THEATER REVIEW: LEAR

A scene from Lear.

A female gaze

By Ed Rampell

Hark! To paraphrase Juliet: “What light through yonder canyon breaks?” Why, it’s none other than the launching of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s season at its Topanga Canyon outpost, which rather gloriously kicked off June 7 with a production of Lear, heralding the approach of summer with a quintet of Shakespearean productions to honor the Bard’s 450^thbirthday.

The Stratford-upon-Avon playwright’s masterpiece has been oft-produced on stage and screen. Theatricum artistic director Ellen Geer has adapted what may well be the most original version of Lear since  -- if not the First Folio -- since Jean-Luc Godard’s 1987 film co-starring Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald as Cordelia. What makes the Theatricum’s Lear so offbeat is its gender role reversals. Here, the monarch is portrayed by a woman, with Geer herself in the title role, and Lear’s daughters all played by males: Theatricum veterans Aaron Hendry as Goneril and Christopher W. Jones as Regan, and relative newcomer Dane Oliver as a fresh-faced, sweet if tongue-tied Cordelia.

The  gender reassignment of some of the dramatic personae flows smoothly and in the case of Her Majesty, Britain (where Shakespeare’s tragedy takes place) has had female rulers such as Queen Victoria and both Elizabeths who reigned for long periods, including Buckingham Palace’s current occupant.

On the other hand, that Shakespearean shapeshifter, Ms. Mellora Marshall, once again plays a male character as a man. Last summer, the protean Marshall portrayed the bearded title character in Theatricum’s Merlin, Harbinger of Peace. As Eden (whom Shakespeare called Edgar), Geer also switches gears, as in much of the second act her character masquerades as a male beggar, a disguise necessitated by the treachery of Eden’s half-sister Igraine (Abby Craden plays the character Shakespeare called Edmond), who cravenly tricks their father, the Earl of Gloucester (Alan Blumenfeld), into believing that Eden is plotting against him.

Lear’s characters arguably commit Western theater’s biggest, most tragic mistakes since Oedipus plucked his eyes out at ancient Greek amphitheaters. Lear’s vanity, puffed up and inflated over the course of a lifetime of being susceptible to flattery as the monarch, leads to a colossal error when it comes to her offspring. Gloucester betrays a similar lapse in judgment. If power corrupts, absolute power corrupts the ego absolutely -- especially of an absolute monarch. It was Shakespeare’s existential genius to make his characters only able to think logically after going mad (paging R.D. Laing!) or able to see clearly after losing one’s eyesight (in what may be the Bard’s reference to Sophocles’ Oedipus the King).

The white-haired Geer’s energetic acting is extraordinary, full of vitality that belies and defies her years. To paraphrase the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky: “There’s no white hair in her soul.” Since your scribbler doesn’t get paid by the word, there’s only room to mention a few standouts in this cast of about 35 thespians. Like with Geer's performance, this reviewer has never seen Abby Craden do better whilst trodding the boards. Similar to her spell casting, creepy Morgana in last year’s Merlin, Craden’s spiteful, born-out-of-wedlock Igraine is a conniving, cunning schemer, determined to rise on the social totem pole by any means necessary. Romping about the bare stage apparently braless in Topanga, Craden’s character is one of those people who exploit their sexuality in order to attain self-seeking wishes, as she woos both of Lear’s married sons. Craden’s Igraine is sure to give you a migraine. As she says: "Now, gods, stand up for bastards!" indeed.

As the Earl of Gloucester, Blumenfeld is moving as a man who has been blinded -- literally. Geer is largely relegated to the background in Act I but splendidly comes alive in the second act, with scenes her Eden dominates. Depicting Lear’s Fool, Marshall, as usual, delivers the goods with another uncanny cross-dressing performance in what is a pivotal role, since during Europe’s medieval epoch court jesters were the only subjects allowed to publicly voice critiques of the crown and court. And if ever a crowned head needed a sound tongue lashing (albeit one with its barbs laced with and sugarcoated in humor), it is Lear, whose mistakes of epic proportion in judging character wreak havoc.

