THEATER REVIEW: THE BEATLES LOVE By: Faiz No comments

A scene from The Beatles LOVE. Photo credit: Richard Termine.

Yesterday and today

By Ed Rampell

As a reviewer of all things cinematic, operatic and theatrical I recently went to see a couple of shows in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is, after all, one of America’s top showcases of live entertainment. Cirque du Soleil’s The Beatles LOVE is a combination of the cinematic, operatic and theatrical -- along with the acrobatic, aerial, ballet, puppetry, projections, lighting, costuming to put Liberace to shame, and more, all presented with a circus-like panache. As soon as one gets out of the cram packed, standing room only lobby inside of the Mirage into the uniquely shaped and designed, custom-built theater in the round, with its scrims and screens for projecting 100 foot digital images upon, one has that “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” sensation of “pictur[ing] yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.”

Once the show begins it’s as if “Somebody calls you… A girl with kaleidoscope eyes” as “Cellophane flowers of yellow and green, Towering over your head” draw you into a production that’s more of an experience and evocation of the Beatles, their music and philosophy, instead of a chronological, straightforward narrative of their lives and careers. Rather than a tribute band performing Beatles’ songs live, the Fab Four’s longtime producer Sir George Martin and his son Giles culled cuts from Abbey Road Studios’ master tapes which accompany the mise-en-scène of 60 performers and projections on huge front and back screens, played on a panoramic surround sound system.

The beginning references the quartet’s famous outdoor, impromptu performance on the rooftop of the Abbey Road Studio in 1969, with the Beatles belting out “Get Back” from the “Let It Be” album. But the spectacle that unfolds becomes far more than a reimagining of this plein air concert. Soon the gigantic twin screens are filled with imagery of the Battle of Britain, and for the first time it dawned upon me that the Lads from Liverpool were all children born during World War II; indeed, both Ringo Starr and John Lennon were born while the Nazis blitzed England. The Beatles LOVE made me realize that this played a huge role in their subsequent antipathy towards war and why, after he went solo, I heard John and Yoko croon that Lennon-composed anthem of the antiwar movement, “Give Peace a Chance," at a Manhattan rally in the early 1970s.

The show doesn’t shrink from other specifically political references: There’s a great flower power sequence, which leads to hippies fighting riot police as “Revolution” blares. Another one of the Beatles’ explicitly political songs, “Blackbird," is also played as clips of Dr. Martin Luther King appear onscreen and black performers take the stage.

Of course, although they were musical and lyrical avatars of their tumultuous Aquarian age, there was much more to the Beatles than countercultural politics. As the name of the show suggests, love was very much a concern expressed in the songs of these young men, and there is an exceedingly lovely conjuration of “Something” from the Abbey Road album. Female aerialists elude an earthbound male, who reaches out for them as if he’s seeking love, perfectly expressing the romantic longings of a young man in search of a partner to soothe a seething soul and end his solitude. The piece has the grace one would imagine a Nijinsky or Nureyev ballet would have had.

One of the great things about The Beatles LOVE is that along with their hits such as “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Lady Madonna” (featuring a pregnant black woman) the multimedia show includes some lesser known tunes from the Beatles’ oeuvre. Everyone knows “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” from the 1967 album of the same name, but do you remember “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” from the same LP? This track is ideal for Cirque, which launches into full raucous circus mode in evoking this perhaps forgotten (until now!) song about a festive fair. There is also a powerful version of “A Day in the Life” (which I’ve always considered to have an apocalyptic tinge), complete with a car onstage, from the same album.

And while Sgt. Pepper’s “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” is appropriately psychedelically rendered, complete with flying trapeze artiste, I was unable to understand a number of Cirque’s visualizations and expressions of some Beatles’ numbers. After a while I picked up on the probability that the four boys who were recurring stage characters represented the Liverpool lads during their childhoods. But I couldn’t quite grasp who other characters were supposed to be. For instance, there is a recurring old lady -- is she supposed to be John’s Aunt Mimi who raised him or a version of Brecht’s Mother Courage? Much of it went over this critic’s head -- but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy all of it, even if couldn’t quite get some of it. Somehow this only enhanced the magical mystical nature of this tour through the artistry of what is arguably rock’s greatest band of all time. (Has it really been half a century this year since they stormed The Ed Sullivan Show during the British Invasion of 1964?!)

Director/writer/co-creator Dominic Champagne’s ensemble work bubbles. Lighting Designer Yves Aucoin illuminates the space, put to stellar use by theatre and set designer Jean Rabasse. Video projection designer Francis Laporte enhances the visionary ambiance of the live performance, artfully choreographed by Hansel Cereza and Dave St-Pierre, with the cast of 60 fantastically costumed by Philippe Guillotel. Above all, the Grammy Award winning soundscape rendered by George and Giles Martin, sound designer Jonathan Deans, and last but not least, by -- you know -- John, Paul, George and Ringo is nothing short of exquisite.

