Saturday, March 10, 2012
The Woman in the Wall Premieres at the Culver City Masonic Lodge
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| Balcony: Livia Reiner, Kathleen Kelso, and Octavia Leclerc-Jones. Below: Gretchen Johnson. Photo: Emily Brooke Sandor |
Inspired by the 14th Century tradition of The Anchoress, the opera is a “mystery play” in the ancient tradition; it explores the openings and paths inside that are revealed when all doors are locked shut. In the story, The Anchoress is a woman who volunteers to be enclosed for the rest of her life in a church cell, with one window open to the sacred world and the other open to the ordinary world.
Over the course of seven days, which cover seventeen years, we follow The Anchoress, “Marianna” (Gretchen Johnson), as she becomes the inspirational advisor to everyone from the peasants to the king. The production features an orchestra of 10 instrumentalists, a cast of a dozen principal singers, and a 30-member chorus from the Angel City Chorale, led by Sue Fink.
The cast includes Eric Castro (King), Julie Christensen (Witch), Carmina Escobar (Love, Girl 2), Alan J. House (Soldier, Monk 2), Gretchen Johnson (Marianna, The Anchoress), Sergey Khalikulov (Fortitude), Matt McCray (Monday Priest, Man in Front), John Michael Morgan (Justice), Lori Scarlett (Temperance), MJ Silva (Bread Eating Peasant, Monk 1), Penelope Yates (Faith, Girl 1), Silvie Zamora (Hope, Peasant Woman), Lucine Zirekyants (Prudentia).
The opera, which is written in Medieval modes using instruments of the time, will run for two weekends – on Fridays and Saturdays –March 23 – 31, with performances starting at 8:00 pm. Ticket prices are $25 for Peasants (seating closest to the performers), $40 for Royalty (seating in the middle of the performance space), and $50 for the Virtuous (reserved seating on an elevated platform) and are available at www.overtoneindustries.org or by calling at 323-655-2410.
The Masonic Lodge is located at 9635 Venice Boulevard, Culver City, 90232. The show is suitable for mature teen and adult audiences.
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Friday, September 7, 2018
Review: THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND Kander and Ebb Style for Reprise 2.0
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| L-R: Dawnn Lewis, Michael Starr, Kelley Dorney, Larry Cedar and Valerie Perri |
Somewhere between its opening of Sweet Charity in late June and the end of July, Reprise 2.0 postponed its second scheduled production of its inaugural season, Victor/Victoria. In its place, the company has mounted a revival of Kander & Ebb’s musical revue, The World Goes ‘Round, and, while it isn’t a rarely revived book musical, which has always been Reprise’s focus in the past, it does contain a score derived from some of the best songs in the classic Kander & Ebb catalogue (think Chicago and Cabaret).
Director Richard Israel sets the revue in a chic upscale nightclub where five singers decked out in evening wear reflect on life and love in the familiar cabaret style. Backing them, and placed on stage in full view, are musical director Gerald Sternbach and his 7-piece all-male orchestra. It’s a rare opportunity to watch the musicians in action along with the singers, and a hallmark of Reprise’s singular style.
Israel’s production is impressively sleek, with comedy in the movement, courtesy of his and choreographer John Todd’s creative tongue-in-cheek approach, and a winning cast of five distinct personalities: Dawnn Lewis, Valerie Perri, Larry Cedar, Kelley Dorney, and Michael Starr. Todd does a nice job of adding choreography for “singers who move” plus a couple of specialties for those with a little more dance training, but the big focus is on the singing.
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| Valerie Perri |
Each cast member brings a unique quality to the show, with Lewis and Perri as the doyennes of the group commiserating about the deterioration of morals and manners in the entertaining duet “Class” from Chicago and acknowledging their individual longings in emotionally-rich solos. Lewis uses a hard brassy belt on the opening title song “And the World Goes ‘Round” from New York, New York and an even stronger power belt on “Maybe This Time” from Cabaret to convey her determined resilience, while Perri loses herself in the poignant and fragile memories of “Isn’t This Better” from Funny Lady and The Rink’s “Colored Lights.”
That particular number shows off a gorgeous lighting effect by Jared A. Sayeg in which colored lights are sprayed across the stage ending with a pink spotlight on Perri and a brilliant rainbow of colors suspended over her. It’s one of a number of breathtaking effects Sayeg creates where lighting takes on the function of a living, breathing character in its own right but he never overplays it.
