Beatnik Girl (review)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

I am genuinely sorry it took me so long to see this play at Theatre40 in Beverly Hills. Beatnik Girl by my friend Leda Siskind has closed, but I hope this was only the first of many productions.

This show, directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky, centers around a character named Edie Gordon (Rebecca Del Santo) an aspiring poet and writer in 1950s New York, the era of the beatniks.  Here was the nascent beginning of what eventually became the wave of change and reform which led to the Sixties, the Civil Rights Movement, Watergate, and the ongoing struggles against modern misogyny, anti-semitism, and a suffocating sense of conformity.  Edie faces pretty much all of the above, enduring some harrowing relationships and events before emerging as a confident voice of the era.

What I most want to impress upon everyone was how this production ultimately sucked me into the era.  In fact, as the show ended and the top notch cast took their bows, I did not applaud.  Rather I snapped my fingers, in tune with that period, not because of any attempt to compliment, but because it felt so very natural to do so.  

No small feat!

The entire cast contributed to this effect, but apart from Del Santo I especially want to call attention to Andrea Goones who played four very different characters with great skill, but mostly the really meaty part of Nadie, Edie's neighbor and best friend.  Her trajectory formed a lot of the spine of what was happening, not least for her charming but frustrating innocence, with a support system too small as well as not nearly skilled enough for what she was going through.  Edie, despite  her highs and lows, remained forever a portrait of someone gathering strength.  Nadine needed more help.  Sadly, she simply did not get it, and in the end she haunted me the most.

Steven Dawn Hart played three roles, and while his parts were smaller he infused each one with a sense of full humanity (even the total *ssw*p* jerk). 

Rounding off the cast were Bradley James Holzer and Alex Seycurka playing some important supporting roles, both achieving a realism I increasingly accepted on a visceral level (hence the above "snapping").

Plus, this play solves a wonderful technical problem about any play that focuses so much one one character--Edie--that we need to change the sets and costumes over and over again.  The danger is always of losing momentum as the action seems to stop.  This show's solution (built into the script) is to have a sax player on stage, offering live music to transition not only between scenes but between our present and the year 1957.   In this production the performer serving such a vital function was Adam Zilberman.

I felt absolutely transported into another time, another place, surrounded by characters whose complexity felt almost disturbingly real.  My deep hope is many another production will follow.

Theatre Forty is at 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills CA 90212 (and has plenty of parking).

I'll Be With You Shortly (review)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

Carrie (Alexis C. Martino) walks into an office, disoriented as the last thing she remembers is a car accident.  She rapidly figures out the most salient detail--she is dead.  What she doesn't know--her precise location now.  It looks like a reception room.  And a smiling lady (Rebecca O'Brien) who points her to a chair and says "Have a seat.  I'll be with you shortly."

So begins I'll Be With You Shortly by Michael Merton,  with the charming and appropriate tagline "Welcome to the Afterlife.  Take a number."

At this point you might have some idea of what kind of play-length sketch one might expect with this setup.  Most will be pleasantly surprised.  Because while Carrie has some time to wait--even after being told there is no Time--we do not remain with her.  Nor do we find out much about the rest of the Afterlife.  We learn a little.  Not much.  Mostly we get glimpses of what is still going on in this, the living world.  We meet a variety of interesting characters, about half of whom will be entering the same waiting room sooner rather than later.  Disease, murder, accident, and old age--they run the gamut of why.  Curiously, teh mystery that builds is why Carrie remains while everyone else is pointed to the escalators up or down.  She feels this unfair, very much so.  Even when the smiling lady points out the alternative to being here might be very, very unpleasant indeed.  Instead she's made to wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.

Carol Becker's direction feels spot on, as the gentle absurdity of everything manages to combine humor with some real pathos, some darkness, a bit of tragedy, some hope as well as some despair.  Frankly this play--which for the record is exactly my kind of jam--feels tricky.  But that is something which came to me later.  While watching and listening, taking in the moments offered by the cast and crew before me, I felt drawn in to every set of characters and each situation.  That is not easy.  But she and her people threaded those needles very well.

From a crazy old cat lady attempting to "fire" her son from being her son, to the straight guy at a gay wedding learning an important life lesson, the beleaguered but startlingly optimistic cop, and the hiring of a hit man which goes south in a borderline spectacular manner, the ensemble of Janet Hoskins, Debra Kay Lee, Jerry Weil, Jason Paul Evans, Patrick Thofson, Amanda Lynne, Alex De Rita, Nick Benson, Brittany De Leon, Andrea Sojo, Andrew Neaves, and Jessica Dowdeswell pull it all together into ninety minutes of laughs and sighs, of shocks plus a few grim thoughts here and there.  

