Cabaret Macabre (review)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

The last show I reviewed prior to start of the pandemic was an earlier iteration of this very burlesque, at the same venue.

Cabaret Macabre at ZJU consists of a series of dance pieces, most of them ensemble in some way (with some dazzling, disturbing solos) with a very gothic sensibility and sense of humor.  Under the direction/choreography of Brittany DeWeese, the entire cast offers a real tour-de-force not only of dance skill, but acting, and integrating both together.  This makes for no small feet!

Previous viewers of this show will probably recognize two pieces which have been done before--a triangle of preaching and temptation involving a preacher and two women (one of whom might be a lesbian succubus, maybe kinda/sorta), and the wonderful tangle of danger coupled with sensuality titled simply "Poison" (to a personal favorite tune).  

There are so many wonderful things I could try and describe about this show, the naughty hautiness of the our mistress-of-ceremonies, the ballerina whose insane smile hints at her spider-esque contortionist skills, the amazingly spooky solo between a dancer and a shadow, all done to a slew a songs such as "These Boots Are Made for Walking" and "Hotel California".  In fact I just did that.  Just as I will praise all the cast:  Michael Baker, Suzette Labra, Elle Martinez, Samantha Steiniger, Darian Stranix, and Bailey Swogger.

But the bottom line remains this is an amazing one hour show for anyone with an appreciation for dance and a wicked sense of humor.  I took a friend when seeing it this time, someone who's fairly new to Los Angeles.  He was dazzled, amazed, and delighted.

Odds are your reaction will be the same.

Cabaret Macabre plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30pm until May 28, 2022 at ZJU Theatre Group, 4850 Lankershim, North Hollywood CA 91601.

Blood Alley (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

I imagine when theatre goers hear the name "Zombie Joes" among the things coming to mind are words like "edgy" "dark" "disturbing".  More than anything else, this demonstrates a success in marketing a brand.  ZJU remains open and producing original works for decades.  One reason is that very success in letting the audience know what to expect.

At the same time, Blood Alley offers us an example of taking that brand to the extreme.  Even more than the company's (often brilliant, certainly wildly popular) signature show Urban Death, this one pushes boundaries.  I've often called theatre at this venue "theatre of dreams" because it captures a sense of watching/participating in a dream.  Sometimes those dreams are nightmares.

This one certainly qualifies as a nightmare.  Lots of nightmares.  So much so I feel trigger warnings might be appropriate.  Anyone who has recently been the victim of any violence, especially sexual violence, might want to reconsider seeing this work. It aims to disturb, with all the power of a Dionysian ritual in Ancient Greece--and succeeds!

Credit: ZJU

Much of what the (fearless) cast produces under the direction of Zombie Joe gets under your skin.  Sometimes for reasons obvious, but other times strangely covert. Distortion, fear, a sense of decadence or subtle madness permeate many of the vignettes making up the experience.  In fact there's relatively little actual violence enacted during the hour-long performance.  What we do see is often brief, but vivid.

Sometimes it is also very simple.  Like the suitcase.  You'll find out what I mean if you go.

Or just a turnabout in ways we don't expect--a weirdly un-erotic fully nude dance which involves distortion, first by a lovely woman then a fairly handsome young man. 

Fortunately there's also some humor.  A good thing, because some release from the tension was frankly needed.  Part of the humor arose from musician Kevin Van Cott as a policeman (interestingly, outfitted as a London Bobby) who is freaking out over what he's seen or heard of this place--Blood Alley.  As far as the title goes, I immediately thought of Harry Potter's Diagon Alley but where all the dark things go and fester, where fears and neuroses scuttle amid the shadows and debris, and hungers we don't like to admit we feel emerge.

Credit: ZJU

To give an example of what this show entails, it contained the most harrowing rape I've ever seen on stage.  What made it most powerful was how Ian Heath in effect assaulted Charlotte Bjornbak via telekinesis or remote control.  They never even touched!  But my own flesh crawled.

And likewise it proved fascinating whenever the performance ventured into sexuality--be it lesbian make-out session or the strutting of some artfully posing streetwalkers (Daniel Palma, Elif Savas, Allison Fogarty, and Cassie Carpenter) that sexuality never ventures into the erotic.  Sex without pleasure, or even the hint of pleasure!

Credit: ZJU

Theatre of Nightmares.  As in waking up in a cold sweat...

I don't want to describe any more of what happens, since that might rob this amazing show of its impact, but let again praise the very brave performers--especially those not yet mentioned by name:  Liliane Laborde-Edozien, Kelly Powers,  Adam Shows,  and Alex G-Smith.  An excessively brave cast this!