In lesser hands, the lighting for a song like the title number from Kiss of the Spider Woman would most likely replicate a spider web but instead Sayeg only suggests it. He uses a geometric pattern that doesn’t hit you over the head but still effectively adds a mysterious vibe to the song. It’s elegant and refined work that balances subtlety with front-and-center concepts to create a big impact.
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| Photo by Ellen Dostal |
His lighting also makes scenic designer Stephen Gifford’s sophisticated nightclub set look expensive. Ornate openwork wood panels hang above the orchestra, which is positioned on an elevated platform behind the singers and framed with a warm cutout railing. The wall-to-wall stairs and floorshow area in front of it are where the singers strut their stuff.
When not performing, cast members watch the show while seated at one of two cocktail tables on either side of the stage, along with the audience. The illusion is of an intimate setting that opens up to sustain the larger emotional worlds contained in the music with only a change in Sayeg’s lighting. As a team, Gifford and Sayeg are hard to beat. If there was such a thing as the “Dynamic Duo” of Design, they’d be breaking out their superhero capes on a regular basis and saving visual atrocities on stages from Gotham to the City of Angels nightly.
An energetic Dorney is most effective when she plays it simple, as she does for her best song of the night, “A Quiet Thing” from Flora, The Red Menace. Starr’s high notes are a stretch but it almost doesn’t matter. He’s the bare-chested beefcake that makes Perri’s life worth living in “Arthur in the Afternoon” from The Act, a little-known star vehicle Kander & Ebb wrote for Liza Minelli that won her a Tony Award. It’s unlikely you’ll remember anything else he’s done in the show after he takes his shirt off but that, of course, is the point.
Cedar’s easy manner as a singer (and yes, dancer) is beautifully understated, which makes a pleasing contrast to the belting and fast-paced attack in many of the other songs. His love song to pastries - “Sara Lee,” also from The Act - is priceless. In “We Can Make It” from The Rink, he plays it smooth and lets the lyricism of the song inspire the audience. And, in his most recognizable solo - “Mr. Cellophane” from Chicago - he again uses his natural charm to gain empathy without turning the song into a big presentational number.
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| The cast of The World Goes 'Round |
Five soloists with five different vocal styles means the blend doesn’t always gel when they sing together but it is the solos and small numbers that make the show memorable and, in their own corners, each artist excels.
It’s also great to hear these lesser-known Kander & Ebb songs infused with so much life, since the musicals themselves aren’t often produced. Perhaps there is a New York, New York, Funny Lady or Woman of the Year waiting in the wings to be produced on the west coast at some point. For now, Reprise’s The World Goes ‘Round is as close as you’ll get to hearing the songs that made Kander & Ebb famous in a theatrical setting.
The World Goes ‘Round is conceived by Scott Ellis, Susan Stroman, and David Thompson, and presented by Reprise 2.0 in association with the UCLA TFT Department of Theater.
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| Dawnn Lewis |
THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND
September 5 - 16, 2018
Reprise 2.0 at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse
UCLA - North Campus
245 Charles E. Young E Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Tickets and info: 800-982-2787 or www.Reprise2.org
Photo credit: Michael Lamont
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Labels: reprise 2.0
Monday, August 11, 2014
BEHIND THE SCENES: What I Learned Becoming Yoko
Becoming Yoko
--by Anzu Lawson
Little did I know during my first class with the Jocelyn Jones Acting Studio how my life would change. Every new studio member is required to perform what is known as an “Environment exercise*” where the actor creates and lives in a personal space, complete with personal objects, designed to get the actor involved in a true-to-life experience.
I chose the act of putting on makeup in front of a mirror. The first thing Jocelyn asked me was, “have you ever thought about playing Yoko Ono?” Ever the stand-up comedian, I quickly joked, “the woman who broke up the Beatles?” A few laughs came from the audience.
I flashed back to growing up half-Asian/half-white in Cerritos, CA, wanting desperately to be blonde and blue-eyed like all the happy people on TV. There was only one famous Asian woman in that era of pop culture and that was Yoko Ono. My step-dad was a sound engineer for rock bands, and growing up with musicians around all the time, I didn’t exactly understand why but I knew that Yoko wasn’t liked. So that was the beginning of my obsession with Daisy Duke shorts and forgoing identification with my Asian heritage.
