[ssba]
The Discord Altar
Reviewed by Neal Weaver
At The Secret Rose Theatre
Through May 3
RECOMMENDED:
Improvisation in the theatre is hardly a new thing, and more and more it seems to become a useful part of the movie-making process. Improvised comedy has become downright ubiquitous, and was practiced with glorious expertise by Mike Nichols and Elaine May way back in the 1950s. But improvised opera? That’s another thing entirely, tricky and difficult, and seemingly unlikely. But that’s what’s happening with OperaWorks, working in association with the Arts for Social Awareness Project and Fugitive Kind Theater on this production of The Discord Altar.
But what is this new phenomenon, improvised opera, and how is it accomplished, getting the large numbers of individuals involved in operatic production on the same page? The program offers some helpful information: The libretto is by Meghan Brown, the instrumental music is improvised by pianist and musical director Ann Baltz and percussionist Ray Salas, the director of the project is Amanda McRaven, and, according to the press release, the music is improvised by the company. This still doesn’t do much to explain the work process.
Fortunately, the company also provides “talk backs,” which give the audience a chance to ask questions. Their emphasis is on their social mission, examining the problems of homelessness, but they also answer questions about the nature of the work. Musical director/pianist Ann Baltz serves as spokesperson, to elucidate the artistic process.
Apparently, the words are not improvised, though there’s no indication as to whether the lines are spoken or sung. And librettist Brown has broken the material into discreet sections, so that it’s always clear who is the primary focus. There is no written musical score: The work is freshly improvised at each performance, so it’s different every time. The performers must decide whether to speak or sing, and when the piece begins, no one is sure what he or she is going to do. As Baltz says, it requires performers with real courage to embark on such an open-ended endeavor. Since all the performers have bona fide operatic voices and experience, they have a strong basis for their experiments.
The piece itself is set in a Los Angeles homeless encampment. A homeless, dedicated music teacher named David (who has just died) has drawn together a de facto family. David’s homeless students are contemptuous of the conventional funeral they’ve just attended, and come together to create a memorial service of their own, with an altar where they can place their own mementos and tributes.
The members of the family are diverse. Drew (baritone Babatunde Akinboboye) is a veteran who joined the military right after high school, served a number of years. When he got out, he was unable to find work and has lived on the streets ever since. Richie (Julia Aks) is a young woman who found in David the love and acceptance she never experienced from her own family. Vandelda (Angelica McRae) is an uneducated black woman, willful, affectionate, inarticulate and possibly a bit simple-minded, who carries all her belongings about with her in a grocery cart. She is the most mysterious of the characters, since she has virtually no lines till the end, and never really tells her story, but she becomes a moving figure when she shares a cherished tape recording of David urging her to practice — and apparently teaching her the ABC Song. Lena (Annie Sherman) is a bitter, young white girl who’s furious at the world for its neglect of David. Bryce (baritone Vincent Robles) is the only one of the group who has managed to make it in the larger culture, thanks to David’s teaching, and has come back, trailing all the attributes of success, to pay tribute to his benefactor. Lena resents him, both for abandoning the family, and for exploiting her personal history in his commercial work. Emily (Alina Roitstein) is David’s daughter, who hated her father for succumbing to his addictions and abandoning his family, and bitterly resents the others who seem to regard him as a sort of saint.
Brown’s libretto mercifully avoids preaching and moralizing, relying on the intrinsic material to advance its own ideas, including the need to recognize the homeless as individuals, with their own dignity, needs and concerns.
Director McRaven draws fine work from all her actor/singers, but sometimes loses focus by encouraging too much by-play among the cast, which distracts from the main action. But she deserves credit for breaking open the most rigid of theatrical forms, the opera, and letting it breathe and expand. It’s not a neat or tidy show, but it is an exciting one.
OperaWorks and Fugitive Kind Theater at The Secret Rose Theatre, 11246 Magnolia Blvd., N. Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (818) 898-9597, www.operaworks.org
