[ssba]
Four Larks and Ghost Road Company Tackle the Greeks
By Steven Leigh Morris
Four Larks’s KATABASIS (Photo by Michael Amico)
The Woolsey Fire in Malibu prevented the planned two-week November staging at Getty Villa of Katabasis, Four Larks’s interactive, site-specific and operatic interpretation of a ritual descent into the underworld. After the smoke cleared, the Museum was able to invite the company back in late January for a single weekend of performances. Because the piece — created, staged and composed by Mat Sweeney (with lyrics co-written with Jesse Rasmussen) – was designed to use so much of the facility, indoors and out, coordinating schedules among the various branches of the Villa restricted the length of the presentation’s run.
This is all worth noting because, among our theater companies, Four Larks is probably the most soulful interpreter of theological ideas (The Master and Margarita, Orpheus, The Temptation of St. Antony). In an era saturated with political and social discord – you’d think from newspaper headlines and social media that we are the first culture to ever suffer from political and social discord, or even crises of identity. And then you see Shakespeare. And then you see the Greeks. And then you see our sad, farcical politics of hate-mongering and revenge and ambition played out against the stark counterpoint of centuries of such stories. And then, if you’re lucky, you see Four Larks, which insists on rising above, or in the cases of Orpheus and Katabasis, on sinking below. (There’s tranquility and perspective from both mountain tops and ocean floors.)
Katabasis is a kind of incantation designed to draw one into a hypnotic state among dead souls, who are chanting on a lawn, or paddling in sundry ponds on the Villa estate. Like a profound church service in its reach for eternal stasis, the event trivializes the chaos and headlines of the day. The audience is guided to a series of sites, each one separated by descending steps, and each being the stage for a new musical composition; instruments include flute (Maya Gingery), violin (Yvette Cornelia Holzwarth), guzheng (Jett Kwong), bass (Matt Orenstein), kaval & saxophone (Ryan Parrish), banjo (Titus Tompkins), bass (James Vitz-Wong) and percussion (James Waterman).
Samples of the soundtrack can be found at https://fourlarks.bandcamp.com/album/katabasis
It’s largely a speculative opera, as little is known about the ancient mystery rites in preparation for death, which are the piece’s inspiration.
The actors and actor-musicians are clad in flowing black garb (Mieko Romming, costume designer). One interior location is guarded by three looming hounds of hell (gorgeous mask design by Regan Baumgarten), so that the guide has to select which patrons may enter – upon receiving the hounds’ approval. This is one of the production’s selected moments of wistful levity (a brief musical riff on Gilbert & Sullivan is another). However, director Sweeney’s excursions into humor mercifully keep glibness at arm’s length.
Upon approaching the River Lethe (the river of forgetfulness), a singer cautions us “parched pilgrims” not to drink from the river, or our entire lives will be washed away from memory – begging the question, what are we doing worth remembering?
I found the ghoulish opening motifs straining for effect, like a solicitation for some almost-tacky carnie show. But slowly, enchantingly, the blend of music and mythology takes over, washes over, inviting a kind of altered state.
On the final ascent, leaving the dead souls below, one is compelled to question what one is doing with the short time one has left — regardless of how young one may be. And that question is partly inspiring and partly terrifying. And that is the essence of life, and of death encroaching, so beautifully and skillfully ensnared by Four Larks.
Jocasta in Hollywood . . .
At the Broadwater Stage, Ghost Road Company closes its Oedipus Rex riff on Sunday. The show is called Jocasta: A Motherf**king Tragedy. The title reveals the aesthetic – solemn classical aspirations tempered by contemporary jokiness. Jocasta is conceived and directed by Brian Weir and written by the company through a series of workshops.