Ellen Geer’s and Marshall’s co-direction is likewise inspired, making full use of the Theatricum amphitheater’s space amidst Topanga Canyon’s sylvan glade. Lear’s madness scene on a rooftop is stunningly staged (although it had this fan fearing for Geer’s life!) and there is plenty of swordplay onstage and gamboling through the woods, as is this outdoor troupe’s hallmark. Val Miller’s period costuming enhances the ambiance, and it’s interesting to note that this production does not list a set designer per se in the credits. The sparse stage suggests Jerzy Grotowski’s “poor theater” -- but what the boards “lack” are more than made up for through a vivid use of the hilly woods, unified as an organic part of the action.

As this reviewer noted recently in his coverage of The Gondoliers at Sierra Madre Playhouse, it’s fascinating how ideas percolate up out of the primordial ooze of the collective unconscious. Works written centuries ago can take on new meanings and have enhanced relevancy when put into a modern context, striking contemporary chords. Currently, the “republican Monarchy” in Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1889 operetta can refer to today’s income inequality and wealth gap.

Similarly, the intercepting of messages, which plays a key role in Lear -- believed to have opened with Richard Burbage circa 1606 -- has an updated relevance for 21^stcentury auds. Although Lear’s intercepted messages are presumably written on parchment with a quill dipped in ink, and not emails, phone calls, etc., in our time one can relate this plot device to the phone hacking scandal of Rupert Murdoch’s media minions in the UK (even the royals’ phones were allegedly hacked), and to the whole brouhaha surrounding WikiLeaks and l’affaire Edward Snowden, with their releases of classified information. Indeed, the online publication that Glenn Greenwald and his First Look Media partners in thought crime have created is called The Intercept.

In addition to being William Shakespeare’s 450^th birthday, 2014 is being billed as the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum’s 40^th anniversary. Judging by the first play of its season celebrating the Bard, my favorite L.A. theater company proves, once again, that where there’s a will -- or two Wills -- there’s a way.

Lear runs through Oct. 4 at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For repertory schedule and other information call: 310-455-3723 or see: www.Theatricum.com.

                                                  

THEATER REVIEW: THE ROYAL FAMILY

A scene from The Royal Family.

Wise-eyed Geer

 

By Ed Rampell

 

George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s 1927 The Royal Family is a love letter to the act of acting, and, in particular, to the actors and actresses who trod the boards and appear onscreen. Modeled after the Barrymore clan, The Royal Family'sCavendishes are the first family of America’s thespians. Greasepaint coursing through their blood they are theatrical in every sense of the term, as well as free spirits similar to the Sycamores in the anarchistic screwball comedy You Can’t Take It With You, which Kaufman co-wrote with Moss Hart for the stage in 1936 and with Robert Riskin for the screen in 1938 (co-starring a certain Lionel Barrymore, BTW).

 

Who better to incarnate this dynasty of performers than members of the House -- or, rather, amphitheater -- of Geer, a real life line of stage of screen artistes, descended from legendary, lanky Will Geer (1954’s The Salt of the Earth, 1972’s Jeremiah Johnson, and ultimately as America’s beloved über-grandpa from 1972-1978 on TV’s The Waltons)? Ellen Geer, the venerable Artistic Director of theWill Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, plays Fanny, the aging, ailing, grand dame of the thee-a-tuh and matriarch of the Cavendishes. Ellen’s sister, Melora Marshall -- a shape shifting actress known, among other things, for her gender bending roles (she portrays the male character Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew, one of the other plays this troupe is presenting in repertory this summer) -- here plays Fanny’s daughter, actress Julie Cavendish. Willow Geer -- who, offstage, is Ellen’s actual daughter and Marshall’s niece -- portrays ingénue Gwen Cavendish, the onstage child of Julie at the beginning of her acting career.

