The Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms

Schkapf
Through June 28

RECOMMENDED:

Photo: Courtesy Schkapf

Chief among the many reasons to see ARTEL’s remount of their 2010 music hall of Futurist-Absurdist sketches by the Soviet avant-gardist Daniil Kharms is the matchless opportunity for the polished and entertaining introduction it provides to its author.

Director and adaptor Olya Petrakova, co-adaptor/performer Bryan Brown and a 12-member ensemble (with musical accompaniment by Jef Bek & Ensemble) tackle around 20 of Kharms’s meta-fictional writings — notebook fragments, short-short “stories” and abbreviated playlets — whose ribald and parodic riffs on random violence, death and non-sequitur wordplay might best be described as a vaudeville blend of Beckett, Abbott and Costello, and the Three Stooges by way of Kafka.

At the heart of the evening — and Kharms’ surreal oeuvre — is the mordant Russian sense of humor in extremis. Kharms and his OBIERU writers collective date from the period of Stalin’s consolidation of power when ordinary Soviet life began to take on a harrowingly absurdist quality. Kharms himself died in a manner worthy of one of his own fictions by starving to death in an insane asylum during the siege of Leningrad.

That flavor of black, fatalistic burlesque gets summed up in bits during which a Harpo Marx-like clown is suddenly beaten to death with an oversized cucumber, a piece in which a pair of lovers are suddenly interrupted and carried off by Cheka agents, a portrait gallery scene wherein the relative merits of Pushkin and Gogol are discussed by a literary critic and that quickly devolves into a wrestling match between the two authors, and matching sketches featuring first a group of women and then men describing the erotic olfactory qualities of female genitalia (“Should one be ashamed of ones own body?” a later piece asks).

And if no English translation can adequately convey the homonymous nuances or punning interplay embedded in Kharms’s Russian-language poetics, The Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms’ precision ensemble and Petrakova’s well-oiled, if somewhat overlong, 90-minute production deliver a worthy approximation of what may be the next best thing.—Bill Raden

Schkapf, 6567 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; through June 28. https://Hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1885?tab=tickets.

Anita Bryant’s Playboy Interview

Hudson Guild Theatre
Through June 28

Photo by Paul Stein

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since former Miss Oklahoma and evangelical anti-gay gadfly Anita Bryant waged her successful, 1977 campaign to repeal Dade County, Florida’s pioneering ordinance that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation.

But as the ongoing national battles over marriage equality and this week’s embrace of gay conversion therapy by Texas Republicans attest, the struggle for LGBT rights in this country is hardly over.

Which is perhaps the best endorsement for the continued relevance of John Copeland and Robert Whirry’s canny political caricature of Bryant’s outrageous bigotry in a script mostly culled from the June, 1978 Playboy interview conducted by Ken Kelley (played here by Stephen Simon).

The leading edge of the satire is contained in Copeland’s restrained drag impersonation of Bryant, replete with Okie accent and red bouffant wig, in which the actor allows the former Florida Citrus Commission spokesperson to damn herself with her own words.

What follows is a camp compendium of Bryant’s more ludicrous pronouncements, such as her extended and befuddled exegesis on how “homosexuals eat the male sperm” that is the biblical “life essence” and “forbidden fruit” and is therefore banned by the Bible.

Despite the pinpoint hilarity of Copeland’s delivery and Paul Stein’s able and brisk direction, however, the 80-minute show could easily lose a good 20 minutes. By a not-so-strange coincidence, that is just about the running time added by the show’s inclusion of the probably unnecessary historical context and arch tone of righteous moral indignation provided by Brett Paesel as the show’s superfluous narrator and as the June, 1978 issue’s centerfold Gail Stanton.—Bill Raden

Hudson Guild Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., www.Hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1695

 These reviews are offered via a partnership between L.A. Weekly and Stage Raw. To maximize coverage of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the two publications are sharing reviews and funding responsibilities. Stage Raw is an Emerge Project of the Pasadena Arts Council, with other funding coming from a combination of advertising and individual donors.  For the L.A. Weekly, please visit www.laweekly.com

Ammo

Lounge Theatre
Through June 28

Fierce Backbone

America’s corrosive love affair with deadly firearms is the theme of playwright Jeremy Kehoe’s uneven collection of four one acts.  Much like a game of Russian roulette, though, only one of the four theatrical bullets possesses the firepower necessary to blow our minds.

