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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.

The play’s Italian-born writer and director, Romeo Castellucci, debuted at the age of 20 as a theatrical producer, quickly establishing the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio with Chiara Guidi and Claudia Castellucci in 1981. He went on to write and produce a litany of other productions, including, notably, the 37th Venice Biennale’s theater section, titled Pompeii: The Novel of the Ash, for which he received a UBU award in 2006. He is a prolific writer, having published numerous books and essays on his personal theories of stagecraft and dramaturgy.  His ideas for a new kind of theater have earned him international notoriety. Castellucci’s chief aim has been to liken theater to more integrally perceptible arts, such as music or painting, that can be appreciated on a level that exists somewhere above spoken language.

The play, co-produced by UCLA Live and showing at the Freud Playhouse until tomorrow night, certainly embodies Castellucci’s vision for this new kind of theater. It is intensely personal, taking the themes of sin and forgiveness so integral to Alighieri’s Purgatorio and twisting them into a play that is both surprisingly devoid of action yet intensely moving and disturbing.  While Dante’s journey through purgatory is a literal climb up a mountain in which he sheds the sins of his life in order to gain redemption, Castellucci’s modern rendering, centered around father, mother, and son  (perhaps the holy trinity?)  feels like a slide down into sin, with redemption coming when one least expects it, if at all.

Castellucci’s denial of a clear narrative allows him to delve into the dreamlike world of the story’s son and grapple with issues of morality abstractly rather than directly. We are moved not by the action but the lack thereof, the empty dialogue, the formal yet soft warmth of Castellucci’s lighting and set design supported by Scott Gibbon’s at once delicate and abrasive musical score. It is deliberate and rich and methodical. It is extraordinarily painful. It is profoundly beautiful. It is playing in America for the first time and not for long, so take advantage of a kind of theater you are unlikely to experience again any time soon.

- By Helen Kearns

Societas Raffaello Sanzio’s Purgatorio runs at UCLA Live’s Freud Playhouse through tomorrow evening, October 31 at 8pm.  For more information, please call (310) 825-2000 or click here.

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.

Summer isn’t generally a time to plan ahead.  The summer forces us at least to try to forget what day of the week it is and we wouldn’t want to bring you crashing back into the reality of fall before needed; although fall in LA isn’t really like crashing into reality considering we won’t see rainfall until January.  In any case, we just got really excited about the upcoming 2009/2010 seasons at various arts establishments we had to share them! So get your Blackberrys out and start filling up your fall calendar, but don’t take any blazers or scarves out just yet.

In the theatre department, A Noise Within has got a fall and spring lineup that will literally make you cry and laugh.  Their fall shows include the dramatic Richard III by William Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and Noises Off by British import Michael Ryan.  With the spring comes more laughs starting with Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing followed by Irish playwright John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World.  If we could only choose two, we’d likely head to Noises Off and Much Ado About Nothing, but we’re suckers for chaotic comedy, comic romance, and imports from the UK. 

On track with theatre, we find that Center Theatre Group has three lineups we ought to share.  Featured at the Kirk Douglas Theatre are works by Danai Gurira, Obie Award-winning Lisa Kron, and Malcolm McDowell in Tynan.  Over at the Mark Taper Forum, you’ve got Oleanna on view now and in the fall comes Tony Award-winning Parade.  Then once Spamalot closes at the Ahmanson, August Osage County takes its place, followed by Mary Poppins and Dreamgirls. 

The LA Philharmonic has quite a season coming up and it’s not just because I’m crazy for Verdi’s Requiem (being performed in November).  Gustavo Dudamel is coming! When his new job starts in October, he’ll be conducting the LA Phil through a season full of Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, and Ravel with guest performances throughout including the Berlin Philharmonic and Anjelique Kidjo. 

Over in Westwood at UCLA Live, the 2009/2010 season has a taste for everyone.  Kicking off the season, Annette Benning will star in Medea followed by Societas Raffaello Sanzio’s Purgatorio, inspired by the Divine Comedy.  Other performances include Culture Clash, Carlos Fuentes, and the Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour. 

So now you’ll know where to find us in the coming months.  We’ll let you know if we end up changing our plans, but it will take a really good season to change our plans – the summer’s for being spontaneous, but for the fall we’re all booked up!