***
Gentle readers, I have recently joined the theatre review team over at the LA Weekly.
Here is a link to my second published review of a fine play,
(Scroll down to find it at the bottom of the first page.)
Happy reading!
Review by Pauline Adamek
Archive for July 2010
Comments (0)
Tags : LA Weekly, Pauline Adamek
Beautiful and touching — ‘Jaybird and Hallelujah’ at NoHo Studios
By Pauline Adamek · Comments (1)
Wednesday,
July
28th,
2010
Pure, authentic and uplifting – writer/director Pel Tedder”™s fine play, Jaybird & Hallelujah, is currently playing at the NoHo Actor”™s Studio until Aug 7th.
Jaybird & Hallelujah is a serio-comedy about the mysteries of the afterlife, in which several troubled souls share their touching stories.
Tedder”™s play is set in Purgatory where a handful of characters assess their situation and examine what brought them to this stage of torment in limbo. Finding themselves stuck on a bus travelling through difficult terrain, this group of passengers each has their own cross to bear. What happens next – only God knows.
We meet a tough-talking, agitated young guy Willie (Eric Goldrich) and his affectionate, consoling girlfriend Adriana (Sarah Delpizzo) who urges him to seek out the silver lining. One velvet-smooth character, Swamp Rat (Greg L. Grass) also takes a positive outlook to their dilemma, spouting words of comfort in a self-deprecating fashion, such as, “I”™m just an old man talkin”™. You don”™t have to listen to me. I”™m just tryin”™ to cheer you up.”
But there are icy roads and menacing rioters and weirdos at large, threatening their bus trip to the corner of Jaybird and Hallelujah Streets, where the doorway to Heaven may be found.
Some of these characters, including Lena the disgruntled bus driver (Danielle Lofton), have been on this cyclical journey for years and years, in search of their salvation. As Lena puts it, “There”™s no going back. You are on this bus for a reason.” One nervy girl Cassie (Nelinda Palomino) is a newbie. She”™s always cold because she died after freezing to death in a dumpster. Cassie”™s story is especially heartrending. When the setting shifts from the bus to a diner, we see Cassie get a chance for something she”™s been longing for her whole life. Here new lessons and tests are created for these lost souls to deal with as best they can.
Tedder tells me he was inspired to write this play after riding an LA city bus for a year and encountering a whole range of eccentric personalities. “In that job you see some extraordinary and crazy things,” he smiled. He had also heard a song that had the lyrics, “˜What if Heaven is just another door?”™ and that got his brain humming about different interpretations of the afterlife. Within thirty minutes, Tedder says, he had outlined the main idea for his play.
Most nights The Ukomo Theatre Project presents the same play with two different casts, therefore two different interpretations and strikingly different endings. It”™s an interesting experiment and one that pays off. Subtitled “˜The Redemption”™ and “˜The Salvation,”™ both these versions of Jaybird and Hallelujah will play on Saturday 31st July. The last night for “˜Salvation”™ is Fri Aug 6th at 10pm, and “˜Redemption”™ plays until Sat Aug 7th.
There are some beautiful and touching moments, especially towards the end. Flashes of comedy are underpinned by its serious theme. Never bleak nor hopeless, Jaybird and Hallelujah is a gentle reminder to us all to live the best life we can. Tedder”™s poignant play promises to change the way you think about life, death and what happens after death.
WHERE:
NoHo Actors Studios
5215 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood;
WHEN:
Plays: Sat., 9:15 p.m. & 10pm or 10.30pm;Â thru Aug. 7th, 2010
BOX OFFICE:
Tickets are $13.00 (or only $10.00 if purchased in advance)
Contact PEL OR BROOKE:
ukomoproject@live.com (818) 761-2166
peltedderco@live.com (818) 276-5509
Review by Pauline Adamek
Comments (1)
The excruciating torment of a crappy play – Circle of Will
By Pauline Adamek · Comments (7)
Tuesday,
July
27th,
2010
It’s a really, really bad sign when you start checking your watch 30 minutes into a ninety minute one act play, because those ninety minutes soon start to feel like nine hours. Jack Grapes’ play Circle of Will is an excruciating theatrical experience that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.
Why? Here is a play that is purportedly a comedy – and yes, there are several good lines that elicit laughs – but is, in fact, a poorly written exercise in existentialism that strives for the brilliance of Sartre‘s No Exit. And spectacularly fails.