Blood Alley plays at 11pm Fridays and Saturdays until April 9, 2016 at Zombie Joes, 4850 Lankershim Blvd. (just south of the NoHo sign) North Hollywood CA 91601.

Sex & Love in the Modern Age (review)

 Spoilers Ahoy!

This review has come late, and for that I do apologize.  Sex & Love in the Modern Age is the latest exploration at ZJU of a given theme, in word (including both song and poem) as well as movement, including dance.  It consists of a ten member troupe acting out a series of vignettes.

So what we experience is a kind of odyssey, an exploration of so many pitfalls and nuances of simple (and not nearly so so simple) human connection.  Yes, the meeting of the two rare individuals in a crowd not staring into their iPhones.  Yes, the fear of intimacy amid temptations of availability.  Humor from the potential perverts might find in the internet here.  A dash of lesbian bondage there.  An almost surreal but potentially just real example of parents giving the "talk" to their gay son on prom night.

And if this sounds like the theatrical equivalent of paint-by-the-numbers, then I've given the wrong impression. Instead we get a kind of variety show which achieves more than mere entertainment.  While exploring the pitfalls and even some dangers of human connection, the performers actually make one.  With the audience.  The show doesn't simply come up with one funny skit after another (for one thing, they aren't all funny--some even are a tiny bit heart-breaking).  It hits the chord of deja vu.  These are our hopes as well, and our fears.

Photo Credit:  Sebastian Munoz

In the end, we even make a connection not just with the content, but the cast themselves.  And other members of the audience.

For the record, plenty of Zombie Joe regulars can be seen, including Nicole A. Craig, Jennifer Novak Chun (she of the cello), David Wyn Harris, Ian Heath (not naked once for a change) and Roger K. Weiss.  Others in the cast are Lee Quarrie, John Santo, Jacquie Waldman and Julian Zambrano.  I mention Callie Williams last simply because I want to praise her pipes--strong singers have their own special magic, like extremely fine dancers, and she is one.

Sex & Love in the Modern Age plays at ZJU 4850 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601 (just south of the NoHo sign, north of Camarillo) Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30pm until March 26. Unless there is an extension.  I hope there is.

Alice! (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Lewis Carrol, history shows, was an odd man. Not as weird as maybe you've heard, but eccentric to say the least. His children's books inspired movies, artwork, ballets, t.v. shows, novels, documentaries and not a few stage plays. Like Alice, one of the latest offerings by Zombie Joe's in North Hollywood.

This isn't really Carrol's tale. Most versions aren't. Rather, it tells of the original Alice's great great great great granddaughter and namesale (Lara Fisher) whose erotic dreams of visiting Wonderland and the Looking Glass focus upon the White Knight (Jason Britt--who plays multiple roles). But he hasn't been around lately. The White Rabbit (Michael Woodruff) shows up to tell her the Queen of Hearts has been having everyone's head cut off, including Alice's beloved White Knight.

With this news, Alice's quest to kill the Queen of Hearts begins. It will be neither straightforward nor easy nor without a certain amount of sexual shenaniggans.

Central to the story is the Cheshire Cat (Jonica Patella) who's the first character we meet. Frankly, I think many are the often-quite-good actors in LA who can learn from her total selling of such a bizarre character. The second the lights come up we can feel the energy flowing from her eyes and smile. Fortunately the rest of the cast follows suit, including Gloria Galvan (the Mock Turtle, along with other parts--a standard for this show) who remains fearless as ever on stage, Daniel Palma as Humpty Dumpty (who "sells' a truly bizarre song from a top his wall) and Ellen Bienenfield as the Dormouse. Other members of the cast include Cat Cela as the Mad Hatter and Starskee Suave as the Blue Caterpillar. But I honestly think maybe Jana Wimer (director of more than one Urban Death at ZJU) as the dual role of Alice's sister (if you know about the real Alice Liddell's sister this presses a few buttons) and the utterly mad Queen of Hearts--and she was clearly having a ball doing the latter!

But what I really want to make clear is how the show captures that surreal dreamy logic of the original, not simply by including so many bits of dialogue and action, but also by the entire cast committing to each moment as it happened--even when frankly nothing makes much sense. Which, let us face it, is most of the time. Why for example such a strong reaction to the guinea pigs? I've zero idea. Her Majesty just doesn't like them, I guess. Nor is it all nonsense so much as fractured logic, a distorted world the kind we see in dreams. Of course every one starts singing a passionate song about soup! I mean--of course! Just as it would seem the Cheshire Cat would naturally be the mastermind behind Alice becoming Wonderland's Katniss Everdeen.

