I was pumped to go into The Actors Gang Theatre (9070 Venice Blvd - Culver City, CA) and see a really amazing evening of theatre with their current revival of “Carnage: A Comedy.” I felt like the show held promise and with a well respected name like Tim Robbins attached as one of the writers of this 20 year old satire, I knew I was in for the full treatment. I must say though it never quite congealed for me. When I was watching it, the acting was good and everything appeared to be as it should; upon further reflection, I have a few problems.
Perhaps it was the fact that, as Mr. Robbins, the artistic director, says in the liner notes “The play you will see tonight is the same play (which premiered in 1987). Except for one line referencing our current war in the first scene the play is unchanged.” Why would this be a problem? We’re still parsing our syllables over Shakespeare 400 years after the fact. To go back to the liner notes, “(When) we first performed “Carnage: A Comedy…we were a young and impassioned group and the play addressed issues that concerned us at the time. It was a vital and visceral experience…”
Okay. That’s fine. We’ve all had “vital” and “visceral” experiences which have helped to shape who we are today. But, haven’t you changed from those young minds at all? Yes, there are still hucksters telling us lies, trying to blow smoke back in the exhaust, turning water into wine and urine back into water; and yes, the sad but true fact is that statistically there is a sucker born every minute ready to buy what that shyster is selling, but really? Is that all there is?
We’re an educated group that goes to the theatre; what you’re telling us as an audience is that we don’t deserve any more nuance than one sentence from what you’d written twenty years ago when you were in your twenties yourselves! That’s not progress! I’d like to hope that everyone that was in that audience doesn’t still hold the same set of beliefs about people that they did twenty years ago. Yet, when Cotton Slocum gets into the cannon and the lights go black except for the little plastic action figure on a string lit up above the audience head by a spotlight to simulate “distance” I had a sudden realization that felt like Paul Reubens giving me his Big Top Pee Wee impressions of the way of the world. The Gospel According to Pee Wee. Let Us Pray.
More to the point of what your play was trying to say; Jerry Falwell is no longer with us; Pat Robertson is not nearly as relevant as he once was. We’re moving away from this type of thought into a more enlightened moment. With re-hashing of old stories and the airing of old grievances, we’re not moving the discussion forward in any kind of a productive manner.
Not to even get into the army segment of your show! I felt like I was in an Orwellian/Heller nightmare there for half of your play. But we can’t keep talking about the present as though the past were the only viable template. The Wild West, bible thumping, halleluiah that ya’ll were peddling is yesterday; let’s talk about right now. And tomorrow. That is our only course for safety and salvation on this earth.
I can’t go back to that place. I fell out with Pee Wee a long time ago. So, I think, did Reubens!
Showing posts with label california. Show all posts
Showing posts with label california. Show all posts
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The Golden State by Dell'Arte Theatre Company Moves Downstate
There are many things which are not praised enough in the world of live performance; events which are rehearsed and seemingly pedestrian in their execution but which can alter the viewer’s perception, shift consciousness, alter reality. Some performance is so beautiful, so eye-opening, so original and inventive that people walk away from performance more aware and fundamentally changed. So it is for the Dell’Arte Company; their internationally recognized brand of physical, ensemble theatre has earned their reputation the world over.
The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre was founded in the early 1970’s and has been offering training in acting, voice, movement, and related physical skills with particular attention paid to mask, tragedy, clown, as well as the legendary commedia dell’arte.
The group is heading south from their home in Northern California down to present their interpretation of Moliere’s “The Miser” entitled “The Golden State.” Their show series begins at Occidental College’s Keck Theatre (1600 Campus Rd Eagle Rock CA) February 1st & 2nd. Then the show will move into a temporary home at the 24th Street Theatre (1117 W 24th St Los Angeles CA) February 8th- 24th.
