Twelfth Night (burlesque)

Spoilers ahoy! 

I make no excuse for loving this particular play of Shakespeare's, easily my favorite of his comedies (and one I've seen dozens of times).  I also have zero problem with anyone deciding to "play" with the play, so long as what we get in the end works.

Toil and Trouble Burlesque's version of Twelfth Night does indeed work.  Sometimes I almost wept with laughter and a couple of times I nearly lost my breath.

Yes it is a burlesque.  Every single opportunity it seems for having somebody do a strip was seized upon (male and female).  More, since the venue is a bar they have a license that allows them to play/perform lots of popular music, which they do--weaving Kate Bush, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and Sira among many others, often with startling poignancy in such an overtly farcical show.

Same plot is essentially there--Viola (Kim Dalton) washes ashore in Illyria, believing wrongly her twin brother Sebastian (Alec Schiff) drowned, which he himself believes about her after he's rescued by a sexy pirate (Rehyan Rivera).  Somewhat rarely, these latter two are clearly portrayed as having a sexual fling going on.  Viola pretends to be a boy named Caesario who joins the service of Duke Orsino (Walt Gray IV) and gets the unenviable job of wooing the local Countess Olivia (Jessica Jones) on his behalf.  Olivia is mourning the loss of her brother (this is the first production ever I've seen that did something with this, how her story and Viola's have so much in common) (Reagan Osborne), but takes one look at Caesario and falls.  Hard.

Olivia's household includes her dour Steward Malvolio (Amir Levi), her maid Maria (Libby Letlow), her drunken kinsman Sir Toby Belch (Matt Pick), as well as his silly friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Daniel Krause)--this last portrayed with zero pathos which is one of my few criticisms of this gloriously fun production.

Rounding out the cast are the Fool Feste (Lily Anne Smith), one of the best Fools in all Shakespeare which is saying a lot.  Then there are a pair of maids in a series of fetchingly skimpy and sometimes kinky costumes (Angie Hobin, Kayla Emerson).

The plot is far more convoluted than I've hinted at here, but (as noted) explores quite a bit most productions don't.  For example, Viola begins to feel tempted by the Countess!  And Orsino is a tad confused in the end over who he finds more attractive--Viola or Sebastian!  More, I must applaud a production that makes zero attempt in even the slightest way to make the twins look like each other at all!  Not even their costumes have a single color in common!  And.  It.  Did.  Not.  Matter!

Honestly, this might well be my favorite production of Twelfth Night I've ever seen.  

Twelfth Night plays Saturdays in August at 7pm (the show itself starts at 8pm), i.e. Aug 19 and 26, 2023 at the Three Clubs Bar  1123 Vine St, Los Angeles, CA 90038, Los Angeles , CA.

Lonely At The Top (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

(Okay, to start with a few apologies for a delay in getting this review out. Let us say that a bout with some kind of intestinal bug, some dentist appointments, a power outage, two fumigations of my apartment building and a debilitating reaction to extreme heat are a reason, if not an excuse)

Lonely At The Top marks the second stylized farce presented in recent weeks at ZJU by Andy Shultz then co-directed by him and David Wyn Harris (who is also in the cast of this one).

Photo Credit:  Andy Shultz

Like The Bereaved, this play has a zany bunch of characters who essentially use the plot to swing onstage and dance around for our entertainment. This one, however, integrates the comedy and the story more precisely. In the 1950s, Hollywood is a land of moguls and wannabes, gumshoes and femme fatales. Amidst all these denizens walks Rex Fontana (Adam Neubaurer), famous private detective practically oozing self confidence along with liberal doses of sexism and paranoia.  The world's most famous movie director has been murdered, and Fontana is on the case!

And if you think this sounds like a souped up version of a Philip Marlowe murder mystery, you're not wrong. Just incomplete. Toss in some more tropes and truly bizarre details.  Like the rival movie director who likes to dance ballet in a tutu. Or the crime boss with a swarthy accent (trust me, somehow Harris manages to pull that off) or the amazingly over-the-top chanteuse as his club (Margaret Fitzgibbon Glaccum) who uses every single step and glance as a kind of show.

Photo Credit:  Andy Shultz

What's the result? Laughs! Really, when it comes to comedy, more than that hardly seems required. But to be sure the targets of the humor in this farce--as with the best--are not so much the specific characters and situations in the play, but our own tropes. Including our own assumptions! For example, with Fontana's constant assurances that "Dames don't commit murder" one really expects to learn the killer is indeed female. Yet when Fontana turns out to be right about his most outlandish beliefs, that undercuts out expectations quite nicely. We laugh at him, sure. But we also laugh at us. Likewise Glaccum's character is so attractive, so over-the-top alluring we fall for her a bit as well.  Again, we end up laughing at ourselves, at least by proxy.

Likewise I must praise the entire cast for the way they "sell" the absurdities of it all. Arguably this is what makes farce so genuinely difficult to pull off. It needs to be both heightened yet at least tentatively grounded, bigger than life but ultimately of life (albeit distorted, if recognizable). Shawn Davis, Casey Ellings, Doug Haverty, Vincent Miller, Marilou Rabahi Seaton and Alina Zhana pull it all off. No small feat!

Lonely At The Top has one more performance as of this writing. You can see it this Friday night at 8:30pm at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre Group 4850 Lankershim Blvd (just south of the NoHo sign, north of Camarillo) North Hollywood CA 91601. Tickets are $15 and worth every cent.

The Bereaved (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

The Bereaved is something new for ZJU--a Monday night show! Which makes plenty of sense when you think about it, because each performance really does only last one hour, making it weeknight friendly in terms of audience. Something to consider!