Sorry to say, but Alice only plays Fridays at 8:30pm and Sundays at 7pm until December 20, 2015. A mere four more performances! Shows are at ZJU, 4850 Lankershim Blvd (just south of the NoHo Sign), North Hollywood CA 91601. Tickets are $15. Get your reservations here or by calling (818) 202-4120

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.

ZJU's Othello (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Of all Shakespeare's major plays, Othello is my  probably my least favorite. Yet Josh T. Ryan remains a director I always enjoy, so when he told me that was his next play, I got excited.

He dropped a few other hints since. One, "Godzilla rises," makes perfect sense but I'm not going to explain. Don't want to spoil it. The other was when he told me with a glint in both eyes, "This is gonna be so gay!"

Well, yeah. It is. Gloriously, even hilariously so! In effect he decided to set the entire story amidst the fashion industry and models of the 1980s. Don't bother trying to figure out how. Just go with it. The result blends Shakespeare with Velvet Goldmine liberally sprinkled with Rocky Horror and even Phantom of the Paradise. The wild hair, the even wilder clothes, the patterned makeup, amazing shoes, even a red carpet which was very nearly the only set. Plus a half-mad photographer (Sebastian Munoz) who took pictures like a kind of punctuation to scenes and moments.

Photo Credit: Josh T. Ryan

It worked! In the process the whole ensemble took on re-imagined roles with the kind of gusto this sort of thing really needs to have work. Iago (Vincent Cusimano) steals it--he usually does. Honestly the whole work really seems more about him as the West's first real Antihero than about the title character. In this case he, like most of the characters, is a model (and given the opportunity a diva of the first order) and quite flaming. So much so when he even sarcastically assures the audience he does indeed have a wife. Her name's Amelia (Anna Gion) and she radiates stage presence. The entire cast does. None quite so much as Othello (Vanessa Cate) however, who comes across as the Alpha of the Pack, the one person who maintains interest with barely doing anything. She even makes her final song in a strangely beautiful surreal anthem for her crime.

Oh, did I mention this one is a little bit of  musical? Yeah, it is.

Photo Credit: Josh T. Ryan

Yeah, and a white girl is playing Othello (she did the murder scene the best I've ever seen it--the power, the lashing out at a whim, the love that survived even her Desdemona's (Kirsten Benjamin) demise. Other standouts include Hannah Mosqueda as Roderigo, Quinn Knox as Cassio, Tyler Koster as Montano and Hedy Beinert as Bianca.

Let us not forget also the live music from Kevin Van Cott, the costumes (dubbed "Othello" haute couture in the program) by Jeri Batzdorff and in this case the sound/lights operator who is a character in this production, suitably named Fineas and performed by R. Benjamin Warren. Fabulous makeup design by Natalie Hyde.

It might not be your cup of tea. Or glass of champagne. But it remained a startling nugget of joy and wonder in this writer's memory.

Othello plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30pm, until June 27, 2015 at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre at 4850 Lankershim Blvd (just south of the NoHo sign) North Hollywood CA 91601.  Tickets are $15 and reservations can be made at (818) 202-4120 or by going to zombiejoes.tix.com

Macbeth (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

I'm going to pontificate  here a bit. Well, no suprise there! I've seen a little less than a dozen Macbeths over the years, and have reached some conclusions. Mainly about how unusual a play it really is, compared to the rest of Shakespeare's canon. Of all his major works, this one wins as the shortest. It feels weird, the language having an odd cadence, and the feel of a brutal time (in this it somewhat resembles King Lear). It shows the supernatural interfering with human events out of malice, in a way that seems almost startlingly pagan.

It also has very nearly the only happy marriage in all of Shakespeare. Not that the Thane of Glamis (Amir Khalighi) and his bride (Melissa Kite) remain that way, but for the first third at least they come across as a passionate couple, one wed for years who depend upon one another.

Credit: ZJU

This is among many things they lose when the Witches (Arielle Davidson, Jenny Gustavsson, Angela Robitaille) utter those glimpses into the future--The Thane of Glamis shall be Thane of Cawdor and then, eventually, King of Scotland. His companion Banquo (Brian Felson) receives a similar prophecy, that his line will bring forth Kings. But he pays it little mind. "Happier" the Witches call him. One wonders if his indifference to their words might be what they mean...

Not that they would ever admit it.

