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. 

Jane Eyre (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Begin with a disclaimer.  I have seen pretty much every English language film adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's most famous novel.  So I had to make myself not compare performances.  More, the poster (seen here) frankly gives a somewhat wrong impression, or at least my reaction to it proved inaccurate.  

I was expecting a very surprising adaptation, one that would make startling choices forcing me to look at this familiar story with fresh eyes. 

What greeted me on opening night was a very straightforward adaptation, faithful almost to the extreme, with a very clear theme in mind (major kudos for this btw), some dazzling production values, and just a generally enjoyable version of Jane Eyre, one of the most famous novels in the English language so far!  I sat there enjoying myself, and felt the rest of the audience swept up in the story, up to and including the famous climax of lovers coming together at long, long, long last.

Does it seem like I'm about to include a "but" in here?  Well, the production had a few problems, and I think anyone would be absolutely justified in calling me picky. 

I like to be surprised, to see something new even in a old story.  Twice in this production, that happened.  When Jane (Jeanne Syquia) all but tore off her wedding dress on stage, my breath caught.  Also when Grace Poole (Trisha Miller) quietly warned Jane to keep her door latched at night, suddenly I saw this character in a totally new light.  Both these actors brought a lot to their parts, the former frankly all but carrying the show on her shoulders for over two whole hours.  

Earlier I mentioned theme, and I really want to praise playwright Elizabeth Williamson for maintaining focus on this.  Many don't realize how shocking this novel was in its time, because the title character and object of such a vast romantic passion is explicitly described as plain (okay Miss Syquia maintains the tradition of casting very attractive women in the role, but she played Jane as someone who knew she was not pretty, a very nice feat).  She also has a job, which young ladies of good society did not.  Today neither is quite so strange.  This play re-focuses on the plight of women in general, making this one of the most topical such adaptations ever in my view!  Director Geoff Elliott clearly understood this!

Yet it bothers me only the major players get much of an arc, which is not at all true of the novel.  The plot is streamlined in an extremely able and intensely intelligent manner (remember this is not a short book).  I personally feel the monologues to the audience did not work, and some of the dialogue was too faithful to the novel--because words read and words heard are subtly different.  One side effect of this it seems is creating some comedy, which to be fair was a welcome surprise and added to everyone's enjoyment of the performanc!

Told you I was being picky.

Frederick “Freddy” Stuart portrayed Mr. Rochester, with lots of energy and sometimes clearly having so much fun it was infectious--especially in the fortune-telling scene, a magnificent entry so often cut!  

The whole cast (Deborah Strang, Riley Shanahan, Bert Emmett, and Julia Manis) did very well but in some ways the biggest standout apart from the leads and Miss Miller was Stella Bullock, most especially when in flashback she portrayed a very young Jane Eyre. 

Jane Eyre will be performed Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7: 30 p.m. plus Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. until April 20, 2025 at A Noise Within, 3352 E Foothill Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91107

The Lifespan of a Fact (review)

Photo by Jenny Graham

Spoilers ahoy!

How do we make sense of the world in which we live?  Especially those parts in which we are not directly involved?  Sounds like a heavy subject, doesn't it?  Well, yeah.

All the more reason to turn it into a comedy, am I right?  I cannot remember offhand if Oscar Wilde or G.B.Shaw said "if you tell the truth, make sure you make people laugh, or they will kill you."

The Lifespan of a Fact is long (circa 80 min) one act comedy about this issue.  Written by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell  based on a nonfiction book by  John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, it follows the misadventures of when an intern Fingal (Jonah Robinson) for a magazine is tasked to do the final fact check on an essay about the suicide of a young man in Las Vegas.  He takes the job very seriously.  I think few would doubt he goes too far.  I mean, who cares if the moon is closer to a quarter than half full?  If that detail made a difference, sure, but it boggles the mind how that detail might.  The exact color of some bricks?  Exactly how many strip clubs are in Las Vegas on a given date?  

He even ends up flying to Las Vegas and meets the famous author of the essay, John D'Agata (Ron Bottitta), which goes rather worse and better than one might expect.  Not least because Fingal drew up charts to show a traffic jam one witness described could not be possible with the numbers described.

All this about an essay, not an article.  In fact D'Agata seethes in anger when anyone calls what he wrote an article.  

D'Agata calls up Fingal's editor, Emily Primrose (Inger Tudor), who in turn ends up flying out to Las Vegas from New York, just in time to find D'Agata's hands around Fingal's throat.  If this sounds like the stuff of comedy, you have hit a bullseye.  All this is extremely funny, not least the inherent conflict with this frankly entitled but honest and intelligent young man and a weathered, deservedly-renowned writer a long way from being young in almost any way.  They rub each other the wrong way, and their mutual arrogance smooths over exactly nothing.  

