Naisa Wong photo by Denise Wynn
When I was five years old, my mother gave me a big paintbrush and a pretty, plastic beach pail filled with water and told me to go paint the house. Nonsensical you say? Of course, but that was mom’s brilliance. I spent hours (and I mean hours) outside, singing to myself and chasing the last vestiges of shine with my brush in an effort to keep the wall wet. Yep, mom was pretty clever. I mean, it almost seems cruel but you must understand — I was a child who, out of the womb it seems, was filled with a myriad of curiosities.
Somehow, in the space of being five, I didn’t understand or feel the need to adhere to linear barriers. You could give me a paintbrush and a pail filled with water and the side of an old house could easily become a canvas for new possibilities. I remember feeling light, unrestrained…free. My mother needed to put her precocious child in a controlled yet unencumbered (for my benefit) environment, probably because she too needed a bit of space. I don’t know if she consciously decided to challenge or foster my creative sensibilities that day. Needless to say, she did.
Now, as I’ve managed to wear in a couple of years into my 30s, I often think back to those days of my youth – against the watered wall in Berkeley – with a deep sense of felicity, longing and gratitude. I wonder at my abandon. I marvel at my willingness to play.
It is true I have had a series of life experiences that have shaped particular grooves and patterns of fear and doubt into my personality. Yet I still believe that if I can muster an ounce of faith and a dollop of courage, anything is possible. After 15 years of volunteering and working within urban communities as an arts education advocate, I realize just how invaluable that belief system is to the overall sustenance of one’s spirit.
Kristal Adams & Erik Snodgrass
What I love most about our Streetlamp Studio theater company is that it has become a gateway for honest and relational interaction within the neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles. All of our original plays begin within these conversations. In fact, our stories are taken from themes that are extracted from our community circles. It is our goal to provide a forum that will lead to a larger dialogue with the people of Los Angeles and, we hope, the greater populace of Southern California.
It is our unwavering hope that people from the general public will hear a bit of themselves within the fabric of our community stories. We have seen the transformative power of this discourse when people finally realize we are connected quite seamlessly through the human spirit.
For our spring show, we decided to develop a play that spoke to the hearts of women. The themes taken from the women’s circles within our neighborhood and beyond spoke of abandonment, confinement, isolation and the need to create space for oneself. It was clear that we needed to access a very different type of storytelling to truthfully convey the often subtle undertones of these themes.
After two months of serious brain-bending, playwright Erin Gaw and I decided to take a plunge into the world of adaptation. A longtime favorite of ours, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, appeared to almost perfectly convey the themes of our community. That said, choosing to adapt a classic piece of literature for a Streetlamp production seemed like a risky venture. At the outset, it felt as if the values and the issues of 18th century society couldn’t possibly relate to our post-modern world.
Yet the issues of economy, status and societal opinions and pressures that governed the discrimination against women in Austen’s world are still, sadly, center stage for women in the 21st century and more particularly, within the community of women in South LA. Our advantage today is one of choice. And yet, often times, women continually allow themselves to be marginalized and confined.
Our adaptation, Crooked Road, explores the life of Anne Morris. Eight years ago, our African-American heroine left her dreams of becoming a musician and wife to care for her father and household affairs after the sudden death of her mother. The once affluent family lives in Pacific Palisades but needs to downsize after Walter Morris, a city councilman and high-end real estate broker, has sunk into the financial doldrums following the economic decline. In an effort to maintain appearances, the family moves to Santa Monica and rents the Palisades home to a recently famed musical band, who have just hit it big with a single after its debut on Grey’s Anatomy.
Lee Biolos & Erik Snodgrass
The lead singer of the band, Erik Miller (a white guy), is in fact Anne’s lost love, and the irony of the sudden and unexpected reunion lands hard when Anne realizes Erik has indeed moved on – or has he? As the band prepares for its second album, Anne and Erik navigate through past feelings, old and new family dynamics, potential love interests and the constant challenges of what it means to have to look beyond one’s personal ideologies and expectations to find true fulfillment and happiness. Crooked Road boasts a cast of 11 and includes original music by Thena and Ted Beam.
At its core, Crooked Road addresses issues of longing, fear and courage. These themes are not only universal but interconnected. They have been incredibly pertinent to me within this season of life. As part of our workout space in rehearsal, I’ve asked the actors, the crew and the staff of Streetlamp to examine their own lives and consider these themes. What has surfaced is the realization of how deep these threads lie within each of us. How then do we return to our individual watered walls? In the midst of our varying and momentary lives, we consider what we will value most, in the end.
Crooked Road, produced by Jocelyne Liu for Streetlamp Studio, opens March 18; plays Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 7 pm; additional performance Sun., March 27 at 2 pm; ends March 27. Tickets: $10-$17. The Lost Studio, 130 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles; streetlampstudio.com.
Naisa Wong is a Los Angeles-based director and producer. She is the Resident Director/Artistic Advisor for Streetlamp Studio. Crooked Road is her fifth collaboration with the company. She worked as a production manager and associate director for several television productions including Everybody Loves Raymond, Becker and Girlfriends. Her most recent theatrical credits include the reading series of Wicked Lit (Nom de Guerre Theatre Company/Theatre 40), Within/Out for the WECSOR Regional and Claremont University’s School of Religion & Philosophy and Catch with Sideline (Streetlamp Studio). Her professional theater credits include company manager for the Pasadena Playhouse and literary manager and dramaturge for Ebony Repertory Theatre. She was an invited director and lecturer for Lincoln Center’s Director’s Lab in 2005 and was a panelist for the American Pavilion of Cannes Film Festival in 2007. Last year, Wong produced a documentary with Blair Underwood, Tommy Morgan Jr. and Wren T. Brown in association with Associated Television International. She recently had a directing fellowship with Leigh Silverman on the production of In the Wake at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (CTG/Berkeley Rep. production). She is a member of the Directors Guild of America and an associate member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).