Overall, The Beatles LOVE is, as Harrison wrote, a “Crème tangerine and montelimar, A ginger sling with a pineapple heart” feast for the eyes and ears. Whether you’re a Beatles fan before you enter the Mirage showroom or not, as the Fab Four sang: “A splendid time is guaranteed for all” -- indeed! Never has Sin City seemed so blissful. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

The Beatles LOVE is at: The Mirage, 3400 Las Vegas Blvd South, Las Vegas, NV 89109. For info and tickets: LOVE; 702-791-7111.

      

PSIFF 2013: LORE By: Faiz No comments

Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) in Lore.

(N)eins kinderverhaal

By Miranda Inganni

Set at the end of World War II in Germany, Lore is the story of five siblings who must fend for themselves when their SS officer father (Hans-Jochen Wagner) and Nazi sympathizer mother (Ursina Lardi) are off to prison for war crimes.

The eldest child, 14-year-old Lore (Saskia Rosendahl), must lead younger sister Leisel (Nele Trebs), her twin brothers, Günter (André Frid) and Jürgen (Mika Seidel), along with baby Peter (Nick Leander Holaschke) through the forests and mountains from their home to Hamburg and their awaiting Grandmother (Eva-Maria Hagen). Along the way, they meet Thomas (Kai Malina), a mysterious man with Jewish papers. Lore knows they need Thomas’ help in order to survive, but she struggles with her hatred for the Jews.

While the younger siblings can barely grasp the reality of what has caused them to be in this situation, Lore slowly comprehends her family’s new position and what it means. Once important and admired in Hitler's Germany, they are now the enemy.

All the children suffer, but it seems that only Lore is allowed to express it. While her character initially is unsympathetic, through her journey to save herself and her siblings, Lore's quest for survival brings out a sensitivity that can only be brought on through experiencing deep pain.

Lore looks at the toll of war from a perspective most audiences have not seen. Additionally, the cast does a remarkable job, especially considering their youth. Rosendahl is expertly cast as Lore and she strikingly captures her character’s physical and emotional journey. Kudos also goes Adam Arkapaw's lush, beautiful cinematography.

Based on “The Dark Room” by Rachel Seiffert, director and co-writer Cate Shortland’s Lore is Australia’s Official Selection for the 85^th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. (It did not make the short list.) The film is a co-production between Australia and Germany and the dialog is almost entirely in German.

 

Lore screens at the Palm Springs International Film Festival: Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m., Camelot Theatres; Jan. 9, 10:30 a.m., Camelot Theatres. For more information: PSIFF 2013.

 

PSIFF 2013: WHITE TIGER By: Faiz No comments

A scene from White Tiger.

A roar of war

By Ed Rampell

I recently watched an episode of Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States Showtime documentary series, which made a compelling case that the Red Amy won the war in Europe during WWII. I also saw Russian director Sergei Loznitsa’s feature, In The Fog, recently, wherein Soviet partisans battle Nazis in Belarus. So I was intrigued to see another Russian fiction film set during the Second World War and Karen Shakhnazarov’s White Tiger is as sharply exciting as In The Fog was foggily slow paced.

White Tiger is about tank warfare during WWII, but this is no Battle of the Bulge straightforward type of tale. As the Red Army inexorably marches across the Eastern Front towards Berlin, the USSR soldiers are stymied by the appearance on the battlefield by a sort of super tank, the eponymous White Tiger. Although the combat sequences are tautly directed and exhilarating to watch, Shakhnazarov does something off-kilter that makes film extremely exceptional. The director/co-writer bends and blends genres, adding a supernatural element to what is otherwise a realistic war movie. This creative concoction not only captivates audiences but confounds the high ranking Soviet characters, since otherworldliness is contrary to these atheists’ Marxist beliefs.

So White Tiger works at several levels: As a war movie; history lesson painted with lightning; a ghost story; and also a film with a philosophical subtext. The soundtrack is thunderous (you’ll see what I mean) and Wagnerian, as this very Russian picture uses a score by the most Germanic of composers. Often thrilling, White Tiger is at all times absorbing, well-direct and stirringly acted.

Alexey Vertikov is haunting in an understated performance as a Clint Eastwood-like tank commander with no name who seems to rise, zombie-like, from the dead to do battle with the Nazi hyper-tank. His spectral character comes to be called Naydyonov and the depiction by Vertikov may give you vertigo. Vitaly Kishchenko likewise delivers a stellar performance as Fedotov, the hardened officer who puts aside official Communist dogma to confront and embrace Naydyonov’s extraordinarily uncanny utterances, which strike the doctrinaire Marxists as mumbo jumbo. As the real life Marshal Gerogy Zhukov, Valery Grishko is properly skeptical of the paranormal elements. Vitaly Dordzhiev provides some comic relief as Berdyev, one of the “Dirty Dozen” elite tank crew members assembled to counter the White Tiger and he reminds us that the Red Army was multi-culti and included Asian soldiers. The Nazis are all played by German actors, with Karl Kranzkowski chilling in a cameo as Hitler, with an Inglourious Basterds type of historical twist, as well as a meditation on the nature of evil.