Circle of Will is also a perfect primer for ‘How to torture your audience.’ Ha ha ha.
A good two-thirds of the play, meaning about one hour, is spent enduring the two main characters search for an ending to this play. So, what’s worse than watching a badly written play? A play that REFUSES to end AND – punishingly – begins all over again.
Circle of Will?
More like Circle of HELL.
THE GOOD: This play stars Joe Briggs as a posturing, preening Richard Burbage, who theatre buffs and historians will remember as being Shakespeare’s leading man back during Elizabethan times. Burbage most famously was the star of William Shakespeare’s theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men which mutated into the King’s Men (playing company) on the ascension of James I of England in 1603. Burbage is deservedly famous for playing the title role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare’s more renowned plays, including Hamlet, Othello, Richard III and King Lear.
With his tall stature, handsome features, funny facial expressions and physicality, Joe Briggs resembles a young Marlon Brando PLUS he has impeccable comic timing. Briggs is the only saving grace in this otherwise ghastly endurance test.
Director Brian Herskowitz did an okay job despite his cast’s insistence on adopting inconsistent acting styles.
THE BAD: Jack Grapes co-stars as an incompetent Will Shakespeare and Grapes also co-wrote this rotten play. His acting style is relaxed and natural (while Joe Briggs’ is broad and frequently amusing.) Jack Grapes in nowhere near as charming or funny as he evidently thinks he is.
THE UGLY: It’s when the two characters start to depart from the script (or do they?!) and break into some kind of improv meets stand up comedy exchange with the audience – and even bring some poor hapless audience member (or is she?!) up on stage, that the play really starts to fall apart.
THE EXTRA UGLY: Here’s the sticking point – Jack Grapes not only co-stars and co-wrote this play, but he is also a fairly renowned writing teacher who apparently is fantastic at “helping writers to find their voice.” Bravo, on your teaching success, Mr. Grapes, because apparently you cannot write a play that doesn’t make me want to give you a piece of my mind in the foyer afterwards.
SIDENOTE: There was a lot of laughter in the audience that my companions and I did not share. I saw a lot of adulation in the expressions of Jack Grapes’ students and fans. I can only assume they would not know a decent comedy if it crawled up their arse and sprouted sparkles.
Can you tell I passionately hated this play?
Avoid Circle of Will at all costs.
IN CASE YOU WANT TO DECIDE FOR YOURSELF:
WHERE: Macha Theatre, 1107 N. Kings Rd., West Hollywood, CA 90069. There is some parking available in an onsite lot and also across the street.
WHEN: Runs through Sunday, August 15, 2010.
Regular show times: Thurs.-Sat. at 8pm, Sun. at 7pm.
ADMISSION: $30.
RESERVATIONS: (323) 960-7822
ESTIMATED RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 30 minutes.
Review by Pauline Adamek.
Comments (7)
Tags : Pauline Adamek, Shakespeare
***
Gentle readers, I am thrilled to announce that I have joined the theatre review team over at the LA Weekly.
Here is a link to my first published review of the hilarious drag show,
(Scroll down to find it at the bottom of the first page.)
Happy reading!
Review by Pauline Adamek
Comments (1)
Tags : LA Weekly, Pauline Adamek
A drag show with a difference — Love Connie
By Pauline Adamek · Comments (0)
Thursday,
July
22nd,
2010
***
An up-beat multimedia dance comedy thriller by and starring John Cantwell, who fans will remember from The Nellie Olesons, Love, Connie is a drag show with a difference. It’s a full evening of entertainment that starts in the lively bar of the Silverlake”™s Casita del Campo restaurant.
After we all descend into the squeezy and intimate basement to the Cavern Club deathtrap – I mean theater – our drinks in hand, a fun raffle is held as the charming MC warms up the packed house with a raffle and advises the production is “one continuous unnatural act.”
The show begins with a projected short film that features the menacing presence of a black leather-clad stalker type. It”™s all very Brian de Palma / Dressed to Kill.
Then, in bursts Connie (John Cantwell) on her platform heels to take over the tiny stage. Connie”™s a loveable, blonde-wigged and hirsute heroine who just loves to dance, dance, dance! She regales us with energetic flashdancing (cue the black leotard and leg warmers!) and occasionally shows off her pageantry skilz. Some vague references to Connie”™s evidently hick town upbringing include a rumpled beauty pageant sash that reads “˜In-bred”™ teamed with a tiara as our girl demonstrates some impressive high-kicks.
