Grail Project  

Reviewed by Gray Palmer 
Theatre Movement Bazaar at Bootleg Theater 
Through March 10 

RECOMMENDED 

Director/choreographer Tina Kronis and writer Richard Alger, the duo known as Theatre Movement Bazaar, work with a fine company of performers to bring their distinctive styling to the Grail legend in this world premiere at Bootleg Theater.

Their approach to the story is refreshing, mock-legendary, and feminist. The women in this version of the Arthurian stories are more than ready for liberation; they’ve begun to agitate for organized struggle against subjugation.

In a prologue, Vivian (the wonderful Prisca Kim, as the Lady of the Lake) invites us to recall what used to be. Kronis’s choreography transforms the ensemble into the element of water — supporting Kim on the surface, plunging and drifting her below, shooting her into the air and taking her back down — while Kim speaks, somehow in a relaxed fashion, Alger’s well-written text: “Your life is now linked to the lake, where the silent monsters swim, where sunlight fails to penetrate, where darkness gives you all you need to see…”

We meet King Arthur (the always-reliable Mark Doerr) and knights at a round-table discussion in which each knight is given the opportunity to lob fatuous compliments, many remarking on the clothing of Perceval (the outstanding David Guerra) who is wearing the Red suit of his most recent victim. Then king and company retire for steaks and booze. Flattery from the cabinet, obsession with appearance, slaughter for gain, torture — you get the picture.

Next, the ladies. When wicked Morgana (Elle Parker, terrific) and Vivian fail to convince queen Gwenevere (Paula Rebelo) to join a women’s revolt, they facilitate trouble at court by encouraging Gwenevere’s betrayal with Lancelot (Lamont Oakley, funny). This is a Lancelot straight from a strip-joint, as he demonstrates to us, cabaret-style. “And he’s French!”

Modred (Jesse D. Myers) seems to invent a capitalist import scheme under the appreciative eye of Merlin (Mark Skeens, good as a three-card-monte kind of Merlin).

We see the knights training in a great, proud, funny dance number with a snappy text and a movement vocabulary that seems to make a nod to postmodern choreographer Trisha Brown. The men are like medieval cops, but “to serve, to protect” is preceded by “to fear.”

And then we leave — for the most part — the Camelot story to the side, and focus on Perceval and his squire Knute (the very charming Kasper Svendsen) in the quest for the miraculous Grail, though no one knows quite what that is… It is a sweet adventure with the two excellent principals, Guerra and Svendsen.

All the staging, dancing, and singing is satisfying. And as we’ve come to expect from TMB, the performers accompany themselves — here on guitar, bass, accordion and improvised percussion instruments (with terrific musical direction by Wes Myers). There are clever musical jokes: New lyrics fitted to Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime,” an ersatz medieval cadence set to a Latin-sounding text that might as well be saying “I-can-beat-anyone-in-the-house — in — Do-mi-noes,” and other delights.

Alger’s text features great, sharp patter. It’s very good comic writing — sometimes a smart-guy spinning a rube, sometimes a chorus ganging up on a scapegoat, and there are funny lists with sudden, lunatic detail (“I like zebras and clear liquids”).

The good costume design is by Ellen McCartney, with lighting by Alger and Aaron Francis.

Bootleg Theater, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles; Thu.-Sat. 7pm; Sun. 2pm; no perf. 2/24 or 3/4; through March 10. bootlegtheater.org. Running-time: one hour 45 minutes with no intermission.