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Ghosts of the Underground
Reviewed by Bill Raden
Zombie Joe’s Underground
Through Feb. 21
RECOMMENDED:
On its most visceral level, the power of good theater, as with all great art, lies in its capacity to take us by surprise. Obversely, to see it coming — whether it’s a standup’s punch line, a magician’s misdirection, an actor’s line delivery or a playwright’s choice and ordering of the words — is a recipe for tedium and disengagement. Overfamiliarity is always the kiss of death.
Which is one way to explain why the prospect of seeing anything at Zombie Joe’s Underground always tantalizes. Even when the company is at its shaggiest or when they misfire altogether, one never knows what to expect from their experimental fearlessness.
In the case of Ghosts of the Underground, director Sebastian Muñoz and writer Adam Neubauer’s (mostly) jukebox-musicalized, immersive mash-up of Greek myth, hardboiled pulp fiction and the venerable ghost story, surprise and purposeful disorientation are the order of the evening.
Following up on last year’s company-devised Manicomio, where he first force-intermingled audience and performers by eliminating the house seating, Muñoz seems determined to violate every rule in the ZJU playbook. With Ghosts, he extends the playing space into the very lobby, where arriving audience members are greeted by the spectacle of a gaunt, 1940s private eye (Ian Heath) pouring through newspaper clippings of lurid murders to music played by a live, three-piece orchestra (Sasha Snow on violin, Michael Guthrie on acoustic guitar , Ramona Creel on clarinet and drum).
Inside the stripped theater itself, the remainder of the 15-member ensemble, made up in ghoulish commedia whiteface and dressed in colorful (and uncredited) costumes, enacts an eerie preshow of broken, cryptic tableaus that, when the “play” does finally kick in, takes on the hallucinatory aspects of a Mardi Gras in hell.
Neubauer’s spare script adheres to the logic of the detective mystery thriller as the private eye obsessively follows a string of clues in an attempt to avenge the murder of his wife (Sara Kessler), even as the trail of increasingly surreal mayhem spirals ever inward to implicate the sleuth himself.
That action is both punctuated and musically elevated by interpretations of 10 songs mostly taken from film scores and recent pop charts, but that also include a bravura performance by Egyptian singer-songwriter Sue Shaheen of her original composition, “Makansh Hallo.” Snow’s lead vocals on Eisley’s “Telescope Eyes” and Kessler’s rendition of Evanescence’s “Bring me to life” are particular highlights, though Snow’s musical direction briefly falters on the company’s butchered finale of “Scarborough Fair.”
Nevertheless, and in spite of the occasional sour note and shaky acting performance, Ghosts of the Underground racks up an impressive tally of theatrical coups, not the least of which is the sudden dawning that happens about three-quarters into the show of exactly which ancient tale Muñoz and Neubauer are so eloquently reinterpreting. To say anything further would undermine that all-important element of surprise mentioned above. Suffice it to say that they expertly reveal the mythic heart lurking under their macabre musical mystery and send the audience into the night feverishly thrilled and affectingly haunted.
Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre, 4850 Lankershim Blvd., NoHo; Fri.-Sat., 8:30 p.m.; through Feb. 21. (818) 202-4120, zombiejoes.com.