Even though this is the Dell’Arte companies first visit to Los Angeles in almost 19 years that will likely soon change. According to Dell’Arte’s producing artistic director and the director of this production, “We want to make 24th Street our Los Angeles base so we can come down every year and people will know where to look for us.”
The humor found in Moliere’s cannon is not lost on this production and their modern spin on this classic text is emblematic. First written in 1667, this “incarnation of greed was a rich old coot named Harpagon, whose love for his cashbox eclipsed all other loves, even that for his children.”
Without the least bit or irony Dell’Arte have taken their “The Golden State”, adaptation and turned this premise around to the mirror. The people in California are heady, the people in California are into themselves, and this is where the humor takes off. According to their press release, this piece gets steam from “hedonisticSouthern California (and) also draws its inspiration from humanity's blinding and passionate lust for money. The Dell’Arte Company have taken Moliere's comedy of profit-driven family relations and turned it on its head, re-inventing the miser as an elderly California widow with a fortune stuffed in her bra and whose adult children are the desperate products of her fanatical hoarding.”
Ticket prices vary and there are discounts for students at both venues with valid ID. If you are looking for something completely different than you should check out Dell’Arte Theatre Company and their presentation of “The Golden State."
http://www.24thstreet.org/
dellarte.com/
www.oxy.edu/MapsDirections.xml
The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre was founded in the early 1970’s and has been offering training in acting, voice, movement, and related physical skills with particular attention paid to mask, tragedy, clown, as well as the legendary commedia dell’arte.
The group is heading south from their home in Northern California down to present their interpretation of Moliere’s “The Miser” entitled “The Golden State.” Their show series begins at Occidental College’s Keck Theatre (1600 Campus Rd Eagle Rock CA) February 1st & 2nd. Then the show will move into a temporary home at the 24th Street Theatre (1117 W 24th St Los Angeles CA) February 8th- 24th.
Even though this is the Dell’Arte companies first visit to Los Angeles in almost 19 years that will likely soon change. According to Dell’Arte’s producing artistic director and the director of this production, “We want to make 24th Street our Los Angeles base so we can come down every year and people will know where to look for us.”
The humor found in Moliere’s cannon is not lost on this production and their modern spin on this classic text is emblematic. First written in 1667, this “incarnation of greed was a rich old coot named Harpagon, whose love for his cashbox eclipsed all other loves, even that for his children.”
Without the least bit or irony Dell’Arte have taken their “The Golden State”, adaptation and turned this premise around to the mirror. The people in California are heady, the people in California are into themselves, and this is where the humor takes off. According to their press release, this piece gets steam from “hedonisticSouthern California (and) also draws its inspiration from humanity's blinding and passionate lust for money. The Dell’Arte Company have taken Moliere's comedy of profit-driven family relations and turned it on its head, re-inventing the miser as an elderly California widow with a fortune stuffed in her bra and whose adult children are the desperate products of her fanatical hoarding.”
Ticket prices vary and there are discounts for students at both venues with valid ID. If you are looking for something completely different than you should check out Dell’Arte Theatre Company and their presentation of “The Golden State."
http://www.24thstreet.org/
dellarte.com/
www.oxy.edu/MapsDirections.xml
Frankie & Johnny Return to Tinsel Town–Screen & Stage Collide in Hollywood in Terrance McNally’s Classic
January 4th, 2008
Frankie & Johnny In The Clair De Lune emerge from the vaults and make their move on the
Hudson Mainstage Theatre
By Jesse Schmitt
Who could forget Al Pacino and Michele Pfeiffer in the move of the same name? You don’t chose love, love chooses you; fuhugetaboutit! But the real truth remains still a mystery to many of those who were even familiar with the film. The fact remains that the 1987 play written by Terrance McNally originally starred not Michele Pfeiffer but Kathy Bates (!) in a dramatic departure from the film version and was much more stark than what Hollywood portrayed.
