Last weekend, A Noise Within’s opening of the LA area’s most impressive new theatrical venue in years coincided with the re-opening (more or less) of Los Angeles Theatre Center’s largest theater space as a Latino Theater Company venue.
That was interesting enough for many LA theater observers. A Noise Within struggled through a disastrous recession to raise the money for its new building, and Latino Theater has managed LATC for nearly six years but had not done much inside the building’s largest theater.
But the two companies’ opening productions in these venues have something else in common. Both of the plays glance back about five decades, with one eye at least somewhat focused on a particular Caribbean island.
Clockwise: Esperanza America Ibarra, Dyana Ortelli, Keith McDonald, Dru Davis, Olivia Delgado in "Hope"
A Noise Within’s opening attraction, Twelfth Night, is set in the late ‘50s in pre-revolutionary Cuba. And Latino Theater’s choice for its move to LATC’s Tom Bradley Theatre, Evelina Fernandez’s Hope, is set during the Cuban missile crisis a few years later, with Fidel Castro and JFK themselves making cameo appearances.
A few caveats are necessary here:
Although A Noise Within’s Twelfth Night is designed to conjure the more festive spirits of director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott’s native country, the text is Shakespeare’s, from that other island nation, without any obvious verbal allusions to Cuba of the late ‘50s.
In Hope at LATC, the characters are frightened by the possibility of a nuclear war precipitated by the Russian missiles in Cuba, and the family’s youngest daughter holds fantasy phone conversations with both JFK and Castro as her way of helping solve the crisis. But the family is actually Mexican American and living in Phoenix, far from the Caribbean. At that time, Phoenix was probably also far from the top of the list of possible nuclear targets within the US.
For several years, Hope writer Evelina Fernandez’s plays have been moving toward an integration of melancholy drama with spirited music. Her last play seen at LATC, a revival of Solitude, enlivened the smaller Theatre 3 during the RADAR L.A. festival last June, with a focus on dance moves instead of singing. In Hope, at the 490-seat Tom Bradley, the singing takes precedence over the dancing.
Sam Golzari and Esperanza America Ibarra
In fact, Hope bears some superficial resemblances to the dreaded jukebox musical genre. It uses period pop tunes of the type that teenagers dote on – both English-language and Spanish-language songs – but in a relatively unfamiliar context and with arrangements that don’t necessarily duplicate the intent of the originals.
In an article for LA Stage Times that Fernandez wrote earlier this year, as Solitude was being revived, she acknowledged that the sound track of her Mexican American youth wasn’t predominantly Mexican American – “I like mariachi music, but I really love soul and funk, which is what I grew up listening to. Vicente Fernandez is cool, but give me Marvin Gaye any day.” Although Gaye’s prime time was a little later than the period depicted in Hope, he did release a cover of “Mr. Sandman” in 1962, and that’s one of the songs that musical director Ben Taylor and the cast employ to great effect in Hope.
Most of the cast members who sing solos have voices drenched in bluesy soul – most notably 18-year-old Dru Davis. He plays the younger, quieter brother, but his emotions suddenly explode when he sings.
The story is loosely autobiographical. Fernandez herself lived in Phoenix, in a family of five kids, until she was nine, at which point her family moved to LA. The troubled family in Hope also moves to LA at the end of the play, although all of the Hope kids are already teenagers as the play begins. I’m not sure how much of the rest of it is autobiographical, but a lot happens during the course of the play. One particular event near the end still feels arbitrarily melodramatic.
Geoffrey Rivas and Dyana Ortelli
Generally, however, the play paints a vivid picture of a family struggling with its own demons, while also holding out the “hope” that JFK will somehow manage to lift up such impoverished families. At the same time, everyone is hoping that JFK can prevent the entire country from being blown to smithereens by the missiles in Cuba. It’s hard to avoid the analogy to our current president from a new generation and our present-day terrors.
The entire cast is superb. But the women stand out. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Fernandez pays the most attention to the perspectives of the three women – the besieged but repressed mother (Dyana Ortelli), her oldest child (Esperanza Ibarra) who feels seriously stifled and depressed and doesn’t hide her feelings, and her younger daughter (Olivia Delgado) who’s so moony over JFK.
I’d like to see other chapters in these characters’ lives, and apparently I will. Hope is the middle chapter – but the first fully produced one — of a trilogy. Part one is Hope’s prequel and will be set in the FDR years, while part three is its sequel and will be symbolically focused on the third figure (after FDR and JFK) whose portrait is often spotted on the walls of traditional Mexican American homes – that of the Pope.
At intermission, I spoke to director and Latino Theater Company artistic director Jose Luis Valenzuela (who is married to Fernandez and has Arizona roots of his own). I learned that the main reason why his company hasn’t used the Tom Bradley Theatre (except for special events or very brief runs of the company’s annual Christmastime show about the virgin of Guadalupe) is because Valenzuela prefers LATC’s downstairs venue, Theatre 3. However, he eventually wants to produce Fernandez’s entire trilogy in repertory, and that event will require the larger Bradley.
I look forward to it.
