Orpheus Descending

Related Content

• Baby Doll, Forgotten, On Holy Ground and other new reviews . . .
  November 23, 2011
• Impro Theater's Chekhov Unscripted: How to Improvise an Homage to Uncle Vanya
  November 3, 2011
• Tartuffe at Theatricum Botanicum: Anarchy Eluded
  July 25, 2011
• Gregg Ostrin's Kowalski
  July 7, 2011
• Who's Your Goddess
  March 22, 2012

More About

• Val Xavier
• Tennessee Williams
• Lou Pepe
• Gale Harold
• Francesca Casale

Like this Story?

Get the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Make sign up easy with:

Lou Pepe stages Tennessee Williams' study of a singer-songwriter, Val Xavier (Gale Harold) who wanders into a Southern mercantile shop, a reluctant seducing machine living in and belonging to a different world. Being both a updated interpretation of the Orpheus' visit to the underworld, with Biblical allusions heavily laced into the plot, Williams' saga is study in the how the otherworldy artist becomes scapegoated and sacrificed to the prosaic reality of the here-and-now. The theater is a bit of an echo chamber, and Brandon Baruch's murky lighting doesn't really help Pepe's decisions to eliminate distracting details such as walls and knicknacks in order to place us inside Val Xavier elevated head and heart. That said, the ensemble saves and elevates the event, particularly Denise Crosby, Claudia Mason and Francesca Casale as the women whose hearts become wrenched by the musician in the house. Theatre/Theater, 5041 Pico Blvd., L.A.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; thru Feb. 21, www.brownpapertickets.com/event/92508. (800) 838-3006. Frantic Redhead Productions.
Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Starts: Jan. 15. Continues through Feb. 21, 2010