Almost Equal To (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Been going to see plays and performances at Santa Monica's City Garage for about a year now, and must say in general I like their repertoire very much.  My term for much of what they do is "Theatre of Dreams."  Rather than anything really linear, we experience something with the logic of dreams, sometimes as if a dream is precisely what we're viewing.  Almost Equal To by Jonas Hassen Khemiri takes this idea into another iteration, in which the characters share not only what is happening in the real world (or what we call "real") but some of their minds.

Which almost makes this a naturalistic work, by City Garage standards.  Almost.

Forgive me for talking about style instead of substance.  In this case (often the case with really good theatre) the two end up entwined.  A part time economics professor (Andrew Loviska) begins literally with a description of falling.  He seeks to make his students see the subject as fascinating, filled with the life story of extraordinary, eccentric, very real human beings--including a former chocolates manufacturer named Van Houten (Bo Roberts) who walked away from vast commercial success to spend the rest of his life learning.  Therein lies a clue about the play's subject.  Two in fact.  The falling, and the dissatisfaction, coupled with an attempt to understand it in rational, even academic terms.

What follows at first seems like an almost disconnected series of sketches about characters who have little in common save their interest in economics as a set of ideas--most of whom simply fail at achieving what they want.  All of them end up demonstrating how the current system fundamentally fails on a human level.  The most financially successful individual is a homeless man named Peter (Johanny Paulino) who apparently is anything but homeless, yet by artful pretense makes a good living.  Martina (Lindsay Plake) meanwhile dreams of a radically new world and life, seemingly to no avail, slowly succumbing to the hyper-materialistic, ethics-free voice in her head (Natasha St. Clair-Johnson) who sometimes shares the stage with her.  A boy (Jeffrey Gardner) feels compassion and generosity, hence in effect robs himself and then finds himself beaten up by his older brother as part of a "rescue" of the money lost.  This makes perfect sense given the way their mother (Sandy Mansson) raised them, with frugality worshiped above joy.  Later we get a glimpse of a strange episode involving a woman (Ann Bronston) who might have just tried to commit murder to get her job back.

All of this and more becomes clearly more than coincidence and theme as the second act begins, when we see just how much these character intersect within each others' lives. The web which twists them, threatening sanity and safety--threats they often see, and sometimes clearly understand if not quite finding a way to escape--becomes more than theatrical motif.  What brings so much harm to these characters proves a pervasive system, a set of values and institutions encouraging the very worst in each of them.  And in us.  Paranoia.  Violence.  Dishonesty, especially to oneself.  Hopelessness--not only as an emotion but a fact.  Yet not presented as a dirge or lecture, but almost a poem.  A sad, disturbing, touching poem.  Not, as it happens, an unusual facet in productions directed by Frederique Michel.

Almost Equal To plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm until July 2, 2017 at the City Garage, Building T1, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Avenue, Santa Monica CA 90404.

Building the Wall (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

The perils of moving and getting a new job--one sometimes falls behind.  I thought this show had closed, but now has been extended, so I'm kicking myself for not getting my review out sooner.

Building the Wall by Robert Schenkkan marks one of many theatrical responses to last November.  Just from the title I knew that much going in, but nothing else.  Having not read any reviews, nor more than glance at the press release, nor even having read the program (this is SOP for me--prefer to be surprised) my expectations were minimal.  Save that the Fountain Theatre does good work.

What I saw was a meeting room in prison.  A man in the orange jumpsuit of a prisoner (Bo Foxworth) meets an African American woman who turns out to be a history professor (Judith Moreland).  They are wary of one another.  The prisoner, we soon learn, is on suicide watch--a fact he finds ironic since he expects to be executed.  The professor isn't so sure, but wonders if her race is off-putting to him.

He says no.  He's impressed by her honesty.  She wants to hear his side to what happened.

But what happened?  That we don't know and don't find out for quite some time.  Here the equal skills of playwright, actors and director Michael Michetti all come into play.  They had me going several times.  Was this man a serial killer?  Someone maybe whose frustrations erupted into violence revealing some seething prejudices he now denied or tried to justify?  No, and no.  But by the time I realized this, the story had me hooked.

