To hear The Platters sing "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach, from a 1958 recording, go here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2di83WAOhU
USTheater is devoted to plays, operas, and performances, American and international, performed and published in the United States. We also are open to new plays by playwrights. All materials are copyrighted as noted. The blog is edited and much of it written by Douglas Messerli
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Monday, May 29, 2017
Peter, Paul, and Mary | "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" [link]
Peter, Paul, and Mary's classic "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" on the 25th anniversary.
https://youtu.be/ZgXNVA9ngx8
https://youtu.be/ZgXNVA9ngx8
David Crosby | "She's Got to Be Somewhere" [link]
David Crosby's newest: "She's Got To Be Somewhere," as performed on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show. An unusual number for him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYwo0ZhzFLM&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYwo0ZhzFLM&feature=youtu.be
Dimash Kudaibergenov | "Adigio" [link]
Definitely kind of kitsch musical performances, but still quite incredible, and Dimash Kudaibergenov's voice has a five octave rate. Here's his "Adigio."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhfWSx_I_Hc&list=RDEhfWSx_I_Hc&index=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhfWSx_I_Hc&list=RDEhfWSx_I_Hc&index=1
Sunday, May 28, 2017
Douglas Messerli | "Going On" (on Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne's Battlefield, based on The Mahabharata, by Jean-Claude Carrière)
going on
by
Douglas Messerli
Peter
Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne adaptation (from the play, The Mahabharata, by Jean-Claude Carrière) and directors Battlefield / Beverly Hills, the Wallis
Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, the performance I attended was the
matinee on Saturday, May 27, 2017
After
productions in New York, San Francisco, and elsewhere, Peter Brook’s most
recent work, Battlefield, has now
moved in for a short, 4-day run at Beverly Hills’ Wallis Annenberg Center for
the Performing Arts.
In some respects this seems less like a
new work than a kind extension, or epilogue, to Brook’s epic 1987 work The Mahabharata,
a nine-hour spectacle that had such a large cast that, when it was performed in
Los Angeles, it was staged at the Raleigh film sound studio.
Like that epic-event, in this new Brook worked
with long-term collaborator, Marie-Hélène Estienne, adapting the play by the
noted writer Jean-Claude Carrière (who collaborated with Luis Buñuel on several
films and wrote the scripts for dozens of others, including The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Tin Drum, and Valmont); but as the years have passed Brook and Estienne have
shifted their focus from large to small, moving increasingly to a kind
minimalist purity.
Battlefield
runs just over 1-hour, and its sets consist primarily of few slender wooden
poles lined up in a row along the back of the stage; there are only four
actors, dressed primarily in colorful robes which they don to differentiate the
various roles they undertake. Instead of the large chorus of instruments
employed in The Mahabharata, there is a single drummer, Toshi Tsuchitori, who
performed as well in that earlier production.
Yet for all of this stripping away of
extraneous detail, Battlefield does
not feel simplistic or constrained. In fact, it carries with it all the
terrifying details the great battle before it which has killed millions,
including nearly all of Yudhishthira’s (Jared McNeill), family, along with his
greatest enemy, whom his mother Kunti (Carole Karemera) reveals early in the
play was actually his brother, born with her in a liaison with the sun.
Yudhishthira, overwhelmed with the grief
of all those deaths, is determined to enter the woods in penance for his
destruction of so many lives, but his father (Sean O’Callaghan) and his mother
insist he must carry on as the new King, suggesting that he visit his
grandfather, the elderly and soon-to-die Dritarashtra (Ery
Nzaramba), who, in a series, of parables and gnomic statements, impresses upon
the his grandson the cyclic nature of war and peace, of love and violence. What
has just happened will ultimately happen again and again, and is not entirely
the fault of those involved but simply a product of their destinies. Much as in Beckett’s works, Yudhishthira is a man
who cannot “go on,” but must go on nonetheless.
Finally convinced to take up the crown,
Yudhishthira gives away all his personal goods and wealth to the priests, but
is advised, instead, by his royal counsel, to give everything to the poor. One
of the most charming episodes of the play is when, after gathering up all the
robes upon the stage, the counsel attempts to give them away to the poor, a
difficult thing to do to the front-row patrons of the Beverly Hills theater.
Giving up on asking whether any them of poor, the counsel asks only if they
might know someone is poor.
Other crises follow, and there are
further engaging parables, one between Destiny and Time, who argue about a
snake that just killed a child; Time wants to kill the snake, but Destiny
successfully argues that the snake was only doing what a snake does and therefore
should be allowed to escape alive.