In “Florida,” Andrew Preston offers a genuinely harrowing turn as a vicious thug, serving a life sentence for murdering a woman, who spitefully tricks a handicapped young man into serving a life sentence of his own.  Preston’s matter of fact coldness as he portrays a sociopathic creep whom Nietzche would have taken out for coffee is wonderfully powerful.  Elsewhere, “Michigan” centers on a Priest (Holger Moncada, Jr., nicely brooding) desperately trying to negotiate the surrender of unhinged gunman Lewis (Drew McAuliffe), with tragic results.  Although this piece boasts some passionate acting, the situation is never entirely believable and the debate the characters engage in is forced and circular.  Director Jeffrey Wylie’s stiff and workmanlike direction does little to connect the other, slighter stories to any underlying emotion, and the pieces all too often descend into pedantic dogma.—Paul Birchall

Fierce Backbone at The Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd, https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1834?tab=tickets

The Last Remnants of Cops, Robbers and Hollywood Cowboys

The Complex
Through June 29

Paris Avenue Productions

There are about a gazillion stories to tell about Los Angeles, and while playwright Tom Cavanaugh’s collection of monologues aren’t the most compelling or exciting tales to tell, they certainly reflect the spirit of the Big Orange.  Kernels of awareness familiar to most Angelenos may be found within the pieces, even if many vignettes often feel bogged down by stereotypes and inertly rendered situations.

Best of the set is Tadamori Yagi’s delightful turn as a young Silver-Laker who frets over the fact that no one in self-absorbed Hell-A checks in on him after a calamity occurs in his apartment building.  Christopher D. Narrie offers a touching turn as a young Downtowner who embarks on an ultimately (and inevitably tragic) love affair with a homeless Skid Row waif. Laura Raynor, as a coffeehouse patron bumping into an old man who turns out to be a legendary Hollywood stunt man from cinema’s Golden Age, certainly conveys a bona fide Los Angeles sensibility.  Otherwise, the writing suffers from being more banal than the situations require – it doesn’t help that each monologue’s protagonist narrates his story, instead of dramatically living it, creating a flat, static mood that’s more Dead Zone than L.A.—Paul Birchall

Paris Avenue Productions at The Complex, 6706 Santa Monica Blvd, https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1605?

 These reviews are offered via a partnership between L.A. Weekly and Stage Raw. To maximize coverage of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the two publications are sharing reviews and funding responsibilities. Stage Raw is an Emerge Project of the Pasadena Arts Council, with other funding coming from a combination of advertising and individual donors.  For the L.A. Weekly, please visit www.laweekly.com

Friends Like These

The Elephant Space at Theatre Asylum
Through June 28

RECOMMENDED:

Gregory Crafts’drama Friends Like These tips its hand during its prologue. In the pitch-dark theater, we hear a montage of news coverage and eye-witness accounts of a shooting rampage at a high school. The lights then come up on a trio of teens wielding foam swords, garbed in medieval attire, spouting archaic English. It’s confusing for a moment until we realize these three are merrily participating in a “Live Action Role Playing”game. Nerdy Garrett (Scott Sharma), Emo girl Dis (Sammi Lappin) and sometime jock Brian (Sean Casey Flanagan) are geeky gamers who hang out together, copping a fair amount of bullying and daily abuse from the cooler kids at their school. Their only escape is acting out these guided fantasy war games in a realm called Haven.