Yet, as Primrose stares agog at Fingal's 130+ pages of spread sheets to fact check a 15 page essay, she also spots some genuine problems.  Things that are inaccurate in ways that do matter, which D'Agata resists.  Adding to the conflict, which gets increasingly serious, increasingly passionate and confusing, is one consensus shared--namely, here is an essay of great power about modern life and the human condition.

The deadline looms, one that cannot be changed under any circumstances, and they continue to debate, passionately.  Will nitpickers descend upon the piece, insisting the exact number of cancer deaths that day must be precisely correct or else every word D'Agata wrote is worthless?  Fingal eventually becomes so frustrated he notes there's no real proof the young man in question is actually dead--his body was smashed by jumping off a building and there was no DNA test on the remains.  Likewise, he continues to make a strong point that facts are indeed truth, which means dismissing them corrodes trust as well as judgment.  Well, does he not have a point?  

While Fingal flails around, facing an existential crisis about his most dearly held beliefs, D'Agata finds himself having to defend himself in ways he perhaps never has, and in truth he clearly is in the wrong sometimes.  While Primrose, who must make the final decision, listens to both and fends off both sometimes fighting dirty (at least emotionally).  

It makes for very good comedy, but even better drama.  

The Lifespan of a Fact plays through April 2: Fridays, Saturdays & Mondays @ 8 p.m. / Sundays @ 2 p.m. (dark Monday, Feb. 20 & Monday, March 13) The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave. Los Angeles CA 90029 (Fountain at Normandie). Patrons required to wear masks throughout the performance.

The Dreamer Examines His Pillow 2023 (review)

 Spoilers ahoy!  

I saw a remount of the original production of John Patrick Shanley's The Dreamer Examines His Pillow back in New York when attending the National Shakespeare Conservatory.  That was in the 1980s.  I recall it vividly to this day.

The current production at the Odyssey Theatre is the better production.  It tells an intense, vision-laden tale of a moment of crisis in three people's ultimately entwined lives.  Tommy (James Liddell) is a mess, living in a rancid New York almost-apartment (probably a studio, certainly roach-infested), doing things he doesn't understand and trying to somehow get his life back in control.  He's not a drug addict or anything like that.  But he is, by any definition, a mess.

Enter Donna (Pamela Portnoy), his ex-girlfriend.  We pretty soon figure out their breakup occurred as part of Tommy's spiral.  She has heard he's been seeing her sister!  And he admits he has.  The longer the scene goes the more we realize Tommy's problem is somehow existential in nature, he having little or zero notion why he's acting the way he is.  More, no matter what either one of them says, he and Donna are not in any way over.  Both continue to dream about each other.  Both daydream about touching each other, about feeling the others' skin.

This gets a lot more graphic (and poetic) than my words suggest here.

Donna in particular quietly but deeply freaks out when she sees Tommy has tried to paint a self portrait.  It is terrible (and he admits it).  But...Donna's father is an artist.  

She leaves to talk to her father, with whom she almost never talks.

Her father (we never learn his name but he's played by Eric Larson) is sitting alone, drinking in his big house, having sold almost all his own paintings.  When Donna shows up, he groans.  But...he talks to her.  He answers her questions.  More, when he talks he tells the truth.  Make that The Truth.  As he sees it.  Gloves off.  This in fact may be one of the most vivid facts about this three-character play.  All three tell unpadded, un-masked, unvarnished truth to each other.  Donna bluntly tells Dad the basics of the messed-up basics of what she has with Tommy, but says she can handle all that.  Until...Tommy began to act even a little bit like Dad, and her in turn like her mother.  Her own crap is her responsibility, and she accepts it.  But is it hers?  Or is she simply reliving her mother's life and mistakes?

Revelations follow.  Some really raw and powerful ones, especially about desire and sex, about identity and how people are stupid yet try to be wise, sometimes eventually achieving it in bits and drops.  For the first time, Donna begins to actually know her father, understand him.  It rocks her world.  Just as her questions make him say things about himself he doesn't like but must face.

The final scene is when Dad goes to meet Tommy.  It, like all the others, threads a series of very tiny needles of language about things, real things.  Without being in verse, the whole play is in many ways poetry--heightened language to dive deep into who we really are, what we want, our glories and despairs, the stuff of passion.  All in the mouths of hardbitten, profane New Yorkers sans any sentimentality or much refinement, yet full of blunt nuance.  In particular the cast do the most fundamental thing needed in any play, but especially one where people talk about Truth--they know exactly what they are saying, and say it.  Every word.  That sounds easy, but is not.  Not on stage, nor for that matter off of it.

So massive kudos to the cast, and to director Anne Kathryn Parma (when the entire cast is so good in such a consistent way, that is rarely an accident).  Shanley qualifies as a major American playwright, and this story remains one of the reasons why.  This production did it justice!