In another such parable, a worm is
terrified to cross a road, desiring to remain alive in the world, even though he,
in his former life a cheating man, has been punished by becoming just who he is.
Time argues that he has no choice but to cross the road, even if a speeding
chariot might crush him, and the worm is convinced to move forward; he is, of
course, crushed.
In a third such scenario, a just prince,
after promising to save a pigeon, gives away parts of his own body equal to the
size of the pigeon to a falcon who demands to feast upon his prey. Having
finally given up his entire body, both the falcon and the pigeon praise the now
dead prince as being the most just man in the universe.
There is, in short, no answers provided
for the horrible events that The
Mahabharata chronicle; there is only the consolation of moving forward.
While his mother and father determine to do penance by moving off into the
woods, to live on roots and fruits, Yudhishthira has no choice but to rule for
the 36 years that have been pre-ordained, and to do the very best he can do in
his position.
After all the roar of the battlefield,
his rule is a time of silence, of sorrow, of regret, and reunification—essons
we can all use now as we once again hear the refrains of “us” and “them,” of the differences between
people who are, after all, simply our brothers.
What Brook’s new work reveals is that,
after the smoke has cleared and the bodies carried off, there can never be
losers and winners; only fate itself remains. Lamentations have no meaning;
only the knowledge of what life is and isn’t matters to those given the task to
go on living.
If this play is simple in its
storytelling, it is made profound by the brilliant acting the entire cast. With
their quiet voices, their every word was clearly to be heard, and only the beat
of life played out on Tsuchitori’s drum had the ability to drown out their
musings. But that is, obviously, life’s prerogative, as it gradually kills off
all of the fears, absurdities, and contemplations of the living.
Los Angeles, May
28, 2017
Monday, May 22, 2017
Pablo Capra | "Theater in the Merry-Go-Round" (on James Harris's An Illegal Start)
theater in the merry-go-round
by Pablo Capra
James Harris (author), Paul Sand (director) An Illegal Start / Santa Monica Public Theatre, in the Santa Monica Pier Merry-Go-Round / The performance I saw was on Friday, May 19, 2017
Watching a play in the 1920s merry-go-round of the Santa Monica Pier has to be one of the most uniquely wonderful theater experiences in Los Angeles. The painted horses and carnival architecture immediately inspire viewers to be transported to another world.
In the case of An Illegal Start by James Harris, that other world is a small town in 1980s Colorado, where two high school boys are beginning an unlikely friendship.
Pete Wilson lives a life of good fortune. He has just survived a serious car accident with only minor injuries, an inexpensive ticket, and no censure from his middle-class parents. He dreams of moving to Los Angeles to become an actor and writer.
Robbie Zamora is less fortunate. He was knocked out in the accident (and would have died if he hadn’t been wearing an army helmet), resulting in a concussion that causes him to hear the voice of his dead grandmother. He lives in an impoverished minority neighborhood in a floodplain, and crudely describes what his parents would have done to him if he’d been driving. His only aspiration is to stay in his hometown and become a fireman.
Several years pass between each scene, visualized by the spinning of the merry-go-round, and possibly reminding us of the philosopher Boethius, who cautioned not to trust the fickle wheel of fortune. At first, the difference in the two boys’ fortunes only seems to increase. By the middle of the play, Pete is accepted at UCLA, while Robbie enlists in the Air Force and may have to go to war. But while writer James Harris has us worrying about Robbie, he cleverly distracts us from the signs that Pete is really the one in trouble.
Pete’s minor injuries from the accident linger as a ringing in his ears. He becomes increasingly dependent on alcohol. His date with his high school crush goes nowhere. In contrast, Robbie’s injuries heal quickly. He outgrows his youthful drinking. He becomes so popular with the girls that he takes three dates to the prom.
Pete’s minor injuries from the accident linger as a ringing in his ears. He becomes increasingly dependent on alcohol. His date with his high school crush goes nowhere. In contrast, Robbie’s injuries heal quickly. He outgrows his youthful drinking. He becomes so popular with the girls that he takes three dates to the prom.
By the end of the play, their reversals of fortune are obvious. Robbie returns from the Air Force unharmed. He has traveled. He has married. He has his own business as a contractor (while also indulging his childhood dream by becoming a volunteer fireman). Meanwhile, Pete works at the same bar he’s been at forever, with no career or romantic prospects. His alcoholism leads him to a point of crisis where he almost dies in the hometown he was determined to escape.
What happened?
Finally the play reveals what it’s really about: having the courage to follow your dreams. Pete began as a dreamer but took no meaningful action (perhaps that was “the illegal start” that led to his downfall). Instead he waited at his bar for a customer to give him a part in a movie.