The entire show is basically a love letter to her fans and a full-on dancefest set to raucous 80s pop tunes such as B-52″™s chirpy Housework and snippets of tracks by Prince, Blackeyed Peas, Pointer Sisters and Herbie Hancock. The choreography is just fantastic – this six-foot tall bloke has got the moves! – and a costume highlight is a fab red, white & blue bikini complete with red tassels where it counts. Turns out this eye-catching little number is a vintage collectible from the Kathy Ireland collection for Target. Stylin”™!
The dance numbers are interspersed with funny fake advertisements, as voiced by someone with a plummy British accent, and we also see further scenes of these sinister projected mini-movies. It transpires that the black-wigged stalker chick Bambi (Kelly Mantle) has evil designs on Connie”™s precious white cat, Vickie.
Lightning-speed costume changes and high-energy dance routines keep the slightly demented Connie on her toes and Cantwell maintains a cracking pace. Love, Connie runs for barely 50 minutes, but that leaves plenty of time for killer margaritas in the buzzy upstairs bar.
Molly Cranna co-stars as the shapely cat “Vickie”, complete with kitten mask and anatomically correct white suit. She performs a sweet pas de deux with Connie, set to Madonna”™s “Beautiful Stranger,” and this sequence accompanies pre-taped flashback to when Connie adopted her beloved kitty.
Refreshingly, the only dialogue in this hilarious evening is an on-screen chunk of exposition, venomously snarled by our villain Bambi as she explains her deadly motivation. The gorgeous Kelly Mantle clearly relishes her dastardly role. Incidentally, Cantwell has also appeared in campy, fun movies such as Legally Blonde, Nick & Norah”™s Infinite Playlist.
By the way, the mini-movie, directed by Michael Bodie, is beautifully done. Apparently filmed on the streets and staircases of Silver Lake, it was shot in less than two days.
The mood of this spooky little drama was inspired by music and scenes from all the best psycho thrillers, including Dressed to Kill, Sisters, Body Double, Cape Fear, Friday the 13th, White Dog, Psycho, Exorcist 2:  The Heretic. Cantwell says he focused mostly on the superb musical scores of Ennio Morricone, Pino Donaggio and Bernard Herrmann and if you”™re especially perceptive, you might even hear snatches of music reminiscent of the haunting melodies from Klute by composer Michael Small.
With its emphasis on bubbly fun, Love, Connie is such a tonic! Especially for this Sydney girl – the show was a real blast from the past. I just didn”™t realize how much I had been missing my hometown, birthplace of Pricilla, Queen of the Desert, and the drag shows of Oxford Street. Pure enjoyment!
Cantwell is a consummate performer who gives his all and had the enthusiastic and vocally appreciative audience in the palm of his hand.
Be advised, however – this is a risqué performance, featuring suggestive groping and scandalous simulated broomstick penetration. Also the subterranean cave “˜theatre”™ setting is not suitable for claustrophobes.
But Love, Connie is as funny as hell! Don”™t miss this riotous show!
Movie info:
The short film sequences were shot on the Panasonic HPX-170, which is a small HD digital camera that shoots to P2 cards.
Old film-style visual effects (such as scratches, dust and flash frames) were added in post using Final Cut Pro plug-in filters.
Director – Michael Bodie
Executive Producer – Bryan Fuller
Producer – Loretta Ramos
Screenwriter – John Cantwell
Cinematographer – Lisa Wiegand
Camera Operator – Reza Tabrizi
Makeup – David DeLeon & Molly Cranna
Editor – David Kittredge
Original Music Editor – DJ Shyboy
Additional Music Editor – Mr. Dan
Graphic Design – Nubar
Photography by Gabriel Goldberg
Acting by John Cantwell and Kelly Mantle.
Love, Connie runs until THIS WEEKEND O N L Y, with performances on July 23rd & 24th, 2010.
Show starts at 9:00 PM
Cavern Club Celebrity Theatre at the Casita Del Campo Restaurant
1920 Hyperion Ave,
Silver Lake, CA 90027
Phone: (323) 969-2530
Website.
Review by Pauline Adamek
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