Julia Lloyd George

A Bella Incarceration

A Bella Incarceration

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Ann Noble (Photo by Noah Cross)
Ann Noble (Photo by Noah Cross)

A Bella Incarceration

Reviewed by Julia Lloyd George
Echo Theater Company
Thru August 22

RECOMMENDED

From its very first moments, Ann Noble’s one-woman show, A Bella Incarceration, offers no easy answers. There is the actor/playwright in blue scrubs, a pink clown nose, and a blonde wig. Confined to a child’s playpen representing a prison, she doesn’t seem to have much consciousness of what lies outside her cell: a mini climbing wall, a skateboard ramp, a black tent, and a large orange, circular door labeled “The Before.” Ann Loud’s idiosyncratic production design and Noble’s own high-pitched clown voice seem to represent childish regression or arrested development of some kind, but it’s difficult to say for sure.

The only apparent certainty is that Noble’s character, Bella, has been arrested and imprisoned for something. She dances around the reason, speaking instead of being in love and the benefits of height (she herself is short, a fact which pains her). The object of her love also remains mysterious, but she believes that selfless love is the reason she is in her current situation. “When I think of the bravest people,” she says, “I think they must be in love.”

She then transitions into talking about the brave women that she admires most: Nellie Bly, Emma Goldman, and Dorothy Day. Their books are her sole possessions in the cell and she likes to quote their words when she’s “not feeling free or in love.” It seems that she both wants to be like them and believes herself to be like them already, a rebel who sacrificed her freedom for a cause. Turning her pillow into a puppet with a clown nose and a wig, she then begins to have imaginary conversations with these women to glean their wisdom about her own predicament and purpose.

There is a marked innocence and wide-eyed openness in Noble’s performance, making the funniest moments ones where Bella attempts to square her off-kilter worldview with reality. Referring to a cherry-covered dress she once had that “lost its cherries,” her last question for each woman is if they know of a creature that can gobble cherries off chiffon.

This heightened “manic pixie dream girl” quirkiness eventually falls away, however, leaving a much more grounded, authentic version of Bella. The spotless martyr image she had of herself turns out to be more complicated and the “protest” that landed her in prison much more ambiguous than previously shared.

This unadorned Bella has no wig, no nose, no blue scrubs, and no high-pitched voice. She finally tells the truth about herself and apparently wins her own freedom in that way, dancing around to an instrumental version of “The Sound of Silence” as she sheds the role she’d been forcing upon herself. This is the best, most intriguing version of Bella, though the audience unfortunately sees very little of it. Nevertheless, the show succeeds in being a refreshingly offbeat, charming showcase for Noble’s undeniable talents.

Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave, Los Angeles. Tuesdays, 8pm: thru Aug. 22nd. http://www.echotheatercompany.com/. Running time: 58 minutes with no intermission.

 
Stew

Stew

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Jasmine Ashanti, Roslyn Ruff, LisaGay Hamilton, and Samantha Miller (Photo by Mike Palma)
Jasmine Ashanti, Roslyn Ruff, LisaGay Hamilton, and Samantha Miller (Photo by Mike Palma)

Stew

Reviewed by Julia Lloyd George
Pasadena Playhouse
Through August 6

RECOMMENDED

The end of Zora Howard’s magnificent Stew lies in its beginning, echoing the eerie circularity that seems irrevocably stitched into all its characters’ lives.

It’s 7 am on Sunday in the Tucker household, but Mama (LisaGay Hamilton) is already getting started on an enormous stew meant to feed 50 people at a church event later that day. An interruption comes in the form of a loud noise from outside the house, which startles and unsettles her. Though it’s only a brief moment, it casts a pall over her typically homey kitchen.

There isn’t much time to dwell on it, though, because her still-sleepy daughters and granddaughter soon arrive from upstairs to help with the stew. Lillian (Roslyn Ruff) and Nelly (Jasmine Ashanti) are sisters that are practically a generation apart, the difference in their ages accentuating the emotional distance between them. Only 17 and incredibly sassy, Nelly is exhausted from the night before with her “man” (more serious than a “boyfriend,” she says).

Lillian, on the other hand, is a grown thirtysomething with a much more existential kind of exhaustion on her plate; she tells Mama that she and her husband, J.R., are “having a hard time”, which is why she’s staying there in the first place. Her pre-teen daughter, Lil’ Mama (Samantha Miller), and absent son, Junior, have come with her. Lil’ Mama obediently fetches groceries and contributes to the cooking, even though she’s anxious for her dad to arrive so that he can help her prepare for a Richard III audition (she wants the role of Queen Elizabeth).

Throughout all this action, witty one-liners (“you know who else was tired? JESUS!”) and teasing banter pass between the Tucker women in the blink of an eye. The play almost has the air of a classic sit-com, with laughs erupting from the theater audience on a regular basis. Tyler Thomas’s direction feels both intricate and seamless, especially as the tone of the play shifts and the façade of cheerful normalcy begins to fall away.

We get the first hints of this fracture when Mama gets deeply invested in Lil’ Mama’s audition and does her best to coach her. Eventually, she delivers a haunting Richard III monologue herself, telling her “young princes” to hear their “mother’s lamentation.” The barely contained well of emotion behind her eyes is undeniable; unable to speak her own words about a past calamity, she expresses her feelings through drama. It’s one of many stand-out moments from the astonishing LisaGay Hamilton, who gently commands one of the strongest ensembles I’ve ever seen.

It also sets the scene for revelations to come — which are both surprises and not surprises at all, since each woman’s past is prologue. Even scenic designer Tanya Orellana’s strategically placed kitchen wall stains foreshadow the conflict. Roslyn Ruff gets her own crowning scene when Lillian pours her heart out to her mother, who eventually responds in kind with confessions about her own regrets. Each woman wonders about the other paths their lives could have taken if only every action didn’t feel so predestined. When tragedy finally intrudes from outside the house, we’re left wondering why we can’t break the cycle ourselves.

Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S El Molino Ave, Pasadena; Wed.-Fri., 8 pm; Sun., 2pm & 7pm; through August 6th. https://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.