Jocelyn assigned me a “Picture exercise*” in which the actor finds a photograph and then recreates it exactly, from the clothes to the expression to the pose.
A few weeks later, I was back on that stage, in my practiced Yoko pose and half smile while the book was passed around to my fellow students for them to critique. I could see wonderment on their faces from the stage.
Jocelyn asked me to say something as Yoko. I hesitated, but then, I spoke the words… and something happened to me. A different energy took over and I began to move differently. Yoko pauses and ponders in her speech, interjecting “Mmm… you know” frequently, so I did that. I had an out-of-body experience; the kind of timeless feeling I had only been able to experience singing, my first true love.
In my acting career, I embraced my ethnic ambiguity playing Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean roles; even a Latin doctor on Criminal Minds, but I had never attempted anything like this before! I bought every book on Yoko Ono I could and found that she was completely misunderstood.
I began to fall in love with this woman who was made a public scapegoat, still hated by many people who hadn’t taken the time to understand her. I loved her brazen and rebellious spirit. I related to feeling like an outsider living in Japan. I knew the trauma of parental-child kidnapping at the hands of a narcissist because I was kidnapped as a child. I was taken by the thoughtfulness of her art installations, impressed with the inner strength it took to be authentic, even if it meant she would not make a single penny as an artist.
Initially, I was confused by this, because when the Japanese record company I was signed to at 16 years old told me my songs weren’t melodic enough, I would have to change them so that my family would eat.
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| Anzu Lawson as Yoko Ono |
Maybe I would educate people and maybe the scarlet letter would fall off Yoko’s chest. Maybe I would embrace the closet Asian person hiding inside of me.
I started writing a screenplay but hit a wall because I couldn’t capture John’s “voice.” John had this fast, mercurial, dry, candid sense of humor that was uniquely his. I kept asking myself, how am I going to do this?
Then a light bulb went off. A musical!
Although it had been many years, I called up Joerg, my musical cohort, and said “hey…want to write a musical with me?”
I walked into the studio Joerg was renting and on the wall was a framed original vinyl LP of TWO VIRGINS, with the infamous picture of John and Yoko standing naked together. I took that as a sign. We wrote the first song that day, “I Know War,” in a matter of an hour. We looked at each other after it was done in disbelief. This was bigger than me and I felt divinely guided.
Over the course of two years, I kept thinking, am I crazy? Why am I spending so much time writing about a woman I never met? What if she hates it? What if all this time is wasted? But every time I wanted to quit, I would get another sign… my iPhone, buried at the bottom of my purse, would randomly start playing a song, and it would be a John Lennon song I don’t remember ever listening to. Little things like that kept me going.
I finished the script and I couldn’t get any producer in town to read it or take it seriously. People wanted Beatles music and my project was a story told through original music. I asked the universe for a sign and next thing I knew I was rear-ended on the 134 Freeway and my car was totaled.
The Hollywood Fringe Festival deadline was a week away and the car insurance gave me $3,000 more than I expected, so I put that money towards the theater and hired a director, my friend Nell Teare. We cast our John Lennon, scrambled to finish the writing/recording of songs and jumped into rehearsals. I had never done theatre before … especially a musical. I have only seen five musicals in my life.
It was thrilling, scary and frustrating. I felt I was being tested and expanded on so many levels.
After only four performances, I had a nomination for Best Female Performance for the Spirit of Fringe in my role as Yoko Ono in Rock and Roll’s Greatest Lovers. People cried and gave us standing ovations, and word traveled so fast we were “standing room only.”
The best part was when strangers came up to me after the show and said “you changed my mind about Yoko,” or, “I didn’t know that about her,” and especially, “I had no idea.”
The more people know about the musical the more people believe in its message. I hope one day even Yoko will get to experience what we’ve created. I know she will see the love that went into it.
As for my journey, by “Becoming Yoko,” I have come to realize all I have to give as an artist, my purpose, and most importantly, my responsibility as a proud Asian woman storyteller to give voice to this story.
*exercises are from Milton Katselas’s book ACTING CLASS-Take A Seat
Want to be part of the next step in the evolution of Rock and Roll’s Greatest Lovers? Click Here for more information about the show and check out the video below.