But as they say, everyone deserves a second chance and so under the associate production of renowned acting teacher to the stars, Larry Moss comes this exiting revival “Frankie & Johnny In The Clair De Lune.” Set to open in previews on January 17th & 18th with the official opening on January 19th for an impressive length run until March 1, 2008 at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre (6539 Santa Monica Blvd) in Hollywood, this production promises to be a gem.
Set around the adroit story of Johnny, a short order cook and ex-con who is able to con his way into the lonely life of drifter waitress Frankie, this is a timeless love story for our modern times. It would seem that all at once too many of us are too consumed by ourselves to see the bigger picture or too immersed in the day to day melodrama to not be able to see the next foot in front of the last or to even know where that next step may lead. This is the plight of Frankie and it takes a one night stand and a Romeo pose from Johnny to show her that the only thing stronger than her desire to be left alone is his will not to let that happen.
We are all asked in seeing this play to hold up the looking glass and peer inside of our own lives and try to piece together the missing links. Many times when people speak of “life imitating art” they are being trite and are ignoring the much larger point that all of life imitates all of art because art is created from life. But the characters in Frankie & Johnny In The Clair De Lune will still reach down to that most special, deepest part and the words of Mr. McNally will elicit both a laugh and a tear as you bring your hands together in applause.
If this restaging is anything like the recent revival on Broadway with Stanley Tucci and Edie Falco, then the Los Angeles theatre goers are in for quite a treat.
www.plays411.com/frankie
323-960-7863
Frankie & Johnny In The Clair De Lune emerge from the vaults and make their move on the
Hudson Mainstage Theatre
By Jesse Schmitt
Who could forget Al Pacino and Michele Pfeiffer in the move of the same name? You don’t chose love, love chooses you; fuhugetaboutit! But the real truth remains still a mystery to many of those who were even familiar with the film. The fact remains that the 1987 play written by Terrance McNally originally starred not Michele Pfeiffer but Kathy Bates (!) in a dramatic departure from the film version and was much more stark than what Hollywood portrayed.
But as they say, everyone deserves a second chance and so under the associate production of renowned acting teacher to the stars, Larry Moss comes this exiting revival “Frankie & Johnny In The Clair De Lune.” Set to open in previews on January 17th & 18th with the official opening on January 19th for an impressive length run until March 1, 2008 at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre (6539 Santa Monica Blvd) in Hollywood, this production promises to be a gem.
Set around the adroit story of Johnny, a short order cook and ex-con who is able to con his way into the lonely life of drifter waitress Frankie, this is a timeless love story for our modern times. It would seem that all at once too many of us are too consumed by ourselves to see the bigger picture or too immersed in the day to day melodrama to not be able to see the next foot in front of the last or to even know where that next step may lead. This is the plight of Frankie and it takes a one night stand and a Romeo pose from Johnny to show her that the only thing stronger than her desire to be left alone is his will not to let that happen.
We are all asked in seeing this play to hold up the looking glass and peer inside of our own lives and try to piece together the missing links. Many times when people speak of “life imitating art” they are being trite and are ignoring the much larger point that all of life imitates all of art because art is created from life. But the characters in Frankie & Johnny In The Clair De Lune will still reach down to that most special, deepest part and the words of Mr. McNally will elicit both a laugh and a tear as you bring your hands together in applause.
If this restaging is anything like the recent revival on Broadway with Stanley Tucci and Edie Falco, then the Los Angeles theatre goers are in for quite a treat.
www.plays411.com/frankie
323-960-7863
Big Baby Comes to The Lounge Theatre in Hollywood
January 3rd, 2008
Stick Your Head In Gravy
By Jesse Schmitt
Los Angeles likes to do things in high style and they are kicking off 2008 in such style with a number of exciting new theatrical openings which are taking shape as we speak.
One of these very exciting openings is “Big Baby,” which opens up January 10, 2008 and is slated to run through February 9, 2008. “Big Baby is playing at The Lounge Theatre (6201 Santa Monica Blvd; Hollywood).
