Bookings

Support queer/trans speakers and performers!

S. Bear Bergman is currently working on booking the upcoming year in performances, lectures, book tour, etc. Ze will be promoting hir new book Butch is a Noun, which I can't wait to read. Ze also has a new performance piece called Monday Night in Westerbork. Having read Clearly Marked but not seen hir live, I'm dying to get hir out to LA. Does anyone have brilliant ideas on who has the power to do this and/or how to make it happen? Anyone out there with connections to appropriate performance venues, campus organizations, etc? Any brilliant ideas that I could help out with? Anyway, if you're interested in bringing hir to your town (even if it's not LA), now's the time to get in touch with hir and make it happen.

Kate Bornstein is also currently booking the upcoming season. Again, if you're looking for performers or speakers, check her out.

And, I will once again put in a plug for my personal very very favorite trans performance artist, Turner Schofield. I don't actually know what he's up to, but he's probably booking for the fall or spring. If you have the power to bring him to you, do not hesitate even for a second. And again, if you have a brilliant idea or way to bring him to LA, please let me know what I can do to help.

UPDATE: Here (on the book's website) is a fabulous interview between Turner and Bear. It starts off hilarious and moves into sweet and serious with some interesting discussions of different gender categories and identifications (mostly butch, femme, metrosexual, dandy and combinations thereof). It throws a lot out there to think about. These two are quite a pair. They're both clever and funny and well-read, and I look forward to more great things from both of them.

UPDATE 2: I emailed A Different Light Bookstore and told them that since they were doing a reading with Bear and Thea Hillman in San Francisco, that they should totally bring them both down here as well. I don't know if it will work, but I encourage others of you out there to try, since the more voices they hear on this mattter, the better the odds that they'll listen.

Comedy and Queer Space

Three Dollar Bill. Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. 9/15/06.

Three Dollar Bill is a monthly late-night queer comedy show. I attended this month's show mainly to see The Miracle Whips, a group of super fun and sexy femme feminist burlesque performers. Though they only did one number, and it's one I've seen before, they're still great to watch. I can't wait to see them perform more.

I was suprised to have also enjoyed the rest of the queer comedians who performed that night. I don't feel comfortable doing a full review, because I walked in late and thus didn't see the whole show, plus there wasn't a program so it's hard to tell who's who, but the whole show was fun and funny, as it should be. The show was also very quick, which can be nice (there's nothing worse than comedy that drags on too long), but I think a little more show for my money would have been nice.

My major observation, though, was how nice it was to be out at a queer event watching a range of queer performers, and more importantly being a part of an audience that consisted of a wide range of gender expressions. Call it the femme in me, but I love getting dressed up and going out to a late night show where I can talk and flirt (even though I'm bad at it) and see and say 'hi' to some of the cool queer folks I see around who aren't really my friends but I wish they were. Both the show and the community that surround it combine to make me feel more welcome and comfortable going alone than a club would be, and it makes me happy to be part of that audience. All in all, it was a good show, but it was an even better audience. I can't wait 'til The Miracle Whips' next (longer) show, to test my theory that they foster this kind of audience and environment.

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?: The Investigation of Show Business by the Un-American Activities Committee. USC. 9/13/06.

This was a staged reading of the play Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? presented by the USC School of Theatre and USC's Arts & Humanities Initiative as part of a program called Visions and Voices. It's a program dedicated to sponsoring cultural events at USC throughout the year that encourage dialogue around "core values." While I'm generally dubious about the assertion of "values" as a conservative gesture, the value they're focusing on this year seems to be a focus on freedom of expression. It feels almost revolutionary to see a University encouraging students to speak out and to believe in free speech, and to be aware of violations of that freedom both historical and contemporary.

The play is by Eric Bentley, a prominent theater historian of another generation, most famous for his scholarship on Brecht, who he met at UCLA. Bentley wrote Are You Now or Have You Ever Been in 1972, not too long after he came out of the closet (Theater Scholarship: A Proud Tradition of Liberals and Queers!). The play is composed almost entirely of transcripts and documents from the House Un-American Activities Committee, and as such it can be slow at points, but this production was well-acted by a cast of familiar character actors who really brought the play to life.

The play consists of three members HUAC representing all the committee members over the course of its existence rather than portraying any specific Congressmen (such as McCarthy). Gregory Itzin as the Chairman, however, totally looked like a composite of McCarthy and Richard Nixon. While the Committee members were amalgamations of all the Congressmen who served on the committee, the witnesses were extremely specific. The play presents in aggravating detail some of the ways people responded to the Committee and the ways the Committee attempted to bully witnesses to answer. Act I ended with an moving testimony by Patrick Breen as Larry Parks, who battled with the committee and his conscious and was blacklisted despite his cooperation. This scene was excellent and emotional without being histrionic and it felt deeply like a tragic defeat, as if you could hear this man's life and his spirit breaking thoughout his testimony

Other witnessses depicted in the play included Arthur Miller (played by John Jackson) and Elia Kazan (played by Mark Deakins) and writer/director Abe Burrows played by Stephen Spinella. Laurie O'Brian read Lillian Hellman's famous letter to the HUAC hearings, but buried in text the way it was, "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashion" didn't have the rousing effect it could and should have had.

In contrast, the show closed with the testimony of Paul Robeson, played by Russell Hornsby. This testimony was a stunning exploration of how Robeson's Communism stemmed from and coincided with his dedication to the rights of African-Americans and people of color throughout the world. It became eerily evident that even if Robeson had no ties to the USSR or the Communist party, just his belief in racial equality and his criticsm of the US as unequal would have been enough to damn him in the committee's eyes. Hornsby portrayed Robeson skillfully, with attention to his deep and powerful voice and striking physical presence. It was a rousing and terrifying conclusion to an impressively interesting play, considering that it is composed entirely of court transcripts.

Thoughout this play, the abuse of power of the government was evident, but almost secondary to the very human responses of very real people. They argued and pleaded and stood strong and broke down. Most importantly, they made strong points about how their involvement with the Communist Party stemmed from idealism and hope and belief in free speech. It demonstrated an awareness of the global situation at the time and a vigorous opposition to Fascism. The government, in contrast, chose to use the techniques of Fascism in interrogating, imprisioning, and frequently destroying the lives and careers of many who had committed no crime. Noticeably, many of the victims at least in the play were Jewish, queer, female, or African-American, or born outside of the U.S. The committee would noticably snicker when any Russian or Eastern-European-sounding name was mentioned. Most terrifyingly to me, when Larry Parks broke down and named names, the chairman very noticably invoked God, making it disturbingly evident that this was a Christian Crusade against godless liberals, who, just because they belonged to a certain organization, were charged with plotting to overthow this country's government. It all sounds very familiar. Bentley's play was a simple but powerful commentary on a disgusting moment in our nation's history that rings all too true and relevant today.

Y!

Vaughan, Brian K.Y: The Last Man. Pia Guerra, illus. Vertigo Comics. Vol. 1-6.

I've been completely addicted to Y: The Last Man all summer. I picked up the first graphic novel on a whim (partially from a recommendation from my ex-girlfriend and partially due to general good buzz) and I've become pretty compulsive with them, especially for a time when I cannot really afford to be buying graphic novels. This is really exemplary, extremely literate graphic storytelling and I would recommend it to anyone, even those who might not generally be graphic novel fans. Its premise is very simple: Yorick Brown is the last man on earth. All the other males of every species have been killed off by a mysterious plague and no one knows why Yorick survived. He must survive while doing his best to help discover what killed the men, why he survived, and how to perpetuate the human race while avoiding various factions attempting to kill him, capture him, or mate with him.

