Steven Leigh MorrisTHE 31ST ANNUAL L.A. WEEKLY THEATER AWARDS
ECHO CHAMBERS
Resonances from The Wooster Group's North Atlantic
Ground Control to Major Tom Photo by Paula Court
If you drive through the San Gabriel Mountains, where radio reception is already dodgy, set the dial on the scan mode. Every three seconds or so, you'll get new frequency, a new station, sometimes bathed in static. Some country western crooner with his heart on his sleeve will crash into a fire-and- brimstone sermon on the Second Coming, which melts into a mariachi band, to a sliver of a Schubert Mass, to Miley Cyrus, to a rapper going off on some skanky ho. Round and round it goes, wavelength after wavelength, an audio collage of our pop culture dodging in and around the pine trees at 7,000 feet, wobbling in and out of a clear audio zone. You could be on a satellite, hurtling through outer space, picking up the shadow presences of Planet Earth, the voices of our commerce and pop culture.
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(North Altantic, Continued:)
Years ago, NASA launched a rocket into space containing humanity's
greatest artifacts — Beethoven symphonies, Shakespeare's sonnets, the
Theory of Relativity, renderings by Galileo – in the event that had we
become extinct, some intelligent life form far away might fathom a
sense of who we once were.
The almost brooding sense of our mortality, and lingering shadow
presences, has formed the cartilage of the most recent performances by
New York-based performance troupe The Wooster Group. (They present
their latest, James Strahs' North Atlantic, at REDCAT through February 21.) Last year's opera-mashup La Didone – as gentle and ornate as North Atlantic
is assaultive and vulgar – hung on the feeling that Francesco Cavalli's
1641 opera had been catapulted into the outer stratosphere, where it
floated in the ether of company director Elizabeth LeCompte's
imagination.
That brooding quality isn't anywhere near the surface of North Atlantic — a joke inverting South Pacific,
and its blend of sugary romance, exotic locales, islanders and the U.S.
military. Rather, it's what you take away after the aural bombast – the
screeching aircraft overhead, the countless bone-rattling explosions
and the song-and-dance numbers (including “Git Along Little Doggies,”
“Back in the Saddle” and “Yankee Doodle,” sprinkled in amongst Bach's
“Come Sweet Death” and an excerpt from Tristan and Isolde.)
Strahs' play is set in 1983 aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier floating
somewhere off the Dutch coast, where post-WWII and Cold War paranoia
has resulted in this intelligence-gathering operation among enlisted
men and women. A quintet of women (Kate Valk, Frances McDormand, Jenny
Seastone Stern, Koosil-ja Hwang, and Maura Tierney) spend much of the play
threading audio-tape through sprockets dotted across a chest-high
mantle that traverses the enormous width of Jim Clayburgh's set.
Meanwhile, they try to keep their balance upon the absurdly raked
stage, which also allows for characters to slip-slide into position.
Strahs' dialogue consists of military movie/musical-theater
dialogue-jargon pulled from the sockets of the 1950s via the 1983
setting, with pliers of parody. So everything we see and hear is a kind
of echo: The distant resonances of “There is Nothing Like a Dame” gets
converted into dialogue that treats rim jobs as an aspect of romance.
The plot – which is almost irrelevant, but they must have felt
compelled to include one – concerns newcomer, Colonel Lloyd “Ned” Lud
(Scott Shepherd) into the sexually charged-frustrated company of
Captain Roscoe Chizzum (Ari Fliakos), General Lance “Rod” Benders (Paul
Lazar), Private Walter “Raj” Doberman (Steve Cuiffo) and Marine Private
Bernard “Gregory” Houlihan (Zachary Oberzan) – and, of course, the
sexually charged-frustrated women. These are the people consigned to
gather snippets of the world's most important, secret conversations and
thereby keep the peace. This concept, and its treatment, go a long way
to explaining why the world is as violent as it is.
There's one larger point – that their entire self-important
operation as actually a decoy for the “real” operation that's being
done 500 miles away. So even the shadows and echoes that we're seeing
and hearing (orignal sound tracks by Bob Cardelli, original music and
arrangement by Eddy Dixon) are shadows and echoes of shadows and
echoes.
