The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon (review)

 Spoilers ahoy! 

For those who don't know, i.e. most folks who aren't actively involved in live theatre, a "two hander" is a play with only two characters.  

The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon is such a play, which handles the issues of building an entire full length work consisting almost entirely of conversations between two people with impressive skill.   

Rebecca Aleman (there is an accent on the last vowel but I don't know how to make that) is both the playwright and lead--a woman journalist named Paulina in a Latin American country not at all welcoming of either.  I don't know if her name comes from the character in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, but...maybe.  We meet Paulina as Rodrigo (Eric K. Roberts), a younger Anglo-seeming man, brings her into a bedroom via wheelchair.  He smoothly and expertly helps her into bed, goes through exercises to help her remember how to read and speak.  She can barely use one hand.  The all but silent first five minutes of the play sets the atmosphere and rhythms with which we will spend the next ninety.  Every gesture, word, glance, almost every breath seems to convey meaning as we try and figure out the story here.

That story is heart-wrenching.

Seamlessly the play jumps over time--well, not so much jumps as almost seamlessly glides.  Paulina gets better, amid dreams and fragments of memory we hear but do not see--with Laura Crotte, Sofia Ybarra, and Miguel Nunez providing voices of these shreds of history bubbling up to the surface.

All the while the back walls of the set project simple but beautiful images which offer hints--as well as text!  Every line in Spanish appears as an English subtitle (or maybe uptitle) above the action, while every line in English appears in Spanish!  Honestly, I loved that, on so many levels, and not just for allowing me to precisely understand every line (honestly, I've attending bilingual shows before now--and it is startling how understandable things became).  Paulina is a writer, first and foremost.  Seeing the play not only spoken but written proved a startling as well as moving event, one which still makes me shiver.

Ultimately, this play chronicles not just a seriously wounded woman clawing back to her own memories, her own self (on so many levels) but re-discovering and even re-defining her relationship with Rodrigo--including why she is here, in a private home, rather than a professional health facility.

Hint--for her own safety.

All that she discovers we anticipate, but never completely.  Surprises abound, some touching, others horror-soaked, others complex, and some breath-taking.  It amounts to a profound tour-de-force of storytelling, a concentration that seems totally theatrical as opposed to cinematic in any way.  Its topicality adds to the power of this production, a tall order since half the time I was holding my breath and feeling genuine terror about what the truth of this story would prove to be.  

The Delicate Tears of the Waning Moon plays Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 4 p.m. until May 25, 20.25 at The Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles CA 90013.  It is a joint production by the Latino Theatre Company here is Los Angeles and the Water People Theater in Chicago.

Battlesong of Boedica 2023 (review)

 Spoilers ahoy!

(and lots of misspelling of the name "Boudica")

First mounted for the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2022, Battlesong of Boedica impressed me so much I put it on my "Top Ten" for that year.  It has been remounted, and my short review comes down to one sentence:

They did it even better!

If you don't know, Boedica was a Queen (or War Chieftan) of a Celtic tribe in Britain during the reign of Nero.  Faced with oppression more than she and her people will tolerate, she raised tribes in revolt, destroying London then slaughtering hordes of Romans until at last falling in battle.  The stuff of great story-telling, indeed.  More, though, in this case that story is told with all the matter of theatre one could hope for.  Dance plays a major role, as do masks (telling of course how ALL the Romans wear them, while the Britains do only rarely).  Combat itself becomes a dance, while the raw theatricality of it all keeps growing and growing.  At one point, Boedica herself (Jen Albert) dares to summon a Goddess of Battle, brought to more-than-life in a uniquely theatrical manner (and btw better than anything Weta Workshop or CGI could ever hope).  

What I describe sounds like spectacle, and indeed this show is that and more.  Be warned--plenty of violence, some extremely gruesome, some of it frankly triggering (the worst, thank all the gods, off stage--yet just as horrific).  

Yet without a story full of real people, what's the point?  Boedica begins as a harshly practical ally of Rome, having to persuade her husband Prasutaugus (Daniel Admonian) to put up with the company of a Roman Governor.  But in the wake of her husband's death in battle, fighting Druids in the name of "civilization" which kills its own citizens for sport, Boedica's home is looted, herself literally whipped and her daughters sexually assaulted.  

And war erupts.  I want to emphasize how almost every named character, from the Roman officials in their careless arrogance to Boedica's daughters who embrace yet sometimes question their mother's quest, even to relatively minor characters like a Celt challenger to Boedica's leadership, the young warrior in love with one of the Chieftan's daughters, the official looking at the wreck of all he believed permanent and inviolate, all have individual arcs, all we see live emotional truths--see and recognize those truths (in once instance, startlingly funny). 

