Arts & Culture

That splendid arcadian Shakespearean reliquary, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, is
presenting four of the Bard’s dramas – Parts 1, 2 and 3 of Henry VI plus Richard III –
compressed, compiled and edited into a single two-act play, Queen Margaret’s Version of
Shakespeare’s War of the Roses, directed by Ellen Geer. A Shakespearean scholar and
playwright, Ms. Geer also stitched together this quartet of history plays by the “Prince of
Poets” for WGTB, which the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust awarded a commemorative
plaque with wood from Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon Garden in 2014.
Ms. Geer, who is also WGTB’s Producing Artistic Director, has given the Richard III
and the Henry VI works a decidedly feminist twist, as the tale is told from the women’s
point of view, just as composer André Previn and playwright Tom Stoppard respun
Homer’s Odyssey, by retelling that epic from the point of view of Ulysses’ wife, the
titular Penelope (see: https://hollywoodprogressive.com/music/evening-with-renee-

If you are a fan of plays featuring and exploring bravura acting, Hollywood history, LGBTQIA issues, creative stagecraft, feminism, anti-Semitism, one-person shows, illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and more, strap on those running shoes and dash, do not walk, to experience Garden of Alla: The Alla Nazimova Story, which is currently having a limited engagement at Theatre West. Romy Nordlinger depicts the eponymous legendary stage and screen thespian Alla Nazimova in this one-woman piece de resistance which the New York actress also wrote. In doing so, a theater and movie myth (and nymph) lives again in an 80-or-so minute show that imaginatively uses rear screen projections to tell the tale of Alla and her legendary mansion  precariously perched in Tinseltown, once upon a time.

Since October 2022, which marked 75 years since the House Un-American Activities (HUAC) began its witch hunting congressional hearings investigating “subversion” in Tinseltown, there have been a number of events commemorating the Hollywood Blacklist.

(Note: This is the edited text for Rampell’s final introduction to the April 30 screening of Salt of

Well, what a treat!
LA Opera closed its 2022/23 season on June 10 by presenting a one-night only performance by
one of America’s favorite songbirds in any style or medium. During An Evening with Renée
Fleming the much-honored, five-time Grammy Award winner was accompanied on the bare
stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by pianist extraordinaire Simone Dinnerstein and the
Emerson String Quartet (and yes, for all you transcendentalists out there like Revered Art Scott,
they are named after Ralph Waldo Emerson). In addition to enjoying Ms. Fleming’s dulcet tones
backed by exquisite, expertly rendered music, the sold-out audience was also lucky enough to
hear the West Coast premiere of an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey.
Created circa the 8 th century B.C., from Telemachus to television and beyond, Homer’s epic
poem about the Trojan War and far-flung voyages remains one of the greatest sagas ever told,
still arguably unsurpassed in the art of storytelling. As one can image, there have been many
iterations of Homer’s masterpiece over the centuries, from the Cream’s 1967 rock song Tales of

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat is, like their 1971 Broadway hit Jesus Christ Superstar, a rock
rendition of a tale from the Bible. Framed through the prism of a pop sensibility, these
ancient sagas are rendered with the style and sound of the late sixties/early seventies,
giving them a contemporary, hip veneer.
Whereas Superstar adapts the New Testament, Dreamcoat is derived from Genesis, the
very first book in the Old Testament. Joseph (Chris McCarrell) is the favorite of his
father Jacob’s (Peter Allen Vogt) dozen sons in Canaan, land of the Biblical Jews. A
clever young man, Joseph has the gift to interpret dreams – yet, somehow, he can’t
foresee that his envious siblings will turn on him. The betrayal of his brothers causes
Joseph to end up in Egypt, where his interpretation of the Pharoah’s (Daniel Dawson)
dreams leads to his being appointed as the Egyptian monarch’s righthand man.
I’d guestimate that only around 10 percent of this production is actually derivative of the
Old Testament tales. Dreamcoat spins a crowd pleasing two-act musical less than two

As leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are convicted of seditious conspiracy for their
roles in the failed Jan. 6 insurrection, LA Opera revives the production about the most malicious
traitor in the entire history of the stage and screen. Sure, Judas betrayed Jesus in The New
Testament and Jesus Christ Superstar, and Major General Benedict Arnold attempted to double-
cross George Washington (and the cause of American liberty) by plotting to turn West Point over
to the British, who he went on to fight for as a counterrevolutionary brigadier general.
But William Shakespeare’s conniving Iago (played to the hilt by Moscow tenor Igor
Golovatanko in Giuseppe Verdi’s operatic adaptation of the Bard’s tragedy) is in a class by
himself when it comes to treachery. For not only does he stab Otello (Miami tenor Russell
Thomas) in the back, he conspires and painstakingly manipulates Otello to be the unwitting
author of the Moor’s downfall, which is carefully choreographed by the scheming Iago every
step of the way. In this specific sense, Iago is more than a mere traitor, he is the puppeteer who

(Note: This is the edited text for Rampell’s introduction to the April 29 screening of Spartacus at the Academy Museum for The Hollywood Ten at 75 Film Series from April 13-30 commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Hollywood Blacklist. A startling thing occurred during the Spartacus screening: As the first rebellion of the gladiators erupted, one of the warriors struck a Roman with a weapon and at that exact moment one could see the celluloid jump out of the projector’s sprockets and then watch the film literally burn. It seemed as if the gladiator’s mighty blow actually caused a remarkable, real life special effect, which literally brought the show to a halt and the houselights went on in the packed almost 1,000-seat David Geffen Theater in the Academy Museum’s Sphere Building. Stunned audience members were anxious that the screening would not be able to continue, but in that show biz tradition, the show must – and did – go on. Apparently, projectionists were able to splice the film together and viewers were able to watch the epic all the way to the end without any additional mishaps.

The 39th annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is taking place May 4-13 at a variety of mostly Downtown LA venues (see: https://festival.vcmedia.org/2023/venues-parking/). LAAPFF is arguably America’s main gateway for Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander productions to gain access to the U.S. movie market and in particular, LA, the world’s capital of cinema. The yearly filmfest is presented by Visual Communications, an LA-based media organization whose “mission is to develop and support the voices of Asian American & Pacific Islander filmmakers and media artists who empower communities and challenge perspectives. Founded in 1970 with the understanding that media and the arts are powerful forms of storytelling, Visual Communications creates cross cultural connections between peoples and generations.”

Movies of the Duke, Hitch, Kurosawa, Brando, Bogie, Poitier, Bruce Lee, Bette Davis and other silver screen icons were presented April 13-16 at the 14th annual Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival. Living legends were on hand, live and in person, too. On opening night movie maestro Steven Spielberg discussed Howard Hawks’ 1959 Rio Bravo and more with co-star Angie Dickinson and helmer Paul Thomas Anderson at the Western’s screening in the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX (that renowned movie palace formerly known as Grauman’s Chinese). 60 years after its premiere, Ann-Margret introduced her 1963 musical comedy Bye Bye Birdie on TCL’s big screen.