Art vs. Entertainment

Living near and within a metropolis has many advantages than small towns. Although Los Angeles is not the "theatre capital in the U.S.," we do have several regional theatres, in addition to various other small Equity waiver theatres (LA's equivalent to Off-Off Broadway) spread out throughout the city and region. As a director and as a human being, I love live theatrical happenings because there is truly a diverse range of aesthetic perspectives in what was once referred to as a "cultural desert." Over the past three weeks, I saw three very different productions:

1. AGAMEMNON by Aeschylus produced by the Getty and performed in an outdoor amphitheatre at the Getty Villa in Malibu.

2. BRUNDIBAR by Hans Krasa produced by LA Opera's Opera Camp and performed at the RED CAT, an intimate black box theatre, in Downtown Los Angeles.

3. ALICE IN 1 HIT WONDERLAND 2: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS produced by The Troubadour Theatre Company and performed in a "mid-size (130 seat)" hybrid thrust/proscenium stage of the Falcon Theater in Burbank, CA.

As you can see, my own personal taste runs a wide gamut of shows.

The most recent show I saw was ALICE IN 1 HIT WONDERLAND and as the title suggests we heard plenty of 1 hit wonders. The show charmed the matinee crowd of families with young children, tapping our feet to the over-amplified band, that accompanied the actors. As I mentioned, this theatre is 130 seats or so, and yet the actors were wearing old school "Madonna" style mics as they energetically danced and mugged an adventure for Alice Nelson (aka The Maid from The Brady Bunch) dream to be a "Queen."

Essentially the show seemed like an expanded Mad TV sketch that was played only for laughs. And laughs it received not because the material was so clever or funny, rather because it played with the audience's knowledge of pop culture. What 1 hit wonder will they play next? What topical reference can they use in this instance to make it funny? At the end of the performance, I was as fatigued as I'm sure the actors were performing straight thru for 90 plus minutes and yet, it felt much longer.

It is rare to see Greek Tragedy performed live, but when I heard Stephen Wadsworth was directing AGAMEMNON, I knew I would be in for a treat. Recognizing that his audience may not be familiar with all the back story, he created such exciting moments that vividly brought into sharp focus the external and domestic politics of this extraordinary piece of theatre that when the dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra are brought out, an audible gasp from the audience was heard. This play was the same length as ALICE, and yet it went by so quickly and stayed with me on the way home.

Each performer was so solid and energized and the composition of the staging was so imaginative, yet so unexpected in its detail and progression. There was such a palpable feeling of tension as the evening drew on that I could not help, but feel a sense of the continuum of theatre as ritual. We are drawn together as community, but connected in catharsis by the sequence of events we are witnessing.

These two productions remind me why I have chosen to make live theatre my profession. In Peter Brook's "Empty Space" anything is truly possible. Each equally valid on their on terms, but as different as night and day. I'll leave it to you to decide what was Art and what was Entertainment.

ciao,
eugene