Le-Compte's visual compositions and choreography are as pristine as
the perfectly wry performances that approach the line of mugging
without crossing over. The production is, frankly, an assault. I left
in a dither. It was in recovery, however, that I gained an appreciation
and respect for what I'd been subjected to. Were this a mere head-trip,
more “deconstruction” for the sake of some too-clever joke, I'd have
written it off. What lingers, however, is a kind of soulfulness – maybe
from the brief use of that Bach song “Come Sweet Death” — that puts
the entire charade in the context of all that technology and industry
that, as we hurtle through space in the 21st century, is proving to be
what we're living and dying for, as a species. After the explosions and
roaring aircraft had subsided, I kept hearing that Bach, like a
recording of something between a lament and prayer, buried in rubble.
NORTH ATLANTIC | By JAMES STRAHS | Performed by THE
WOOSTER GROUP | Presented by REDCAT, 631 W. Second Street, downtown |
through February 21. (213) 237-2800
NEW CAPSULE REVIEWS (scheduled for publication February 18, 2010
NEW REVIEW THE ANTARCTIC CHRONICLES
In his documentary Encounters at the End of the World,
Werner Herzog described the denizens of Antarctica's McMurdo base as
wanderers who tumbled down to the South Pole for lack of roots
attaching them to anywhere sane. Jessica Manuel doesn't seem to fit the
profile: the perky Minnesotan homecoming queen left home, family and
boyfriend to spend a year cranking fuel valves in the Antarctic's -80 F
permanent midnight. Why? To escape the normalcy she saw as a noose. Her
solo show traffics in the exotic mundane — it's an insider scoop on
what the heck people eat, drink and do at the bottom of the earth
(Answer: Tater Tots, booze, and harass the newbies.) Directed by Paul
Linke, Manuel tells her story in a cheerleader's squeal. Thematically,
it's as thin as ice, but Manuel dishes on the slow onset of winter
insanity and shares how the total snow madness boredom inspired
Herzog's gang of adventurers to start their own theater troupe. Hudson
Guild Theater, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; Wed., 8 p.m.; thru
March 10. (323) 960-7744. (Amy Nicholson)
NEW REVIEW CATCH THE TIGER
Photo courtesy of Dramastage Qumran
Vicki Robinson plays a denizen/chanteuse in a NYC diner, and when
she breaks into song, for a blues ditty or a ballad, Melvin Ishmael
Johnson's biodrama about Jamaican-born black separatist Marcus Garvey
(Isaac Clay) springs to life – particularly with the great supporting
sound system. Robinson's voice caresses and slithers, alternating
between gentleness and power. It's the kind of modulation that's
desperately needed in Johnson's play, and McNeil's staging of it. The
plot starts in 1916, when what would have been the 21-year-old J. Edgar
Hoover (Daniel Taylor), was newly appointed to the Justice Department,
obsessed on bringing charges against Garvey, and getting him deported.
The play shows what Hoover and the FBI are famous for, infiltration and
betrayal. Garvey is “the Tiger” though all he does is wander around the
stage and make speeches, culminating with the phrase “Africa for
Africans” — repeated at least four times. It's also in the program, in
case you missed it from the stage. The hollow speechifying seems
sufficient to earn Garvey the adoration of most of the characters in
the play, as well as the contempt of J. Edgar Hoover, played by Smith
with a cadaverous comportment and the hesitant delivery of someone who
doesn't quite know what we wants, or why. So if the cat and his
would-be slayer are both so inert, there's little else to say. The
Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; Fri.-Sun., 8 p.m.; thru
Feb. 21. (323) 850-4436. A Dramastage Qumran production. (Steven Leigh
Morris)
NEW REVIEW GO THE COLOR PURPLE Patrons standing outside the Pantages for last weekend's performance of The Color Purple were understandably miffed when it was announced that because of illness, American Idol
glamgirl Fantasia would not be performing. But, to trot out the cliché,
the show must go on: Brandi Chavone Massey acquitted herself superbly
in the Fantasia's role of Celie, the long suffering abused child who
gradually transforms into a paradigm of self-sufficiency and proud
womanhood. But Celie's painful journey is also a story about the
enduring power of the human spirit, and love in its myriad forms.