Frankly, most productions of this play seem to trip over the plot or the eerie, savage world of the story. Nearly all of them seek to make a clear cut decision about the Macbeth marriage but try to keep the Witches mysterious--even to themselves! While I might niggle here and there about some details of the production, this Macbeth avoids the traps. Many kudos for that! This Macbeth is all fury and emotion, almost bipolar in his rages and fears and doubts then sudden sadnesses. This Lady Macbeth is the tempering power in their relationship, the focus and devotion sheethed in a soul of steel.

Until the murder of their king, whereupon you can see something in them fray and snap.

Credit: ZJU

A besetting problem in so many Shakespeare productions is often unimpressive performers in the supporting roles. Cannot tell you how thrilling it is when--as here--the opposite happens! Rather, the likes of Jonica Patella (one of the finest local actresses I know) and Mark Hein as well as Jason Britt fill in for the various parts. I've seen all these do wonderful work, but Hilary Freedman is new to me and performed with great skill in her handful of roles (including Lady Macduff). Another newcommer (to me) was Chandler Hudson as Prince Malcolm.

The ensemble here did wonders, creating with their voices and bodies the weird, dark world of this play. Its eerie story of two souls destroying themselves felt much like a roller coaster, which made the end all that much more effective. Not a crowing triumph by enemies of the hated tyrant, but a satisfied gloat by the three Weird Sisters, speculatively looking at the survivors as a spider might gaze a group of flies.

Macbeth plays Fridays at 8:30pm and Sundays at 7pm through May 31, 2015 at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre Group 4850 Lankershim Blvd (just south of the NoHo sign, across the street from KFC) North Hollywood Ca 91601. You can make reservations at 818-202-4120 or by visiting zombiejoes.com

Witch Ball (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

This review will seem just a bit schizophrenic. For that I apologize in advance.

Here's the thing. I can tell here we have a cast of genuinely talented people (I know a few of them, have seen them in other shows, etc.). They clearly have "gelled' the way every single director dreams of casts doing. You can tell that in about a dozen different ways, not least how they all invade each others' spaces without discomfort. They also show great trust, pushing some boundaries, and interact on a physical level that proves very impressive.

You can tell there's a "but" coming can't you? Well, yeah.  Not a very huge one, though.

Witch Ball by Zombie Joe himself, is an odyssey involving a strange glass ball created to capture a poltergeist, but one which ended up vastly more powerful that intended. Even its maker felt a little awestruck by what he'd made and tried to persuade the widow who'd commissioned the thing to reconsider taking it. He failed, of course, and therein starts the weird wonderful journey.

The ensemble plays a wide range of dramatis personae, up to and including witch doctors, gay cowboys, the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, inhabitants of Salem, a lady lion tamer, an albino racoon, more than one witch, demons, a happily married couple, a chorus of Angels from the Mormon Heaven plus a fair number of loving couples of (very) many descriptions. All in one way or another encounter the title character in the course of about two centuries.

It is a new and original myth, a fairy tale for the mystic grown up.  Not a fable, though. Those, from the stories of Aesop to J.K.Rowling, have some kind of specific message, a lesson to impart. Here, we have a history, one from which to take whatever we can find.

Honestly the script was my favorite part of the show.

What bothered me was a lack of technique on the part of the cast. Let me be clear--they all showed lots of talent. More, some of what interfered with their performances was nothing more than opening night jitters. Here's a tip--we critics tend to see the least good performance of any play, namely opening night. Casts always get better once the show ends up on its feet.  In fact, I noticed the nervousness of the cast actually bleed away as the show went on. To give a concrete example, at the very start their timing was a bit off, but by the end was nearly perfect. Likewise when the play began, I was having trouble understanding roughly one quarter of what many of them were saying!  By the end of that initial performance, I was only having trouble making out perhaps ten percent. So I would bet money if you go see Witch Ball (which for the record I'm recommending you do) you'll see a better performance than I did.

Having said that, a play that contains quite so much direct speaking to the audience in semi-poetic language, for long speeches which set up the feel of the tale and of the different settings as well as one vignette after another, vocal technique makes a difference.  A real one.  And sadly, most of this cast doesn't have that level of vocal technique, at least not consistently.

The Chorus

Kudos btw to co-directors Roger K. Weiss and Nancy Woods for working with the cast and creating vivid characters for the three-person 'Chorus.' In fact nearly all the characterization went swimmingly, complete with accents and body language to create instantly recognizable differences between the (many) parts nearly everyone played. When the chorus members interacted between themselves was frankly my favorite. Also the choreography provided by Denise Devine really helped coalesce the whole thing--a slightly pscychodelic ensemble that reminded me of frankly some of my very favorite theatrical experiences from Alice at the Palace to Son of Semele's Our Class.