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| Pictured right: Anzu Lawson and her niece Kohana Porter recreating the iconic photo of Yoko, John and their daughter Kyoko |
BEHIND THE SCENES is a unique “behind the scenes” look at the creative process of artists in Los Angeles. If you would like to submit a pitch for BEHIND THE SCENES, please contact Ellen Dostal at the email address listed Here or visit the profile section.
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Labels: anzu lawson, behind the scenes, yoko ono
Friday, May 18, 2012
Re-Animator the Musical Rips Up the Hayworth Theater
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| Graham Skipper and Jesse Merlin. Photos by Thomas Hargis |
If the mark of a successful musical is getting butts in seats, then the producers of Re-Animator the Musical should be laughing all the way to the blood bank. As we stood in line for the second incarnation of Stuart Gordon’s musical – the first opened early in 2011 and ran much of last year – a young woman glanced over at us and burst out, “We’re trying to get into the theatre first so we can sit in the very front row of the splash zone!”
It may have been a first-timer’s excitement or it may have been a ‘please don’t say you want to sit there too’ appeal, but in either case we laughed and said not to worry. We’d be sitting halfway back, safely out of the way of exploding intestines, blood-spurting eyeballs and the other oozing projectiles.
“Oh good,” she exclaimed. “We’ve seen it three times and we HAVE to sit in the front row!” Her friends all nodded in agreement. Repeat butts in seats. That's gold. And so begins another run of the campy, horror musical that swept last year’s local theatre awards and breathed new life into the good-doctors-gone-bad story.
West’s discovery of a fluorescent green serum that can re-animate the dead and his ongoing experiments at Miskatonic Medical School create havoc among the students and staff. The amiable Dean Halsey (George Wendt) sees nothing amiss in West’s behavior but the dean’s lovely daughter Meg (Rachel Avery) suspects he is up to no good from the beginning. When West moves into her handsome boyfriend Dan Cain’s (Chris L. McKenna) basement, the secretive experiments continue and victims start to turn up by the score. West’s nemesis, Dr. Carl Hill (Jesse Merlin), has his own sleazy agenda and the rivalry between the two doctors ends up with Hill losing his head – quite literally – and carrying it around for half of the show.
The story follows the film pretty closely and horror fans will love seeing how director Stuart Gordon brilliantly reinvents the action for the stage. There’s plenty of death, sex, horror, comedy, music, and dancing, and those sitting in the splash zone should be revved up and ready for an experience at a whole other level. (Garbage bags are passed out if you don’t bring anything to protect your clothes). Special effects have been done by Tony Doublin, John Naulin and John Beuchler, the same team who created them for the film, along with Greg McDougal and Tom Devlin. Here they are a star attraction and as funny and wrong as they are ingenious.
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| Rachel Avery with George Wendt and Jesse Merlin |
The original cast is back led by Skipper in his hilarious turn as Herbert West. George Wendt, best known as Norm on Cheers is the show’s headliner, and he goes for it, game on, all the way through. Whether he’s being thrown around the stage by a zombie or beating his head up against an imaginary wall, Wendt gets the laugh, and we love him for it. Cain and Avery provide the sex and a dose of sweetness amid the craziness happening all around them, and Merlin’s pompous Dr. Hill is full of the cocky assurance of a man who doesn’t know he’s wearing a really bad toupee.
Re-Animator’s rough edges have been spit-shined and polished without losing any of the wacky guerrilla theater energy you felt pumping in the original. The Second City/SNL treatment of the scenes allows the cast to push the heightened comedy to the outer limits of good taste but it’s all in fun. Only the undead on stage might beg to differ.
Laura Fine Hawkes’ ingenious set design consists of a single doorway that becomes the entrance to all of the locations in the musical. It’s a great use of the space that proves it’s not how big the stage is, but what you do with it that counts. Mark Nutter’s music and lyrics have also continued to morph as the show has developed over the last year. Nutter parodies a variety of styles with many of the songs following a kind of musical stream of consciousness format that features recognizable themes and funny repetitious phrases that emerge unexpectedly. Choreographer Cynthia Carle scores big with her dueling doctor tango and never misses an opportunity to have her zombies break out their Thriller moves.