Jocasta (Jen Kays, in an endearing and textured performance) replaces Oedipus (Max Faughno) in the title and in the plot. Whereas in Sophocles’s play, Oedipus drives the investigation of who killed King Laius, while his wife/mother Jocasta – with a sinking feeling – tries in vain to get him to back off, here that dynamic is inverted: Jocasta is the protagonist and truth-seeker, while Oedipus, over-sexed and overwhelmed, more or less hangs back.
One intent is to serve up a contemporary setting (Francois-Pierre Couture’s set features concrete slabs overlooking a swimming pool from some modernist manse, while Vicki Conrad’s costumes of tank tops, white silks and black leather trousers land us on some bridge between the 20thand 21stcenturies). The other, more significant intent is to splash Sophocles with a bucket of latter-day feminism. This explains the appearance of other wronged women from ancient Greek lit – Medea (Christine Breihan) and Cassandra (Kimberly Glann, her thick black mane of hair and red lipstick underscores her role as enchantress). Both female interlopers serve as consultants to Jocasta, though, as in Sophocles, there’s not much they can do about destiny.
Add to the mix the Sphinx (Katharine Noon, a tender performance), a riches to rags tattoo artist with medical issues. She knows where all the ink stains are buried.
One stick-in-the-mud question is why Oedipus Rex even needs a feminist slant, as though Oedipus’s arrogance doesn’t go unpunished, as though Jocasta doesn’t have profound power and influence in Thebes, or as though Medea, or Antigone, or Lysistrata don’t suffice to provide a classical perspective on the underlying power of wronged women? Still, Ghost Road Company is far too playful to be put off by such sour notes.
Take, for instance, their addition of Chrys (Adam Dlugolecki) – once King Laius’ semi-reluctant boy-toy (Jocasta and Laius suffered from a dismal sex life, in this version). Now that Laius is history, Chrys hangs around in the pool, swimming laps, and reflecting on destiny, i.e. Laius’s death, and Chrys’s fate as sexual assault survivor.
The play comes enriched with literary motifs, such as birds – canaries in the coal mines of a land on the verge of extinction. Cassandra dissects them, to fathom why they’re falling from the sky. They substitute for Sophocles’s plague – a warning from the gods that something wrong must be put right. This motif is literally amplified in Cricket Meyers’ sound design, punctuated with cawing and avian shrieking. Meanwhile, lighting designer Brandon Baruch (who also lit Katabasis) delights in hurling his beams directly into the eyes of the audience at core moments, to remind us that destiny and identity confusion aren’t just ancient Greek problems. These light(s) shineth also on us.
Weir has staged a largely cogent and animated production that’s worth seeing for its blend of literary allusions and strong production values. Yet there’s something prosaic in the translation. Similar, jocular updates of the Greeks can be found in Stephen Berkoff’s Greek (a riff on Oedipus set in east London) and Luis Alfaro’s Electricidad (Electra), Oedipus El Rey, and Mojada (Medea) set in either contemporary East or South Los Angeles.
My hunch is that the distinction between Berkoff’s and Alfaro’s updates, and that of Ghost Road Company, is having poets at the helm. With Berkoff and Alfaro, the literary tone is of a piece – despite the many, many jokes by both. As with Mat Sweeney, the humor folds into the larger event without leaving a seam.
In Jocasta, there’s some gorgeous poetry mottled with platitudes:
JOCASTA: This isn’t about sex Medea. I paid for my happiness up front. I deserve \
MEDEA: No one deserves anything Jocasta. Life is series of shitty fucking choices \
Ghost Road Company is on track to become an important theater company. The next step in that evolution might be to hire a poet.
KATABASIS | Created, Staged and Composed by Mat Sweeney; Lyrics Co-Written with Jesse Rasmussen | Presented by Four Larks at the Getty Villa | Closed
JOCASTA: A MOTHERF**KING TRAGEDY | Conceived and Directed by Brian Weir | Ghost Road Company at The Broadwater Stage, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood | Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m,; Sun., 7 p.m.; through Feb. 10. | https://sforce.co/2DlV16n