 

The Geers’ in-law, Abby Craden, depicts Kitty Dean, who is dissed and disdained by the Cavendishes for committing the unforgivable, heinous crime of being a lousy actress. This presents an artistic challenge for Craden -- who has portrayed Cleopatra and Queen Elizabeth in Theatricum Shakespearean productions and also appeared in numerous plays presented by the A Noise Within company -- because Craden actually is quite a good player.

 

The Royal Family's action takes place entirely in the Cavendishes’ sprawling home. Comebacks, romances, premieres and more things than are dreamt of in your philosophy are hatched on the premises in this madcap comedy and merry meditation on the nature of celebrity. The Cavendishes are fiendishly funny, hammy, scenery-chewing, attention seeking troupers, for whom the play’s the thing (along with the moolah, adulation, and gratification applause brings). If Fanny is patterned after Ethel Barrymore (who threatened to sue the playwrights and after Royal’sBroadway premiere “only nodded coolly to Kaufman when the two met at parties,” according to Howard Teichmann’s biography of the writer), then Tony Cavendish is clearly inspired by that matinee idol, John Barrymore.

 

The estimable Aaron Hendry’s two-fisted Tony steals ever single scene he’s in, like Winona Ryder let loose in Saks Fifth Avenue. Hendry, who also plays Petruchio this season in the Theatricum’s Taming of the Shrew, portrays his swashbuckling character with great panache, and is heaps of fun to watch in every scene he steals, dashing from brawls, paparazzi and lovers seeking to serve him legal papers for “breach of promise” lawsuits. Both playwrights knew Drew’s forebears, the Barrymores, but there is scant if any mention by Kaufman and Ferber of the carousing John Barrymore’s legendary, prodigious drinking. Their farce focuses on the foibles of actors by trade, and in particular on the few who attain stardom and are firmly fixed in the public eye.

 

The stage and screen credits of Kaufman, of course, include the Marx Brothers’ The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, as well as Dinner at Eight (with Ferber), Nothing Sacred, The Man Who Came to Dinner and other classics. Ferber, who likewise was a mid-Westerner with a German-Jewish and newspaper background, was also a novelist who wrote the books Show Boat, Giant and Cimarron, which were adapted for the screen. A film version of their The Royal Family was directed by George Cukor in 1930 and in 1977 there was a TV movie version. Given today’s snaparazzi and the TMZ, tabloid press with TMI about celebs, it would be a hoot to update this 86-year-old play.

 

In any case, Susan Angelo ably directs what is now a period piece, with a cast that includes Theatricum alum Alan Blumenfeld as Oscar Wolfe, a commercial theatrical producer who yet dreams of producing at least one play with redeeming artistic value. Tim Halligan drolly depicts the over-the-hill Herbert Dean who dreams of returning to the limelight. Andy Stokan and Bill Gunther both play the long suffering suitors of, respectively, Gwen and Julie, who have the impossible task of competing for their affections with the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd.

  

The Royal Family is delicious fun with the Geers in fine form and moving in high Geer. This is a rollicking, royal romp full of Bohemian bonhomie, an ode to those who have been bitten by the acting bug -- and to those of us who enjoy watching them prance about on- and offstage in their not-so-private lives.

 

 

The Royal Family runs through Sept. 28 at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For repertory schedule and other information call: 310-455-3723 or see: www.Theatricum.com.

 

THEATER REVIEW: WHAT DO YOU DREAM OF?

Gerald Rivers in What Do You Dream Of?

From the mountaintop

By Ed Rampell

During the long imprisonment of her husband, Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela felt like “Part of my soul went with him,” as the title of her autobiography put it. In the same vein, when Dr. Martin Luther King’s life was cut short and the Civil Rights leader was taken away from us by an assassin’s bullet in 1968, part of America’s collective soul went with him. I truly don’t think the USA has ever recovered from the loss of such a moral compass, who could speak truth to power so authoritatively, persuasively -- and eloquently.

