The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble thankfully survives despite the pandemic, and as ever offers up quality examples of fine writing. Never once have I found their productions poor or mediocre.
Wakings continues that trend--a collection of four short pieces by Harold Pinter, Robert Coover, and Hermann Hesse,
All four seem to be very well directed by Ron Sossi, with a marvelous ensemble consisting of Ron Bottitta, Diana Cignoni, Kristina Ladagard, Darrell Larson, and C.J. O'Toole. Have seen a bunch of these in other plays, and been impressed. Add Pinter to the mix and I was excited.
I was not, quite, disappointed. Not quite. The idea, as expressed in the program (and pretty clearly onstage), was about...well, waking up to some new experience, a new state of being. In two cases this involved literally waking up from a very long sleep. The other two were more about a kind of enlightenment. More, the pieces in the order presented worked almost like a four-pronged ladder of consciousness, four chakras as it were.
Victoria Station by Harold Pinter shows an angry, frustrated Controller in a taxi company in London forced to deal with a Driver who pretty much seems insane, and (as a result) free, even happy. Said Controller goes into a feeling of intense, violent rage which leads him out of the tiny room into which he has been confined.
Rip Awake by Robert Coover is a one man show about a now-ancient Rip Van Winkle of the old Washington Irving story, who contemplates what he has lost by being asleep (not an subtle metaphor) and his realization what is left for him now.
A Kind of Alaska by Harold Pinter is the probably the longest piece. It is certainly the most complex in terms of plot. A teenage girl wakes up, her memory fuzzy and so her imagination filling in the very many holes. The man who seems so thrilled she is awake, he tries to break it gently she is now well into middle age. She both believes and does not believe him, just as she knows yet does not recognize her own sister. In the end, it is all too much and what can she do but sleep once more? But is that not in fact what we all must do, when life really get to be too much, and something wears away enough so that we "sleep perchance to dream"?
But Siddhartha by Herman Hesse shows an alternative, not sleep but wakefullness dialed up way past eleven to somewhere in the three or four figures.
Personally, I do not feel these four works "click" together. The first is so short methinks it belongs in an evening of very short plays, in which the audience becomes attuned to such. As it happens, we come in expected sonnets and the show begins with a haiku. Likewise the last, which consists of actors seeking to enact a change in consciousness sans any dialogue or action, ultimately feels unsuccessful.
Some ineffable nuance is missing, where and what I know not (which means this might be a reaction unique to myself--a very real possibility), preventing me from feeling the connection between all four works. I understood such intellectually. I cannot point to many specific problems. Quite the opposite! The individual pieces work fine. Somehow, though, these four did not gel for me personally. Despite the good performances in each of the four.
Wakings will play Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm until June 5, 2022 (with a special performance at 8pm on Wednesday May 25) at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90025.
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