As might be expected from the title alone, this play functions as a polemic.  It has a point of view, which it attempts to make you share.  These generally annoy me a bit, unless done well.  As it happens Building the Wall does it very well.  For one thing each character comes across as a blend of flaws and virtues, with competing but at least to some extent justifiable (or understandable) world views.  Nobody has all the answers, which of course doesn't mean there aren't some answers.

Most of all, what I got was a microcosm of two sides of the nation I call home--not that there are only two sides, but in terms of this past election it comes across as clear.  Yeah, the professor tends towards condescension and lacks some insight into her own blind spots.  Exactly like the prisoner.  Neither of them are stupid or unwilling to listen.  They are both decent people.  In fact, were the prisoner (who we learn did commit a truly horrendous crime) some kind of monster, a sociopath or fanatic, there would be no play here.  Nothing to make us ponder or think or re-examine.

I myself wonder at how some Conservatives I know would react.  Alas, some would certainly dismiss it as fantasy--fiction, therefore meaningless.  Or would simply refuse to even acknowledge the implications of the play, because its scenario of the next few years is actually anything but crazy.  It could happen, although one desperately hopes it does not.

But it also highlights a terror of our age.  Tyranny happens because not enough people say "No."  Sadly, this often takes a partisan turn, as if assaults on human rights were the sole domain of any one political party or group.  One of the most powerful things about this play and its production lies in how that is never the point.  It paints a horrifying picture of what the Trump administration and its supports might do--a very plausible one--but never hints there is something "other" about those who would commit the worst crimes.

It would be so much more comfortable if we could believe that.

Building the Wall plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm, as well as Mondays at 8pm through August 27, 2017 (there are dark nights, especially around July 4 so check the website) at the Fountain Theatre 5060 Fountain Avenue (near Normandie) Los Angeles CA 90029.  

Blood Alley 3 (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Those familiar with Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre Group certainly know this ensemble pushes boundaries, explores darkness and disturbing corners of the cosmos, usually amidst weird humor.

Well, Blood Alley 3 takes all that in many ways to the next level.

As in its first iteration (alas, never managed to see the second), the premise here lies in the title.  In some (presumably American) city, an alley has become what has become a "Bad Place."  The idea here is from modern horror iconography.  A spot--like the Overlook Hotel or the town of Arkham--which for some reason becomes a magnet for the preternaturally strange and dark.  In American horror literature, New England seems full of towns which have achieved this state.  Here, it is an alley.

Credit:  ZJU

Here, memories of horror and desire and perversion don't die, but seem to repeat themselves in a random loop.  A lone police officer (Kevin Van Cott) seems to more or less gotten used to this alcove of the surreal which is part of his beat.  Maybe he's even become part of it.  But we are the ones who have wandered in, who catch glimpses of things like a young woman (Nicole Craig) who seems distraught and maybe pregnant--at least her hands over her womb to suggest so--while constantly jostled by the crowd.  Which seems banal enough, right?  But still, when you think about it, horrible. Casual.  Cruel.

Then there are the more extreme acts, like the slave market and the gloating woman who takes her human chattal to do god-knows-what.  Like some one gleefully setting a man (Patrick Beckstead) bound and gagged on fire.  Like paying to rape a girl, with the others "on offer" trying not to pay attention (or worse, too numb to react).  Elsewhere--or elsewhen--a woman rips out a naked man's throat with her teeth.  And another man gets a blowjob, pulling out a gun to aim at the woman's head as he approaches climax.

Unlike Urban Death or Lost Souls, I cannot say there is anything supernatural we see in these vignettes.  Other than possibly the fact we can see them.  If anything the horror here--while extreme--remains firmly grounded in human evil, human cruelty.  Sometimes with startling humor as with the Victorian (or maybe Edwardian) bit done by Jason Britt and Michelle Danyn, in which some very very repressed people flirt--and it all goes so very very wrong.

Credit:  ZJU

On the other hand--just to keep things a tad more chaotic--the reaction these vignettes offers proves surprising.  For one thing, yeah the dark humor.  For another, scenes that one might think of as somewhat sexy (like Elif Savas in a really long lesbian make out session) end up drained of every drop of eroticism by their context.  This case was an example of mindless frenzied pleasure sans any human connection, coupled with (no surprise) drug addiction.  Other moments were just...gross.