Crafts does a good job of capturing the nightmare of daily abuse —particularly the vile homophobic slurs that assault Garrett —and offers sympathetic insight into those unpopular teens who are pushed to a murderous breaking point. Crafts also seems to hew too closely to stereotypes —the jock, the freak, the cheerleader —even as he attempts to break them down. Hence, we have a conceited cheerleader Nicole (Parissa Koo) who is trying to break out of her assigned category —“slut” or “airhead”—by attempting to date one of the nice guys who happens to be a geek. Her object of affection, Garrett, is hostile at first, but soon warms to the bubbly, motor-mouth girl. But Nicole’s ex-boyfriend Jesse (Lee Pollero), is the most dangerous bully on campus and soon he’s ramping up his attacks on Garrett.

A highlight of Wendy Gough Soroka’s direction is the simple but effective staging of a battle sequence that beautifully captures the chaos of pretend warfare. The music supervision is also exemplary, with the Beastie Boys’up-tempo pop hit “Sabotage”selected for this scene. Swift scene changes are underscored by apt snippets of songs such as The Offspring’s rock anthem “Come Out and Play (Keep ’em Separated)” — emphasizing the school’s pecking order.

Friends Like These begins by provoking belly laughs but soon moves into heavy melodrama fraught with devious machinations and speechifying. Adolescence is a high-drama era and, regrettably, not everyone gets out alive. –Pauline Adamek

Theatre Unleashed at Theatre Asylum’s Elephant Space, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1887

Man’s Dominion

Elephant Space at Theatre Asylum
Through June 28

Pachyderm Productions

A TV writer/producer for most of his lengthy career, David Castro has now tried his hand at playwriting, and the resulting one-person play, Man’s Dominion, is not as emotionally gripping as one might expect from the subject matter. Castro was seized by the tragic turn-of-the-century tale of a circus elephant’s lynching. In a small Tennessee town in 1916, an Indian elephant named Mary lashed out at an inexperienced and brutal trainer, stamping on his head. For this murderous act, the beast was hanged.

The playwright adopts the typical, no-frills approach of having a sole actor inhabit a virtually bare stage and adopt numerous characters. By doffing a hat, buttoning his collar or affixing a red nose, Tim Powell portrays nine distinct characters from clown to clergyman, each also delineated by a broad accent – an Irishman’s lilt, the drawl of a Southerner, and the cadence of a black man. Castro also has Powell adopt the persona of the slain man — for whom the elephant was killed — in an interesting, ghostly choice.

For his social commentary, Castro’s language is equal parts vivid and ploddingly explanatory, tapping into 1916 attitudes that ranged from remorse to outrage. Some sequences are insightful, though, such as a short speech that reveals the harsh realities of a physically taxing career in the circus. Additionally, this curiosity-piece of a play holds a neat little surprise in the stalls for its audiences.—Pauline Adamek

Pachyderm Productions at Elephant Studio/Theatre Asylum, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd. https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1834?tab=tickets

These reviews are offered via a partnership between L.A. Weekly and Stage Raw. To maximize coverage of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the two publications are sharing reviews and funding responsibilities. Stage Raw is an Emerge Project of the Pasadena Arts Council, with other funding coming from a combination of advertising and individual donors.  For the L.A. Weekly, please visit www.laweekly.com

Independence

The Lounge Theatre
Through June 28

RECOMMENDED:

Photo by Vernée Watson

This is a striking revival of Lee Blessing’s 1984 drama about a family caught in the swirls of crisis and change in a small Iowa town. At the heart of the play is Evelyn Briggs (Shelley Phillips), the mother of three daughters, who is emotionally unstable, manipulative and grasping. Her daughters all suffer in various degrees from her warped, near fetishistic need to dominate their lives. The fuse is lit when the eldest, Kess (Kat Muldoon), a lesbian and college professor, returns home after four years to find her youngest sister Jo (Jenny Simpson) pregnant and wearing a neck brace, the result of an attack by her mother. Middle sister Sherry (Lauren Benge), a wild-child and loose panty who is into “meaningless relationships,” and is an aspiring sculptor, is never short of hurtful words or droll mockery. Evelyn is a master at tossing the apple of discord among her children, always with the intention of controlling them and engaging in her destructive ritual of attraction and repulsion.