But how is the show itself?

In essence the whole thing is (quite literally, and deliberately) a dark farce. The Bereaved is around the funeral and memorial service of wealthy businessman Bruce Calhoun (Michael Dougherty). His widow and several former paramours are in attendance, along with friends (sort of) and the deceased's brother James (Jason Kientz). One sees the potential here immediately I trust? Well, happily there's more to it than that even!

There's a lot to list right with this production, including the script by Andy Shultz and the direction by David Wyn Harris along with Shultz. As mentioned before, the style is "farce" and I can tell you few such every work--mostly because of style. Even when the writing is spot on, most actors have had naturalism taught and re-taught so much the wild sense of over-the-top (but controlled) play that makes a farce work gets lost. At least in this country. Here however we have a funeral parlor director (Doug Haverty) who sometimes flirts with his...er...clients. And the Reverent Wells (Derrick Brooks) who doesn't quite realize whose funeral this is. Or Tiffany (Brenda Nascimento), hair stylist and diva--the latter harder to pull off than one might think, but she succeeds! Frankly, in the hands of a less talented cast many of these characters would come across as nought but a collection of personality quirks and ticks. Instead we get to have the pleasure of genuine (if bizarre) people.

And we laugh! Ultimately, this is the true test of any comedy! More, like most really high quality comedies, this play really functions much like a funhouse mirror. All these people are recognizably human, albeit distorted a bit and heightened enough to make it easier to chuckle. Neurotics, idiots, narcissists, etc.--they are all us, really. Sooner or later, and to be sure blown up into absurd dimensions, but the fact we laugh means we recognize them. Even the two gravediggers at the very start--blue collar workers with barely half a dozen lines between them--are recognizably people.

Kudos to both writer and cast, and to the director who brought them together!

The Bereaved plays Mondays at 8:30pm until July 27, 2015 at Zombie Joe's Underground Theater, 4850 Lankershim Blvd. (just south of the NoHo Sign), North Hollywood CA 91601. Tickets can be purchased at zombiejoes.com or by calling (818) 202-4120

Many Adventures of Don Juan (review)

Spoilers Ahoy!

Moliere is tricky to do. The 17th century French playwright rightly shines as one the greatest comic writers of all time, but the theater of his age was very different from that we know today, and given so much depends on the quality of the translation, many of his works don't get as much 'play.' A shame. The Many Adventures of Don Juan, one of Moliere's most scandalous works, has one more weekend of a sadly limited run at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre in North Hollywood.

Thankfully, this production gets it spot on! In fact the comic style melds quite nicely with the high-energy, often deeply irreverent style at ZJU. In this case, director Alex Walters creates a madcap, naughty and very funny 'world' that connects between the far-off Europe of three centuries past and our modern America.

Don Juan (Robert Walters) is the ultimate womanizing libertine, much to the despair of his silly manservant Sganarelle (Dorian Serna).  The nobleman celebrates his seduction and marriage of a nun, Donna Elvira (N.j. Ambonisye), who is furious over her abandonment. He doesn't care, but immediately plots his next crime--the kidnapping of a beautiful newlywed. This one at least doesn't come off as their boat capsizes, leading to some locals to rescue the pair, which in turn gives Don Juan the opportunity to cause a fuss over two different girls he promised to marry--presumably after meeting each the same day!

Photo: Adam Neubauer

Opera fans (the famous opera has the same source material as the play) might start recognizing some of the classic tale as the famous rake visits the tomb of the Commander (Jason Kaye) killed by Don Juan in the course of a previous escapade. He jokingly insists upon inviting the statue to dinner. When the statue nods his reply, the two flee in terror.

Not that Don Juan remains afraid long. He soon asserts all that was nothing but a trick of the light, in time to dazzle with compliments one of his creditors (Irwin Moskowitz) before sending the man on his way, sans payment.

Eventually of course--and who doesn't see this coming?--the Commander does indeed show up for dinner. Don Juan is slated for the lake of fire, and with every single plot twist we see how very much justice lies in this. And yeah, the play is a comedy! In fact, a very funny comedy!  All the actors (who make up quite an ensemble, all but two playing multiple parts) perform with flare and even elan. More they show the skill level to pull this off, not only in distinguishing their characters but making those characters hilarious! Nothing quite ruins a comedy than poor timing and I honestly didn't see a single gag that wasn't perfectly timed for the entire hour-long show! Just

Photo: Adam Neubauer

about impressive was how I understood every single word spoken!

Diction is a pet peeve of mine. Often even the best shows in Los Angeles (and elsewhere) suffer at least a tiny bit from slurred words or soft consonants so I have to strain to figure out what's said. Not this time! Each and every word ended up clear and sharp!

But honestly the whole show proved a tour-de-force for everyone. The whole ensemble including Tara Egnatios, Georgan George,  Amy Muszynski and Mariya Pesheva gave it their all and it shows! Even Kevin Van Cott's original music added to the whole dizzying fun of the piece. When you think about it, the subject matter doesn't really seem like it should be funny, does it? Yet I cannot emphasize how much I actually guffawed! Comedies can be instantly and clearly succeed or fail based on whether they get laughs. For this one, I had a hard time catching my breath sometimes! And a grin hardly ever left my face!

The Many Adventures of Don Juan plays Saturday May 23 at 8:30pm and Sunday May 24 at 3pm at Zombie Joes 4850 Lankershim Blvd. (across from KFC and just south of the NoHo sign), North Hollywood CA 91601. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at ZombieJoes.Tix.com.  Or call (818) 202-4120 for reservations.