The Dreamer Examines His Pillow plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 1 p.m.  until February 26, 2023 at the Odyssey Theatre,  2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025.  It runs approximately 75 minutes without an intermission.  

The Jew That Saved Christmas (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Let me make one thing utterly, absolutely clear beyond all doubt. The Jew That Saved Christmas is fun. Lots of fun. As in laugh out loud lots of times fun, not least from the irreverent humor that never turns nasty or mean.

My friend Andy Shultz wrote this one act comedy, the third of his plays I've gotten to see at ZJU, every one a kind of gem. Comedy generally proves much trickier than most folks presume, because it depends on getting a startling number of factors just right--not least timing and tone (frankly most comic plays I seem don't rise to this challenge).  As director of his own work, Shultz helps nail both.

Credit: Andy Shultz

The title character is played by Adam Neubauer, another playwright/director at ZJU, a deeply unhappy and unlucky young man named Larry who wants nothing more for Christmas that to eat Chinese food with his lesbian roommate (Kyle M. Collucci) and watch t.v.  Naturally things don't go as planned. Quite apart from his best friend (David Wyn Harris) moaning over his recent breakup and then lusting after our lead's mother (Deirdre Anderson), there's also the obnoxious neighbor (Carol Muniak)  who has a crush on Larry and won't take "Hell No!" for an answer.

Then, there are the Elves (Derrick Brooks, Jennifer Nwene, Brady Glasser). You read right. Elves. Seems an ancient prophecy insists Larry is the Jew That Will Save Christmas by defeating the evil demon Krampus. Does that make any sense? Well, as much as anything when you think about it. 

Credit: Andy Shultz

But here is where the play really works, just as a script. Fun, zany ideas aren't even a dime a dozen. More like a nickel at most. Execution lies the true test of any idea, and this one delivers! We know this because of the final clinching proof--the audience laughs. In a comedy, everything else takes second place, and yet remains nowhere near as easy as one might think. A genuinely funny play isn't just a string of jokes. Larry's personal nightmares keep growing as the story continues, but only after a specific tone of zany kvetching has been established. Then other details of plot, dialogue, character and even costume follow. By fitting together into a whole, we all get "let in" on this world and its skewy POV. Of course Larry's mother cannot imagine anyone good enough for her little boy--and of course that turns his love life into a train wreck, and always will even as she starts making out with Larry's friend, only to have Larry walk in on them. This is his world. Thank God it isn't yours. Now sit back and enjoy!

Credit: Adam Neubauer

Meanwhile the cast proves itself just splendid. Over-acting well is in fact not easy to pull off, neither are half the little bits and things done throughout--like "freezing" in place without losing any energy.

Despite the warning above, I don't want to spoil any potential audience members' joy by revealing too much. What instead I hope to do is whet your appetite. Anyone regularly reading my reviews has sussed onto the fact I love me some angst, some cranial fornication and some deep dark drama. BUT--I adore a show that is pure, unadulterated (and very slightly wicked) FUN.  That is what this show promises, and more importantly, delivers. Really, it would be a shame to miss this.

The Jew That Saved Christmas plays Sundays at 3pm through December 20, 2015 at Zombie Joe's Underground 4850 Lankershim Blvd (just south of the NoHo Sign), North Hollywood CA 91601. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at zombiejoes.tix.com.

Women w/o Walls (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Despite the disclaimer above, I generally try to avoid spoilers in my reviews. But for Women w/o Walls, that might be something of a lost cause. The central conceit at least becomes obvious (or so it seems) fairly quickly. But that doesn't matter so much with this play by Robin Rice.

A subway train, with a single passenger known only as Nurse (Kristin Carey-Hall) knitting away. She refers to herself in the plural--"we" and "us"--but this doesn't sink in at first.One more clue in fact as to where we actually are. Soon enough a young woman named Pamela (Esther Mira) becomes the only other passenger, and seems baffled about where she is going or how she got here. More, Nurse apparently knows quite a bit about her.  Inez (Jen Albert) a homeless woman with only one leg--literally on her last leg--enters and immediately recognizes Nurse. This, they agree, is her final trip, and it soon turns out she sees Pamela as her last chance at love.

In another age, the subway would be a boat crossing the Styx. We are in between life and death. Nurse (in a nice echo of the Fates) is "on staff" and perfectly willing to ease everyone's passage. Within limits. No malice here, but quite a bit of ruthless wisdom--very much needed as Tank (Natalia Ochoa) joins them, a street tough girl with at least one addiction, to music, and a hair trigger.

Of course stories about death are really about life. We all know that, right? We all know oblivion is dull, hardly the stuff of story telling. But love, regret, fear, self-awareness, memories, forgiveness, rage, imagination--these are the blood and bones of any (and all) good theatre. These things we get in spades.