This is pegged as a coming-of-age story, but it really is about breaking free of bonds, even at the expense of those we love. These characters are complex, beckoning, and masterfully sketched by Blessing, and the performances are outstanding under Vernée Watson’s exacting direction.—Lovell Estell III

V. Watson Productions at The Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd. https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1588

The Mermaid Who Learned to Fly

The Elephant Theatre at Theatre Asylum
Through June 28

Kyla Garcia’s solo show starts out as a fairy tale, with Garcia initially assuming the persona of an enchanting pixie, cum lilting Irish brogue. It would have been a much better show had she packaged an equal amount of whimsy into the narrative that follows.

After a time, she spins off an onerous yarn about a child named Victoria, an aspiring writer, and then tracks her progression through school, scraps with teachers, first love, and so on. Garcia assumes multiple characters throughout, but the transitions are often jagged and confusing. The most baffling, ponderous segment of the show — and the most painfully protracted — concerns Victoria’s trials and trauma over a lesbian love affair. Garcia is an energetic and charismatic performer, but this uninspiring material doesn’t resonate at all. Jessica Lynn Johnson directs. –Lovell Estell III

The Elephant Theater, Theater Asylum, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd. https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1887

These reviews are offered via a partnership between L.A. Weekly and Stage Raw. To maximize coverage of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the two publications are sharing reviews and funding responsibilities. Stage Raw is an Emerge Project of the Pasadena Arts Council, with other funding coming from a combination of advertising and individual donors.  For the L.A. Weekly, please visit www.laweekly.com

Odessa

Theatre Asylum Lab
Through June 29

RECOMMENDED:

In this world premiere written by John Tyler McClain and directed by Carly D. Weckstein, Earth Up Top is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the casualty of an unspecified disaster that has left bottles of Clean scarce. Below ground, Alice (the marvelous Joanna Bateman), wearing a tattered blue dress, tends her plants and practices the waltz, awaiting the return of Cliff (Bruce A. Lemon, Jr.), with whom she barters sexual favors in exchange for Clean. Their tenuous existence is upended by the capture of Preacher (Bethany Esfandiari), who turns Alice’s head with tales of Odessa, a survivors’ enclave, sparking a power struggle with Cliff.

Alana Cheuvront’s costumes infuse a gritty realism with just the right touch of whimsy, while the lighting — worklights-on-wheels operated by the actors and able to swing around as required — create the illusion of intimacy interrupted by glaring harshness. Bateman’s performance dances on a line between delicacy of feeling and barminess, strengthening the allusions to Alice in Wonderland (originally titled Alice’s Adventures Under Ground). Bateman isn’t matched by her costars, however; Esfandiari seems as though she hasn’t quite committed to the unscrupulous rambler’s brutish philosophy. But despite threatening to be unremittingly dark, under Weckstein’s direction the script evokes surprising humor and even a glimmer of redemption.—Jenny Lower

The Illyrian Players Theatre Company at Theatre Asylum Lab, 6230 Santa Monica Blvd. https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1686

The Landstuhl Chronicles

Theatre Asylum
Through June 28

Named for the largest United States military hospital on foreign soil and the main treatment destination for soldiers wounded in Iraq, this play — written, directed, and produced by Benny Lumpkins — interweaves tales from veterans with background on the ill-fated invasion.

