Border Crisis (review)

Spoilers ahoy!  

Regular followers of this blog will know how much I admire City Garage as one of the best theatre companies in the greater Los Angeles are (technically the company's home lies in Santa Monica).  I have never felt disappointed even by the least impressive pieces performed here

That has not changed.

Border Crisis is, as stated on the poster, an absurdist comedy by Charles A. Duncombe based on The House on the Border by Polish writer Stawomir Mrozek.  As per usual it remains very topical, especially portraying an increasingly authoritarian situation which overwhelms a seemingly very ordinary family, literally turning their home into a multizone militarized area, with armed guards demanding paperwork for leaving or entering pretty much any room, or part of a room.

At its best, this polemic works very well.  The Father (Bo Roberts) and The Mother (Martha Duncan) oversee a rebellious Son (Justin Parrish) and mediaphile Daugher (Hilary Kang Oglesby) while a grumpy Grandfather (Andy Kallock) and kindly optimistic Grandmother (Geraldine Fuentes) comment about goings on.  Things seem normal enough.  The Father celebrates how the whole family is together, and how they'll all be fine as long as they don't get involved in anything.  At all.  Ever.

Everything changes--as of course it must--as the government Representatives arrive, first demanding the use of this house for unspecific but wildly important negotiations.  Once completed, the Leader (offstage) gives a rousing speech to a large crowd outside, rambling about the evil of outsiders, followed by the arrival of Guards who explain there are New Rules--but not much about what these rules might be.  The Grandmother is almost immediately dragged off, since she is an alien--the numbers on her arm from last time prove it.  No reprieve.  She ends up in a some sweltering camp, with no idea as to her location.  Soon food becomes increasingly scarce.  The Son and Daughter manage to escape.  He eventually ends up joining a government-sponsored militia whose job it is to beat up and harass whoever looks as if they don't belong.  She, the seemingly least likely one, actually does join the Resistance--a secret but utterly impotent group more concerned with their own factions than getting anything at all done.  The Father and Mother try to simply endure, while Grandfather is literally dragged off for treason, being solemnly told rights and due process are not for criminals.  In the end, as the married couple sit alone in what was once a nice home, they take comfort with each other--until the sound of warfare, tanks and soldiers, approach.  The Mother realizes they are about to die, while the Father exults that the Leader's Golden Age is about to arrive!  

All this good stuff.  I should mention here all the government officials, from the almost cartoon "Diplomats" to the scary Agents in suits and sunglasses to the incompetent Guards are portrayed by the same two actors--Angela Beyer and Gifford Irvine.  They steal every single moment they are on stage, not only because their characters represent genuine threats, but their own presences which gives them so much power.  Both actors have shared scenes  before many times at City Garage and it shows.

Herein lies my caveat.  The Family ultimately don't elicit much sympathy.  One feels bad for them, but one's heart does not break.  Quite simply, they as the protagonists are not as interesting as the antagonists.  While some might argue they aren't supposed to be extraordinary, my own view is the ordinary can be interesting, can and should feel very real, very individual, and should engage our emotions--especially as they begin to suffer.  This barely happens.  It does happen, and the ending in particular delivers a gut punch.  But it feels abstract.  The message comes through, vividly, but not as powerfully as it could.  

Which is a nuance, because the whole point of this play is the Message.  Which is indeed delivered, enough I actually flinched.  Nor was I the only one in the audience to my certain knowledge.

And that nuance is my only real criticism, so bravo/brava to everyone including Director Frederique Michel.

Border Crisis plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 4pm until December 13, 2025 at the Bergamot T1 Space, 2525 Michigan Ave. Santa Monica, CA 90404

Polish TV Carmilla (Review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Here is the latest in my reviews of all known adaptations of LeFanu's vampire novella Carmilla. Again, for the sake of those who haven't read earlier posts, I'm restricting myself to recognizable versions of the original story. Thus a movie with a lesbian vampire in it named "Carmilla" doesn't count unless it is in some sense trying to tell LeFanu's tale.

In 1982 an adaptation aired on Polish T.V. How I got ahold of a copy is fairly convoluted, involving an estate sale and a third party. Frankly, I'd never even heard of this one and was excited to set eyes on such a thing. Unfortunately, it is entirely in Polish, a language I do not speak and there are no subtitles. Yet I know the story well and this was a remarkably faithful version. Following it proved not difficult.

The title character is played by Izabela Trojanowska, who certainly brings to it an air of otherworldliness and predatory charm. She's evidently mostly known as a pop singer in Poland. I've learned little more about the production, sad to say.

What I can say, having watched it, is this might be the single most faithful version yet made. It begins with the prologue missing from every other filmed Carmilla. Then we view Laura's household as it is when the events of the story proper begin. For once she does indeed have two governesses, the older and no-nonsense Madame Perradon along with the more elegant and imaginative Mademoiselle de la Fontaine. We actually see the dynamic between them and Laura as well as Laura's father. We get a sense, for example, of the class differences between them. More (in fact, vital) a sense of Laura's place here is only too clear. Lonely, saddled with (relatively mild) rules and subtle expectations in lieu of distractions or pleasures. She comes across as a waif, but not really an ingenue. More like a girl on the verge of womanhood with little or no idea what that means, obedient by habit almost to the point of invisibility.

One thing that impressed me about this was how much the story remained from her POV. More than once the fact people were keeping things from her became vivid through the camera work. That their mysterious guest focuses nearly all her attention on Laura of course proves intoxicating. Carmilla's arrival matches that of the book, but handled with what clearly couldn't have been a large budget. No carriage accident on screen, but as staged there was no need. A nice touch were the servants accompanying Carmilla's "mother." Not only silent, each had a kerchief tying their jaws shut, precisely as undertakers treated the dead in the 19th century. Shades of Marley in A Christmas Carol.

Also included was the Mountebank selling charms against the vampire, although he is freaked by Carmilla's presence and later is brought back to do a drunken scene in the local graveyard which substitutes for the whole Baron Vordenburg sequence. For the sake of plot, Laura's father seems to be merged with General Spielsdorf, allowing him to have the scene of "catching" the vampiress about to feed. Good stuff! The peasantry, coming to ask help of the Polish equivalent of country squire worked well, allowing a flashback to the legend of a vampire hunter in the past. Like I said, the elements of the novella remained largely intact.

Mostly, though, what pleased me was the atmosphere--like an odd ghost story--and the relationship between the two female leads. Although predatory, this Carmilla seemed to feel a little guilt as her friend weakened. Laura herself seemed so modest as to willingly hold on to whatever little pleasures she could find, hardly thinking to ask for more. As her only friend is hunted down and destroyed, she seems in shock. Certainly no one seems to think her deserving of much comfort. Protection, yes. Care, certainly. But that she might have had feelings for this woman never seems to enter into anyone's mind.

I'll confess frankly to a wish the relationship between the two had been more sensual, that Carmilla be a bit more tormented a la Ingrid Pitt in The Vampire Lovers. But that is personal taste.

Yet all this leads up to a startling little denoument. In the aftermath of the vampire's destruction, Laura's father and Mademoiselle de la Fontaine fall asleep late at night in the main room. Each is in a comfortable chair as the candles flicker and the fireplace glows. The door to Laura's bed room opens. The girl emerges, wearing only her long white nightgown and for the very first time her hair is completely undone, like a pale mane of some animal. She glides into the room, waking no one. Her eyes fix upon the exposed throat of her governess...

Overall I was very impressed by this version. Very impressed indeed. Now if I can only find some English subtitles!