For the record, the night I saw this show  Joan Kubicek went on, and I did not realize she was an understudy.  So brava!

I'll Be With You Shortly from the NeoEnsemble plays Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 8 p.m. until November  7, 2024 at The Loft Ensemble Theatre, 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood, CA 91602.

Disclaimer:  I know and am friends with several persons involved in this production.  

Lunatics and Actors (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Okay that warning is a little bit of a lie.  I'm going to spoil the show Lunatics & Actors as little as possible while writing this review.  My hope remains strong that audience members -- and this show deserves a great many such -- will come fresh to the experience and have their minds blown.

As mine was.

Honestly, I've never seen a single show from 4 Clowns I did not enjoy immensely, this one certainly not an exception.  More, no two of shows presented have resembled each other in the least, yet remained clearly the result of a similar point of view -- an exploration of the human condition eyes open to the pettiness and horror one may find therein, yet willing to laugh, to find hope, to ask questions rather than present answers, and forever to entertain while sharing all of the above.

Credit: Elena Flores

With luck, this comes across as the praise it is intended to be!

Stepping into the theatre to see this performance, one has a vivid yet not-easily-identified sense of place and time.  That odd disconnect nine times out of ten emerges from imprecision.  Here, one of those tenth times, it proves the exact opposite.  But even now I cannot tell precisely where we were, except itself.  Very much itself! Perhaps a dream, or an ersatz laboratory from another age, a steampunk asylum found in some alternate timeline.  All of the above and neither? 

Almost immediately we meet a Dr. Duchene (Thaddeus Shafer) who purports to have learned the mechanism of the human mind and emotion. Smiling in his antique garb and somehow fiercely precise way, the good (?) Doctor promises a demonstration. 

Credit: Elena Flores

Very soon we meet his assistants for the evening: Bon Bon (Tyler Bremer), Fifi (Alexis Jones) and Pepe (Andrew Aldredge). Assistants they prove, since they do in fact assist him, but one might well presume the three might also deserve the title "patients."

Might. Probably do. Then again I'm not completely sure Dr. Duchene is really a doctor.

Of his passion for this, his work, however we can have no doubt. Just as the truth of the emotions explored in the demonstration likewise leave little room for doubt. Ironic that--since every person on stage is an actor, which brings up the title. What after all is a Lunatic, really? What for that matter is an Actor? Is there a difference? Should there be? Who decides? 

Again, I don't want to spoil the performance, but I can promise a intriguing odyssey on many levels -- some emotional, others artistic (along with one of the most interesting performances of Hamlet you're ever likely to see) and many philosophical. Philosophy such as metaphysics, as well as epistemology, and yes, ethics. All of it startling, sometimes chilling, very often funny, frequently disturbing and for nearly every single second compelling. 

Lunatics and Actors by David Bridel, directed by Jeremy Aluma, plays Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm through May 28, 2016 at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, 1238 W. 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90026.

Much Ado About Nothing (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre Group likes to do Shakespeare.  Sometimes straight.  Sometimes on some kind of probably illegal substance.  Much Ado About Nothing (running through December 2) emerges as the former.  One of the Bard's four big comedies (the others being As You Like It, Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew), this one was made into a very good film some years back starring then-married couple Kenneth Branaugh and Emma Thompson.

Therein demonstrates a key to the play and making it work.  You need a good set to play the primary romantic leads.  Beatrice and Benedick are mismatched lovers, but with a refreshingly realistic (also hilarious) obstacle to their united bliss.

They hate each other.

Or, more accurately, they are each far too witty and too sure of themselves to let the other get away with anything.  Every conversation has become notorious among their many mutual friends for turning into fencing matches with their tongues.  And so their friends, led by Don Pedro (Gino Costabile), resolve to trick them into falling in love.  It works, amid some lovely set pieces involving overheard conversations and misunderstandings.  But if we don't believe these two as a couple, the whole thing collapses.