Unfortunately, some in-the-know distributor hasn’t picked White Tiger up for theatrical release yet. So don’t let the gods of the tanks prevent you from seeing Russia’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which -- like many important film festivals -- performs a valuable function as gateway and launching pad for offbeat cinema. Also, White Tiger did not make the Oscar shortlist, thus decreasing its chances of theatrical release in the U.S.

White Tiger screens at PSIFF Jan. 4, 1 p.m., Camelot Theatres; Jan. 7, 1 p.m. Camelot Theatres. For more PSIFF info: www.psfilmfest.org.  

 

  

 

 

 

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

THEATER REVIEW: FAITH By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Faith.

Belief in the future

By Ed Rampell

Faith is the first part of playwright Evelina Fernandez’s Mexican Trilogy, although it’s the final installment to be produced in her three generational saga that follows the Garcia family, who migrated North of the border to, among other things, avoid the upheaval of the Mexican Revolution. The Latino Theater Company already presented parts II and III, Hope and Charity, last June and in 2011, and Faith continues the thread with much the same plot elements and themes.

As strangers in a strange land the Garcias struggle to survive in El Norte. The play opens in an Arizona mining town, with the Garcias leading a hardscrabble existence as members of a minority group who alternately try to adjust, fit in and maintain their roots. Perpetuating a sense of ethnic identity in an unbroken chain of ancestry persists as one of Fernandez’s primary preoccupations. Are the three U.S.-born daughters -- the eponymous Faith (Esperanza America), Charity (Alexis de la Rocha) and Elena (Olivia Delgado) -- Americans or Mexicans? Or something else, a hybrid, Chicanos?

The popular music in the trilogy’s other installments is back to liven things up and express underlying moods and notions. So is a significant world historical figure who looms large in the background, here in the personage of a Pres. Roosevelt heard via fireside chats on the radio. The playwright’s antiwar obsession returns too, as WWII sweeps the land and Freddie (Matias Ponce, who in a double role also plays a Priest) questions military service. Many may consider it heresy to doubt the so-called “good fight,” but Fernandez, who is nothing if not a writer of deep convictions, remains true to her pacifistic creed.

Speaking about Fernandez, she is cast against type as the lovelorn Lupe; in real life Evelina is far more attractive than her character, and kudos to her for glamming herself down for the plain Jane (or Juanita?) role. As an amiga of the Garcias, Lupe tries to mitigate the ironfisted rule over the household by Esperanza (Lucy Rodriguez). In one of the play’s several plot twists, it turns out Esperanza’s trying to prevent her daughters from repeating her own youthful indiscretions, but in the process, the overbearing parent forces them over the edge instead. Despite the biblical titles of Fernandez’s trilogy, she continues to wage her own holy war with Mother Church’s repression in Faith.

The local Latino radio celeb Ricardo Flores, aka “Ricky Flowers” (Geoffrey Rivas), has a surprise of his own. Xavi Moreno as the bumbling wannabe suitor and less than brave Charlie provides comic relief in a play that suffers from too many fart jokes.

The real standout of the ensemble cast, which is imaginatively directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela, is Sal Lopez, that stalwart of stage and screen who has appeared in movies such as Stanley Kubrick’s anti-Vietnam classic Full Metal Jacket. Talk about plot twists and turns: As Lupe’s husband Silvestre, he’s full of New Deal fervor, trying to organize Latino miners to receive equal pay for equal work. Instead of using economic arguments, Silvestre advances moral reasons to make his case to his fellow workers. Once his surprising back story is revealed, auds understand why. It seems that the Christianity Fernandez abides by is that of Liberation Theology. In any case, bravo Mr. Lopez, for bringing to life one of the best Latino characters since that 1950s classic with its similarly biblical title, Salt of the Earth.

The direction of Faith is up to Valenzuela’s habitual excellence -- even more so. With the help of scenic and lighting director Cameron Mock Valenzuela makes creative use of LATC’s rather large downstairs Theatre 3’s extensive space, staging the action on multi-levels. Which is only appropriate, as Faithis a multi-dimensional work.

