Ovation Fellows are current students or recent alumni from Los Angeles area universities. Fellows are paired with a Mentor, currently serving as an Ovation Award voter, and see productions and meet artists around Greater Los Angeles throughout the year. Their articles, posted on LAStageBlog, are intended to be their personal responses to their experiences, and not as critical reviews or representing the views of LA Stage Alliance.
Benjamin Rodriguez is an Ovation Fellow and recent graduate from the University of Southern California.
On Thursday October 15 I was fortunate enough to attend Medea, starring Annette Bening as the title character, at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse with my Ovation Fellow mentor Mark Stephenson. While I was excited to see the show, I wasn’t excited to drive all the way to Westwood during rush hour. I think part of the reason LA’s theatre scene goes under appreciated is the fact all these theatres of which our city boasts are so geographically and randomly dispersed from one another. It also makes going to see a play somewhat of a big event-maybe a bit more important and time consuming than you’d like to make it.
Macfadyen as the unfaithful Jason tries to explain himself to Medea
I arrived in Westwood a few minutes after 6 pm and had to spend nearly 15 minutes looking for parking. Though the location is great when it comes to residents feeling safe and secure, there is just so little free parking around UCLA. I had visited the UCLAlive website the day prior so I had planned purposely to give myself adequate time to look for parking. But I was still frustrated to see so many signs on empty residential streets read “NO PARKING ANYTIME.”
Eventually I found parking and walked a little over half a mile to Freud Playhouse. Having arrived early, I better organized questions I came prepared to ask Hugo Armstrong-the theatre artist Mark and I would be meeting with. Armstrong played King Aigeus in Medea and had agreed to meet us at 7 pm so we could have a half hour to talk about theatre in general and LA theatre culture.
The meeting with Armstrong went far better than I had imagined and made me even more excited to not only be an Ovation Fellow but to also start my career as an artist. Armstrong gave me a lot of helpful advice, some I already assumed any secure and content artist would give-like don’t listen to others when they try to give you rules and boundaries-but he also shared some facts about his life that made me consider whether I had the dedication to really pursue life as a writer. He explained while he is an actor and an artist, he does also teach kindergarten and is now just barely reaching the point where acting as a craft is able to pay his bills.
A vengeful Bening as Medea
After meeting with Armstrong, Mark and I saw a very interesting show. Attempting to avoid a review, I do want to say it was definitely worth seeing. There were definitely many elements, character interpretations and other things to discuss, whether one hated or loved the production. Armstrong was even super nice and met with Mark and me again after the show so we could talk about performances and what we thought.
Medea with her chorus decked out in neoprene (wetsuit material).
While I’m still getting acclimated to writing responses for LAStageBlog.com as an Ovations Fellow, there are several things I hope you can take away. First, I strongly believe LA theatre is worth seeing. Second, I believe the theatre culture is diverse and has the potential to be revolutionary. And, I can’t imagine a city with so many artists working in so many mediums-LA is Hollywood but it is also theatre and everything in between.
For more information on UCLAlive, click here!
Photo Credits: Michael Lamont