While it's kind of ironic that even in a world where all (at least all but one) of the men have been killed off, the man is still the hero of the story, this story is so well-told and well-drawn and intelligent and complex that I am completely in love with it and don't mind a male lead at all. This world has such rich possiblities for telling the stories of women and what they do and how they survive, and every single one of the supporting characters creates a glimpse of that. Guerra draws rich diversity in the female characters, making them strong without reducing them to comic book super hero body types. One of the images from Vol. 6: Girl on Girl is so striking that I paused to wish I had it as a poster. Of course, I personally wouldn't complain if there were even more girl-on-girl action thoughout the series, but it does exist and it treated nicely as an obvious fact (if there are no men, some girls will start sleeping together, some will transition in order to fill a need or make money). The representations of queerness and feminism are interesting and complex, ane while there are some fairly evil anti-men feminsts, there are many good representations of fascinating and many-layered female characters.

So, I have some Y-related links. Bookslut posted a link to Pop Candy (a pop-culture blog from USA Today) which contains a podcast of Brian K. Vaughan being interviewed by some fans of Y: The Last Man. It's quick and fun and quite interesting. In it, I learned that Vaughan has written a screenplay for Y: The Last Man that's in early stages of development. Yay! I also learned that Vaughan has a new graphic novel, Pride of Baghdad, that is being released today. It's apparently about a family of lions that escape from the Baghdad zoo in the middle of the bombing and occupation. It could be good. Here's a 10-page preview of it. In this format, the muted desert earth tones are strangely soothing in conjunction with the exteme violence of the bombing, which creates a powerful effect. I would be a little nervous that the story ends up being kind of Lion King-esque or juvenile, but I suspect Vaughan is much more intelligent than that, and thus it has the potential to be an interesting and challenging political commentary. But, I'll personally wait until it comes out in paperback. In the mean time, apparently Vaughan has also been writing a series of comics and graphic novels called Runaways about a group of kids whose parents are supervillians. Apparently, he's leaving that title but Joss Whedon is replacing him! Eek! So now I totally have to read that. (Plus, it's part of Amazon's 4 for the price of 3 special, so I'm totally ordering them).

mystery package

I ordered a video from Amazon. It arrived today. In the box, which appeared to have been opened and taped closed, in addition to my video, I recieved a nascar-themed pop-up laundry hamper and the hardware (screws and wingnuts) and assembly instructions (but not the actual product) for something called "Love's Abiding Joy Theatrical Standee" which appears to be some sort of theatrical diorama. It's terrifying. How in the world did this end up in with my copy of The Celluloid Closet. What am I supposed to do with these things?

A Sensitive Play Against War

Arlington. Company of Angels. 9/9/06.

As an anti-war play, Arlington by Garry Michael White has moments of elegance and subtlety. At a few points, it is clear and interesting and powerful. Unfortunately, it is equally often convoluted, preachy, or wordy, creating a complex but flawed production that could, with a few rounds of revisions, be fascinatingly compelling. As it is, it left me engaged but contemplating what could have been.

Arlington, at its strong points, depicts the ravages of war on the home front, including its effects on soldiers before and after battle and the impact on families. According to the author, "In this play, no battlefield blood is spilled; no foreign soil is touched," and yet a history of violence looms large throughout the play. It very powerfully made the point that there has been no time within the past century when there weren't people alive who lived through and fought in wars. As a person born since Vietnam, that's not something that has ever really hit home for me, despite my father's stories of being in the national guard, barely avoiding being drafted, and despite the constant reminders of everyone's vetran status every time a major election roles around. A stylized version of Arlington National Cemetrary lurks in the background of this Company of Angels production, directed by Curtis Krick and Sean Dillon In the moments in which the faceless white tombstones coincide with the plot of the play, this a haunting testament and tribute to those who have fought and died, while strenuously objecting to those deaths.

The play depicts vignettes from 5 different time periods: 2008, 1972, 1953, 1945, and 1917, moving backwards in time while following a few intertwined characters that intermittently act as a through-line to the play. It initialy appears to center on one family, the Smiths, as they navigate a family history of millitary service and a national history of war. When we reach 1945, the show diverges from this seeming through-line into an incongruous depiction of World War II with an appearance by Judy Garland (played by Sarah Zoe Canner, who lacks the vibrancy of the real Judy). The scene from WWI returns to a family ostensibly named Smith, but if and how this family is related to the one from more recent decades is unclear. Personally, I wish the play had continued to trace the same characters backwards through generations and wars, exposing how the military and the national ceremony grew to importance through generations. The frustrating thing about this play was that no through line went all the way through. Even Arlington disappeared after 1953.

The most powerful moments of Arlington came at the heart of the play, in 1953. Tricia Allen gave a moving performance (as Joanie, I believe - the program makes it profoundly difficult to follow characters' names though different scenes and I strongly reccommend that the company list which actor plays which character in each scene) as a mother who loses her husband in the Korean War. For me, this was easily the strongest performance and the strongest scene in the whole show.

Also excellent and consistent in the strength of his performance was Colter Allison. He was fabulous as the perpetual soldier in the 1972 and 1953 scenes, conflicted by loyalty and family, and I would have liked to see him continue to play similar, related but different characters back through the family tree. He was equally compelling in the 1917 scenes as a slightly mentally-challenged baker-turned-farmer, though this role overly-simplified his symbolism as a representation of innocence.

This 1917 scene brought up a few fascinating issues and most successfully demonstrated the uses of past wars as a metaphor for the present. The brief reminder of the atrocious Espionage Act of 1917 and atmosphere of surveillence feel chillingly contemporary, providing links with the present political climate that were mostly missing in the other scenes. 1917 was, however, a little disingenuously portrayed as a more innocent time. As the final scene in the play, it ended in a strange wimper, with the main character not going off to war. It left me as an audience member asking, if this is a moment bittersweet of triumph in which the young man eludes the spectre of war hanging over him, how does this relate to the rest of the play?

While Arlington develops fascinating (if inconsistent) stories about the relationships of Americans to war, its portrayals of women are atrocious. Not only does it mostly ignore female contributions to the war efforts (as soldiers, in factories, as nurses and ambulance drivers), it portrays them as perpetually pregnant, only serving to breed new soldiers and to mourn the dead (or as a Judy Garland obsessed with her contribution of entertaining the troops). In 1972, 1953, and 1945, pregnacy is a major issue and the women's lives seem to revolve around it. While the macabre image of women as baby factories perpetually producing children to send off to war is a disturbing basis for an argument against war, this doesn't seem to be the argument Arlington is making. It doesn't seem to question the fecundity of its women, using it mainly as a device for portraying the connections between generations, decades, and wars. Courtney Elkin as Sunsong in the 1972 scene is not only pregnant, but ends the scene pleading her desire to get married. Joanie from 1953 is the only female character with any strength in the whole show.

The play in general needs significant reworking to be the truly powerful, sensitive plea against war that it has the potential to be. I'd like to see it cut some of the more direct speech-making and exposition, and maybe even a few extaneous characters. There are many unnecessary elements that could be trimmed or eliminated while keeping the play simultaneously epic in scope and profoundly intimate, but Arlington shows a great deal of hope as a theatrical response to war that avoids being bellicose. In its best moments, Arlington demonstrates the possibilities for political theater to be passionate and moving without being overly didactic or strident. It may not consistently hit that mark, but the moments when it does are breathtaking.

A Decent Play Showcases a Beautiful Venue

Hippolytos. The Getty Villa. 9/6/06.


