difficult family relations and alcoholism all hit very close to home for me. I so identified with the people on the stage and their struggle I didn’t know how to approach this piece honestly without a bit of self disclosure. What I appreciate most about this play is the delicate treatment of such sensitive material done so honestly, yet with humor. This is the kind of theatre I hope to create someday.

I spoke with actor Tim Bagley after the show. When I asked him about how this mix of tragic-comedy is successfully achieved, he said, “What’s funny to me is something that’s truthful. I always see comedy in drama. So there’s not that much of a difference. Think about real life, your family and a big, huge, traumatic family thing. There are always very funny things that happen. In the middle of a fight, all the sudden a ham will fall down.  I just think that’s kind of like life.”

Tim majored in psychology/minored in art and took an extension course in acting and really liked it. After college he came to Los Angeles and started taking acting classes around town and eventually made his way to the Groundlings school where he ended up in their main company. Soon thereafter, Tim began working in film and television.

“I like this theater experience. I don’t do a lot of theater. To me it’s a luxury to have four to five weeks to rehearse on something, have time to do it and explore. Sometimes, on a sitcom, you might have four or five days. The writing is always changing. For film and TV you learn it, you show up, you do your lines. They run it once and do the lighting and then, it’s done. So, this has been really fantastic.”

Tim was recommended for the role of Warren in Four Places by a dear friend, Caroline Aaron, who played his wife in the film Finding Bliss. The role of Warren was the only one that had not yet been cast. Tim loved the script and agreed to attend a reading with the other actors, whom he adored. Anne Gee Byrd plays Warren’s mother, Roxanne Hart his sister and Lisa Rothschiller, the waitress.

As an ensemble I think this cast really nails it. The set is simple yet charming and creative. This production is the west coast premier of Four Places. I wouldn’t be surprised to see many more renditions of this play mounted over the years to come.  Rogue Machine Theatre has extended Four Places through July 25.