The consistency of all this earns kudos to the writer/director Christopher William Johnson, as well as the entire cast--Christopher Neiman, Tristan Rewald, Dawn Alden, Allegra Rodriquez Shivers, Colin A. Borden, Lucy Schmidt, Tom Block, Jack TenBarge, Payton Cella, Jesse James Thomas, Sara Gorsky, Frank Tirimacco, Brad. D. Light, and Dan Wingard.  All to this Chloe Madriaga who accompanies the entire show with drum and other percussions.

More than Lord of the Rings and the entire Star Wars saga, more than Game of Thrones this grand performance deserves the epitaph "epic" not least because it stirs the imagination the way film almost never can.  I actually found myself moving in rhyme and rhythm with the the dance of war.  Likewise the hair on my skin rose more than once, and I tasted the despair of both the Romans and the Celts as each approached their doom.

And one leaves the theatre, remembering Boedica.  As one should.

Battlesong of Boedica plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm until April 29, 2023 at the Hudson Backstage, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90038.

Content warning -- Blood violence, whipping, suicide, depiction of animal sacrifice and verbal description of sexual assault.

Demonic Housewives (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

As I write this Demonic Housewives has only three performances to go, barring a revival (which I would not dismiss out of hand).  Should you go see it?

Well, it depends on your taste.  Do you have a somewhat dark sense of humor?  Does a story of a small town secretly ruled by a cabal of satanist housewives sound like fun to  you?  What about a pair of goth girls trying to destroy an evil talisman?  Did you enjoy the t.v. show Monsters? Tales from the Dark Side? How about Tales from the Crypt?

Because that is the kind of show this is.  Silly, fun, oddly touching in a way, not taking itself too seriously.  It all takes place in the town of Hobsville ("Hob" is an ancient name for the devil), where Wanda (Lee Quarrie) tries to work some dangerous ritual magic and ends up a pile of ashes for her trouble.

Hey, I did warn  you about spoilers!  I did!

Credit: Adam Neubauer

We soon meet the rest of cast, staring with a trio of gossips named Lucille (Anne Westcott), Ethel (Aubry Manning) and Bertha (Suzie Heaton). In a way, the whole play is about three sets of three, each a center of some kind of power.

The satanic coven consists of the local preacher's wife Millicent (Redetha Deason), her dim friend Peggy (Beth Fisher) and new recruit--naive, unemployed teacher Kim (Monet Hendricks).  This latter has no idea what she's gotten into, nor how ruthless Millicent can be.

Finally there's an ersatz trio, of Wanda niece Darcy (Lara Fisher), the only member of the family who comes to settle the late occultist's things, with her in-your-face best friend RAE (Caitlin McCormick).  Later these two are joined by the ghost of Wanda, in efforts to somehow destroy a magic talisman that could release a horde of demons held captive.  Opposing them are Millicent's coven, who seek to help the demons escape!

Credit: Adam Neubauer

Amid all of this hilarity--and it is hilarity, taken with just about as much seriousness as the Ghostbusters--the show has a violinist (Elif Savas) and cellist (Jennifer Novak Chun) offering musical accompaniment to events.  Don't know if that was in Thomas J. Misuraca's script or emerged from director Sebastian Munoz' mind, but it works!

Now, as you've hopefully gathered from this review Demonic Housewives is an entertaining comedy poking fun at religion and some of the tropes of the horror genre, well-acted and generally performed with a lot of energy.  Well and good, because it is all that.  Let me add however it is also an intensely clever work, in many ways. For one thing, how refreshing to see a play on this subject entirely about women!  Consider the works of H.P.Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch and Richard Matheson when you ask why that might be refreshing. Second, there's an underlying wit to the the whole story--the intersecting triads of power for example, which is too pervasive to be anything but deliberate, and also the clever way the play's ending remains deliciously, ominously "open."  Tribute to the fact the best comedies are more than a string of punchlines strung together into something resembling a plot.  Here, the plot and characters themselves are part of the humor, not least because one can easily see this same story told "straight" as a horror movie (probably on Lifetime).

A fine inaugural show for Force of Nature Productions--a wonderfully crafted blend of humor and horror, written cleverly and performed with comedic skill.

Demonic Housewives plays Thursdays at 8pm and Sundays at 7pm until May 1, 2016 at the Archway Theatre, 10509 Burbank Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 9160.

A Gulag Mouse (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

The word "Gulag" refers to the brutal forced labor prison camps of Siberia used by the former Soviet Union. Under the circumstances one might expect a play titled A Gulag Mouse to be quite grim. Nor would you be wrong!  Playwright Arthur M. Jolly took one of the worse places human beings can exist and crafted an extraordinary story from that place. A tale of five women trapped, desperate, hungry, angry, terrified and also terribly alone--even when surrounded by others in the same situation.