Re-Animator will move on to the New York Musical Theatre Festival and Edinburgh Fringe Festival when it finishes its run in Los Angeles. L.A. performances are Thurs., Fri., and Sun.at 8:00, and Sat. at 7:30 and 10:30 pm through July 8 at the Hayworth Theater, 2511 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057. For tickets call 323-960-4442 or go to www.plays411.com/reanimator.
* * * * * * * * * *
Re-Animator the Musical
Book: Dennis Paoli, Stuart Gordon and William J. Norris
Music & lyrics: Mark Nutter
Adapted from the stories by H.P. Lovecraft
Based on the film H.P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator produced by Brian Yuzna
Director: Stuart Gordon
Musical direction and arrangements: Peter Adams
Choreography: Cynthia Carle
Keyboards: David O. & Brian Kennedy
Set: Laura Fine Hawkes
Props: Jeff Rack
Costumes: Joe Kucharski
Lighting: Jef Ravitz & Paul Gentry
Sound design: Andy Garfield
Producers: Dean Schramm and Stuart Gordon
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Labels: stuart gordon
Monday, December 4, 2017
Review: The Wallis Searches for THE HEART OF ROBIN HOOD
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| L-R: Christina Bennett Lind and Luke Forbes in Vesturport and The Wallis’ The Heart of Robin Hood. All photos by Kevin Parry for The Wallis |
This year for the holidays, The Wallis has traded its typical musical theatre fare (Into the Woods/2014, Guys & Dolls/2015, Merrily We Roll Along/2016) for something a little less traditional but even more imaginative and fun - Vesturport Theatre’s The Heart of Robin Hood by playwright David Farr.
Directed by Gisli Örn Gardarsson and Selma Björnsdóttir, it does contain music (beautiful songs by Icelandic pop star Salka Sól) but the hybrid production also incorporates elements like aerial and floor acrobatics and a unique floor-to-ceiling forest wall that allows the actors to slide in and traverse its trap doors and crevices like they’re on a crazy obstacle course. The heightened physicality adds a playfulness to the piece and the athleticism of its sword fights and combat scenes lend a rousing intensity. Deaths are grisly, romance is a given, and an underlying earthiness characterizes the passions that arise throughout.
Heart is a twist on the tale of Robin Hood (Luke Forbes) going back to the days before he stole from the rich and gave to the poor when he and his merry men were merely self-centered thieves. The dour ruffian refuses to let women into his band with the explanation, “A woman causes tempests in the heart of a man.” While we never find out exactly what prompts him to adopt the rule, we know he will have a change of heart by the end of the tale, and that change will be inspired by a woman.
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| Christina Bennett Lind |
The woman is Lady Marion (Christina Bennett Lind), the willful, independent daughter of the Duke of York (Ian Merrigan) who, to escape her impending marriage to the villainous Prince John (Eirik del Barco Soleglad), flees to the forest. Disguised as a boy and inspired by a disastrous earlier meeting with Robin, she decides to form her own gang of thieves. But unlike Robin’s marauding band of bare-chested brawlers, her mission is selfless. She distributes her spoils to those in need and quickly becomes the beloved champion of the downtrodden. When Robin finds out this new “Martin of Sherwood” is encroaching on his territory, he furiously vows to kill him.
Farr (whose 2016 mini-series The Night Manager was a huge hit with television audiences) first directed his play at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2011. His nods to Shakespeare are unmistakable and those who know the canon will find many parallels. Marion’s journey mirrors that of Rosalind’s in As You Like It. She is accompanied by her fool, Pierre (Daniel Franzese), an effeminate and comical twist on Touchstone, and in her guise as Martin, must hide her attraction to Robin in a Rosalind/Orlando rip-off.
Borrowing from The Taming of the Shrew, Marion’s relationship with younger sister Alice (Sarah Hunt) has much in common with Kate and Bianca (although Alice is the shrewish one of this pair). If you know Twelfth Night, you’ll hear a callback to Malvolio’s last declaration in Prince John’s final words and, like all typical Shakespearean comedies, it ends in a wedding.
The style is broad and rife with innuendo. Forbes and Lind spar both verbally and at opposite ends of a blade, causing sparks to fly on more than one level. He’s stubborn, she’s even more headstrong, and the hoops they end up jumping through on their way to a happy ending will give you the warm and fuzzy glow every hopeless romantic longs for by the time they lift off into the air in a final aerial pas de deux.