Unfortunately, the episodic structure is a hot mess that requires far more development before it will be ready for a mainstage production. The characters receive little individuation or arcs, apart from a brief rap session at a nightclub in which each soldier awkwardly declaims his or her story while standing before the group. The muddled timeline casts a woman (Caroline Sweet) who does not appear to be Hillary Clinton serving as president, or possibly press secretary, issuing politically improbable statements in the wake of Bush’s Mission Accomplished speech. A diverting but thematically pointless scene involves a soldier (James Jenkins) picking up a German lesbian (Sarah Brooks). The cast flounders without adequate direction, retreading generic narratives while neglecting to shape or elucidate the war’s complex historical reality.—Jenny Lower

BLJ Productions at Theatre Asylum, 6320 Santa Monica Blvd., https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1747

These reviews are offered via a partnership between L.A. Weekly and Stage Raw. To maximize coverage of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the two publications are sharing reviews and funding responsibilities. Stage Raw is an Emerge Project of the Pasadena Arts Council, with other funding coming from a combination of advertising and individual donors.  For the L.A. Weekly, please visit www.laweekly.com

The Conduct of Life

Theatre Asylum
Through June 28

RECOMMENDED:

Photo by Kate Hagerty

In an unidentified country, ambitious military officer Orlando (Robert Homer Mollohan) wants to “achieve maximum power.” His sensitive wife Leticia (Karina Wolfe) wants to “be a woman who speaks in a group and have everybody listen.” But she won’t stand up to him, even once she becomes aware of Nena (Emily Yetter), the young girl that Orlando keeps and rapes in the basement. Orlando’s colleague Alejo (Jeremy Mascia) impotently wonders if “anybody can change anything.” He, too, fails to speak up against the torture he and Orlando perpetrate against the government’s enemies. It is finally Orlando and Leticia’s maid Olimpia (Belinda Gosbee) who even attempts to stand up to Orlando and protect Nena. Yet even she only has limited success in doing either.

Maria Irene Fornes’s Obie award-winning 1985 play about cruelty and power remains as resonant today as when it was written. Despite the tiny space and less-than-ideal use of work lights, director Sabina Ptasznik stages the piece with a ferocity and nuance that communicates both the horror of violence and our tacit acceptance of it. Mollohan radiates Orlando’s rage (even if not his pain), Wolfe skillfully balances Leticia’s cool exterior and her petrifying insecurity, and Yetter’s portrayal of Nena’s innocence is heartbreaking.—Mayank Keshaviah

The Vagrancy at Theater Asylum (Asylum Lab), 6322 Santa Monica Blvd.;

www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1593

Thistle & Weeds

The Elephant Space at Theatre Asylum
Through June 28

Photo courtesy: Alchemy Theatre Company

The title of this play may seem familiar because it’s shared by a Mumford & Sons song. As both also share a somber mood, one wonders if playwright Stephen C. John may have found the song inspirational in crafting this story of a man who refuses to capitulate during the London Blitz. That man, Percy (Michael Renney), will not go down to the bomb shelter and leave the flat he inhabits (nicely appointed in period furniture by Meghan McCarthy), despite his friend Syd (Tyler Campbell) begging him to do so.

“Civility is all we can hold onto,” Percy tells Syd, even as they are interrupted by air raid sirens and bombs exploding outside, courtesy of a Kris Kataoka’s resonant sound design and a clever technique employed by live cellist Michelle Packman. Packman also provides a cinematic-style scoring to the piece. Once Syd leaves, Percy discovers a young girl (Alexis Slear) hiding in the flat, and they share moments that reveal why Percy will not leave a flat that doesn’t even belong to him. Jesse Runde’s direction is creative and makes the most of the material. However, a lengthier exploration of the story might help it realize its full dramatic potential.—Mayank Keshaviah

Alchemy Theatre Company at The Elephant Space, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd. www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1804

These reviews are offered via a partnership between L.A. Weekly and Stage Raw. To maximize coverage of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the two publications are sharing reviews and funding responsibilities. Stage Raw is an Emerge Project of the Pasadena Arts Council, with other funding coming from a combination of advertising and individual donors.  For the L.A. Weekly, please visit www.laweekly.com

Love Is

The Complex
Through June 26

Photo by Lee Turnbull

Beginning with a Candid Camera-style video in which people on the street as well as cast members in character are asked to try and define love, writer-director Lee Turnbull’s play introduces us to married couple Lee (Turnbull) and Emily (Molly Beucher) as they confront the reality that it is nearly impossible for them to naturally produce a baby together, and the emotional fallout this revelation brings to their relationship.

