Posts Tagged ‘Freud Playhouse’

This past week, I saw four plays in two nights, all within a one mile radius of each other—a combined cast of ten, but at least twenty roles to fill—five-and-a-half hours in all (intermissions included), yet just two titles.  Stumped?

On one evening, I journeyed to the Freud Playhouse for UCLA Live’s newest production of Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce.  This prize-winning, Irish madhouse of a play, which has scored high praise from audiences in both Europe and the U.S., tests the ability of the viewer to keep up with its fast-paced, absurdist antics.  Under the direction of Mikel Murfi—who’s been with the show since its inception at The Druid Theatre Company in Galway, Ireland—the three main characters of the four-person play go about their daily routine amidst the cramped, London flat they call home.  Yet the daily routine of this trio (father and two grown sons) involves the obsessive reenactment of the exact events—beat-for-beat, line-for-line—of the day they last saw their long-lost wife/mother.  Traipsing around the three-room flat at lightning speed, swapping wigs, drag-dressing, imitating two characters at once (not to mention murdering a couple) are just some of the elements involved in this highly dysfunctional family’s farce.  It’s what happens when the characters are dropped, however, when the real roles are revealed, that the farce belies the true tragedy beneath the surface.

I traveled back to the Westwood area to the Geffen Playhouse for a preview of Equivocation.  Written by Bill Cain and directed by David Esbjornson, the play concerns itself with modern-tongued playwright William “Shag” Shakespeare, circa 1605-1606.  Shag and his band of “Globe-trotters” are commissioned by Sir Robert Cecil to write a play based on the events of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Shakespeare delves deeper into the “true” events of the plot and finds more damning information than he could ever perform on a stage, let alone in front of the King.  The question of the play, as well as the play within the play, becomes how to successfully equivocate, how to tell the truth in the face of grave danger, and still come out alive.  Check out our video interview with the cast and our special Equivocation ticket discount here.

The Walworth Farce ends this Sunday, November 15 and is playing at UCLA Live’s Freud Playhouse.  For more information, please call (310) 825-2101 or click here.

Equivocation is playing at the Geffen Playhouse through November 29, 2009.  For more information, please call (310) 208-5454 or click here.

When I think of Annette Bening, I immediately think of the scene in American Beauty when she fails to sell the house she spent the entire day cleaning and can only vent her frustration in one glorious, eardrum-banging yell.  For some reason, that image of her as the wild, caged animal, tragically imprisoned by the world around her, is so strong that I can’t even imagine another actress attempting to portray that type of rage.

This might have been the same thought that went through the head of European auteur/director Lenka Udovicki as she was casting UCLA Live’s most recent production, a reworking of Euripides’ Medea, which stars Bening and runs until October 18th.  After all, who else but her (and maybe Meryl Streep) could portray one of the most enigmatic, fierce, and enchanting female figures in dramatic history—the woman who willfully and consciously murders her own father and two children in the name of personal freedom?  To me, it was a perfect choice, and Bening more than fulfills expectation.

For the first five minutes of the show, she’s curiously absent from sight; it’s just her voice; that same symphonic, American Beauty wail that rings in the background as if announcing her ensuing entrance.  And from the moment she steps on stage, she commands your attention.  She owns every last syllable, evincing the meaning behind even the more difficult bits of Classical dialogue.  As the play progresses, we see Bening transform from the desperate, jilted wife of Jason, to the manipulative conspirator of marital vengeance, and finally, to the woman beyond words, the murderess of her own offspring.

It’s definitely not a one-woman show.  Angus Macfadyen gives a nuanced performance as Jason, and Mary Lou Rosato, as the play’s quirky narrator knows how to hold the stage.  But there’s a reason the play is named after Medea and Medea alone.  Because she, like Annette Bening, is one of a kind.

UCLA Live’s Medea runs through October 18th at the Freud Playhouse.  Please visit uclalive.org or call (310) 825-2101 for more information.