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| The cast of The Heart of Robin Hood |
The score is a series of songs performed between scenes by Sól and her four musicians that capture the essence of what is about to happen on stage. The lovely singer has the kind of indie voice you can listen to all day and, as the action intensifies, so does her song style. In the early scenes, melodies meander with a folk lilt and quirky, winsome charm before giving way to a more insistent rap style. Lyrics can be difficult to understand so pay close attention.
Brian Hsieh’s graceful soundscape evokes the stealth and joy of the forest in all its cycles. It is almost imperceptible at times but the way it effortlessly enhances the tone of a scene is quite beautiful. Scenic designer Börkur Jónsson’s set makes its grand entrance the minute you walk into the theater and is enough to take your breath away at the sheer amount of lush greenery that fills the stage. It transforms under Ken Billington & Ed McCarthy’s richly dramatic lighting in surprising ways.
The Wallis never does anything halfway and with The Heart of Robin Hood they have taken another bold step forward in presenting first-rate live entertainment. This is a fairy tale with grit, sophistication, and the kind of devilish creativity a modern audience can go crazy over. (And it doesn’t hurt that you’ll find a rogue for every taste among the splendid cast).
THE HEART OF ROBIN HOOD
Nov 29 – Dec 17, 2017
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Tickets: www.thewallis.org
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| L-R: Jeremy Crawford, Luke Forbes, Sam Meader, and Daniel Franzese |
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| The cast of The Heart of Robin Hood |
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| L-R: Luke Forbes, Kasey Mahaffy, Christina Bennett Lind, Jeremy Crawford, and Sam Meader |
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| Luke Forbes |
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| Salka Sol |
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| L-R: Kasey Mahaffy, Luke Forbes, Eirik del Barco Soleglad and Sam Meader |
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Labels: the wallis, vesturport
Monday, August 20, 2012
Coeurage Theatre Company’s ASSASSINS Hits its Mark
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| Mark Jacobson, Gary Lamb, Aimee Karlin, Jesse Bradley, Jonas Barranca, and Jason Peter Kennedy. Photos by Kevin McShane |
When the house opens, the first image you see of Coeurage Theatre Company’s Assassins is an open stage minimally dressed as a red, white and blue carnival and a lone woman in black (Aimee Karlin as the Proprieter) on the balcony, polishing a gun. From her vantage point above the crowd she observes audience members as they enter, glancing periodically over the stage as something catches her eye. Though her face is expressionless, her eyes are cold, alert, suspicious, even a little irritated. It’s a chilling introduction into the world of Assassins and leaves one more than a little unsettled. Throwing you off balance is exactly the point.
Assassins is Stephen Sondheim (music & lyrics) and John Weidman’s (book) musical exploration into the minds of 9 men and women who assassinated, or attempted to assassinate, a U.S. President. Some were successful, like John Wilkes Booth who shot Abraham Lincoln, Charles Guiteau, who assassinated James Garfield, Leon Czolgosz, who killed William McKinley, and Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated JFK. Others, though unsuccessful, were no less notorious. Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sarah Jane Moore each tried to shoot Gerald Ford, Giuseppe Zangara tried to kill FDR, Samuel Byck targeted Richard Nixon, and John Hinckley attempted to kill Ronald Reagan.
As each sequence fades into the next, motives are uncovered. Justifications for their horrific behavior are offered up in a way that takes the very ideal of the American dream and assassinates it right in front of our eyes too. A lyric like “Everybody's got the right to be happy. Don't stay mad, life's not as bad as it seems. If you keep your goal in sight, you can climb to any height. Everybody's got the right to their dreams,” takes on new meaning when sung by a killer whose unfulfilled idealistic dream warps it into a kind of anti-dream.
What Sondheim and Weidman do so ingeniously with Assassins is not only give us characters not typically found in musical comedy, they create fascinating interactions between them - out of historical context but full of dramatic complexity. Guiteau, Zangara, Czolgosz, and Hinckley explosively cross paths in a bar. Fromme taunts Hinckley when she discovers his photograph of Jodie Foster, and Booth convinces Oswald that killing JFK will give them all the notoriety they deserve.