This play was written by Joe Keyes, a playwright who has brought about such classics as “Bob’s Holiday Office Party” and “Pete’s Garage.” This show is one which has been cleverly directed by Matt Roth. Mr. Roth has a long and rich resume which includes his work as an actor, has appeared in many well respected circles such as Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago among others. Roth has also been a star of the stage and the small screen in a number of situations.
Big Baby is the story of Kile. A mentally ill grown adult man, Kile lives in the mid-west; he lives in an apartment; he lives in drudgery. But this is not a drudgery of his own design, really, because he still lives with his mother. As stern as the day he was a boy, the mother keeps Kile in a regimented, restricted, abusive routine. Kile sees no end to his dreary existence; no end until a new neighbor comes in next door. Nancy is not only mysterious and exciting; she’s also a dominatrix.
Big Baby is a play which should keep you in stitches in spite of yourself. A common story told in uncommon tenor, Big Baby is about the fight we all fight all our lives; the search for companionship, the struggle for understanding, the quest for love.
With searing, swooping, epic themes, Joe Keyes touches on many of our most primal, gut issues including the mother son relationship, religion, sex, shame, gluttony, fear, the sadomasochistic impulse inside of us all and an addiction to baloney which could have you cringing in your seat.
Touted as a “funny, frightening, brutal and sad” story; Big Baby seems to be as much about the playwrights search for answers as it is about his characters. And in this world as we all struggle for meaning and grapple with these larger questions which plague us every day, an understanding of self is about as close as any of us should be able to get before we make that last great ascent.
plays411.com/bigbaby
Stick Your Head In Gravy
By Jesse Schmitt
Los Angeles likes to do things in high style and they are kicking off 2008 in such style with a number of exciting new theatrical openings which are taking shape as we speak.
One of these very exciting openings is “Big Baby,” which opens up January 10, 2008 and is slated to run through February 9, 2008. “Big Baby is playing at The Lounge Theatre (6201 Santa Monica Blvd; Hollywood).
This play was written by Joe Keyes, a playwright who has brought about such classics as “Bob’s Holiday Office Party” and “Pete’s Garage.” This show is one which has been cleverly directed by Matt Roth. Mr. Roth has a long and rich resume which includes his work as an actor, has appeared in many well respected circles such as Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago among others. Roth has also been a star of the stage and the small screen in a number of situations.
Big Baby is the story of Kile. A mentally ill grown adult man, Kile lives in the mid-west; he lives in an apartment; he lives in drudgery. But this is not a drudgery of his own design, really, because he still lives with his mother. As stern as the day he was a boy, the mother keeps Kile in a regimented, restricted, abusive routine. Kile sees no end to his dreary existence; no end until a new neighbor comes in next door. Nancy is not only mysterious and exciting; she’s also a dominatrix.
Big Baby is a play which should keep you in stitches in spite of yourself. A common story told in uncommon tenor, Big Baby is about the fight we all fight all our lives; the search for companionship, the struggle for understanding, the quest for love.
With searing, swooping, epic themes, Joe Keyes touches on many of our most primal, gut issues including the mother son relationship, religion, sex, shame, gluttony, fear, the sadomasochistic impulse inside of us all and an addiction to baloney which could have you cringing in your seat.
Touted as a “funny, frightening, brutal and sad” story; Big Baby seems to be as much about the playwrights search for answers as it is about his characters. And in this world as we all struggle for meaning and grapple with these larger questions which plague us every day, an understanding of self is about as close as any of us should be able to get before we make that last great ascent.
plays411.com/bigbaby
Naked Yoga Bares All at the Unknown
January 4th, 2008
Show Yours Naked
By Jesse Schmitt
Many people have opinions on alternative lifestyles, alternative diets, and alternative exercise methods. It’s actually sort of silly; where did we get the idea to eat cow and not decide that we needed to scour the Pacific Ocean bottom for fish eggs? When did we decide that staying awake in the daytime was what we were supposed to do? A lot of it has to do with tradition and the fact that we had to make due with what we had. It’s true that today there are 24 hour cities all over the world, there are all manner of food we can eat, but the truth is that year and years ago there was decidedly less option, less ability to maneuver around, and we had to get all our work done before the sun sets or vampires would come out of the hills!