Ben Jurand and Darrell Szenasi in "Pity the Proud Ones"; Photo by Adenrele Ojo
Also over the weekend, I saw a couple of smaller premieres within the orbit of Hope – Robey Theatre’s production of Kurt Maxey’s Pity the Proud Ones, at LATC’s small Theatre 4, and Virginia Grise’s blu, a collaboration between Company of Angels and La Colectiva Chorizo y Maguey, across the street from LATC at the Company of Angels black box within the Alexandria Hotel.
Director Ben Guillory and scenic designer Miguel Montalvo have devised an ingenious physical configuration for Pity the Proud Ones – the audience, divided into two sections facing each other, looks down at a Florida bordello circa 1915, located between the two banks of spectators. Set pieces emerge from beneath the audience and then retreat into the basement, so to speak. But the play moves turgidly, with too much of the story occurring offstage – only a convenient and climactic hurricane adds much punch to the narrative.
Across the street, blu is only an hour long. But its story of a barrio family wounded by family strife and by the war in Iraq feels too long and unpunctuated. It’s severely unfocused, with lots of excess movement that doesn’t amount to much, and with one of the dimmest lighting designs I’ve ever seen, as directed by Laurie Carlos.
Hope, LATC Tom Bradley Theatre, 514 S. Spring St., LA. Thur-Sat 8 pm, Sun 3 pm. Closes Nov 13. 866-811-4111. www.thelatc.org.
***All Hope production photos by Hector Cruz Sandoval
Pity the Proud Ones, LATC Theatre 4, 514 S. Spring St., LA. Thur-Sat 8 pm, Sun 3 pm. Closes Nov. 13. 866-811-4111. www.thelatc.org.
blu, Company of Angels, third floor of the Alexandria Hotel, southwest corner of Fifth and Spring Sts., LA. Thur-Sat 8 pm, Sun 7 pm. Closes Nov 13. www.companyofangels.org.
Anthony Mark Barrow and Geoff Elliott in "Twelfth Night"
A Noise Within is making joyful noises within its new 283-seat theater in east Pasadena.
Twelfth Night, one of the most frequently produced plays in the Shakespearean canon, is perhaps too familiar a choice for the initial production – not nearly as provocative a selection as was The Chairs for the group’s final production at its previous, 148-seat Glendale facility last spring.
Or maybe that conclusion will be shared only by those of us who are professional theatergoers, who have seen at least 12 Twelfth Nights over the last 12 years, or so it seems.
Still, director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott has added the pre-revolutionary Cuban setting mentioned above, which in turn adds a lot of color and sex appeal to the look of the show and a lot of Latin rhythms to the sounds.
This Olivia (Abby Craden) rather quickly casts off her mourner’s weeds and emerges in an eye-popping two–piece swimsuit and cape, with red and white polka dots, courtesy of costume designer Angela Balogh Calin. And speaking of capes, check out the beautiful fabric that serves as a cape for Robertson Dean’s Orsino, while Viola (Angela Gulner), who’s posing as a young man, cuts his hair.
The Cast of "Twelfth Night"
That the Redmond Stage seating is purposefully plain, in dark blue tones with no decorative doodads, not only saved money but also helps such shiny costumes – and such scenic elements as three tall, red palm trees – leap into our field of vision all the more emphatically.
The same applies to the ridiculous look of the snookered Malvolio, as played by co-artistic director Geoff Elliott, who clearly didn’t demand to play the hero in his company’s grand opening at the new digs. Elliott’s distinctive voice, which in many roles could sound too ripe if he doesn’t watch out, is just about ideal for pompous Malvolio’s tirades.
The house was full on opening night Saturday, and everyone’s words registered cleanly and clearly, despite concerns that the uncarpeted floor might result in too live a sound.
Twelfth Night, A Noise Within, now at 3352 E. Foothill Blvd, Pasadena. Sat Nov 5 and 26, 8 pm, Dec 10, 2 and 8 pm; Sun Nov 27, 2 pm, Dec 4, 2 and 7 pm; Fri Dec 9 and 16, 8 pm; Thur Dec 15, 8 pm. In rep. Free self-parking at the Sierra Madre Villa Metro parking structure (Gold Line), with entrances on northbound Sierra Madre Villa Ave or N. Halsted St. 626-356-3100. www.ANoiseWithin.org.
***All Twelfth Night production photos by Craig Schwartz
Art Manke was one of three artistic directors of A Noise Within during the first of its two decades. I recently contacted him in Santa Cruz, where Manke is currently directing at Shakespeare Santa Cruz, to find out what he might say on the occasion of the opening of A Noise Within’s new theater and its 20th anniversary.
Art Manke
“No one knows better than I the challenges that Julia and Geoff Elliott faced getting this new theater built,” Manke said. “I applaud their accomplishment wholeheartedly.”
“The fortitude with which they’ve maintained their mission should not be underestimated,” he continued. “That mission [classical plays in repertory, with a company of actors supplemented by other casting for particular parts] is mind-bogglingly difficult, but ultimately all the more rewarding for an audience.”
Very few companies are able to stick to that mission, he noted, especially in tight economies. “First they drop the rep concept, doing single productions at a time, then there is no company of actors” – and finally they start doing non-classical plays and musicals as money-makers.
He gives his former colleagues “all the credit for continuing that herculean effort.”
Manke hasn’t been back to A Noise Within, not even as an audience member, since he directed Pericles there immediately after leaving the company in 2001. He declined to publicly discuss the reasons for that.