The Balladeer (sweet voiced and charming "everyman" Jeremy Lelliott) acting as narrator, weaves their stories together beginning with Booth. An emotionally-charged Ryan Wagner is insistent that he shot Lincoln for the good of the country. He pleads with the Balladeer to tell the world his story but finds he has no control over what the public will hear. Travis Dixon (at the performance reviewed) enthusiastically gives Guiteau the slick sensibility of a glad-handing politician who is determined to become Ambassador to France, albeit minus the finesse that would come with more stage time. Political activist Emma Goldman is convincingly portrayed by Sammi Smith and her scene with Czolgosz (Jonas Barranca) is one of the most touching interactions of the night. Barranca’s characterization of the Polish immigrant is a revelation and so well-crafted that he is by far the stand-out of the excellent cast.
Nicole Monet and Kim Reed (as Fromme and Moore) meet and discover their mutual connection to Charlie Manson over Kentucky Fried Chicken and some comic “girls with guns” bonding in the park. Monet’s deadpan delivery is hilarious. Jason Peter Kennedy sings beautifully and passionately as Zanagara. He misses President-elect FDR but kills Chicago Mayor Anton Chermak and is sentenced to death. The scene contrasts the humor and the horror of the situation as Zangara is arrested, sentenced, and strapped into the electric chair while each of the eye witnesses gives their account of the shooting in "How I Saved Roosevelt." The comical execution of the Sousa-esque march may be over the top but when Zangara fries it is downright eerie.
Jesse Bradley (Hinckley) also has a lovely voice, though the majority of his beautiful ballad “Unworthy of Your Love” is sung to the floor…an odd directorial choice that undermines the effectiveness of the song. Gary Lamb plays Byck for more laughs than I’ve seen in the past as do the dustbowl carnies of the ensemble.
Director Julianne Donelle is quite creative with her staging and overall does a very effective job of keeping the show moving, but choices like these, as well as the ragged endings of some of the scenes and several out-of-sync musical moments between actors and accompaniment, could be re-examined. Musical director Gregory Nabours has arranged Sondheim’s score to give the production the sound of an early twentieth century traveling show while cycling through a wide range of song styles that reflect the changing time periods.
By the time the indelible images of JFK’s assassination are reflected on the back wall and Lelliott as Oswald takes his place in the line-up of killers, our perception of the American dream has been forever altered. A door has been opened that can never be closed and the uneasiness of what’s to come looms like an unseen apparition above the assassins as they raise their guns in a final disturbing pose.
Coeurage Theatre Company’s production of Assassins is dark, funny, and often unsettling, but it hits its mark in surreal solidarity by meeting the demands of the provocative material head-on.
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| Kim Reed, Nick Rocz, Jason Peter Kennedy, Nicole Monet, Jeremy Lelliott, Ryan Wagner, Jonas Barranca, Jesse Bradley, and Gary Lamb |
Assassins: Courage Theatre Company, Actors Circle Theatre, 7313 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, through September 9th. Tickets are pay-what-you-want. For reservations and more information visit www.coeurage.org.
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Labels: coeurage theatre
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Review: Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's Luminous BRIGHT STAR
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| Wayne Alan Wilcox and Carmen Cusack. Photos by Joan Marcus. |
What I found so utterly engaging about the world premiere of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's new musical Bright Star is its complete unpretentiousness. Certainly its musical style -- American bluegrass with a heaping helping of laid-back mountain charm -- has the kind of lilting homespun ease that feels like you're listening to the neighborhood jug band on mama's back porch, and there's something oddly comforting about that.
The story is original, though inspired by an actual event, and moves back and forth between the end of World War II and 1923. You can google "Iron Mountain Baby" if you want to eliminate the shock you'll inevitably feel as Act I reveals its secrets but I recommend letting the musical's surprises play out naturally to fully appreciate the turns in the narrative. It contains a great deal of the bigness of life - heartache, hope, optimism, despair - yet it never forgets that its true center is the intimacy of the small moments.
It's about coming home and the coincidences that make that journey possible, the unexpected events that heal old wounds, and the inevitable forces that guide us on our way. It's about two people; a young soldier seeking his fortune after the war and a woman whose life didn't turn out the way she planned. When fate brings them together, everything they know to be true will change and old ghosts will finally be put to rest in a way neither of them could ever have predicted.