Though the performances feel genuine and believable, the play as a whole suffers from questionable writing choices: After a drawn out argument between Emily and Lee, where tension rises then falls erratically multiple times, the rest of the play is almost entirely devoted to Emily’s progression and inner-conflict over her choices. The play’s short running time, numerous moments of emotional uncertainty, soul searching, and then surprisingly clear self-analysis on Emily’s part all makes the revelations – and the moral that love is complicated — feel rushed and contrived, though this is definitely a work-in-progress with potential. – Reza Vojdani

The Complex, 6470 Santa Monica Boulevard. Fri-Sun Select times, Jun 14-26. https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1754?details

The Trial of Dali

Lounge Theater
Through June 28

Playwright Andrew Jacob aims to give us a look into the true nature of the famous surrealist artist, Salvador Dali (Patrick Ian Moore), who is, according to the program note, inspired by his “true internal properties, entangles with his multiple personas, [and] multiple problems.” Billed as a surrealist farce, the show depicts fictional events surrounding Dali’s return to Spain in 1948, where Dali stands accused of artistic crimes and faces a subsequent trial.

The borderline absurd and arguably surreal trial plays host to a number of courtroom tropes — a passionate prosecutor (Cassondra Vincent), an eclectic judge (John Moschitta, Jr.) , a bumbling guard (Larry Blackman) as well as numerous well-known celebrities of the time such as Andy Warhol (Rigg Kennedy) and Pablo Picasso (Emilio Borelli). In the end however, the progression of events feels like little more than a conduit for jokes, many of which fall flat, based on alleged acts that characterized Dali’s life.

While the combining of surrealism with theatrical farce is worth exploring, The Trial of Dali ends up sacrificing compelling or even coherent narrative for little more reward than an occasional chuckle, and the desire to fact-check the play in order to learn more about Salvador Dali’s life. Trace Oakley directs.—Reza Vojdani

Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Boulevard. Fri-Sat Select times, Jun 13-28. https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1812?details

These reviews are offered via a partnership between L.A. Weekly and Stage Raw. To maximize coverage of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the two publications are sharing reviews and funding responsibilities. Stage Raw is an Emerge Project of the Pasadena Arts Council, with other funding coming from a combination of advertising and individual donors.  For the L.A. Weekly, please visit www.laweekly.com

Bright Light City

Reviewed by Neal Weaver

RECOMMENDED:

Nate Rufus Edelman’s slick and funny comedy has an unexpected sting in its tail.

Larry (Leon Russom) and Wally (Garrett Michael Langston) are a pair of hit-men who’ve been sent to Las Vegas to commit a murder. Larry is earnest, disciplined, professional, and resolutely impersonal. But there must be a soft-spot in him somewhere, as he has recruited Wally, an all-around fuck-up to be his partner, and his replacement when he retires after the current job. Larry attempts to be a responsible mentor to his wayward protégé, but Wally makes it difficult. He’s a non-stop and profane talker, who’s furious that Sam, their unseen boss who communicates only by telephone, has booked them into a sleazy motel miles away from the Strip, where the action is. Wally is far more interested in seeing the Vegas sights (including the Elvis Presley Museum), and getting laid to celebrate his 26^th birthday, than he is in their mission.

Sam has left them a briefcase containing two pistols, $50,000 cash, and an envelope containing their instructions and a photograph of their target. (Larry is fanatical about following instructions, but Wally is easily distracted.) They learn that their prospective victim is a cocktail waitress and hooker named Ruby Star. But when he sees her photograph, Wally recognizes her as a television actress named Audrey Richman (Heidi James) who starred in a long-ago series called Beaver Beach, as a resourceful teenaged lifeguard. And Wally had a huge crush on her. She was, he declares, “the first girl I ever masturbated to.”