Given the dozens and dozens of characters, identifying them with individual parts would have taken about an hour of interviews after the show as well as review twice as long. Let me note the Chorus were Deirdre Anderson, Michael James Luckins and Nicole Sahagian.  The Players on the other hand were James Han, Stepy Kamei, Polina Matveeva, Lezlie Moore, Matthew Peter Murphy, Bradley Orok and of course co-director Nancy Woods.

Witch Ball plays Saturday nights at 8:30pm until May 9, 2015 at ZJU, 4850 Lankershim Blvd (across from KFC, just south of the NoHo sign), North Hollywood CA 91601. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at zombiejoes.tix.com or by calling (818) 202-4120.

Tales from the Underground (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Actually, no, I'm giving any spoilers in this review.

One of the many things I enjoy about ZJU theatre in North Hollywood remains how it keeps experimenting. Not always successfully (if that were true then they'd be playing it safe--not a hallmark of this theatre), but often quite successful indeed.

Tales from the Underground marks something new, and something I found quite moving. In essence, one by one a series of individuals associated with ZJU--mostly cast members of different shows--get up and tell a story.  The premise seems to be that each recounts something from their personal lives.  Simple, really.  And oh so fundamentally basic!  One can hardly imagine a more primal form of theatre!

I'm not going to give away any of these stories.  Not one detail.  I will say in the course of the one hour show I was moved, a tad horrified, made to laugh out loud, feel a bit of wonder, and a few times felt different kinds of chills up my spine.  The storytellers (in no particular order) are Jeri Batzdorff, Jason Britt, Greg Dunigan, Jim Eshom (okay technically he's just the MC), Abel Horwitz, Adam Neubauer and Jessica Amal Sherrie.  I listened to their stories and was very glad to have done so.

I'm told others will include new stories this weekend!

Exactly one more performance of Tales from the Underground will take place, at 7pm Sunday March 8, 2015 at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre 4850 Lankershim Blvd. (across the street from KFC, just south of the NoHo sign) North Hollywood CA 91601.  Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at the door, online at zombiejoes.com or by calling (818) 202-4120.

Salome in NoHo (Review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Vampires and Oscar Wilde seem like they should go together when you think on it.  Not something I really had thought about very much.  True, Wilde woo'd in his youth the icily beautiful young woman who eventually married Bram Stoker.  One cannot also but think Wilde and Lestat might have gotten along fabulously.  If vampires are vaguely decadent sophisticates, then the author of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" would seem to a spirit sibling at least.  More, he knew--only too well--what it was like to have to hide one's desires in plain sight.

But when I saw the premiere of Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre's production of Wilde's much-banned play "Salome" the real association between this writer and that genre became much clearer.  Contrary to popular image, Wilde had a finely honed moral sense.  He saw only too clearly the contradictions of man's highest hopes, how they entwine with our basest desires.  He talk of decadence, of aesthetics and those witty barbs coupled with outlandish behavior made him the Lady Gaga of his day.  More, he expressed in this play more than any other how life can be empty enough to drive a person mad.

Remember how in Anne Rice's novels and in Lindqvist's "Let The Right One In" so many vampires eventually commit suicide?  Wilde would have understood.  Oh, yes.

This particular production has its strengths and weaknesses.  Forgive the rant, but its faults are almost entirely those of technique.  Too often actors and directors in the US simply never get trained about how to approach verse plays (such as "Salome") and fall into a series of traps.  Hardly a one such trap remained up-sprung here.  Monologues of heightened language gushed forth, powered by one emotion.  Stage business too often replaced genuine action between characters.  Jokanaan (i.e. John the Baptist) looked great, but when he preached he clearly had no idea to whom he was speaking or what he expected to get from his words (with one marvelous exception--when he urged the title character to save her soul, that was REAL).  Many times the background players did things with the air of a sitcom, or maybe a hint of vaudeville (which might have worked if taken much, much, much further--to the point of grotesquerie).