But for one night only, this one-of-a-kind apostle of peace will live again onstage during Gerald Rivers’ (almost) one man show What Do You Dream Of?Dr. King called America the world’s “greatest purveyor of violence” and Rivers is surely the planet’s greatest purveyor of this prophet of nonviolence in the entire arts world. With a smidgen of poet Samuel Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief,” for 90 minutes or so Rivers’ uncanny impressions of the noble Nobel Peace Prize winner seems to bring King back to life.

According to Ellen Geer, Artistic Director of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, “the Martin Luther King estate adores Gerald. They really opened the literature to him… The library is open to him; all of Martin Luther King’s works, so that should say something,” especially considering that the King family is noted for its tightfisted control and copyrighting of the slain patriarch’s literary legacy.

The MLK speeches Rivers draws upon during his production include: “I Have A Dream”; “Funtown USA”; "The Street Sweeper"; and “American Dream.” Two songs were written especially for the Theatricum show: "Dare to Dream" by Jeffrina Oakes and "MLK Saved the Day," written by 13-year-old Miles McAliley.

Although essentially a one man show, the play includes African and Asian dance numbers. What Do You Dream Of?is playing July 27 at the Theatricum’s smaller 100-ish seat “Under the Oaks” amphitheatre for a special one night only performance as a fundraiser for the Topanga theatre company.

Geer, who was interviewed in front of Woody Guthrie’s cabin at the Topanga grounds, goes on to say, “Gerald has become very important, because of the way he delivers, and the power behind when he does Martin Luther King’s speeches is quite profound… He understands how to drum up that wonderful energy Martin Luther King had to engage a large group of people… And he’s created this piece, and his children are in it this year. His daughter, who is an intern here with us, and his son, who was an intern last year” at the Theatricum, which not only presents Shakespeare and more under the stars in its twin Topanga amphitheatres, but also trains young talents who aspire to work in the theatre.

As stellar as Rivers’ depiction of MLK is, he is no one-trick pony. Rivers is a longtime member of the Theatricum’s troupe of thespians, who appears this summer in the theatre company’s rollicking production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, which takes artistic liberties and under Ellen’s tutelage, is reset from Elizabethan London circa 1603 to counterculture California during the sizzling 1960s. Rivers appears as King at the opening of the updated Measure for Measure, “then he plays a pimp; it’s a beautiful switch,” laughs Geer, as Rivers depicts a Blaxploitation type of procurer during most of Shakespeare’s bawdy comedy.

During What Do You Dream Of?the dreadlocked Gerald also portrays a Southern Grandmother (in a tribute to all grandmas); a man (Sherman Tank) incarcerated along with Dr. King; MLK’s daughter, Yolanda; plus “Dreamawonde,” the ancient African Griot, with his father “Azanti.” But of course, the highlight is when not-so-old-man Rivers brings that shining prince of peace ever so back to life. For an hour and a half or so, through the magic of live theatre, viewers’ hearts can stop aching from the loss of our beloved dreamer and ever so briefly, our souls can soar again towards that long, lost “Beloved Community” Dr. King rhapsodized about. Rivers’ play allows us to fly back up the mountaintop and, as Hamlet put it, “Perchance to dream.”


What Do You Dream Of?will be performed tonight, 8 p.m., at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For information: 310/455-3723; www.Theatricum.com.

THEATER REVIEW: MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE

Rachel Corrie (Samara Frame) in My Name is Rachel Corrie.

Think tank

By Ed Rampell

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” -- John 15:13, King James version of the Bible

Following the Los Angeles premiere of My Name is Rachel Corrie the first of the post-play panel discussions and Q&As scheduled to follow every performance took place at Topanga Canyon’s Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. In their comments, renowned Oscar winning cinematographer and Medium Cool helmer Haskell Wexler and Susan Angelo, director of this one-woman show starring Samara Frame, each stated it “is not a great play.” Then why did the Theatricum and the company’s Artistic Director Ellen Geer, both stalwarts of L.A.’s theatre scene and renowned for presenting classics by Shakespeare, Chekhov, etc., select this drama as the inaugural performance for adults in its 88-seat S. Mark Taper Foundation Pavilion? Especially given the white-haired Ms. Geer’s contention that pressure was brought to bear against the theater, and that she was threatened, for daring to present My Name is Rachel Corrie, which has a history of being suppressed?