According to the plan, to prove his ability as an assassin, Wally is to pick her up, hire her services, bring her back to the motel, and shoot her. Then they’ll quietly slip away, leaving “the clean-up” to dispose of the body. That isn’t what happens.

Edelman writes wonderful scenes: Wally and Larry emerge as a sort of hilarious Abbott and Costello team, with Larry as an eternally thwarted Abbott, and Wally as a feckless but eager and incorrigible Costello. Russom and Langston play off each other with verve and skill. The scenes between Wally and Audrey are a marvelous blend of corrupt cynicism and embattled innocence. James’s Audrey emerges as a gal who has come way down in the world, but still manages to be classy and honest.

Writer Edelman and co-director Angie Scott plot the twists and turns of the tale with precision, and keep things light and funny. And John McDermott’s sleazy motel set is lovingly detailed, downto the sagging drapes, smudged walls, stained ceilings, and decomposing furniture.

Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, downtown. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 3 p.m., thru June 22. (866) 811-4111, www.thelatc.org.

Backyard

Reviewed by Mayank Keshaviah
 

RECOMMENDED:

It’s rare that fight choreographers gets much ink in theater reviews. Usually their names are mentioned, sometimes with a little elaboration for a particularly physical show, but their acclaim hardly ever rises above that level. In this case, allow me to break the mold to tout Ahmed Best’s authentic, brutal, and dynamic wrestling sequences that bring to life the world premiere of Mickey Birnbaum’s Backyard. Set in the less-than-glamorous suburbs of Mexico-adjacent San Diego, Birnbaum’s tale provides a window into the violent and dangerous phenomenon of backyard wrestling, in which teenage fans emulate the moves of their favorite professional wrestlers and then upload videos of their bouts to the Internet. On stage, Best realizes the aggression, creativity, and risk that characterize these matches.

But Best would have little to work with if not for Birnbaum’s words, which perfectly capture both the naked bravado and fragile insecurity of the American teenage male. The two manifestations of that persona in this case are Chuck (Ian Bamberg) and Ray (Adan Rocha), best friends and co-conspirators in spinning tales of fantasy and destruction into backyard brawls. Chuck, “The Destroyer”, is the one more concerned with story and has historically been the victor over Ray, “The King of Tears.”

“It’s not about winning,” Ray protests. “It’s about how much shit you can take.”

But as they prepare for their “epic” upcoming backyard match, for which they plan to sell tickets, Ray’s dissatisfaction with his role as the vanquished becomes increasingly apparent.

Chuck’s mother Carrie (Jacqueline Wright) is not only a party to her son’s hijinks, but she tries desperately to become involved. She comes home from work, unbuttons the shirt of her Animal Control Department uniform, and lounges on an inflatable pool raft on dry land, beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Watching the boys tangle, she goads them on, allowing her son to drink, smoke, swear, and beat his friend to a pulp. And when Chuck gets too wrapped up in the storyline behind the match, she tells him, “Fight like a man, Chuck. Leave the fantasy shit out.” Mother of the Year she is not.

Carrie does have a dark pain, though, which finally appears in the form of Chuck’s absentee father Ted (Hugo Armstrong), who quickly bonds with his son over tales of his own purported fighting days. “We didn’t have a story when I fought,” he tells Chuck. “You didn’t get to be somebody.”

Chick replies, “We’re all about entertainment.”

Ted concurs, “It’s better that way.”

That the two of them become so close, so quickly, drives Carrie crazy, leading to a brutal and hilarious brawl between Chuck’s parents. It also leads to Carrie helping Ray craft his new wrestling persona, “The Komodo Dragon.”