The moon rose over the trees as the lights dimmed on the gorgeous new Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater at the Getty Villa. The Getty's production of Euripides' Hippolytos showcased a beautiful new venue with a dramatic classical play. The Fleischman Theater is a beautiful outdoor theater in the classical stlye, but with all the modern theatrical equipment including lighting and projections, and as such it makes a lovely venue to view classical drama. The Getty has dedicated the space to producing one classical play in traditional style each summer, of which Hippolytus is the first, plus staging readings of more experimental versions of Greek plays during the year.

The production used a new translation of Hippolytos by poet Anne Carson, and as a result the show was more vibrant and less misogynist than Hippolytus tends to be. I was initially dubious of the skinny blonde Phaidra pining away in her bed, but Linda Purl is a true professional who performed the role with strength, passion, and nobility. This Phaidra was the victim of Hippolytos' youthful arrogance and Aphrodite's vengence, not the manipulative and lustful siren that she can occasionally appear to be. She was very much the star of the show. In addition to Phaidra as a strong female, Blake Lindsley gave a very compelling performance as Artemis. Her deep voice and striking demeanor made her fascinating as the virgin goddess in her speech at the end of the play.

Stephen Sachs' direction moved quickly with striking visual images and a great deal of movement. While it suffered from inconsistency, the play did an excellent job of filling and showcasing its striking venue.

Many aspects of Hippolytus were suprisingly inconsistent. The movement of some of the actors, especially the female chorus (Erin Bennett, Melody Butiu, Elizabeth Tobias, Shannon Warne, and Jules Wilcox) were beautiful and fluid, while the male chorus (Stuart Ambrose, Michael Dalager, Josh Gordon, Noel Orput, and Sterling Sulieman) was generally stiff and rigid, without much to do, until Hippolytus' dramatic death scene choreographed by Tamica Washington-Miller. I would have liked them to have a more dramatic and memorable dance upon their first entrance, when they go to pray following the hunt. If the stiffness of the male choreography was intentional and gender-specific, I have to question the choice.

The costumes, designed by Ann Closs-Farley, were also weirdly inconsistent. Though the saturated colors were an excellent choice in making the stage visually interesting and the relationships clear, some of the design />''''''';choices were profoundly odd. The female chorus wore fairly traditional-looking layers of red-orange robes, while the male chorus wore inexplicable teal kilts with facial makeup that made them look like extras from Braveheart. Phaidra And Artemis wore beautiful silk dresses that were vaguely reminiscent of the 1930s, that, while lovely, didn't really fit in with the rest of the production. That said, I did absolutely love these dresses, and I liked that Phaidra's deep purple gown looked simultaneously like a nightgown and formalwear. Worst, however, was Aphrodite, who wore what amounted to a diaper.

Paul Moore as Hippolytos did an excellent job of combining youthful arrogance with well-meaning earnestness. In many ways he is the object of a fight between two goddesses and a queen, rather than a subject of his own, but Moore managed to be somewhat likable and forgivable despite his pride. In contrast, Morlan Higgins as Theseus was stiff and hard to understand. He also looked vaguely Scottish, which was odd.

My major complaint about this play, however, lies in the racial dynamics. Though the chorus was wonderfully multi-racial, all of the leads were white, with the excpetion of Fran Bennett as Phaidra's Nurse. While Bennett gave an excellent performance, she was placed in what amounted to a mammy role. While it may have been more-or-less historically accurate for a wealthy Greek family to have an African Nurse (see Black Athena for more info on the relationship between the Greeks and Africa), it seems like a poor choice for this to be one instance in which they chose historical accuracy when they deviated from it in many others. Sarah Ripard, as the other non-white actress in a prominent role, was in a weird orientalizing role as the vindictive Aprhodite. Her diaper-like costume was nowhere near attractive, making her seem like a cross between a comic book villian and a Hindu goddess. The casting choices for these two characters, though the actors who played them were powerful and talented, gave the show disturbing racial politics.

Overall, the show was visually compelling and an excellent showcase for the new venue, and it demonstrated a wonderfully dramatic translation of a classical play, but some of the specific details of this particular production were dubious. It's a lovely beginning for a welcome venture into classical theater by the Getty, and I look forward to seeing what they do next, but I'm not sure the show stands well on its own.

Hypothetical

If you were organizing a short (1 hour) lecture on queers and film, what would you be sure to cover? If you could only pick two films, what would they be?

Love for Brother and City

Water and Power. Culture Clash. Mark Taper Forum. 9/5/06.

Water and Power poses a problem for me. It's not the same problem that seemed to be posed for Charles McNulty in LA Times Review, which seemed to be a problem with the fact that Culture Clash expected its audiences to intimately know the ins and outs of Los Angeles politics, which is a lot to ask. McNulty says

The bombardment of topical local references, a Culture Clash specialty and a source of easy guffaws, distracts from the narrative flow. From a hot-off-the-press Mel Gibson crack to jabs at elected officials (from Gloria Molina to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger) to jokes about convoluted bus routes, Scientology and the narrow aisles of Trader Joe's, the work keeps elbow-nudging its audience with Angeleno hominess.

At times, the politics seem as insular as a county board meeting. It's not simply that the play is intended for an L.A. audience steeped in municipal mayhem. The background of the Garcia brothers' conflicted public consciousness is never adequately fleshed out.

Gilbert makes fun of his own struggle ("No, I've been a Chicano since 1998 — well, I stopped in '95, and after recovery I started again"). But the resonance for the brothers of the Spanish song "De Colores" or the example of Miguel Contreras is assumed rather than fully addressed. You're either on board or you aren't — a sign that the writing hasn't created a self-contained world.

Personally, I would argue that this show never had any intention of creating a self-contained world, and actively works against that. Most of the information you need to understand the local references is provided in the program, so personally I didn't find the fast-paced local references at all disorienting; it seemed rather educational, to me. Culture Clash is joining in a political discussion through a fictionalized narrative, but the external narrative of LA history and politics is just as central to the play.

What bothers me is that all the reviews focus on the play being about LA and its politics, which of course it is, but ignore the fact that it's really a play about masculinity. It's the story of two brothers, played by Richard Montoya and Herbert Siguenza, and the kind of men their father raised them to be. It's play about power, power wielded through physical violence and power wielded through back room deal-making. It's a play about male friendship and brotherhood, and as such it completely excludes women. The only female even mentioned in the play is Gloria Molina. In many ways I loved the show and what it's trying to do, but I must ask why it has to do so completely without women? Is the struggle for Chicano and Latino power and community in Los Angeles completely devoid of female participants? Of course not. So why must they represent it as only a story of men and masculinity?

The men in Water and Power are arrayed in a hierarchy of masculinity inversely proportional to their political power, with the queer, white, effeminate fat cat the Fixer (played by Dakin Matthews) weilding his power like a comic supervillian, demasculinizing Richard Montoya's Gilbert Garcia (aka Water), the young Chicano politican, by forcing him to give up his dreams. While political power compromises Gilbert's masculinity, his brother Gabriel (Power) is a cop who can beat his brother up and who takes the law into his own hands. While Water is debased in political dealings, Power has all the guns.

The play itself is a departure from Culture Clash's tradtional style, which tends to be less narrative and more comedic. As such, I feel that it's an extremely well-crafted step toward a more mainstream style (which may or may not be a good thing). Director Lisa Peterson, as the one woman involved in this project (not couting set designer Rachel Hauck who crafted a beautiful, spare, evokative set), worked with Montoya, Siguenza, and Ric Salinas (the third member of Culture Clash, who offered a fascinating portrayal of NorteSur, a wheelchair-bound Cholo poet, friend and assistant to Power) did an excellent job of crafting this into a mostly sensitve representation of LA politics and Chicano brotherhood. Overall, the show was quite powerful, though it had moments of being overly-invested in its poesia. I felt that the play was weakest when it stepped out of the action and offered reflection and interpretation, escpecially in monologues at the beginning and end of the play.