Technically, this makes for quite a nice piece in many ways, not least because it will surprise you while making all the sense in the world. Higher praise rarely comes out of me than those words. In this case, there's more to come. Because like one of the very best episodes of The Twilight Zone or maybe The Outer Limits, this script builds on a myth to create a new one. I loved for example how the play eschewed the obvious trinity of virgin/mother/crone--or perhaps subverted it is a better way of describing what happens. One of our passengers for example is defined more than anything else by a troubled (but hardly vicious or even neglectful) relationship with her father. The diseased almost-hag makes her greatest impact not in terms of her age or supposed wisdom, but rather because she's in her heart of hearts still a maiden--still searching for the ephemeral connection of a soul mate. The tough grrl, she doesn't really fit any of these three archetypes. Yet she fits within this story like a glove. Likewise we conspicuously lack (to those devoted to symbolism following the usual grooves) anyone middle class--unless one counts the Nurse. One looks in vain for more than a few overt references of legends of ancient days and nights. Yet the play becomes a legend--infusing such lovely details as an imaginary tea set, or the color to be chosen amongst many balls of string with telling power.

All of which would excite only the mind were it not for the cast and direction (from Frances Loy).

Were these characters not real, I would not have cared. If Inez' basic humanity didn't touch me, how could I have found myself hoping she won Pamela's heart? Had Pamela not seemed to contain the depths to make that at least a possibility, that hope would have died pretty quickly. Tank likewise could have come across as nothing more than an annoyance--the type one often does encounter in mass transit, not coincidentally--but whatever hungers drove this girl came across as genuine, raw, and born at least in part from some pain that felt familar.

In the end, just before the play ended--and I mean less than ninety seconds before the lights faded--I saw how it would end. This is not a criticism, but praise. All the words and performances and the rest had opened my eyes to let me know what the ending would have to be, must be, naturally flowed from every detail. And my reaction? My hand went to my mouth, a tear welled in my eye, and in my mind the words "Yes, of course" echoed.  The revelation stood revealed, complete. And Was Good.

Robin Rice's Women w/o Walls runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays ata 4pm until Saturday December 12, 2015 at the Lounge Theatre 6201 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA  9003. Tickets are a mere $22 and worth every single cent. Or you can purchase reduced price tix at Goldstar.

The 99 Seat Plan

Strong opinions ahoy!

Anyone even remotely involved in Los Angeles live theatre already knows the basics of the controversy underway.  In essence, the (very large) theater community here (400-600 small theatre companies by most counts) has for thirty years had what passes for a "showcase code' in regards Actor's Equity. This allows members of the stage actors' union to perform for a tiny fraction of what is the usual Equity standard for theatres with 99 or fewer seats. It is somewhat more complicated than that, but that captures the essence.  What makes L.A.'s situation different is a lack of limits on number of performances.

As a matter of history, Equity didn't want this plan and a lawsuit pretty much forced their hand back in 1988.

Last September, at a meeting local Equity membership (reported by several news sources), complaints were heard about how the plan lacked enforcement--namely, that actors were being taken advantage of.  Now the union has an alternate plan that scraps the old one in favor of something far more restrictive.  A "non binding referendum" is to take place in April.

Here are my concerns:

First, this new plans answers the concern for enforcement by scrapping all Equity protections of any kind from members performing for less than Equity standard! Honestly, how does this make any sense at all?  In what conceivable way is this a good thing for members? Quite apart from the fact this is precisely what the members evidently did not want!

Second, this means a lot of Equity actors are simply going to get less work.  Period.  There's no real way to get around that brutal fact.  Smaller theatre companies cannot afford to pay Equity standard.  For the companies themselves, this means not using a certain pool of actors, many of whom have individual relationships with said companies.  That is a shame, to be sure, but hardly a death blow to most (or so it seems).  But it becomes a serious blow to actors who will now have far less opportunity to practice their craft, unless they go and pay for acting classes and the like. Again, does this make any sense at all?

Third (and this is most long-term, albeit subtle point), this new plan erects a very real obstacle in any smaller theatre company from growing. Lord knows that process remains difficult enough already!  But look for example at the East/West Players.  Today they  have their own space in downtown, with major productions and name actors, enjoying a national (at least) reputation.  Yet prior to 1999 they did all their performances in a tiny black box theatre, enjoying the practical benefits of an Equity waver.  But could they have made that switch, grown in terms of budgets and prestige while never using any Equity performers? Maybe.  But it would have been much harder. Why on earth would anyone desiring more opportunities for actors create such an obstacle?

Especially in a market sorely lacking in medium-sized theatres?  Hamstringing smaller theatre companies won't create more medium-sized ones.  Quite the opposite!

So what gives?  What on earth is the actor's union thinking?  Frankly I think maybe it would have been wiser and better for Equity to have spent the millions of dollars used to build a new headquarters in enforcing protections of its members.

That is my couple of pennies.