The cast is magnificent, led by a captivating Carmen Cusack as Alice Murphy, the newspaper editor who catches Billy Cane (extremely likable A. J. Shively), the young soldier who comes to her looking for a job as a writer, in a lie. The Old Globe stage is her playground and she owns it completely with an infinitely rich, full, and layered performance that is the very heart and soul of the piece. Her voice wraps around Martin's melodies in a magical way bringing the flavor of this particular brand of music to life with such joy that if for no other reason than to see her, you must see this musical.
"Go find a heartbreak and write about it," is Alice's advice to Billy about how to find his authentic voice as a writer. Hers concerns her childhood sweetheart, Jimmy Ray Dobbs (Wayne Alan Wilcox), whose father, Mayor Dobbs (Wayne Duvall), had more than a little to say about the validity of their budding romance when they were teens. Duvall's realistic performance drew boos more than once from the audience for his actions in the show and Wilcox's portrayal of the young romantic is an engaging one. Stephen Lee Anderson and Stephen Bogardus take on the father roles, Alice's and Billy's respectively, two salt of the earth men doing the best they can for their children.
And all the while, in and around these characters and their stories is the music; this luscious, emotionally-wrought, foot-stomping, bright, haunting music. Five onstage musicians who glide on a revolving cabin moved by the actors, and four offstage musicians, create a living, breathing character with the score that is as alive as any of the bodies walking across the stage. August Eriksmoen's orchestrations and Rob Berman's musical direction and vocal arrangements will make you fall in love with the sound of the Blue Ridge Mountains captured here with such purity. The songs do land differently on the ear than what you may be used to, and it can take a moment to adjust to the way the stresses of Brickell's lyrics live within the musical phrases, but it is characteristic of the style and its nuances are deeply felt.
Director Walter Bobbie and choreographer Josh Rhodes emphasize those nuances by adding clogging and slapping to the more traditional community-driven dance moves (accompanied by the party music of a spoon player, a mouth harp, and a jug player), and they also use the sound of the movements themselves to intensify the dramatic action. Often it is a visual subtext to a number, like the anger in "Firmer Hand," an accusatory song that labels Alice the black sheep of the family accompanied by stomps and slaps as punctuation to the lyric.
In another more beautiful background staging, couples pair off in a gentle waltz behind Alice and Jimmy Ray when he asks her to marry him. And in yet another completely devastating moment of separation, the lone female fiddle player is isolated from the rest of the orchestra and placed in a chair with her back to the audience while she plays, which pointedly parallels what is happening to Alice.
Simplicity and inventiveness in the lighting, scenic design and costumes create uniquely transparent stage magic. We watch as a smart 1940's business suit transitions within seconds to a young girl's dress like a dance, and the clock turns back twenty years. An optical illusion takes place as the bare brick wall of the theater, transformed by lighting, becomes the mountains of North Carolina as a white cutout drops from above, making you gasp at how easily it achieves its effect. And the fragile sounds of a country evening, almost imperceptible but curiously satisfying, coax you down a backwoods road. These are the kinds of details that create an unforgettable signature.
In 2013 Martin and Brickell collaborated on a CD of 13 songs, "Love Has Come For You" which was the genesis for what would later become this musical. Of the nearly twenty songs in the show, "Sun's Gonna Shine" was the first Martin and Brickell wrote together and one of the only two that would eventually remain in the show. Brickell wrote the lyrics and melodies to Martin's music and before long he began to see characters in their songs and a story that wouldn't stay quiet.
Some streamlining of the supporting characters and their relationships to the main stories is sure to come but what exists now is a jewel of an experience that is unique and quite special. See it now before it goes to Broadway because this one surely has a ticket on an easttbound train in its future.
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| The cast of Bright Star |
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| Carmen Cusack and (from left) Scott Wakefield and Joe Jung and the orchestra of Bright Star |
Left: Wayne Alan Wilcox and Carmen Cusack. Right: A.J. Shively
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| L-R: Kate Loprest, Jeff Hiller and Carmen Cusack |
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| Stephen Lee Anderson and Carmen Cusack |
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| Hannah Elless |
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| A.J. Shively and Stephen Bogardus |
Through November 2, 2014
The Old Globe
1363 Old Globe Way,
San Diego, CA 92101
www.theoldglobe.org
www.theoldglobe.org
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