Then there are very strange moments of beauty.  Without going into too much detail, something dreamlike happens when the lights go up and we see a lovely naked woman on stage, spattered all over with blood and seeming unconscious.  Yet then...

I don't want to spoil it.

While I"m at it, let me praise the performers such as Yael Wallace, Matthew Vorce, Brandon Slezak, Amanda McKenna, Juan Carlos Gough, Shannon Garland, and Shayne Eastin.  Their talent and bravery make this show work.

Blood Alley 3 plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30pm until June 10, 2017 at ZJU 4850 Lankershim (just south of the NoHo sign, just north of Camarillo), North Hollywood CA 91601.

The Awful Grace of God (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Confesson time.  This review is seriously late, which sadly is something of a theme concerning the production and me.  Because of circumstances both dull and no one's business, I was also late to the show.  So I missed the first of a series of very short plays which made up the evening.

The Awful Grace of God, a little unusually, are all written by the same playwright (Michael Harney) and likewise all directed by one person (Mark Kemble). The result?  An anthology with a much more unified "feel" and sense of theme.

Again, I missed the first one.  Feel bad about that.  Especially since I enjoyed all the others.

"Surrender" stars Tim DeZarn and Janine Venable as an elderly couple with a odd, shared mutual secret.  One each does not know about the other, even though it is the same secret--about still seeing and talking to their late son.  It doesn't have a plot as we think of it, but rather a gradual reveal of their relationship.  As such this avoids a problem with many such very short plays--a lack of wholeness.

The same cannot quite be said of the third, "Willy and Rose" all about two young people played by Agatha Nowiki and Johnny Whitworth, in a model room.  Here we have a compelling set of characters in an equally compelling situation (the Willy of the title is an up and coming hitman, while Rose wants him to stop).  But it comes across as an episode of a much larger story, without much by way of resolution although it feels as if it should have one or be part of one.

"The Long Walk Home" on the other hand works in exactly the opposite way.  James Harvey  Ward and Amelia Jackson-Gray play a married couple in 1950 New York, on the night and day when a crisis forces a choice.  He is a good man, but frustrated and--as we learn--living with the legacy of a drunken, abusive father.  Now when he gets drunk, he follows that same road.  At last forced to look at himself, he has to make a choice all alone in an empty apartment, suffering through a hangover...

"Need (Shelter From the Storm)" takes place in a therapist's office in New York and is probably my favorite piece of those I saw.  Therapist Marie Broderick sees an author/client (Ilia Volok the night I was there) who confesses his love of her.  She immediately diagnoses transference--well, of course she does--and he initially agrees.  Then rejects it.  He's been in therapy for years and years before he ever met her.  And what follows is his refusal to give up, to back down.  He does not threaten, even when annoyed or angry.  Neither does he make a pass or demand she love him.  But he does want her to acknowledge his feelings are real, and valid.  Although not instantly clear, this is what she's refusing to do--even to the point of lying about her life.  One of the most impressive things about the performances here is that I knew she was lying about that detail (there's also a break in her natural rhythmn in the writing, so give kudos to the writer as well).  But, and here lies the kicker, why did she lie?  Why can she not simply admit he really does love her, and he has every right in the world to tell her so?  From this question ultimately comes the climax of this tale, which remains complete in and of itself at under a dozen minutes.  No small feat!  Kudos to all involved!

"Through" ends the evening with what makes for a virtual one-man show, with Oscar Best impressively and magnificently playing...I'm not sure.  But I think he's a man in Hell, Not a place of eternal torment, but rather of forced spiritual evolution, of getting past the residue and flotsam of a human life and through to...what?  I'm not sure.  But I believed.  Chained to a stake, surrounded by weird images and listening to voices, this man changes and accepts...something.  And in that acceptance, the chains fall away.  He goes...somewhere.  I don't know where.  But I could not tear my eyes away, while striving to hear every sound, every word.  Powerful stuff.  Very powerful.

Bottom line--an extraordinary evening of theatre that left me very pleased (and to some extent even changed) at having gotten to experience it.

The Awful Grace of God plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 7pm until Sunday May 28, 2017 at the Other Space Theatre, The Actor's Company 916A North Formosa Avenue, West Hollywood CA 90046.