Massey effortlessly plowed through one song after another, never
missing a note, and her acting was every bit as impressive. Marsha
Norman's adaptation of Alice Walker's novel, (music and lyrics by
Brenda Russell, Alee Willis, and Stephen Bray), crackles with energy,
notwithstanding some awkward plot twists, and a second act that
languishes. This is a show that's hard not to get swept up in. The mix
of gospel, blues and jazz is as alluring as Paul Tazewell's colorful
array of costumes, and Donald Byrd's choreography. Gary Griffin
directs. Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Tues.-Fri.
8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m.; thru Feb. 28.
https://www.BroadwayLA.org (800) 982-ARTS. (Lovell Estell III)
NEW REVIEW GO THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
Photo by Michael Lamont
“The Female of the species is more deadly than the male,” wrote
Rudyard Kipling just about 100 years ago. That might well be the theme
of Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith's satire of all things
that have fallen into the gender divide over the past 40 years, at
least. The comedy is set in the library/living-room in the secluded,
country home of Margot Mason (Annette Bening), a sardonic wit and
author of feminist self-help books. (Bening's take is perfectly
competent, though narrow in range). Margot struggles to meet an
impending deadline for a book she's barely started when an interloper
named Molly Rivers (Merrit Wever) wanders in through the French doors
(Takeshi Kata designed the detailed, realistic set). Based on a
real-life incident involving such an intrusion upon author Germaine
Greer, and after blustering out some fake adoration for the famous
author, Molly pulls out a pistol and threatens to kill Margot for her
sequence of celebrity-motivated, contradictory exegeses that, Molly
believes, were responsible for her own mother's suicide. (The
despondent woman allegedly clutched a copy of Margot's The Cerebral
Vagina, before hurling herself under a moving train.) Enter Margot's
daughter Tess (a particularly fine Mireille Enos), traumatized by her
mother's decades of neglect and contempt for her daughter “settling”
into a married life with a nice if dim-witted hedge-fund investor named
Bryan (an endearing turn by David Arquette). (“I love you Tess. You
know I've always mounted you on a pedestal.”) A hausfrau in crisis
somewhere between despair and oblivion, Tess has no complaint with
Molly's intention to murder her mother in cold blood. Add to the mix
(yes, it's a very busy day for an author who desires only to be left
alone to write) Molly's macho taxi driver, Frank (Josh Stamberg),
furious because Molly stiffed him – because he wouldn't stop talking
about how his wife just left him. Margot's publisher, Theo (Julian
Sands) also shows up and resolves a lingering question of genealogy.
(The farce is not intended to hold up a mirror to life's most probable
outcomes.) When cabbie Frank finally grows a pair and starts ordering
Tess around, her eyes light up and her shoulder straps flip down. It's
a feminist's nightmare, as is the entire play. It's also a comedy of
the ilk George Bernard Shaw might have written had he lived another 100
years, though he probably would have left out the gun, which the
characters spend most of the play ignoring anyway. Of course this is a
joke about hostage plays; it also reveals how the person holding the
gun may not actually possess all the power, especially if there's
enough wit from the playwright and the people who don't hold the gun.
There are enough funny lines to keep an evening of repartee and satire
from imploding, especially under Randall Arney's sure-footed direction,
yet the comedy does skewer one of the most pressing social debates of
the 1980s, like a vehicle that's been spinning in a swamp for some
time. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood; Tues.-Fri., 8
p.m.; Sat., 3 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m.; thru March 14. (310)
208-5454. (Steven Leigh Morris)
NEW REVIEW GO NORTH ATLANTIC James Strahs'
play is set in 1983 aboard a U.A. aircraft carrier floating somewhere
off the Dutch coast, where post WWII and Cold War paranoia has resulted
in this intelligence-gathering operation among enlisted men and women.
REDCAT, 631 W. Second Street, downtown; Tues.-Sat., 8:30 p.m.; Sun., 7
p.m.; through February 21. (213) 237-2800. The Wooster Group. See
Theater feature.