While Water and Power is the story of LA in all its seediness and corruption, with Water and Power as the twin forces that keep it running, it's also a story of men and Chicano masculinity. It's well-done, powerful, and quite entertaining, but isn't it long past time to stop pretending that women don't exist?

Noir

I love this LA Times article on the noir stylings of Hollywoodland and The Black Dahlia, even though it doesn't say much about noir that isn't common knowledge. I totally need to see these films.

Links and books

I've been working on doing (or at least averaging) a post every day. But I'm behind on some work, so even though I have a show to review (Shear Madness) and a couple of books I've read to post about (The Devil Wears Prada, Wicked, Necklace of Kisses, Tithe - all of which I've read a while ago now), I'm going to send you elsewhere at the moment.

Kate Bornstein has a blog. I bought Hello, Cruel World after reading this fabulous interview on Susie Bright's blog. I'll review it as soon as I finish Neuromancer and some homework.

Here's a brief early review of S. Bear Bergman's Butch is a Noun. I pre-ordered this book and I can't wait until it arrives. In the meantime, here's a moment of delight from Bear's livejournal that made me swoon.

Full Disclosure

My most recent review, for Because They Have No Words, was the first review I've written (including the one published one) for which I've been officially asked to attend and review the show. I was absolutely delighted to get the invitation, and to receive not only a reviewer's comp ticket but also a press pack. It's not a play to which I would have automatically been drawn, but I very much appreciated it and was glad I went.

Though it was only one show that I was asked to review, and my blog readership isn't so powerful that others are queuing up for my attention, this is something that I didn't even imagine when I started this blog mostly to keep track of the shows I saw. It makes me want to enter into a larger conversation. I may not be anything like a professional reviewer, but I think I write about theater at least as well as the theater reviews they post on LAist, which tend to be few and far between. It makes me wonder if there's a way to be a little more public about this blog, wonder if it will grow somehow as I review more shows, wonder who's reading, wonder what I should be doing about it if anything. Are there other LA theater blogs out there that I don't know about? Other queer and/or feminist theater blogs? If so, I'd love to find them.

Though my current career path doesn't exactly lead to being a professional reviewer, in many ways it would be my dream job to attend plays and write about them for a living (or read books and write about them for a living). Just the thought of receiving comp tickets to the theater or review copies of books makes me nearly ecstatic. Of course, I'm not sure how well my queer, feminist perspective and my tendency toward wacky performance art would mesh with a real reviewing gig, but a girl can dream, can't she?

Animal Tales

Because They Have No Words. Weirdsmobile Productions. The Lounge Theatre. 9/3/06.



Tim Maddock wrote Because They Have No Words as well as playing its main character. He went to New Orleans three weeks after Hurricane Katrina to volunteer in animal rescue, and he has crafted those experiences into an earnest and poignant play. That, in iself, is the major accomplishment of this play; this is the first theatrical response to Hurricae Katrina that I've seen (though I know there have been some, especially in more closely affected areas). Stories from Katrina are good stories to tell, and this play feels vey much like Maddock's exploration of those events and a way of coping with the intense experience of witnessing the aftermath of the hurricane.

It's a production full of honesty and humor, emphasized by a talented cast. Tisha Terrasini Banker, Rufus Bonds, Jr., Lanai Chapman, LeShay Tomlinson, and Colin Walker each play multiple roles across race and gender (and occasionally across sexuality or species) and do so mostly without relying on stereotypes or charicatures (although one moment of imitating an Asian person running a yard sale was a bit awkward to me).

Interspersed with the story of his trip to New Orleans after Katrina, Maddock related an earlier trip to the same city, making it the site of his coming out story. Colin Walker in the dual roles of a gay waiter who picks up the young Maddock and as Maddock's present-day boyfriend creates a sensitive contextualization of Maddock's sexuality that adds depth to the play. This story framed the trip to New Orleans really well

At over two and a half hours, Because They Have No Words could still use some editing. It relied strongly on narration rather than dialogue so that at times it felt more like stoytelling than theater, but parts of the storytelling were so well-crafted that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Especially in the first act, Maddock, with co-writer Lotti Louise Pharriss and director Emilie Beck, balanced difficult and tragic moments with upbeat humor so that I was on the brink of tears several times thoughout the play, but immediately drawn back into the story with a laugh. Other moments were not quite so successful; I was especially disturbed by the fact that I was more moved and touched by the play's stories about animals that I was by Maddock's discussion of his mother's death. I actually think that the moment when Maddock confronts his mother's death by vising her grave near the end of the play should be cut, though that's a rather harsh thing to say. The major drawback of the play was its tendency toward moralizing; It really wanted to do all the interpretation for you and put words into everyone's mouths. I felt that the ending was a bit awkward, but it was a heartfelt play and I applaud those that made it happen, now, a year after the event.

By telling the stories of animals and animal-rescue volunteers after Hurricane Katrina, Because They Have No Words is also telling the story of the people affected by Katrina. It tells of those left behind and ignored by the govenment or by other people, it tells of people separated from pets who were members of their family, it tells of volunteer workers who thought they were doing the right thing, even when they weren't. All of these are stories that need to be told and retold, so that hopefully this never happens again.

I think they took "Dirty" too literally

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Orange County Performing Arts Center. 8/31/06.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was fun and funny, and I believe a great deal of the audience with whom I saw it loved it. It has it's strong points, and I certainly didn't hate it, but it wasn't for me. What bothered me throughout the show were profoundly weird class politics. The play, based on the movie with Steve Martin, is the story of two con men in the French Riviera. Tom Hewitt plays Lawrence Jameson, a high class con artist who cheats women out of only the diamonds they can afford to lose, while offering them in exchange dreams of romance on the Riviera. Norbert Leo Butz, reprising the role he originated on Broadway, for which he won a Tony, plays an upstart young American con man with no class and no self-restraint.

My complaint is that this show has the emminently talented (and well-accoladed) Butz playing a slightly-less-lovable Jack Black character. If they had toned down the vulger and ratcheted up his charm, this could have been an awesome musical. At the few points where his singing talents shine through, Butz could be a show-stopper, but I fell that this show fails to give him a chance. As it is, it trades on the basest humor to the complete exclusion of probability or sensitivity.

The other significant flaw in this show is its failure to properly build the relationship between the two con men. The best song in the show, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" comes at the very end, and its the only song they really sing alone together; this song reminds me of "Two Lost Souls" from Damn Yankees, which I liked, but I think it should have come earlier in the play. Unlike "Wicked," or even "The Producers," where the friendship is a major issue throughout the play, these two men failed to sing to establish their friendship, and if they're not going to sing about it, what's the point putting it in a musical?

There were some other structural flaws in this play, primarily that the opening song didn't set an appropriate mood. It might have worked with a super-famous lead in the role, but someone less well-known, such as Tom Hewitt, needs to earn the audience's attention. The show didn't really seem to start until Butz sang "Great Big Stuff" well into the first act.

