SanDiego.com – By Bill Eadie
Kudos to Dale Morris, the founder/executive director/artistic director of the Compass Theatre, at 6th and Pennsylvania in Hillcrest. He’s making a terrific effort to bring low-cost-low-budget serious theatre to San Diego. And, in Compass’ current production, “Bad Night in a Men’s Room off Sunset Boulevard,” he also turns in a first-rate performance as an actor in a show that still needs some work.
“Bad Night” hasn’t been labeled as a world premiere, but apparently it has been worked on in rehearsal by the company. Penned by “Ira Bateman-Gold” (a name that Mr. Morris has used for his writing activity in the past), the story is set on the stage of a struggling regional theatre in an unnamed heartland state. The time is 1982, and Michael (Douglas Myers), a Hollywood movie star, has returned home to appear in an Irish play that his mother, Esther (marilyn Wolf) is directing. Michael has recently been in the news because he was arrested while having sex with a transvestite in a men’s room off of Sunset Boulevard, and his wife, kids, and all of Hollywood, including his manager, Morty (O. P. Hadlock) have deserted him.