Anastasia (Emily Goss) has had a relatively privileged life.  Note that word "relatively."  Because at the end of the second world war, faced with her war hero husband entering her life once more, she killed him.

Sentenced to the Gulag, she soon meets the other prisoners in a windy wooden shack.  Masha (Kimberly Atkinson), big and tough and perfectly willing to hurt others out of spite--who weirdly (or not) feels she belongs here. Lubov (Heather L. Tyler), once much prettier than she is now but with enough looks to degrade herself with an officer, thus suffering less in some ways--an unforgivable offense in some eyes.  Svetlana (Crystal Keith) has seemingly turned all her emotions 'off' in order to survive. No malice there, but no compassion.  Or is there?  Then there is Prushka (Dana DeRuyck), sentenced to ten years for telling a joke she refuses to repeat, who has the nickname "Mouse."

There's a clue there if you pick up on it.  I did not.  I usually do.

But picking up clues rapidly give way as the story unfolds, as the fierce, unofficial but merciless rules the Gulag play themselves out.  There is never enough food.  Weakness brings instant attention. They are trapped in a frozen wilderness dozens of miles from shelter, surrounded by guards and dogs.  Only the strong survive here to be released.  Few prove that strong.

And yet--what is strength?  How do you measure power when everything conspires to keep you weak? How far might anyone go? How much will they risk?

I will frankly say this play surprised me throughout--which remains one of my favorite experiences in theatre.  Everything made sense, though.  As time went on, and new surprises emerged, the importance of so many tiny details became increasingly vivid. But the script is dead words without the actor.  Every single person in the show proved a marvelous actor, up to and including Brandon Bales in the double role of Evgeny and Ivanov, both small yet utterly vital.  Director Danielle Ozymandias likewise achieved marvels.  First and foremost she cast the play!  I know from experience that is three quarters of the job and she did that part magnificently!

But more--and this oddly enough is where many directors do sometimes fall--she clearly kept the pace right.  Rhythm is weirdly important in life as well as art, and even the business of maintaining tension amid silence forms a huge part of that.  It engages us on a visceral level, breathing life into what is frankly a truly extraordinary set of words strung together.  This is a performance that will remain with you, I promise.

A Gulag Mouse plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm through May 21, 2016.  Extra performances are Thursday April 28 at 8pm, Sundays May 8 and 15 at 7pm at the new Sacred Fools Theater Black Box, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd. (at Lillian).

LA Women's Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark not only remains one of Shakespeare's most famous works, but one of the most challenging. For an almost startling number of reasons! Many go unnoticed unless (like yours truly) one has seen many productions of differing styles and quality.

The Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company just premiered a production. I've never seen a show of theirs before now, sorry to say. Having watched this, I'm even sorrier to have missed earlier shows! A major conceit of this company lies in an all-female cast, with male parts (Edwin Drood-like) played by male impersonators, i.e. women in drag. Not in any campy way, but simply in a reversal of how they did theatre in Shakespeare's day--with men (or boys) playing the women's roles. Some folks react badly to such, whereas to me this counts as a style. Ditto the non-traditional casting, i.e. ignoring ethnicity. Seems to me this production did exactly the right thing in such casting. I've seen plenty of Shakespeare productions do as much, and nearly always it worked when the performance pretty much ignored ethnicity altogether. Audiences accept a lot. If the cast simply does something, most of the time the audience follows suit. After all, people don't speak in iambic pentameter! Neither do they routinely stand in such a way as to be visible to people sitting in one end of every single room!

Okay, enough of pontificating about other performances! How was this one?

Something of mixed bag, but far less mixed than usual! Mostly quite good--and in startling ways! I really want to offer up a lot of praise for Natsuko Ohama who plays Polonius. Not until reading through the program did I realize she's also the co-director of this production. And not until I did a search to find her website did my jaw drop as I realize why she looked familiar! Quite simply, she was a regular on a favorite televisions series, Forever Knight. But more to the point, she is the second best Polonius I've ever seen (the best was Ian Holm). And Polonius is the single most difficult character in a play riddled with traps and difficult characters (an acting coach once insisted to me we don't have the final draft of Hamlet for that very reason). Better than nine times out of ten, Polonius ends up as a comic relief, played as an elderly clown. In this production, Ohama's performance shows exactly why that's a mistake. Suddenly, Ophelia's and Laertes' reaction to his death is shared by the audience! Yes, sometimes Polonius is funny, not least because the man does like to hear himself talk and he's old enough now and then he loses his train of thought. But he himself is not a joke. Polonius is wise, active, capable of admitting a mistake (amazing, that)

and for this among other things commands the respect of virtually every other character in the play! In fact, one can point out the biggest mistake Hamlet makes in the whole story is not trusting Polonius from the very start.