NEW REVIEW ON CARING FOR THE BEAST
Photo by Ricardo Miranda
The average layperson planning to see director-playwright Shishir
Kurup's somewhat bewildering metaphysical fantasy would be well-advised
to bring along a beginner's guide to Dharmic religious traditions. For
Kurup's heady, 2001 dramatic excavation of the meanings of truth — the
modern corruptions as well as the more ancient, unadulterated
permutations — is virtually awash in the symbology, deities and
philosophy of Tantric and Jainist mysticism. The latest entry in
Cornerstone Theater's ongoing Justice Cycle opens in the subdivided
home of landlord/earth mother/amateur trance-channeler Mae (Page
Leong), whose domestic tranquility is quickly turning into a world of
hurt. Her gay tenant Charlie's (Marcenus “MC” Earl) terminal bone
disease has just entered its painful, chronic phase, which drives his
desperate, university-professor lover, Art (Michael Cooke), to
undertake a crash course in psychic healing. Neighbor Alissa's (Bahni
Turpin) book-project profile of the enigmatic Dr. Narayan (Amro
Salama), a repentant, U.S.-trained military torturer, sends her and
musician boyfriend Sean (Justin Gordon) into the masochistic deep end
in their quest to mentally transcend physical suffering. The lives of
all concerned are unexpectedly turned upside-down when Mae accidentally
channels the mother goddess, Kali, and the house is blasted with a bolt
of her creative energy. Though the play's spiritual speculations can
plod and even overwhelm, for we cynical, secular humanists, Kurup's
elegant staging (featuring designer Tom Ontiveros' lovely lights and
video projections) and a world-class ensemble prove the perfect sugar
to help the New Age go down. Inner City Arts, 720 Kohler St., L.A.;
Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; Wed., 8 p.m.; thru Feb. 24,
www.CornerstoneTheater.org. (213) 627-9621. A Cornerstone Theater
production. (Bill Raden)
NEW REVIEW GO A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER
Photo by Neil Reinhold
A sweltering New York City summer; Son of Sam is still at large. A
massive citywide blackout is around the corner. The year is 1977, and
on the verge of bankruptcy, a city barely keeps it together, not unlike
Detectives Francis Kelly (Kevin Brief) and Jack Delasante (Matthew J.
Williamson), two of NYPD's finest who have nabbed two of its worst:
Jimmy Rosario, a.k.a. Jimmy Rosehips (Matthew Thompson), and Simon
Cohn, a.k.a. Sean de Kahn (Gary Lamb). A drycleaning store gets held
up. Its owner, Mrs. Linowitz, is shot point blank. There's hell to pay,
especially when the boys in blue have no qualms about beating a
confession out of these low-life suspects. Problem is, Jimmy and Simon
are no rookies, and their ability to manipulate the demons that plague
the seemingly hardboiled Kelly and Delasante turns up the sweltering
July heat inside the police station. First performed at the Public
Theater in 1978, this revival of Thomas Babe's gritty interrogation
drama is masterfully orchestrated by director Albert Alarr, whose fluid
blocking and brutally realistic fight choreography make full use of
Sarah Krainin's impeccably authentic set. The entire ensemble shines,
showcasing both the humor and the suffocating pain of a text that
poignantly explores “the light” and “the dark” sides of our natures.
(The show does contain full-frontal nudity.) Crown City Theatre, 11031
Camarillo St., N. Hollywood; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru March 6. (800)
838-3006. https://www.brownpapertickets.com (Mayank Keshaviah)
NEW REVIEW SEASCAPE WITH SHARKS AND DANCER
While walking on a Cape Cod beach, writer Ben (Matthew Hannon) spots a
naked young woman, Tracy (Christine Weatherup), floundering in the sea.
He pulls her ashore, and takes her back to his rundown beach house to
recuperate — but she's far from grateful. She wasn't drowning, she
claims, but dancing. Despite the fact that she's rude, arrogant,
selfish and demanding, he's enchanted, and after some hot chocolate and
sparring, they tumble into bed. Dan Nigro's play starts out as a kooky
“meet cute” comedy, then segues into a quietly harrowing portrait of a
certain kind of destructive relationship. She's convinced that no one
can love her, and therefore he'll inevitably leave her. So she
constantly threatens to leave him, but never does, and he cares for her
enough to endure the pain and uncertainty she inflicts on him.
