HELLAS (review)

 Spoilers ahoy! 

Remember that movie 300 about the Spartans fighting the Persians, all sepia toned and awash with testosterone?

This is not that story.  But is based on the history behind that story, told by School of Night which is responsible for some of the most dazzling bits of original theatre in Los Angeles during the past decade.  Masks and dance, ritual and music, costumes and puppets and truly stunning combat scenes make up the meat and wine of their shows.

Hellas is their latest, and frankly, their best so far.  The time is the fifth century BCE, and the mighty empire of Darius the Great (Thomas Bigley) has sent ambassadors to the two most prominent city states of Hellas (Greece)--Sparta and Athena (Athens).  Here we have our three points of an epic story.  I do not use that word lightly, for this is "epic" the way Game of Thrones and House of Dragons is epic, even if we meet zero dragons.

In the capital of the Medean Empire, the wives (Dawn Alden, Angelika Giatras)  of the King of Kings plot to have their sons declared heir to Darius.  Far off, in Sparta, the half (or more) insane King Kleomenes (Sebastian Sage) is aggressively flirting with his daughter Gorgo (Sara Gorsky) while threatening to violate her husband Leonidas (Daniel Adomian).  Interrupted by his co-Monarch Demaratus (Rich Dally III), he sets things in motion when killing a Medean Ambassador in a fit of rage.  

Meanwhile in Athena, the poet Aeschylus (Mathias Blake) has words with his patron Themistokles (Colin A Borden) who soon becomes a crucial figure in the city's democracy, especially after the city executes the Medean Ambassador sent there.  

When Darius learns of these events, he orders an attack on Hellas.  His son Artobazanus (Anand Mahalingam) is in command, and by failing to heed the advice of Admiral Artemisia (Jen Albert) suffers a great defeat.  Disinherited, he soon sees his father suddenly die and his seemingly more fragile, more intellectual brother Xsyarsa (Scott Bartling) ascend the throne, known to history as Xerxes.  The new King has a vision, one of conquest, of moving west and "bestowing civilization" onto first Hellas then all of Europa.

At this point all the major players are in place for the epic that follows.  In fact what I've just described is a Cliff Notes version of plot of the first of two plays that together make Hellas the epic it so clearly is.  Not just in scale of things like combat, the clash of armies, navies, even civilizations--although it certainly is that--but a conflict between hopes and dreams, loyalties and fears, between ideologies vying against uncomfortable facts no less than individuals trying to get others to agree with them, usually succeeding sometimes and failing others.

I watched the premier of these two plays together, along with three (!) intermissions across over five hours--yet I never felt restless once.  I felt intrigued from the first moment we saw the characters.  Does it sound as if there are too many characters to follow?  Yes it does.  Are there too many characters to follow?  No.  Just as one understands events, amid the whirl and clash of every single element from the fierce rivalry between two Greek city states, the startling love story of a Queen who genuinely loves her King, the madness of someone who should never have been given power, the messy (and often funny, often heart-rending) ebb of politics.  All there, all woven into a fantastic experience.  We see entire armies fight and die, as in a dance.  We see complexities of hope and hatred weave together like music.  Everyone dons clothes of another age, wearing masks t soon become as expressive as any "real" face (somehow), while interestingly the language remains very simple, very easy to understand, and so very powerful.

This is T H E A T R E in all caps and very bold, and if some really shrewd producer with some cash attends may we all pray Dionysus, the patron of wine and theatre, bestows upon this production the chance to be seen by thousands and thousands and thousands in these troubled times.  They will be the better for it.  So shall we all. 

Fridays at 7:30pm will offer performances of Part I of Hellas on 4/18 and 5/2; Part II runs on 4/25 and 5/9. Saturday and Sundays at 2pm offer the complete saga. The Broadwater is located at 1076 Lillian Way, Los Angeles, CA 90038. 

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.