The answer, of course, lies in the subject matter of the play which, in the tradition of “Documentary Theatre,” was largely pieced together from bits and pieces of the eponymous real life title character’s writings. Journalist-editor Katherine Viner of London’s Guardian and British actor Alan Rickman (of Robin Hood and Harry Potter films fame) wove the tale together from Corrie’s journals, letters, emails, etc., as well as from facts known about the young Washington State woman’s life and death.    

In 2003 during the second Intifada the 23-year-old Corrie joined the International Solidarity Movement -- composed of foreigners practicing nonviolent direct action in support of Palestinian rights -- at the Gaza Strip to monitor and protest Israel’s occupation. On March 16, reportedly holding a megaphone and wearing an orange fluorescent jacket, Corrie literally boldly placed herself in harm’s way, standing between an Israeli Defense Force bulldozer and the home of a Palestinian pharmacist. The heavy equipment vehicle literally bulldozed Corrie, breaking her back, killing her and creating a non-Arab martyr for the Palestinian cause.

The Rachel Corrie incident and story has been the subject of much dispute and contentiousness. Critics of Israeli policies contend that this was a case of coldblooded murder and a war crime, while the Russian-born bulldozer operator claimed he didn’t see Corrie.

According to a 2003 Mother Jones report by Joshua Hammer: ”[T]he Israeli army showed no remorse for its action that afternoon. Days after Corrie's death, [Yasser] Arafat's Fatah Party sponsored a memorial service for her in Rafah, attended by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as well as ordinary Palestinians. Midway through the service, an Israeli tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed them with tear gas. Peace activists chased the tank and tossed flowers and the Israeli soldiers inside the tank threatened, in return, to run them down. After 15 minutes of cat and mouse, Israeli bulldozers and apcs [armored personnel carriers] rolled in, firing guns and percussion bombs and putting a quick end to the memorial.”

After the play’s 2005 award-winning opening at London’s Royal Court Theatre the controversy surrounding Corrie’s actions and death followed Viner and Rickman’s (who, coincidentally, provided the voice of the Caterpillar in Tim Burton’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland) one-woman show. The New York Theatre Workshop postponed its 2006 U.S. premiere of the drama, which eventually opened at the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village.

Apparently, like the New York Theatre Workshop, the Theatricum faced opposition to mounting My Name is Rachel Corrie from pro-Israeli forces. The fact of the matter is that, especially since 9/11, Israel and the Arabs (in particular, the Palestinians) have not only been engaged in combat from Gaza to the West Bank to Lebanon, but they have also been locked in a communications war. This propaganda battle aims at claiming the moral high ground in the ongoing conflict.

Pro-Zionist attempts to stifle artistic works that deviate from the official Israeli line, including My Name is Rachel Corrie, the feature Munich and the recent effort to ban a screening of the pro-Palestinian Miral at the U.N. are motivated by the same underlying anxiety. (Munich’s co-writers Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, and both of the movies’ directors -- Steven Spielberg and Julian Schnabel -- are Jewish; the latter’s mother was once reportedly president of Brooklyn’s Hadassah chapter; and while we’re at it, Ellen Geer is part Jewish.) In essence, this is the notion that Jews in general and Israelis in particular are victims, and not victimizers, who perpetuate human rights abuses. However, this agitprop and censorship campaign -- which smacks of book burning and is completely unworthy of the “People of the Book” -- is counterproductive.

