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

The Bald Soprano (review)

Spoilers ahoy! 

I told some folks the title of the play I was going to see--The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco.  Most had not heard of it and seemed baffled by the image.

One friend, though, perked up and asked with an incredulous grin "CityGarage is doing that?"

Which actually says rather a lot, right there.  My own reaction echoes theirs pretty perfectly.

Charles Duncombe, manager of CityGarage in Santa Monica welcomed the audience on opening night, describing the play as like Monty Python.  I would have added "but French."  Which could serve as a review, almost.

Ionesco himself called this an "anti-play" in that it has no story, even though it almost succeeds in pretending it does, deliberately.  In fact it makes for a hilarious and savage comment on pettiness and how much of our lives, our expectations, our assumptions don't really make a lot of sense.  Reacting as it was to the theatre scene of a specific time and place, does that make it dated?  Yes.  And yet also makes it timeless.  Because life--that is to say, we mere mortals--remain absurd.

Now, to continue with a simile, Monty Python as a genre (ditto Theatre of the Absurd) has some tricky if subtle demands.  This production, with a bevy of CityGarage regulars, threads most of the needles and as a result gets a lot of laughs.  As well it should!  Nothing makes very much sense, of course.  That is the point! 

In fact describing anything like a "plot" seems almost meaningless!  Rather the performances themselves simply exist amid a weird melee of musings, assertions, questions, revelations, confessions, arguments, accusations, and ramblings--which somehow feel familiar.  Which is also the point!

Insomuch as there is a point.

Standouts in the cast almost entirely focus on the female characters.  Make of that what you will.  Angela Byer and Bo Roberts play a married couple (or are they?) visiting some friends while suffering from a strong bout of amnesia.  The couple they are visiting (or just maybe really are) consist of Andy Kallok and David E. Frank, the latter playing the wife (again, the female characters stand out--or are they female--I'm not sure), while Courtney Brechemin portrays the Maid who tells us all sorts of wonderful weird things.  A fire chief played by Clifford Irvine rounds up the cast--he visits looking for fires, which is his job after all.  That bit almost makes sense. Almost.

That "almost" is one reason the whole thing is so funny.  It makes for a deliciously weird joke, with extra layers of "WTF?" and "Waitaminute" and "Whhhhaaaat?" on top.  

Imagine the story-telling equivalent of Merry-Go-Round after taking a tiny hit of acid, in France and that suggests a little bit of zany humor direct Frederique Michel achieves with this cast.  Imagine if you will Monty Python and the Holy Grail crossovered with a 1950s sitcom of your choice, minus children.  Then stir in very acid humor about the bourgeoisie.  That sounds like a mere formula, doesn't it?  And yet the only "formula" here is silliness, the arch type of silliness of which we all may well be guilty.

Oh, who am I kidding?  We ARE guilty of such.  Sooner or later.  

So come and have a laugh.

The Bald Soprano plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 4pm until June 2, 2024 at City Garage, Bergamot Station, T1 Space, 2525 Michigan Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90404.