Ray, too, has dark family secrets and periodically visits the nearby border fence to toss packs of Marlboros to his father, Raymundo Sr. (Richard Azurdia), who still lives in Mexico, separated from Ray and his mother. Raymundo Sr. was once a luchador (wrestler), and he tries to share his experience with his son. Not left out of the pain-fest of unbelonging is the final member of this darkly comedic cast of characters, Lilith (Esmer Kazvinova), who carries razor blades and wants desperately to prove herself as tough as the boys. There is a fierce mystery to her character throughout as she searches for a name for her own wrestling persona.

Bringing these intense and ferocious personalities together, director Larry Biederman and assistant director Katherine Tanner effectively capture the heightened reality of Birnbaum’s world. With scenic designer Stephen Gifford, they also create a playing space that’s both imagistically evocative of the San Diego landscape and realistically run-down in a “West Coast white trash” way. Similarly, Kathryn Poppen’s costumes, which cleverly employ found materials for the wrestlers’ get-ups, enhance the theatricality of the world.

The dynamite cast brings a tremendous energy to the physically and emotionally demanding show. Bamberg (as in Echo’s previous production Firemen) palpably embodies masculine teenage rage and anxiety, while Rocha is endearing as his put-upon straight man. Wright is phenomenal as always, with her cheeky grin and feistiness, making sparks fly when paired with the macho bravado, gumption, and amazing sense of self-delusion Armstrong gives to Ted. Azurdia’s easy humor leaves us wanting to know more about Raymundo Sr., whose story isn’t fully explored, and newcomer Kazvinova showcases vulnerability beneath her brooding façade.

The climax of this royal rumble culminates in an outrageous act of brutality, but the characters casually go on with their lives in its aftermath, reminding us just how desensitized we have become to violence as a society.

Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through July 13. (310) 307-3753, www.EchoTheaterCompany.com                                                   

Cold Tangerines: The Play

Reviewed by Pauline Adamek

Playwright-performer Lynn Downey Braswell was apparently so taken by Shauna Niequist’s 2007 memoir/short story collection that she adapted it to become her stage vehicle. Portraying Shauna, the show’s narrator, Braswell’s frank, confessional and sometimes amusing style of performance serves the material well.

In Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life — the first of three books of personal remembrances — Niequist relates tales about God and life that aspire to celebrate the extraordinary moments nesting within our everyday existence.

Cold Tangerines: The Play, however, is an insufferable collage of mundane episodes and tedious navel gazing, as observed and interpreted through a lens of extreme neuroticism, while grasping for some meaningful epiphany. Inexplicably broken into two acts, the 90-minute show (including intermission) of rambling soul searching, self-loathing and bleated insecurities feels interminable. Act 2 explores worry, terror and writer’s block before arriving at a hopeful resolution.

Braswell has taken Niequist’s essays and, rather than presenting a static monologue, livens things up by having three actors portray various facets of her brittle and overly anxious personality. Hence, opening night’s cast included Betsy Roth, Susannah Hicks and a marvelous Kira Shea as Shauna’s inner voices — respectively, Anna (the maternal side), Nadia (the hyper-critical bulimic self), and Shea (the perfectionist).

Signpost scene-titles throughout Shauna’s journey into self-discovery — such as “Carrying My Own Weight” and “Becoming Family” — are written on cards, which are held up, their title stated, and then stuck to the wall within little picture frames. This overly emphatic device is further accentuated by an intense lighting flash paired with an audible tone sound. Yes, we get it.

Explorations of religion, yoga and vegetarianism eventually bring Shauna to a place of self-loving and “gratitude,” having attained “a depth of wisdom, now that I am a mother.”

Aspiring to be more than a needy woman’s saga, Cold Tangerines: The Play presents the author as cheerleader articulating her cautionary tale to boost others. The intention is pure, but the result is tedious.

Cold Tangerines: The Play Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave. (at El Centro), South Pasadena; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through June 29. (866) 811-4111, www.fremontcentretheatre.com