Weatherup's Tracy is an emotionally volatile woman riddled with
conflicts, manipulative, and pathologically self-destructive, while
Hannon's Ben is reduced to pure victim and enabler because of his
refusal to fight back. Director Benjamin Haber Kamine elicits
persuasive performances from his actors, and keeps the proceedings
interesting, though a sharper focus on Ben's character might have made
for a better balance. Studio/Stage, 520 North Western Avenue, Los
Angeles; Wed.-Thurs., 8 p.m., Sun. Feb. 21 & 28, 8 p.m.; thru March
5 https://www.sharksanddancer.com/tickets (Neal Weaver)
NEW REVIEW TITUS ANDRONICUS
Photo by Kiff Scholl
Heads are chopped off. A woman, after being raped, has her hands
severed and tongue ripped away. Babies are impaled on knives. And, at a
special feast, a malicious woman is served her sons, baked in a pie.
Yes, here is proof (if needed) that Shakespeare could actually get
hired today as a staff writer for CSI: New York. Director
Thomas Craig Elliot's somber production of Shakespeare's epic of pulp
fiction possesses a murky, intimate mood that has you feeling like
you're watching atrocities unfolding in an urban back alley. The
creepy, almost claustrophobic tone is abetted by designer Erin
Brewster's calculatedly grubby set – brick walls, with shadowy
platforms full of mysterious dark pits and doorways. Roman noble Titus
Andronicus (Dan Mailley) returns to his home, triumphant after war with
the Goths, and helps to install oily politician Saturninus (Brad C.
Light) as emperor. Titus' reward for this? Saturninus humiliates him by
marrying Tamora (Sarah Lilly), the very same warrior queen whom
Andronicus just defeated and enslaved. Tamora's sons then rape and
mutilate Titus's daughter Lavinia (Erin Fleming). Titus then invites
Tamora and family over for a feast – at which revenge is served by the
pie-full. If anything, Elliot's production is slightly too
straightforward and contextually threadbare. Although the dialogue is
articulately rendered, the stagecraft is prosaic and unambitious – the
violence is strangely reigned in and the piece's omnipresent gloom and
grubbiness are simply not sensational enough to spark the horror the
play requires. Admittedly, Elliot commendably emphasizes
characterization, and the staging digs into the text to find
motivations for the coterie of increasingly heartless characters.
Lilly's elegantly wicked Tomara – shifting easily from graciously
sugary to venomously witchy – is a pleasure to watch, and so is Light's
dopey Saturninus – a greasy politician who turns out to be out of his
depth in the wickedness with which he's confronted. Mailley's stiff and
priggish turn during the play's first half is at first offputting, but
his gradual decline into rage and madness becomes compellingly
chilling. Theatre of Note, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood; Fri.-Sat.,
8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; thru March 13. (323) 856-8611.
https://theatreofnote.com (Paul Birchall)
NEW REVIEW GO TWELFTH NIGHT Why set Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
in the '80s? The clothes, mostly — the prankster Sir Toby Belch (Bill
Robertson) belongs in a Hawaiian shirt. It's also the decade where the
men of MTV, be they Boy George or Bret Michaels, slicked on lipgloss,
thus making shipwrecked maiden Viola's (Andrea Gwynnel Morgan) decision
to dress in male drag on trend. Viola, aka Cesario, loves Orsino
(William Mendieta), Orsino loves Olivia (Rebecca Angel), and Olivia
loves Cesario. But Aaron Morgan's likable staging gives equal weight to
drunken good time gang Belch, Maria (Anne Nemer), and Sebastian (Joseph
Baird) as they make mischief with dour Malvolio (Henning Fischer).
Casual and charming with an unexpected jolt of sexual energy when all
the couples are tidily paired, this production best finds its voice
when Feste the Jester (Devin J. Begley) grabs his guitar and croons
“Boys Don't Cry” in a timbre that mates Johnny Cash and Ian Curtis. At
this party, any love child is possible. Chrysalis Stage. Vic Lopez
Auditorium, 12417 E. Philadelphia St., Whittier; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.;
Sun., 7 p.m.; thru Feb. 21. (562) 212-1991. https://chrysalisstage.com
(Amy Nicholson)