Robbie’s dream may not have been to go into the Air Force, but it was a way forward, and he took it. Pete is confounded by Robbie’s decision until it is finally explained. Robbie confesses that he joined the Air Force to not betray the dreamer that Pete was, making Pete aware of how he has betrayed himself.
By going into the Air Force, Robbie demonstrated that he had the guts to fight for the life he wanted.
"I thought you really had it together, Pete. You spoke as though you had all wisdom, and I bought every word of it. You had the guts to leave everything behind. To do things your own way."
By going into the Air Force, Robbie demonstrated that he had the guts to fight for the life he wanted.
Irish Giron as Robbie is full of energy, quick to laugh, and extroverted, filling the room with his assertive presence. Cameron Tagge as Pete is understated and brooding. He simmers throughout, then delivers an explosive release of emotions. Both actors show off athletic talents, leaping over railings and performing handstands.
James Harris’s lean descriptions effortlessly conjure up the various time periods of his play: the ‘80s Reagan Depression, the ‘90s Gulf War, and the optimistic turn-of-the-century. During this long span, he creatively makes drama out of letter writing and journal entries to maintain the characters’ connection.
Director Paul Sand has the actors constantly interact with the merry-go-round. They push it, ride it, run on it, and count the horses—while pointing out that there’s also a pig and a goat! He transforms the challenges of the non-theatrical space into the most memorable parts of the staging. An encounter with a police officer is imagined through an open window, and a support column becomes an indispensable prop for the actors. It’s clear that he’s getting the most fun out of directing a play in a merry-go-round.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Douglas Messerli | "Dance of Surprises" (on Matthew Bourne's Early Adventures)
dance of surprises
by Douglas Messerli
by Douglas Messerli
Matthew Bourne (choreographer) Early Adventures / performed at Beverly Hill’s Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, May 17-21, 2017 / I attended with Thérèse Bachand the matinee on May 20, 2017.
Although Matthew
Bourne has choreographed plenty of traditional musicals and balletic events,
including My Fair Lady, South Pacific, Oliver! and The Red Shoes, he
is perhaps best known for his notoriously gay-themed productions, particularly
his Swan Lake and his proposed
male-male production of Romeo and Juliet.
The three ballets of Early Adventures, reconceived works from the late 1980 and early 1990s, often toy with some of the same gestures, surprising and sexualizing sequences which might otherwise have been “cute” or simply “sweet.” Yes, there are dazzling heterosexual couples spinning through the three pieces, but the marvel of his works is that at any moment the proper British characters might slip into bawdy and outright randy behavior, like the bad boys and girls of the first work here performed, “Watch with Mother” from 1991, based on Joyce Grenfell’s “Nursery School Sketches” (probably forgotten by most Americans, Grenfell, who died in 1979, is still a well-loved monologist and performer in Britain).
Bourne’s 1991 masterpiece, “Town and Country”
followed. This multi-segmented piece includes nearly everything, including
satiric views of wealthy British couples, two of whom (João Carolino and Mari
Kamata) take somewhat strip-tease-like
balletic baths attended—or we might say, “overattended”—by a valet and maid.
Two British dandies (Fitzpatrick and Edwin Ray) lovingly restrain themselves
while satisfying each other’s sexual needs during an outdoor picnic.
In another scene, Bourne duplicates the
famed railway restaurant scene from David Lean’s Brief Encounter, playfully satirizing the long and languid stares
of the couple(s) that can never result in more than a good-bye kiss.
The raunchiest pieces of Bourne’s
repertoire, however, are saved for the last French-based series of dances, The Infernal Galop: A French Dance with
English Subtitles. Here the rather up-tight British can go whole hog in
their imaginations of French lowlife behavior.
To the strains of Edith Piaf, Charles
Trenet, Tino Rossi, and Mistinguett, streetwalkers prowl the Paris wharves, a
merman is serenaded by three sailors, and after an adventurous quartet of
toughs converge at a street pissoir, two of the group proceed to engage in
rough sex that keeps getting interrupted a band of street carolers. The piece
ends, how else?, in a kind of satirical version of Offenbach’s can-can. In
short, Paris is presented as rough and tough, alluring and gay as any Baedeker
guide might wish to imagine it.
Bourne
is a great narrativist, who can convey character, class, and sex in just a few
bends and rolls of the body, and his dancers in this production represent a
wide range of personal eccentricities. No one in Bourne’s dances, he suggests,
is precisely what they seem, as men and women wind through each other’s arms
and legs as if they were performing a kind of Schnitzler-like ballet of “hands
around.” The very energy of it is a lovely thing to watch.
Los Angeles, May
21, 2017
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