While many myths have been debunked (ever seen Myth Busters?) there are some things which have always worked and that’s the reason we keep doing them. Take for example, jogging. It raises the heart rate, gets the blood flowing, makes you sweat, and when done in handy enough fashion keeps you in shape.
But there are always alternatives! There has to be! Yoga has been around in the east for thousands of years; in some marketing department in the 80’s some marketing department came up with the idea that people in America would love Yoga! Women loved Jane Fonda videos but while the men were playing racquetball and talking about their Triple Crown picks at the club, the women didn’t need to leave their 13 channel VHS equipped LCD TV (ah, memories)
Fast foreword to today; men are trying to get back ahead as it’s increasingly becoming a woman’s world (listen to Jane Fonda tell it like it is) and thus came about “Naked Yoga.” This is a world premiere of a new play about sexual politics turned on it’s head, playing at The Unknown Theatre (1110 Seward St; Los Angeles) from writer/director Alex Carter.
Mr. Carter explores the world of Yoga politics in his debut turn as writer/director. Based on a true story, Naked Yoga takes comedy up a notch as there is a whole new rulebook for sexual politics in the modern world.
With a teaser like “She came! She saw! She kicked his butt! And he never knew what hit him.” You can’t help but be intrigued. Weak men are everywhere but the old dynamic of man in a constant position of power just doesn’t apply anymore. Naked Yoga hopes to explore, expose, and exploit this fact with humor and humanity.
Show Yours Naked
By Jesse Schmitt
Many people have opinions on alternative lifestyles, alternative diets, and alternative exercise methods. It’s actually sort of silly; where did we get the idea to eat cow and not decide that we needed to scour the Pacific Ocean bottom for fish eggs? When did we decide that staying awake in the daytime was what we were supposed to do? A lot of it has to do with tradition and the fact that we had to make due with what we had. It’s true that today there are 24 hour cities all over the world, there are all manner of food we can eat, but the truth is that year and years ago there was decidedly less option, less ability to maneuver around, and we had to get all our work done before the sun sets or vampires would come out of the hills!
While many myths have been debunked (ever seen Myth Busters?) there are some things which have always worked and that’s the reason we keep doing them. Take for example, jogging. It raises the heart rate, gets the blood flowing, makes you sweat, and when done in handy enough fashion keeps you in shape.
But there are always alternatives! There has to be! Yoga has been around in the east for thousands of years; in some marketing department in the 80’s some marketing department came up with the idea that people in America would love Yoga! Women loved Jane Fonda videos but while the men were playing racquetball and talking about their Triple Crown picks at the club, the women didn’t need to leave their 13 channel VHS equipped LCD TV (ah, memories)
Fast foreword to today; men are trying to get back ahead as it’s increasingly becoming a woman’s world (listen to Jane Fonda tell it like it is) and thus came about “Naked Yoga.” This is a world premiere of a new play about sexual politics turned on it’s head, playing at The Unknown Theatre (1110 Seward St; Los Angeles) from writer/director Alex Carter.
Mr. Carter explores the world of Yoga politics in his debut turn as writer/director. Based on a true story, Naked Yoga takes comedy up a notch as there is a whole new rulebook for sexual politics in the modern world.
With a teaser like “She came! She saw! She kicked his butt! And he never knew what hit him.” You can’t help but be intrigued. Weak men are everywhere but the old dynamic of man in a constant position of power just doesn’t apply anymore. Naked Yoga hopes to explore, expose, and exploit this fact with humor and humanity.
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