Arts & Culture

So, I loves me some Greek mythology. Under the influence of Homer’s Odyssey and Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautika - especially inspired by the 1963 screen version of that third century B.C. epic poem called Jason and the Argonauts, co-starring Todd Armstrong as the title voyager and a pre-Pussy Galore Honor Blackman as the goddess Hera, with Ray Harryhausen’s scintillating special FX and Bernard “Psycho” Herrmann’s score - when I was 21 I embarked on my very own Oceanic Odyssey. While Ulysses and Jason journeyed around the relatively puny Mediterranean, lured by them thar South Seas sirens, in search of paradise I peregrinated around the Pacific Ocean’s vast expanses, often on cargo boats to far-flung Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro atolls and the Marquesas, outrigger canoes, zigzagging from Raiatea to Bora Bora aboard motorboats during purple sunrises, riding the wild surf to Molokai’s Kalaupapa in a kayak or on a yacht from Oahu to Lanai in choppy seas and the like. When I think that I could have squandered my youth in New Yawk City and gone corporate, I am endlessly slapping myself on the back for having been such a hardy adventurer and would-be Argonaut!

OK, I admit it - I’m a cinematic scaredy-cat. Ever since small kid days, horror movies have frightened the hell out of me. The last one I went to see was a 2018 LA Film Festival screening of Spell, which I saw because it was set and shot on location in Iceland, a country I’ve only seen from the sky and am interested in. To tell you the truth, I did manage to get through it sans any nightmares, night terrors and the like - but I still wasn’t prepared for what writer/director/producer Jordan Peele had in store for us in the terrifying Us.

To tell you the truth, I would never have bought a ticket to see this horror-fest, but because I was invited to a private critics’ screening I screwed up my courage, bit the bullet, went to see it - and boy am I glad I did. Us may be creepy, but man, is it GRRREAT!

Loft Ensemble’s lofty, must-see, powerful production of Blues for Mr. Charlie is the latest in a growing list of a revival of works by author/ playwright/polemicist James Baldwin, one of America’s “poet laureates” opposing racism. I believe this Renaissance was launched by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Best Documentary Academy Award-nominated 2016 I Am Not Your Negro, with Samuel L. Jackson giving voice to the man who wrote 1962’s The Fire Next Time and so much more.

Barry Jenkins, winner of the Best Director and Best Feature Film Independent Spirit Awards for If Beale Street Could Talk, proclaimed to the media that “the industry is responding” to America’s current conditions. Jenkins urged, “See the films nominated” for 2019’s Spirit Awards, which honor features and documentaries reflecting Film Independent’s mission statement to: “champion the cause of independent film and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.” Big budget studio productions, superhero, special effects-driven pictures, sequels and “A Star is Boring” remakes need not apply for the Spirit Awards, which pay homage to personal, character-driven cinema that says something about the human condition.

Led by their fearless leader Lizzie Lightning (Tania Verafield), the Brooklyn Scallywags are rolling back into Los Angeles. But this time the all-female teammates are skating into a much larger arena, presenting Gina Femia’s rough and tumble For the Love Of (Or, The Roller Derby Play) at Culver City’s 317-seat Kirk Douglas Theatre. Derby is one of three 2018 L.A. plays selected for revival by the Kirk Douglas’ third annual “Block Party” and the first one being mounted on the boards during this celebration of theater, which presents encore productions from L.A.’s outstanding intimate theaters.

Last May, Derby was mounted at the diminutive Theatre of Note, which is about one sixth the Douglas’ size. But as Dr. David Rubin once shrewdly (if not lewdly) observed, “size is not important,” and it’s noteworthy that this cutting edge freewheeling feminist-themed drama is being reprised. And it will be interesting to see how this adaptation on presumably a grander scale by Rhonda Kohl, who also creatively choreographed and directed the original at the Note, compares.