Mind you, "Salome" is very nearly a three-person play.  It hinges on what happens between King Herod, his wife Herodias, and her daughter (his stepdaughter) the princess Salome.  Tim Ottman gave the best performance in the show.  His slightly gaunt features in whiteface captured a good look for the King.  More importantly, his voice helped that face bring his character to life--and that character is a vampire, albeit not in the supernatural sense.  Herod is a man who's tired of life--having seen and done and tasted and tried everything he can think of, and in abundance.  Now he reigns out of habit.  His royal edicts are born out of whim and terror.  Tired of life, yes--but horrified at the thought of death.  Superstitious without being able (or willing) to treat spirituality or faith seriously.  So he locks up a prophet who speaks out against him, yet refuses to kill the man, no matter how much his queen nags him to do so.  The temptation with King Herod is to make him just an obnoxious bore.  But Ottman played the pathos of the man.  Like an ancient liche who clings to life, his Herod clings to his emptiness yet will recklessly seek to fill it.

In a way he's a mirror of the title character--save that at least Herod has lived.  Salome--she has all his ennui but nothing of his wisdom.  Having grown up in a decadent court as the King's only child (albeit by marriage), Salome plays the simple social games skillfully but automatically.  Her problem?  She doesn't really want anything.  Not very much anyway.  A life without meaning is a life without hope, without any real desire.  So when she sees a genuine prophet, someone totally different and (most importantly) brimming with genuine passion, what is her natural reaction?  She wants it.  Longs for it.  Hungers for it.

Hungers for him.

Lita Penaherrera makes for a lovely princess, and has a natural charm about her.  There's something nicely catlike about her manner and looks.  Banter between her and Herod reminded me weirdly enough of scenes between vampires and their sires in films like "Interview" and "Vampire Journals" and even "Near Dark."  A stretch?  Not really.  What she and Herod have in common is a deep, abiding thirst for life--one that each will go to extremes to slake.  How vampiric.  And yes, how undead.  Not alive, not really, but still moving about making a fuss.  Dangerous.  Boundless appetite coupled with extraordinary power.

Penaherrera made an unfortunate choice with her Salome--to portray her as a spoiled brat.  Demanding her way she did not so much cajole or manipulate or even play as pout and have a temper tantrum.  She reminded me of Veruca Salt, a little bit.  Instead of a teenager with the world-weariness of an ancient, what we got was a deranged child.  She longs for John the Baptist, to touch him, to feel him, to kiss him.  When he refuses, she's left unsatisfied enough a terrible idea comes forth.  Her stepfather--clearly savoring an incestuous lust that quickens his aging flesh--forever asks her to sit by him, share some fruit with him, drink from the same glass of wine as himself.  Dance for him.  He finally offers anything she desires up to half of his kingdom if she will but dance for him.

Anything?  Anything at all?  Yes, he vows.  They are both empty and seek to fill themselves even a little.

So she dances.  Let it be said this dance was very scenic in many ways.  More modern than middle eastern, but then the play was set in a modern era (or some version of one) so no complaints there.  Panaherrera is indeed a lovely young lady, and she can indeed dance (having worked with plenty of actors who cannot I realize this is no small thing).  One can fully understand Herod's desires.  The audience applauded for her dance, quite rightfully so.

Next, she springs the trap.  Her price?  The head of John the Baptist on a silver platter.  Herod, horrified at the thought of either breaking his word or slaying a prophet (the man is intensely superstitious remember), begs and cajoles and tries to negotiate his way out of it.  She remains implacable.  Her mother (the third major player--quite competently performed by Sasha Ilford--this is a compliment since many actors rarely rise to the level of competence) crows with triumph and pride, under the mistaken impression this is a gift to her from Salome.  Ah, no.  It is an attempt to feed, to quench an undying thirst for love, for life, for meaning.  Salome no less than Herod is a vampire of sorts.  Is it any wonder her love story ends with the death of her beloved?  That the end of the play is a soliloquy to a severed head--a living dead girl exulting that she may finally kiss Jokanaan's beautiful mouth, then realizing the man she loved is now destroyed.  What good his mouth for kissing without a tongue that speaks and kisses back?  How can any face remain lovely to behold when the eyes are empty, dull, nothing but flesh with no fire within them.  He cannot see her.  And Salome...weeps.

Who does not see in her a vampire?  Someone neither dead nor alive, eternally hungry and forever unsatisfied, a temptress who kills the man she loves then kisses his bloody dead lips?  This production has its faults and honestly, they are many, but the core was there.  Appropriately, the co-producers of this show is the Fabulous Monsters Performance Group.  If anyone is interested, you can learn more about the show at zombiejoes.com or urbandeath.com.

Note:  After finally getting over a severe cold and performing in this year's Cairo Caravan, I will be writing my reviews of the final three episodes this season of Game of Thrones next.  I promise!