Especially in the case of My Name is Rachel Corrie. By trying to muzzle it the play’s pro-Israeli detractors merely shine more light on what is, as the drama’s own Theatricum director herself confesses, not a particularly good play. Samara Frame’s Rachel comes across as a flakey, hippie-dippie girl who one day winds up in the war torn Gaza Strip. This could be a function of the playwriting per se (as noted, Rickman and Viner cobbled together the script from Corrie’s diaries and so on). Likewise, although we get a sense of Corrie’s heightened politicization once she experiences Rafah, her bulldozing just seems to come from out of nowhere. From a dramatic point of view this play has big structural challenges.

Frame is good but not great as Corrie. I’d guess that the actress is a bit too long in the tooth to fully convincingly portray a 23-year-old. I didn’t know Corrie (although wish I did) and don’t know much about this courageous young lady, but Frame’s portrayal makes her seem like a bit of a flake. Okay, having been around the Left my enter life, a good portion of activists do come across, shall we generously say, as rather “quirky” (hey, I’m Exhibit “A”). And maybe Corrie was ditzy, but I couldn’t help feel that this depiction somewhat trivialized someone who so bravely, selflessly sacrificed so much for other suffering people by putting her own life on the line.

(Actress-writer Saria Idana’s Homeless in Homeland, based on her experiences as a progressive Jew in Israel and the occupied territories, is a far better acted and written one-woman show than this play.)

The illuminating film clip of fifth grade Rachel that closes the 70-minute (giver or take a few minutes) one-woman show evinces more conviction and arguably intellect than the onstage adult Corrie does. Not that the production doesn’t score its points, dramatically and philosophically. A non-Jew, Corrie worries about being incorrectly perceived as an anti-Semite because she’s standing up for the rights of beleaguered Palestinians (who, lest we forget, are also Semites). But to me the most telling line is when our Washington State little miss sunshine, confronted by the sheer brutality and inhumanity of the Israeli occupation of Gaza, confessed that she was losing her faith in humanity.

This reminded me of what is probably the most famous quote from another famous young female diarist living in an occupied land, faced with vicious persecution, wrote: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are basically good at heart.” Trapped like a rat hiding from the fascists in an Amsterdam cubbyhole, threatened with extermination, little Anne Frank was still able to express faith in the human spirit in the face of Nazism -- even as the death camp ovens awaited her. Rachel, on the other hand, faced by a systematically savage Israeli occupation, is losing her hope and optimism.

And this is what the would-be censors of art critical of official Israeli policies are so anxious about. Instead of blindly supporting Israeli aggression, audiences might start asking: “Who’s wearing the jackboots now?” Have yesterday’s victims become today’s victimizers?

Just the other day the U.N. Palmer Report declared that Israeli forces used "excessive and unreasonable force" against the freedom flotilla to Gaza, wherein in nine activists were killed in international waters by the IDF aboard the Mavi Marmara ship, which was trying to break Israel’s embargo of Gaza by delivering humanitarian aid on May 31, 2010. Not surprisingly, publication of the report had been delayed three times as Israel frantically struggles to maintain the moral high ground -- even on the high seas.

This is why works like My Name is Rachel Corrie are so important and pose such a threat to the ultra-Zionist status quo, as they present a countervailing narrative to the official line. By the way, outside of the US, much of the rest of the world considers the Israel's occupation of Palestine to be illegal. Often the entire General Assembly votes against Israeli policy in the U.N. -- except for the U.S. and its tiny neo-colonies in Micronesia. And the issue of Palestinian statehood is due to come up soon before that international body which, you know, voted for statehood for Israel in 1948.

Despite its dramatic flaws, My Name is Rachel Corrie raises profound questions that must be publicly aired and discussed. So bravo to the Theatricum, which knows a thing or two about resisting the blacklisting of artists, for having the courage to present the L.A. premiere of this play and for insisting on freedom of speech. In keeping with this spirit a post-performance panel and Q&A with the audience will include an official of a Zionist organization. Pro-Israeli literature is also being distributed at the theater.

My Name is Rachel Corrie runs Sept. 8, 15, 21, and 22 at 8 p.m. at the S. Mark Taper Foundation Pavilion of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For more information call: 310/455-372; www.Theatricum.com