Ancient History Sonorously, Sensually Brought Back to Life

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Clemency of Titus (La Clemenza di Tito), dramatizes part of the life and reign of the Emperor Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, who ruled the Roman Empire from 79 to 81 A.D. This work of historically-inspired fiction with a libretto by Caterino Mazzola, based on an earlier libretto by Pietro Metastasio, vividly brings ancient Rome alive with exquisite costumes by Mattie Ullrich (which much to my sheer delight include, at long last, togas!) and stellar sets by Thaddeus Strassberger, who also expertly helms this colossal epic about the emperor who, among other things, completed the Colosseum. So let the operatic games begin!

As blackface, KKK and noose racist imagery and scandals involving Jussie Smollett, R. Kelley, etc., threatened to overshadow the yearly Black History Month celebrations, the L.A.-based Pan African Film Festival continued to emit a dazzling light of brilliant positivity and hope. Billing itself as America’s biggest Black-themed filmfest, from Feb. 7-18 PAFF screened more than 100 fiction, documentary, animated and short productions, plus workshops, panels and an art expo, all highlighting the history and experiences of people of African ancestry. Superstars, such as rapper/actor Common (who wrote the lyrics for the short Hats) and actor Danny Glover (who narrated and appeared in the documentaries Power to Heal and The Robeson Effect, also shown at PAFF), made personal appearances at Cinemark Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza and the Directors Guild of America Theater, where the opening night gala screening of the Aretha Franklin film Amazing Grace took place.

Fresh from that championship season, A Noise Within’s Spring 2019 season blasts off with a must-see modern dress Othello that demonstrates why the Pasadena classical repertory theatre company just won the coveted Ovation Award for Best Season. Shakespeare’s tragedy is on one level, of course, an extremely up close and personal tale about betrayal, as well as about friendship, romance, sex, marriage and, but of course, that “green eyed monster”: jealousy.

But the Bard’s interracial angle plus the play’s power elite milieu elevates Othello to the ranks of Shakespeare’s 38 plays that are full of social commentary. And the modern dress plus non-traditional gender and ethnic casting components in ANW’s production - reportedly award-winning director Jessica Kubzansky’s stroke of genius - adds a whole new 21st century dimension to this drama penned in 1604. The dramatis personae who belong to the armed forces wear contemporary-looking camouflage and dress uniforms emblazoned with “fruit salad” medals, ribbons, etc., while civilians, including Venice’s officials, are garbed in 2019 plain clothes (all courtesy of costume designer Angela Balogh Calin).

No, An Inspector Calls does not refer to the three most terrifying words Roger Stone, Donald Trump, his children or other purported co-conspirators could hear, nor is the titular character supposed to be Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Rather, the eponymous inspector is spectrally named “Goole” (Liam Brennan) and the title refers to a British drama originally written in 1945 by J.B. Priestley that has been revived by the National Theatre of Great Britain in an award-winning production directed by the celebrated English helmer of stage and screen, Stephen Daldry.

An Inspector Calls is set in 1910 at Brumley, a fictitious industrial city in Yorkshire, England. Calls is genre defying, sort of as if a Christian medieval morality play meets a whodunit meets proletarian drama meets a far out Outer Limits episode. However, whereas Britain’s postwar cycle of hard-hitting Kitchen Sink plays prominently featured proletarian characters, with the exception of Inspector Goole, Calls’ five other main human characters are all members of Britain’s upper crust.

Despite the fact that Stephen Spiegel portrays a character named Booth, the actor does anything but phone his performance in. Indeed, Spiegel kills as America’s archetypal assassin in An Evening with John Wilkes Booth. Co-written (with Clinton Case) and directed by Lloyd Schwartz, this one-man show explores the co-conspirator who shot Pres. Lincoln as a celebrated actor, ladies man, individual and, oh yeah - as a homicidal maniac and drunken sot.

Upon entering Theatre West, a recording of “Dixie” was played to set the mood - it’s certainly a very catchy tune, especially if you happen to be a neo-nazi. Along with some racial slurs, this - plus the delirium of a megalomaniacal murderer eloquently spewed by Spiegel - are among the challenges 21st century theatergoers must endure to experience this excursion into the mind of the man who murdered Abraham Lincoln, arguably our greatest president.