“For the Love Of (or The Roller Derby Play)” Has Cal Rep Setting the Bar Too Low

The California Repertory Company is the performance arm of the CSULB Theatre Arts graduate program. The vast majority of Cal Rep audiences are CSULB students, who at show’s end dutifully queue at the box office so they can get class credit for having attended. But it’s always clear from disinterested behavior during the performance — texting, checking their socials, last year there was an asshole playing NBA 2K (he was the Bulls) — that a large percentage couldn’t care less about what happens onstage.

It wasn’t always this way. When I started covering Long Beach theatre back in the ‘00s, Cal Rep audiences skewed older, and though the majority was still students, they were far more focused than today’s young’uns. 

I know, I know: the times they are a’changing. Nonetheless, I can’t help wondering whether part of the difference is that CSULB’s former theatre gatekeepers — starting with Joanne Gordon at the top — simply demanded more of the kids both onstage and off. Back then, fully professional stagings of challenging scripts like Clifford Odets’s Waiting for Lefty and Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal were the rule rather than the exception.

Although there have been outliers (e.g., 2022’s Electricidad), over the last several years Cal Rep seems to be playing down to their distracted demographic by focusing on scripts so simplistic or unfocused that you can easily follow along while you text (yes, there’s a pre-show announcement that texting &c. is “strictly prohibited,” but…), served up with underdeveloped stagecraft and casts so green that they seem closer to high school than grad school. 

This is certainly the case with Gina Femia’s For the Love Of (or The Roller Derby Play), which concerns a 20something’s efforts to be true to herself as she finds her place on a roller-derby team — derby being a loose metaphor for life: “Derby’s my heart. I can’t lose my heart, not without a fight.” “Anything that you love, that’s something worth fighting for.” “We play [derby] because we have to,” “to feed our souls,” “for the love of the game,” etc. Femia’s script has all the pith of an early episode of Beverly Hills 90210. From the redundancy of Femia’s dramatic conceits to bits of backstory both anemic and superfluous to shallow emotional arcs whose destinations are never earned, the writing leaves a lot to be desired.

But these failings are not completely to blame for the lack of dynamic range across the entire cast, and all the airhorn sound effects and exhortations for the audience to whoop it up can’t hide it (unless you’re busy watching reels). Director Amanda McRaven has simply set the bar for a presentable performance way too low. Not that the kids in the audience seemed to mind. Then again, most came only for course credit — which they get regardless of their inattentiveness or disrespect to the performers. 

Although comparing today’s Cal Rep to yesteryear’s may be beside the point, both artists and audience are made better when we expect more from each other. Cal Rep set a standard of churning out top-rate theatre. I know that’s a lot to live up to, but….

For the Love Of (or The Roller Derby Play) at California Repertory — Cal State Long Beach
Times: Thur-Sat 7:30 p.m., plus Sat 2 p.m.
The show runs through October 28.
Cost: $23-$25
Details: (562) 985-5526, csulb.edu/theatre-arts
Venue: CSULB Studio Theater, Theatre Arts Building (South Campus), Long Beach