Asexuality! the Solo Musical! (Fringe 22)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

Disclaimer--the director Heather Dowling and writer/performer Rebecca McGlynn are friends of mine.

Asexuality! The Solo Musical! is one of many one person shows which so often make up much of the fare of any Fringe Festival.  It charts a journey of someone who feels in a real sense out of touch with themselves and the expectations surrounding gender, desire, identity, much of what we entwine with our sense of sexuality.

Two things really stand out here.  First are the songs, which (unlike most musicals, let us be honest) prove quite catchy.  I can still hear them in my head.  Part of that is because they are needed to express things with more than words.  Structure, in other words, rather than decoration.  Second, this show eschews simple solutions, easy endings, the formula that can be boiled down to "happily ever after."  Not that happiness is somehow impossible, but that life--like art--remains a work in progress.  Always subject to growth, to learning, to improvement, to every growing wisdom and possibilities.

Asexuality! The Solo Musical! plays Sunday June 19 at Studio/Stage on Western, both live and virtual.

Too Big for Her Britches (Fringe 22)

 Spoilers ahoy!  

Quick disclaimer--the director of this show, Heather Dowling, is a friend of mine.

Lisa Pezik stars (and wrote) this very charming personal journey, punctuated with song, about two different self images vying for control of a woman's life.   One is brusque, full of positive energy, a defender of our central character.  The other, she is smooth and creepy, an insidious avatar of self-hatred created by a very disturbed mother who approves of things like anorexia.

The skill of the lead actress radiates to the audience, portraying a large but not overwhelming number of characters.  I easily identified with this idea of voices debating in her head (suspect plenty of folks will).   Honestly, though, I didn't remember any of the songs afterwards.  Plus, there was what felt like a blip towards the end, skipping over the process she went through to get past the trauma of her youth.  

Too Big For Her Britches plays at the Zephyr Theatre, Friday June 17 at 7pm and Saturday June 25 at 2:45pm.

Cabaret Macabre (review)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

The last show I reviewed prior to start of the pandemic was an earlier iteration of this very burlesque, at the same venue.

Cabaret Macabre at ZJU consists of a series of dance pieces, most of them ensemble in some way (with some dazzling, disturbing solos) with a very gothic sensibility and sense of humor.  Under the direction/choreography of Brittany DeWeese, the entire cast offers a real tour-de-force not only of dance skill, but acting, and integrating both together.  This makes for no small feet!

Previous viewers of this show will probably recognize two pieces which have been done before--a triangle of preaching and temptation involving a preacher and two women (one of whom might be a lesbian succubus, maybe kinda/sorta), and the wonderful tangle of danger coupled with sensuality titled simply "Poison" (to a personal favorite tune).  

There are so many wonderful things I could try and describe about this show, the naughty hautiness of the our mistress-of-ceremonies, the ballerina whose insane smile hints at her spider-esque contortionist skills, the amazingly spooky solo between a dancer and a shadow, all done to a slew a songs such as "These Boots Are Made for Walking" and "Hotel California".  In fact I just did that.  Just as I will praise all the cast:  Michael Baker, Suzette Labra, Elle Martinez, Samantha Steiniger, Darian Stranix, and Bailey Swogger.

But the bottom line remains this is an amazing one hour show for anyone with an appreciation for dance and a wicked sense of humor.  I took a friend when seeing it this time, someone who's fairly new to Los Angeles.  He was dazzled, amazed, and delighted.

Odds are your reaction will be the same.

Cabaret Macabre plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30pm until May 28, 2022 at ZJU Theatre Group, 4850 Lankershim, North Hollywood CA 91601.

Hamlet at Antaeus (review)

 Spoilers ahoy!

Antaeus Theatre Company remains something of a jewel in the Los Angeles Theatre community, a highly (and deservedly) respected group with lots of support and which produced marvelous classic works.  I  have certainly found their shows just lovely, wonderful, touching.

So they have created some mighty strong expectations.  Which means the current production of Hamlet suffers by comparison.  Unfairly.

I want to start with the good, which is very good indeed.  This show has literally one of the best Laertes (Michael Kirby) I have ever seen, especially since that remains one of the most difficult roles in the whole play.  Unlike most Shakespeare productions, I understood almost every single sentence spoken--which to be honest is the norm for Antaeus.  Several "lesser" characters were not only good, but excellent such as the Player King (Joel Swetow), and Guildenstern (Sally Hughes).  Also, and this is no small thing, the sword fight was good.  Cannot tell you how much a bad or poorly rehearsed sword fight has ruined many a Hamlet or other play I've attended over the years.  Plus I was genuinely impressed at how this edit retained so much of the play (like Fortinbras!) so often omitted from what is after a very long play.

This makes it sound like I'm about to damn the rest of the production with faint praise.  No!  Nor will I even praise with faint damnation.  I will simply say--it is not uniformly excellent, while never once stopping anything but a good performance.

In fact the only solid criticism I have is that the costumes were a little bland.  A little.  Not even solidly bland, just kinda/sorta.

On a more subtle point, I did not personally feel or perceive any specific theme or idea in the production, especially in the first half of the first Act.  The director's note in the program identifies Hamlet's dilemma in rather boring terms of plot, rather than emotional life of the character.  In the very best productions of this play, I know for sure whether Hamlet (Ramon de Ocampo) and Ophelia (Jeanne Syquia) have slept together.  In this one, I have a strong suspicion only--which still places this above the vast majority of productions.  Likewise I was very impressed with Gertrude (Veralyn Jones), and I thoroughly approve of casting one actor to play both Uncle and Ghost (Gregg T. Daniel).  Polonius (Peter Van Norden) remains the most difficult role in the whole play, and I have still seen only two performances in the role I totally believed.  One of those was Ian Holm.  But this time at least he was genuinely charming, which is a vast improvement.

All of which boils down to complaints about nuance in a production I think otherwise quite good.  

Hamlet plays Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, Sundays at 2pm and Mondays at 8pm at the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, 110 East Broadway, Glendale, CA 91205