Faith can be a standalone work; one need not have necessarily seen Hope and Charity to enjoy it, although having done so will enhance a fuller understanding of this Latino triptych. For those who did, like this head scratching reviewer, it is however frankly disjointing to have seen the plays out of order, which makes it hard to follow the peregrinations of the characters as they search for the Promised Land in los Estados Unidos. Hopefully, some producer and/or entity will have the faith to present the trilogy in chronological order. BTW, this would not be an act of charity, as such an undertaking is sure to be a surefire hit. Another suggestion is that the multi-talented Fernandez set her hand at writing a musical with original music composed specifically for such a work. Who knows? Evelina just might add “lyricist” to her job title.

In any case, this is the last week theatre-lovers can take an act of Faith at the LATC -- at least for the time being.


Faith runs through Nov. 11 in Theatre 3 of the Los Angeles Theatre Centre, 514 S. Spring St., CA 90013. For more info: 866/811-4111; www.thelatc.org.

 

THEATER REVIEW: PEACE IN OUR TIME By: Faiz No comments

No, el coward

By Ed Rampell

The Antaeus Company -- which “strives to keep classical theater vibrantly alive by presenting productions with a top-flight ensemble company of actors” -- has succeeded admirably in doing so by reviving two great anti-fascist dramas. Both plays presented by Antaeus are alternative histories that imagine “what if” fascism had taken over England and America. 

Noël Coward is primarily remembered as a sophisticated showman, composer of songs such as Mad Dogs and Englishmen and an urbane writer of risqué romances, such as Brief Encounter (about an extramarital affair), Private Lives (which Liz and Dick rather famously revived onstage in 1983) and Blithe Spirit (about a ghost haunting her husband after he remarries). But Coward’s 1946 Peace in Our Time shows that when the playwright encountered Nazism, he was anything but blithe in his spirited drama about the public lives of Englishmen confronting Hitler’s mad dogs.

Peace in Our Time is actually more in the mode of Coward’s 1942 Oscar-winning moral boosting masterpiece World War II film, In Which We Serve, which he wrote, scored and co-directed with David Lean, than his sexy stories. Like Serve, Coward’s love affair in Peace is with England, as Brits battle blitz. John Apicella’s projections of archival footage of the Battle of Britain, etc., help set the scene. During the first act the Third Reich conquers the U.K., and the rest of the two-hour and 45-minute or so play takes place in a London pub where we encounter a cross section of British society.

Just as a school served as a microcosm for Britain in Lindsay Anderson’s 1969 student revolt film, If…, Peace’s pub likewise doubles as a microcosm of an imagined occupied England. There are resisters, collaborators and of course, Germans, in the pub, which is an abbreviation for public house. Antaeus’ Co-Artistic Director Tony Amendola pointed out to me that these drinking establishments played a central role in British culture as a central meeting place, which Shakespeare noted in his plays featuring Falstaff. Scenic Designer Tom Buderwitz has done yeoman’s work and performed marvels in transforming the Deaf West Theatre’s stage into a highly realistic replica of a pub, and deserves kudos for his realism and attention to detail.

Australian Barry Creyton’s adaptation of Coward’s Peace adds nine of Coward’s own Music Hall-style songs that weren’t in the original version of the drama, and they are seamlessly interwoven into the play, accompanied by an upright piano with Richard Levinson tickling the ivories. The ditties obviously serve to liven things up, and numbers such as London Pride, Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans (banned by a humorless BBC!) and Could You Please Oblige Us with a Bren Gun? fully display Coward’s clever wordplay and wit, which Monty Python, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook evolved out of.

Casey Stangl does a far better job directing his ensemble cast than the baseball manager with a similar name did managing the New York Mets back in the 1960s. Unlike the Mets, the Antaeus team never drops the ball, which continues rolling along. As there are 22 speaking parts, and the roles are double-casted on alternate nights, your intrepid reviewer only has space to single a few thesps out who trod the boards opening night.

Steve Hofvendahl is steadfast as Fred Shattock, the stalwart bartender with a slow fuse who precariously presides over his slice of British life. Emily Chase has a masterful, veddy English accent that sounds as if she shoplifted it from PBS’ Masterpiece Theater. Chase alternates in the role of the writer Janet Braid, who personifies patriotic spirit and love of the “sceptred isle,” unblushingly quoting Sakespeare’s  immortal lines -- “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” – as a rebuke to the Nazi collaborator. Take that!

As said turncoat, JD Cullum is perfect as Chorley Bannister, the snobby editor who, after the Hitlerian invasion, goes along to get along. However, it seems that this character is supposed to be gay, and if this is the case, it’s sad that Coward, himself a closeted homosexual, would choose to make the Brit who sells out to the Germans a practitioner of the love that dare not say its name (especially under Third Reich rule!). If Coward equated collaborating with being queer and considered homosexuality to be a signpost of a personality or character defect, then the otherwise valiant anti-fascist Coward was here a rather cowardly lion.


Peace in Our Time runs through Dec. 11 at the Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. For more info: (818)506-1983; www.Antaeus.org.