Fortunately, that proves no problem.  Jennifer Kenyon and Amir Khalighi capture these two with all the intelligence and foolishness, the passion and arrogance one could ask.  These two are precursors of Sam and Diane, Batman and Catwoman, Rhett and Scarlett--couples that go at each other tooth and claw, mostly because in the end how else does a strong person find a mate? They long for an equal.  So it becomes a matter of who survives the contest.  Beatrice and Benedick begin with sneers, contempt, public declarations of insult after insult.  Reminds one of kindergarden, really.  And they are in perfect counterpoint to the younger couple of the play--Claudio (Philip Rodriguez) and Hero (Stefanie Ogden), a pair of nice stupid kids whose angst-strewn drama touches on sex, politics, deceit, humiliation, the threat of death, etc.  Yet their story remains totally upstaged by Beatrice and Benedick.  Indeed, imagine for a moment the play without the two slightly older lovers and it seems so bland!  Despite all the props of drama!  Because the characters remain all important.  Their reactions to each other would eclipse a minor war.  At least that is how they're written.

Kenyon has in some ways the toughest scene, when she overhears a staged conversation about how Benedick loves her to the point of becoming sick.  Yet also, so they say, no one will tell her because they think so highly of him and will not subject their friend to the pain of her rejection.  She has little time and few lines to change her tune, declaring this love shall be requited.  But we won't accept it if we didn't sense something of that before hand.  Which we do!  Khalighi on the other hand gets more time to convince himself, which turns into quite the nice comic monologue.  In fact he gets several, plus the more dramatic scenes.  One really important moment in the play, which we must believe or it just doesn't work, comes a little over halfway.  Claudio, deceived as to his fiancee Hero's virtue, denounces her publicly in the Church where they are to be wed.  Beatrice demands Benedick, who has declared himself in love with her, kill his good friend Claudio.  When Benedick agrees, that's when the whole play deepens.  He loves her.  For real.  And will kill a man, a friend, on her say-so.  Nice?  No.  But real.  And passionate.  And a fine comparison to the young, pleasing, naive and jealous idiot Claudio whom we see early on jumps to easy conclusions.  Not so wise as Benedick.  Under the same circumstances, Benedick one feels would remain loyal.  Demand far more proof.  Instantly suspect the accuser.

One suspects this is a story of Romeo and Juliet if they each had an old and wiser sibling, who in turn also fell in love and managed to prevent the tragedy.

The overall production itself is remarkably fast and lean.  Every trace of fat has seen an editing pencil, while the tone ends up rather frenzied and veering towards comedia del arte.  But not quite there.  Never seen this play done quite such a manner, but the proof is in the pudding--I was both moved and I laughed.  Nor was I alone.  Some nuances got lost, even opportunities for humor amid the steady and quick pace.  But then, there's never a perfect production of any play.  Every one must make choices.  I'll admit a bit of opening night jitters showed up in the first few minutes but they evaporated before long so I suspect subsequent performances will get even better.

But one curious thing also popped up.  This play contains one of Shakespeare's very best Fools, not least because Dogberry doesn't actually have that job.  He is no jester, at least not knowingly.  He instead is an official, the equivalent of a small town sheriff.  But so full of himself, so charmingly lazy but good-hearted, so earnest in his duty while so ridiculous of pretension he makes for arguably the third most coveted part in the play.  Here lies the odd thing.  Nicholas Thurkettle who plays Dogberry, frankly hams it up.  Well, this part can work with that, but I didn't feel he quite hit all the marks.  Make no mistake, he was still funny and the laughs involving the character grew as he appeared on stage.  But at least at first he wasn't so much a character as a collection of quirks.  Yet the same actor played a second role, a small but pivotal role of Friar Francis who comes up with the scheme by which all is ultimately made well.  This is precisely the kind of part Shakespeare's plays abound with--small, important, all too often given to lesser members of the company.  Yet Thurkettle did this part splendidly!  He outlines a subtle plan onstage using the heightened language of the Bard, does so with skill and such simple honesty for a few moments he upstaged everyone!  Kudos to him!  Yet his Dogberry qualifies as almost a misfire.  Almost.  Not quite the correct note.  He was funny, but I didn't care about him.  I always cared about Dogberry before in some weird quirky way.  But--a good actor.  Demonstrably so.  And he accomplished the most important thing about Dogberry--made us laugh at the antics and speech of this odd, worthy Fool who ultimately saves the day.  So kudos again!

Much Ado About Nothing plays Sundays at 7pm October 14 through December 2, 2012 at 4850 Lankershem Blvd, North Hollywood (818) 202-4120.  Directed by Denise Devin (who also did the same company's very fine Hamlet earlier this year). All Photo Credit: Denise Devin & Zombie Joe