Likewise, Cynthia Beckert's Laertes (the second most difficult part in the play, so say I) makes total sense now, simply because his relationship with Polonius is based not simply familial love but genuine respect and admiration. This is no boy enraged at a personal loss, but that enraged boy who knows (as does everyone) what a very fine and good man has been murdered. Ditto Chastity Dotson as Ophelia! The specificity of her performance completely grabbed my heart as I (rightly or wrongly) came away with a precise idea of what is going on inside Ophelia's tortured soul. Lawrence Olivier famously answered the question "Did Hamlet and Ophelia sleep together?" with the (very funny) "Yes...on tour." But my measurement of Ophelia tends to be whether I know the answer to that question. Or think I do. In this case, the whole story of this young lady's tangled feelings for her brother, her father and her paramour, even for herself, bled out onto the stage.

I can offer lots of other praise for many details in this production, including the high quality sets and costumes, the very cunning expedient of making one of the notoriously difficult-to-distinguish pair Rosencranz and Guildenstern female (including--no small thing--treating the character as female in that milieu), the overall quality of the cast (very high indeed) or even the seemingly minor detail of having people cross themselves correctly (how odd this is

so rare!). But I called this performance 'mixed' and I should justify that.

First, the stage combat didn't work. It looked seriously under-rehearsed, because the essential actions themselves seemed just fine. Above average at least! But the actors (the same two) moved too slowly and with not near enough assurance to look like a real fight.

Second, this production over-used the Ghost. Not much, but putting the Ghost of Hamlet's father into scenes where the playwright did not (however briefly) can be problematical and in this case didn't work.

Both of those seem barely qualifying of critiques, maybe. True enough. I've little to complain about at all. A few moments here and there I thought could use some work. Here however I will come to a subtle but pervasive problem.

Hamlet, as played by Lisa Wolpe (who also co-directed). I find myself wondering if the fact she directed herself had something to do with what I have to say. The rest of the cast did such a splendid job overall! But that creates the wrong impression, as if Wolpe did a poor performance. Not at all! But it did prove an uneven one. Quite startlingly so--because between Hamlet's first and last scenes with the Ghost (on the castle parapet, then in the Queen's chamber) this was a vivid, poignant and in his own way powerful Hamlet. Every actor who takes on this role needs to make it their own. Wolpe made a choice I've never seen before--and kudos for that alone! Her Hamlet is...well...weak. Not a bad person, but less strong than a future king really should be, and he cracks under what is simply Too Much. Too much confusion over his father's death and mother's remarriage. Too much resentment over the same,

coupled with the frustrations over his longing for Ophelia. Finding out there's life after death, that his father was murdered and now suffers in Purgatory, followed by one lie after another from those he cares about (his contemporaries, all--like many young men he simply doesn't look to his elders for wisdom or advice). This Hamlet pretends to be mad, but doesn't have to pretend much. He's suffering from a kind of breakdown, and Wolpe shows us this in ways that touch the heart and involve the mind.

But no so much at the very start. At the very beginning this Hamlet seems a cypher. Mind you, the more Wolpe acts with other members of the cast the better and more powerful her every moment. Which is to say she's better doing scenes than soliliquies. Okay.

More frustrating (but still--anything but bad) is when Hamlet returns from abroad, having escaped a piece of treachery by arranging the legal murder of two (former?) friends then going through a battle at sea. The confusion vanishes. Instead of melancholy, we see a razor-like serenity and focus. He's gone from someone who listens to the Dead in terror and rage to a man contemplated the skull of a beloved childhood companion, asking questions without any fierce demand for answers. Ophelia's death moves him to an outburst, but instead of wallowing he realizes almost immediately he's in the wrong, forthrightly and with minimum drama. "Readiness is all," he says. Here lies the heart of who Hamlet has become. Now, he is ready. Knows it. Proceeds with the end of this tale, eyes open and head up, unafraid and resolute. But where did this change take place? And why? Frankly this seems to me the greatest single challenge of the part. Wolpe doesn't quite answer that question for me. She does the middle Hamlet, the tormented young man bubbling over with passions he doesn't understand, extremely well. Her beginning Hamlet is straightforward, real, uninspired but totally believable. Her end Hamlet, though, lacks the power of her Middle.

Which is a nuance. That I 'complain' about such a nuance actually testifies how good this production is overall. I recommend it highly, and say publically it compares well with some of the very best Hamlets I myself have seen (like Kevin Kline's and David Tenant's), and far exceeds others (Mel Gibson's and Richard Chamberlain's).

The Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark plays through October 27, 2013 at the Odyssey Theatre at 2055 Sepulveda, Los Angeles CA 90025 (310) 477-2055.