While the show itself has serious flaws (personally I'm kind of sad that it was such a success, since I think they really need to go back and rework it and it might actually be a good new musical), the touring cast is superb. Several of the cast members from the Broadway production are performing with the tour at the moment, so I was fortunate enough to see people comfortable and familiar with their roles. Though it took some time for him to earn my respect, I loved Tom Hewitt, and he did a great job with a couple of fun and challenging patter songs. Drew McVety as the overly-accented French policemen in league with the con men was hilarous, and had an excellent and highly entertaining with Hollis Resnik as a gullible divorcee from Omaha. I also wish they had a more memorable, more fun song together. Jenifer Foote as Jolene Oakes, an heiress from Oklahoma, led a fabulous high-spirited spoof of a hoe-down number. Laura Marie Duncan gave a solid performane in the somewhat muddled role of Christine Colgate.

Looking Out at the World

OK, not exactly globally, but at least the larger U.S. theater world. And there are some wacky shenanigans going on, indeed! The NY-based theater blogosphere (and I would be THRILLED if someone could point out some good theater blogosphere that isn't straight white men!) is all in a huff about some wacky things.

First of all, and understandably exciting, is Mother Courage and Her Children produced by the Public Theater at Shakespeare in the Park. It stars Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline (who was actually a last-minute replacement), was directed by George C. Wolfe, and the script was adapted by Tony Kushner with music by Jeanine Tesori. It's easy to see how Brecht could get lost in all that star power. The reviews are very mixed, but some of the big ones are mostly negative. One of the first reviews on the scene was the LA Times's very own Charles McNulty. Michael Feingold at the Villiage Voice may be the review everyone cares about most. Rob Kendt at The Wicked Stage, who used to be an LA reviewer, loved it. Here's his positive review, and here's his round-up of all the other reviews out there.

OK, I had to post that because Mother Courage is the big news right now, but in other, much more wacky news, American Idol comes to Broadway with an NBC reality TV show to cast the leads in a production of Grease. This is based on a current BBC TV show called "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria," casting the role of Maria for a production of The Sound of Music. Andrew Lloyd Webber is somehow involved. This concept sounds atrocious, but I might just watch it anyway, since Grease is retro-Fifties and thus dissertation-related.

In further news, there is some uproar about theater critics in Chicago and Philadelphia right now. I had a long round-up of each of the events, but then my browser quit and I lost them, so I'll just point you to LAist, which has a basic overview and which is where I first heard about all this (I've been lagging on reading the major theater blogs). For more info about the Chicago incident, check out Angry White Guy, The Steppenwolf Blog, and the Dramatists Guild. For the Philadelphia situation, read this summary in Philadelphia Magazine. We Love Toby!, the blog that decidedly does not love critic Toby Zinman, is here.

Now, for my two cents, referring to Toby Zinman in Philadelphia, a lot of this sounds suspiciously like a bunch of middle-class white guys getting all huffy because they've been rebuked by an uppity woman. I wonder if the response would be the same if she were a male reviewer? I haven't read enough of Zinman's reviews to really know whether she's inappropriately personal or vindictive, or if she's just an outspoken and opinionated critic with high standards. I do, however, know that she's highly qualified and writes for Variety, American Theater, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. That's a pretty good resume. For reference, she loved Mother Courage. My general, not necessarily qualified opinion, is that it's fine for people to disagree with Zinman's reviews, and I heartily encourage them to, as they plan to do, establish a blog where people can post their own theater reviews, confirming or rebutting Zinman as they see fit, but I'm very glad that her newspaper is standing behind Zinman. In general, I think this uproar and public debate about the role and responsiblities of critics is quite valuable, and anything that makes the conversation around theater more vibrant and heated is probably a good thing.

Raising the Curtains

Curtains. Ahmanson Theater. 8/13/06.

Yes, I have already reviewed this show. I attended it for a second time, well after opening night and with my parents. My parents totally loved it, which I expected, and I continue to predict that it will do quite well on Broadway when it gets there, hopefully with much of this talented cast.

I was originally intending to do a close analysis of the differences between the preview and the show after opening, but I think that can be summarized pretty quickly. They streamlined the first act quite a bit, and gave us a decent finale instead of just a reprise of the love song (thank goodness). Overall, the show felt much faster.

Anyway, mostly I just wanted to point to Charles McNulty's LA Times Review, with which I mostly agree. I think his line, however, "Jill Paice, in a performance that hasn't quite gelled," isn't quite adequate. I, too, found Jill Paice, or possibly the role of Niki Harris, the weakest part of an otherwise entertaining show. I've been trying to figure out what about the role or the performance failed for me.

I think that the problem is actually a mix between the role as written and the choice of actress, although I don't question Jill Paice's talent. I blame the pairing of a bland, goody-two-shoes ingenue with someone as understated and fabulous as David Hyde Pierce for Harris/Paice's lack of success. He needs to be paired with someone more vibrant who can balance him more effectively, and Paice might even have been that person with a more sassy haircut and a bit more style and fierceness in the character. The character needs to be so compelling that everyone falls in love with her, and while Paice is lovely, she blends into the background against a cast so full of huge characters. Similarly, Pierce's persona plays on failures of masculinity, fequently demasculinizing him for comic effect. That doesn't work when his partner can't pick up the slack because she's the innocent, feminine one. She needs to be stronger, and not necessarily tough or masculine, but at least independent. It's a slight misstep in an overall super-fun musical, but I think it would be worth some editing.

Other things that I failed to say in my last post include the fact that Debra Monk was fabulous as a tough Broadway producer and that, as my companion at the preview pointed out, the chorusboys should act more gay. It's a rather important plot point that all of the men in the chorus are sleeping with each other, but it doesn't play out except in that one gag. They should be at least flirty with each other throughout the play. Other than that, I think in general there are many fabulous characters in the play and I would like to see more of many of them. Overall, it's a far from perfect show, but a fun one that I expect audiences to love.

Performance Art Can Be Dangerous

"Mapo Corpo." Beall Center for Art and Technology. UCI. 8/24/06.


I was definitly challenged by this piece, and I'm not sure what to say about it. It was a strong performance, interestingly organized. And Peña and his collaborators definitely had something to say. If the benchmarks for performance art include having something to say, communicating it effectively, and doing so in an attention-getting manner, then this work very much succeded. Its message is important and its mode is powerful.

This piece was part of the "TechnoSpheres: Contemporary Work in Art and Technology" conference at UCI. "Mapo Corpo" by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and his La Pocha Nostra performance group with video remixing by Rene Garcia. The focal piece of the show, however, was Violeta Luna, who is a beautiful and powerful perfomer who did brave and frightening things with and to her body.

But that's where my qualms about this performance begin. Luna's powerful use of her body, especially in the first part of the piece, brought a true sense of danger to the piece; I was genuinely concerned that she was going to do something to hurt herself. Despite the strength and immediacy of Luna's performance, Guillermo Gómez-Peña is the artist who receives the major attention for the work. He talks, while Luna is silent (though part of that may have to do with the fact that Luna speaks Spanish rather than English). His name is the one people recognize. And because he basically delivers a speech through the second half of the performance, taking attention away from Luna's body while also giving the performance meaning and shaping viewer's ideas, providing a textural frame to view Luna's performance which may or may not represent that text, he becomes the most powerful aspect of the performance, even though it was her work that I found the most challenging and the most compelling.

The piece itself dealt with issues of the body (Luna's body), covered and uncovered, powerful, threatened and in pain, but most of all colonized. The text emphasized many of the same themes as much of Peña's work, including a political stance against war and colonization, professing resistance to hegemony through performance, and the awareness of the commonalities between all oppressed groups: non-white, immigrant, disabled, female, and queer among others. These are things that need to be said. They need to be said repeatedly. And Peña says them, for which I applaud him. But I wish Luna's work, and the video pieces mixed by Rene Garcia had more of a chance to speak for themselves. I worry that the force of Peña's performance of himself as performance artist overshadowed them. And to me, Luna's body, not Peña's text, were the most dangerous and different pieces of this performance.

To Buy or not to Buy

I'm sorely tempted to purchase Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie. It's erotic graphic novel about Wendy from Peter Pan, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and it's managed to spark my imagination so that I'm quite interested. This Susie Bright interview very much made me want to read the book.

But, it's quite expensive, and I'm quite broke. I could totally picture indulging in purchasing it after I finally get a paycheck again, but that may not happen until Nov. The price, however, is discounted on amazon right now because it's a pre-order, so I'm worried that it will go up to something closer to the full purchase price when the book finally drops, presumably tomorrow.

What's a girl to do? If I wait a year or two, will there be a paperback? (Somehow I doubt it.) I welcome advice on this one.

UPDATE: The Salon Review is well-written and nicely analytical. I'm glad that the review focuses clearly on the quality of the illustrations as much as the story, and I totally believe that its eroticism is intriguing for its moral and intellectual issues even if it doesn't happen to get you off. Personally, I think that it looks like a beautiful, well-made book and that Moore can be a fascinating and provokative storyteller. The illustrations look fabulous and I generally enjoy a well-done retelling or rethinking of a classic story, which this appears to be.

TV is very straight this year

The Washington Post has an article on how few new TV shows with queer characters there are this season. It's rather discouraging, although I think it would have been nice if they had told us which ones there are, so here's the GLAAD breakdown. Not very promising, really.

I'm still sad that the pilot of Him and Us,the show with Anthony Stewart Head as a gay rockstar and Kim Cattrall as his manager, loosely based on the life of Elton John didn't get picked up. I was totally excited to watch that show.

Highways Workshop

Highways is hosting a free performance workshop with Guillermo Gómez-Peña and his multidisciplinary arts organization, La Pocha Nostra entitled:

"What Can Performance Do for Human Rights, and Human Rights Do for Performance?"

Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 11-12 1-8pm

There's an application, which is due by Sept. 1. Please pass this information on to anyone who might be interested, and email me and I'll forward you the application.

Violet

Violet
Originally uploaded by neschen738.

On YA Lit

There's an excellent discussion of young adult literature over at bookshelves of doom. Ok, there's always a great discussion of young adult literature at bookshelves of doom, but this particular one is in response to a newspaper article on Grown-ups turning to teen books. I find the list of young adult literature that adults will enjoy fascinating. Here, in no particular order, are some of the children's and young adult books I've read and enjoyed since passing out of the target age range of young adult literature:

Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Rose of No Man's Land by Michelle Tea
the Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
The Bromeliad Trilogy: Truckers, Diggers, and Wings by Terry Pratchett
Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
Summerland by Michael Chabon
The His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (but I don't recommend any of the other Ender books at all and I'm generally opposed to Card's personal politics).
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

Now, I know that many of the books above may be closer to children's than young adult and some are rather old and many are sci-fi, so they might not make everyone's list of good YA literature for adults, but I thought I'd share some of the things I like. I also think it's important to note that while "Young Adult" may be a relatively new category of fiction, books that crossed between child and adult audiences, especially in the science fiction and fantasy genres, have a strong tradition.

I also totally want to read:

King Dork by Frank Portman
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
Tithe by Holly Black
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Highways turns 17

Highways' 17th Birthday. Highways Performance Space. 8/19/06.

For Highways' 17th Birthday, performance artists Luis Alfaro and Holly Hughes performed as a benefit to raise money for Highways' future.

First of all, I'd like to take a moment to offer a reflection on Highways on the occasion of its birthday. I believe it's the space at which I've seen the most shows since I moved to LA. With every new season, there are at least one or two shows that I feel that I must see, and a few more that I wish I could see, time and money permitting. Curated group shows have introduced me to several wonderful new performers and I value to no end the opportunities I've had to see amazing established artists like Tim Miller. I'm very grateful for the work Highways has done to foster performance in LA. While, as an underemployed grad student worried about where my next rent check is coming from, I was unable to offer a donation, I highly encourage anyone who can to become a Highways member.

Now for the performances. First of all, despite their lack of websites, which I find highly irritating, both Luis Alfaro and Holly Hughes are amazing and well-established performance artists. They both have excellent control of their voices and narrative and can mesmerize an audience with a simple story.

Luis Alfaro performed a piece entitled "The Night Minnie Riperton Saved My Life," which I believe consisted of excerpts from some of his previous works. I'd never seen Alfaro perform, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Alfaro's performance persona was sweet and engaging, with a suprisingly high voice wonderfully appropriate for communicating the stories from his childhood and teenage years that were featured in this piece. Somehow he managed both wide-eyed innocence and sounding worldly and tough at the same time. I felt like Alfaro was everyone's favorite gay uncle, with fabulous stories to tell and a really approachable mein. He has fabulous storytelling skills, and every scenario he set up was clear and compellling, to the point that the audience gasped in horror along with characters in the story at the appropriate moments. The most disturbing and impressive piece of his performance was one in which he related his first experience having sex with a woman, describing the bachelor party atmosphere and astounding the audience by taking shots of tequila at relevant moments of the story. He took MANY shots of tequila, so many that personally I was concerned for him, but he managed to keep going and tell the story, and it was obvious how the shots were not merely a stunt, but relevant to the emotional impact of his performance and a reflection of the youth and culture he was portraying.

Personally, I was there mostly to see Holly Hughes. I have wanted to see her perform ever since I stumbled across someone else's copy of this book in college. I was mesmerized by the provokative title and the naked lesbian on the cover, and I was soon drawn inside and fell in love with the wacky, campy plays that I've always wanted to see performed. Hughes did not disappoint, though she performed mostly without props or costumes. She performed excerpts from a new work, "Dog and Pony Show," which somehow made dog training interesting and sexy and a clever metaphor for life rather than the everyday reality of a middle-aged lesbian. Hughes began the piece discussing coming and it was slowly revealed that she was talking about her dog rather than her girlfriend. Somehow, that revelation wasn't as big of a laugh line or a turning point as it should have been in this performance, but throughout the piece the discussion of the 'come' command maintained it's two meanings in an interesting and insightful manner. Hughes also performed excerpts of her piece "Preaching to the Perverted," which I think needs to be published somewhere ASAP. I'd love to teach it to my students - it's a beautiful and hilarious exploration of the NEA 4 situation and their trip to the Supreme Court, which she describes in terms of site-specific performance art. It's an important piece. I saw her do the whole thing here in LA a few years ago, and I think everyone should be given a chance to read it. I was glad to see parts of it again, but when she does the whole thing with props and costumes and everything, it's even better. Overall, Hughes was just as funny and clever and fun to watch as I expected her to be, and I wish I had more opportunities to see her perform. Highways or someone really should bring her (and more of the fabulous queer performance art luminaries from out of town) out to perform more.

The fascinating thing about this event was that there were several members of audience who were as famous (at least in queer performance art circles) as the performers. I was completely starstruck to see Tim Miller and John Fleck, LA's half of the NEA 4, and both fabulous performance artists in their own rights. I even got to talk to them! *swoon* Phranc, phabulous lesbian pholksinger and artist (who once dated Holly Hughes) was in the audience. UCLA Professor Lucy Burns was there, as were several members of the Highways board. After the show, there was a fabulous cake from Cake Divas. Overall, the event was truly amazing. The opportunity to see Hughes and Alfaro is rare enough that I feel very fortunate that I was able to attend.

Corporate Zombies

Newitz, Annalee. Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006.

If y'all haven't noticed, Annalee Newitz is one of my favorite internet commentators, both because I enjoy the topics she chooses and because she seems like a super-cool person. Plus, I love that she survived the academia madness and walked away to become a freelance writer. My first exposure to her was reading selections from this book in a grad class and I moved on to become a regular reader of her AlterNet column. So when Pretend We're Dead, a book based on her dissertation, was released, I knew I had to read it right away.

My first reaction to the book is that it's fabulously readable for academic nonfiction. I honestly read it straight through in about two days and I sort of felt like this. While it's incredibly intelligent with fabulous readings of many movies from the familiar to the obscure, the book is not nearly as obtuse as most books based on dissertations. Pretend We're Dead can really appeal to the non-academic reader who just loves monster movies or media studies and would appreciate a brilliant new reading of several of them.

While the premise that monster stories (this book analyzes both novels and movies) reveal a lot about the culture that produces them is hardly revolutionary, Newitz's analysis is clear and convincing in discussing the ways in which certain genres address the anxieties generated by capitalism. She does indeed have a point that a lot of the academic film criticism in general, not to mention that focused on monster genres (horror, sci-fi, trillers, true crime, etc), deals more with psychoanalysis and feminism than economics or other forms of social commentary that may be relevant to interpretation of the films. The real strength of this book is the concise, coherent readings of books and films that Newitz performs. Up until the fourth chapter, on robots, almost none of the objects of Newitz's analysis were texts I had read or seen, and yet I was fascinated and convinced by her argument partially because I got such a clear sense of the plots and major ideas, and yet she never belabored her analysis with excessive plot description. She similarly deals elegantly with dense and complicated critical theory, citing Marx, Lukács, Marcuse, Huyssen, and Horkeimer in a way that doesn't bog the book down for the general reader.

I was particularly intrigued by the chapter on mad scientists ("Mad Doctors: Professional Middle-Class Jobs Make You Lose Your Mind"), which argues that intellectual labor alienates the doctor or scientist (or any academic) from their own brain as the site of production. This was the second chapter, and I felt the book only grew more compelling as it progressed. I honestly wished that the final chaper, "Mass Media: Monsters of the Culture Industry," were a book of its own, and I would love to see Newitz continue writing on that particular topic. In fact, the whole book left me wanting more. I may not have agreed with everything Newitz said, and if I were approaching the same topic I certainly would have done it differently, but in general my major complaint is that I wanted the book to go even further and deeper. I honestly wanted to continue the conversation after I had finished the book, and I wish I had friends who had read the book with whom I could discuss my thoughts more thoroughly. It's an extremely compelling book, and I recommend it to anyone even mildly interested in media and pop culture studies.

Lesbians and Terrorists and Oz, Oh My!

Wicked. Orange County Performing Arts Center. 8/10/06.

My thoughts on Wicked are extremely influenced by a lecture given by Professor Stacy Wolf on the structure of this musical. I highly recommend that you hear or read her thoughts on this subject if given the chance. She discusses the ways in which the Galinda/Elphaba relationship is established in the musical in a careful imitation of the traditional romantic dyad of a ‘classical’ musical such a Rodgers and Hammerstein show (Wolf used Oklahoma as an example). In Wicked, the two women, clearly the main characters, share several duets and their relationship develops over the course of the play from “unadulterated loathing” which is also “exhilirating” to a close friendship. They are also positioned on a butch/femme spectrum of sorts with Galinda being blond and pink and frilly while Elphaba wears simple black clothing, demonstrates failures of femininity, and takes the lower notes in their duets. In addition, Idina Menzel, who originated the role of Elphaba, is most famous for playing another lesbian character, Maureen in Rent. It’s not hard to read their relationship as lesbian, and can be quite rewarding to do so. This interpretation alone was enough to make me appreciate the show, even though it is unfortunately subtextual.

So that was the interpretaion of the play with which I entered the theater, and it played out quite well. But I was delighted to discover several other important issues raised clearly and concisely in the form of a Broadway musical, which one doesn’t necessarily expect to be at all political or relevant these days. Wicked raised issues of terrorism and political demagoguery, Victorian morality threatened by unrestrained female sexuality, and conflicts between technology and language. It approached these issues in complex ways that made them visible enough to allow people to really think about them while not sacrificing plot and entertainment in order to make its points. While I believe that there is no limit to people's capacity to ignore intelligent political commentary in the guise of entertainment, this show had a lot to say. This is one musical that is refreshingly intelligent and deep, while being entertaining enough to have sell-out crowds. I’m profoundly impressed.

The cast for Wicked was also quite strong for a touring cast years after the show opened. Kendra Kassebaum covered the range from cute and ditzy to menacingly manipulative required for Glinda quite proficiently while Julia Murney's Elphaba commanded the show throughout. Personally, I was profoundly impressed by Sebastian Arcelus as Fiyero, a role that would in most plays would have been the male lead but in this one was very much a secondary role. Arcelus delivered his major song, "Dancing through Life" with commanding power and grace. I was also impressed with Jonathan Ritter, the understudy who went in for the role of Boq on the night I saw the show; he did a memorable job in a fairly strange role, and without the announcement I would have had no idea he was the undestudy.

The creative team that contributed to this show was quite impressive as well. While I've never been much of a fan of Stephen Schartz (though I have a nostalgic affection for Pippin), the music for this show was appropriate, fun, and memorable and Joe Mantello's direction probably had a lot to do with how entertaining and relevant the production was. Winnie Holzman, the book writer who adapted Gregory Maguire's novel into this musical, did so very liberally, but I will post thougths on that soon. Overall, this musical was profoundly enjoyable, while communicating many layers of meaning and I very much appreciated its complexity, which is rare on Broadway these days.

Another tough choice this weekend

Ah, this is one of the things that makes my life so difficult. This Saturday is Transgiving, which is always a fun event put on by great people. Sadly, I can't go because it's also Highways Anniversary show with performances by Holly Hughes and Luis Alfaro, which I can't miss (although I do wish it were less expensive, *sigh*). If anyone goes to Transgiving, I'd love a report.

Also this weekend, the LA Gay and Lesbian Center is presenting a wide variety of queer music performances in a festival called Homosaic 2006. Performers include Jill Sobule, Shitting Glitter, and JenRO.

Bravo to Bravo

This is just a quick note to inagurate the finally functional cable internet at my parents' house and to share how much I've been enjoying watching Bravo this summer season. Project Runway is excellent, plus it has been enhanced by all sorts of fun bonuses. Their website is packed with fabulous extras that make me more of a fan of Runway than I was before. Tim's Take blog and podcast give little behind-the-scenes details and some fascinating perspectives on the designers and the process of making the show. Then, there are also all sorts of fun fan blogs and other recaps not related to Bravo. Personally, I read fourfour and Television Without Pity (which has finally managed a single-show RSS feed!) for recaps on occasion.

But, the suprising thing is that I completely adore another Bravo show, Workout, which hardly seems like it would be my style. When I first heard about it, I assumed that it was crossing Blowout (a miserable, obnoxious show that I watched for 15 minutes and couldn't stand) with exercise, which is not exactly my idea of a good time. But, Jackie, the trainer/gym owner who is the main subject of the show, is a lesbian. That in itself was enough reason for me to watch an episode and check it out. To my delight, I discovered that this show is the most thorough and accurate depiction of a lesbian relationship I've yet seen on TV. The show is at least half dyke drama, complete with whiny jealous girlfriend and disapproving mother. The realities of this woman's life and relationships are portrayed reasonably sensitively, though there may be a little bit of blowing things out of proportion to create drama. The strength of this show is its focus on the real life job and passions of a real person rather than the manufactured drama of throwing a bunch of people together in a room, plus its frank and reasonably unsensationalistic approach to its main character's lesbianism.

Internetless

I've been staying with my parents this week and trying to get them connected to the internet. First of all, it's amazing how cut off from everything I am when I'm deprived of easy internet access in my home. It's actually suprisingly anxiety-producing after a few days. Second, my parents decided that they would prefer to get high-speed access through their cable company. It has been quite a hassle to make this happen. Though the cable company sent us a modem in a timely manner, everything else about getting the service started has been a terrible hassle. They seem to be completely incapable of activating our service properly, and everything has gone wrong, including technicians failing to complete the necessary paperwork properly and several customer service representatives and technical support people telling me drastically different things. This is especially frustrating because I'm pretty certain I've done everything right on my end. I've tried everything possible to avoid spending an extra $100 for an installation service call. I seem to remember that we had some trouble self-installing our own cable internet service at our apartment in LA - is this a problem other people have had? Does the self-installation usually work as easily as it should?

New Work Russian Roulette

NOW Festival Program 3. REDCAT. 8/4/06.

The third installment of the REDCAT NOW Festival rather effectively demonstrated that new work can be a great or a terrible experience.

The first piece, "Civil War Reinactment" by Matt Wardell, was a delightful little piece with wind-up music boxes and plastic cups. It was clever and entertaining, and it got its point across succinctly.

The second piece, however, was miserable. "Orpheus Crawling" by Juli Crockett was a reimagining of the Orpheus myth in dance and music, but it seemed to miss the point of the traditional Orpheus myth and failed to recreate it in a meaningful way. For some reason, Orpheus was dressed like Indiana Jones and one of the characters, the Furies, don't even appear in the traditional Orpheus myth. The piece failed to communicate ideas about art or the world in any coherent or visually interesting way.

In contrast, John Fleck's "Johnnie's Got a Gun" was both intelligent and entertaining. It was a meditation on patriotism and patriarchy through personal stories about an abusive and alcoholic father (George). The whole thing was hilarious and Fleck did a wonderful job navigating the emotions of the piece from whimsical to poingnant. I loved the whole thing very much, and I would gladly have watched it again, if that hadn't required sitting through "Orpheus Crawling" again.

Rodeo

I spent a good part of this afternoon at the Los Angeles Gay Rodeo. We watched the barrel races and bits of a couple other events, altough a driving mishap meant that I missed the Drag Races, which I hear were pretty spectacular and hilarious. And does anyone know what Goat Dressing is, because that sounds awesome. The rodeo was really rather entertaining, and girls in boots and cowboy hats are hot. The country dancing tent was super fun to watch, and I'm half tempted to go to Oil Can Harry's and learn to line dance. The whole thing was a lovely way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon.

I'm on vacation at the moment (quick road trip to SF), so no major posts, but here are some great things to read and think about.

"Blogging IS a feminist issue": Susie Bright writes some thoughts in response to the BlogHer conference. There needs to be more conversation about the intersection of gender and technology and biases in technology fields.

"Lipstick and Power": In anticipation of Femme 2006 (which commentors seem to think I should attend, but it's hard to commit to driving all the way back to SF not much more than a week after I leave and I do have a dissertation to write), jackadandy posts some thoughts on femme and identity. I owe this some more thought once I'm back home.

Quite possibly the most boring play I have ever seen

Pyrenees. The Kirk Douglas Theatre. 7/27/06.

There's something ironic about a play about purification in the snow performed in the middle of LA in a heat wave. Unfortunately, that was probably the most interesting thing about David Greig's play, Pyrenees. To me, this play in which the main character (played by Tom Irwin) awakes in a mountain pass with amnesia seemed to be the self-indulgent fantasy of a straight, middle-aged white man. Begining with what could have been a tantalizing mystery of his identity, the play devolved into a flirtation with a beautiful young civil servant sento to help him (played by Tessa Thompson). For the almost the entire first half of the play, these two chatted at a maddeningly slow pace. The highlight of the play was the arrival of Frances Conroy, a superb actress who also managed to pick up the pace of the play and provide a small amout of interest and dramatic tension. Unfortunately, she wasn't in the production nearly enough to hold my interest.

The audience of this play consisted mainly of people with white hair, and perhaps they got more out of this deliberate production than I did. Its meditation on the responsibility and regret that come with aging might strike a chord with some, but overall I found it a pretentious attempt at existentialism that was more vapid than provokative and thus almost unendurably dull. It was a bad sign that director Neel Keller was quoted in the program essay (by fascinating formerly-local theater critic Rob Kendt) as saying "David's plays have a shot in America because, at the end of the day, they're more emotional than political." Ugh.

I did, however, love the set designed by Mark Wendland. Its beautiful three tiers were sadly under utilized, but they created a sense of the limbo in which the play took place.

Curtains. Ahmanson Theatre. 7/25/06.

First of all, this was the first preview of Curtains, two weeks before its official opening night, reviews, etc. That said, I thought it was a wonderfully fun show with superb actors that will do quite well on Broadway. It's "a new backstage murder mystery musical comedy" written by Kander and Ebb and Rupert Holmes, and while it isn't as dark and wonderful as Chicago or Cabaret, it is a good, solid musical comedy.

One of the best things about this show was the cast, including but not limited to David Hyde Pierce. I absolutely loved Karen Ziemba as lyricist Georgia Hendricks. It was so nice to see a female lead who wasn't an ingenue and I was profoundly disappointed when she had a much smaller role in the second act. The other actor who stole the show was Edward Hibbert as the flamboyant director of the play within the play. These two amazing, experienced Broadway actors really made the show for me. Jill Paice as Niki Harris, the ingenue and David Hyde Pierce's love interest, was the least interesting lead in the cast. She's pretty and talented, but fairly bland; she can't hold a candle to her costars.

Curtains is a murder mystery on the set of a pre-Broadway musical, Robbin' Hood, which opens it up for several fun songs about show business and some good solid spoofing of Oklahoma and Annie Get Your Gun. Rob Ashford's choreography was quite reminiscent of recent Broadway revivals of these two shows in a brilliant sort of way. I would have liked the commentary on other Broadway shows to be a little bit sharper, but in general the whole production was a good-natured celebration of Broadway theater, done by people who know and love it.

My favorite song was "The Woman's Dead," which I thought was hilarious and brilliant. Overall, there are a few structural problems with the show that might get worked out during previews. The songs within Robbin' Hood were fairly bland but fun. I wasn't hooked by the first production number - I thought the show started off slowly, but hooked me in the second number with "What Kind of Man?," a "Fugue for Tinhorns" style number about theater critics. Similarly, The curtain call should be bigger and more fun and give the audience more of an opportunity to stand and clap. Ending with a reprise of the love song seems a mistake to me. Overall, I thought this show was totally fun and I laughed out loud frequently. I can't wait to see how it develops.

Performances Worth Travelling For

I received some notices about events next weekend that I'd love to go to, so I figured I should pass them on to those of you who may be able to attend.

Next weekend is San Diego Pride, and Lipstick Conspiracy, a super-fabulous band of transwomen from SF, will be performing at 6pm-ish on Saturday the 29th.

Also, over the next couple of weeks there will be a bunch of cool new performances at UCSB. If I have time, I'd love to see the Luis Alfaro Solo Piece on Wednesday. "La Fe in the Desert," a collaboration between Jessica Hagedorn and Campo Santo, will probably also be awesome.

There's also a rumor that Kael T. Block will be exhibiting pieces from his xx boys series at Akbar in Silverlake starting on July 31st. I really want to see this exhibit if it's happening.