Scooter told me about The King of the Desert - a one-man show put on by the Greenway Arts Alliance, where earlier this year we saw The Bewildered Herd, which we loved.
Scooter tried telling me more about the play, but I ignored his synopsis. I enjoy not knowing what the play is about. I prefer to go in cold, leaving any kind of expectations at the door. Because I will, inevitably, form expectations - especially when I'm familiar with a subject, like Greek mythology or Shakespeare (see plenty of examples in this blog!).
So I trusted his judgement, and we saw the play ... which left me feeling angry. Angry because the subject hits a little too close to home. It's about a Mexican American man who wrestles with his Mexican American identity as he grows up in a little town in Texas and pursues an acting career in New York.
If you're read my Rant & Rave-inspired post on Blood, you probably have a sense of my conflicted national identity, and this play really brought all that into question.
As a Mexican - and I feel like I can call myself that when juxtaposed with a Mexican American - I got really excited when we got references to Mexican history. Not Mexican American history, with heroes like Cesar Chavez, but true Mexican history with heroes like Miguel Hidalgo, el Padre de la Patria (The Father of the Nation). I got excited when he talked about indigenous groups other than the Aztecs and the Mayans, referencing the Toltecs and the Olmecs and such. But then I'd just as quickly get enraged when those indigenous groups would get mixed up into one.
As far as the play itself goes, I both loved and hated Rene Rivera's acting. At moment of great crisis, when the character breaks down and cries, I felt his acting overdramatic, his sobs too loud, too fake - which angered me when, at the end of the play, I discovered that the play is actually, legitimately based on his own life.
Apparently his wife wrote this one-act play about her husband to understand her husband's past, his roots, and how they will inform their daughter's history, her upbringing.
What I absolutely adored about Rivera's acting is how he portrayed the other characters in his life - his friend, his brother, but mostly his parents. I loved how key gestures made me see that I was watching the mother speak.
So I feel probably as conflicted with this play asI feel with myself ... only perhaps angrier at the play because I can project that anger onto something else.
Diavolo's performance at Grand Park was delightfully simple. There were no big tricks and tumbles, no complicated dances, but the simple, gracefully executed moves were captivating nonetheless.
The dance crew appeared in identical bright blue body suits, and the movement intensified in tandem with the music. They began in simple formation along the part of the fountain you can walk through, and as the piece progressed, they danced all over the fountain, climbing to the top tier where a large fountain is operated with a blossoming water display.
The piece culminated in a jubilant explosion, with the water fountain bursting to the sounds of joyful mariachi music.
After the show, it was great to see children playing in the fountain - some of them dancing.
Sigh.
South Coast Repertory's Eurydice, like Helen, was a great disappointment. This is yet another play inspired by a Greek myth that I was really looking forward to ... and it did not live up to my expectations.
And I do have very high expectations for adaptations of Greek myths or tragedies. After all, I studied them extensively, so I assume that if you take on the challenge of bringing a myth to life or reimagining the story in an ancient text, you're doing so deliberately with oozeloads of meaning dripping from your words.
Essentially you will get me to buy tickets to your play if I know it's a take on a Greek myth.
And so Eurydice lured me in with its siren call, but what I didn't know is that Sarah Ruhl wrote this play as a means of working through her feelings when her father passed away. I learned that night at the talkback that Ruhl didn't even consult the myth as she was writing this play; she was using the myth as a therapeutic tool.
In doing so, I have but to question whether choosing Eurydice was really the right myth to go with. Ruhl wanted to write a play about connecting with her dead father, about finding a way to reach the dead, about that familial bond that transcends death. But the myth of Eurydice is all about her and Orpheus - the story of sorrow of losing the person you love twice.
I noticed in this production that there were profound echoes to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland - and those I found fitting, for Ruhl portrays Eurydice as a girl who doesn't really know who she is, a girl who's wrestling with ideas of identity and love in a strange world.
Don't get me wrong - the story of Eurydice and her father is a very powerful one. I absolutely bought that the father loved his daughter, and that he was devoted to her even in death. Ruhl's Eurydice is really a story about a father losing his daughter twice.
Tim Cummings, who plays the Hades character, is deliciously, creepily malevolent, selfish, and disturbing. He first appears as A Nasty Interesting Man, luring Eurydice down the rabbit hole. Then in the Underworld, he's a child, then a teenager, and finally an oversized man. Cummings' commitment to the role is unapologetic and amazing, creepy to the very core.
But other than the father and the devil, all other performances were quite lacking, lifeless. The amazing set design and lighting projections couldn't make up for that.
How hard was it for you or perhaps many of your high school friends to get into Shakespeare?
The language, of course, is the first barrier to entry. High school kids in particular are often not ready to invest the time in getting to know Elizabethan English in order to get to the story. But there are plenty of other challenges in a Shakespeare play that can make it inaccessible or unrelatable to a modern audience.
Sure, many would argue that Shakespeare's themes are "universal,": love, unrequited love, love triangles, jealousy, greed, etc. But it's the way in which these themes are rendered that can either cause an audience to "get it" and love it, or dismiss it.
There are also many "scenes" that take place off stage, and a character rushes into the scene to update us on what's been going on. For instance, one of my greatest struggles is Lady Macbeth's decline. She disappears for quite a while and comes back demented, obsessing over the blood on her hands, when scenes before she was manipulative and fueled by greed.
There are many more scenes that may be unrelatable to a modern audience with modern tastes. There are scenes that we now want and need to see displayed before us in order to continue suspending disbelief.
One of the key elements about Theatrum Elysium's production that I think addresses the issue of relatability quite well is the dancing. The dancing fills in the gaps and provides us with the much needed bits of character development that a modern audience needs in order to believe the character, to feel their happiness and their sorrow.
In ANW's Cymbeline, Imogen and Posthumous are separated from each other so quickly that it's hard to me to understand that there was a connection before Posthumous gets banished. What Theatrum Elysium did beautifully was add a dance right before they're separated where Imogen and Posthumous are being forcibly removed from each other, and you can see their struggle to get back to one another - danced, of course, to a beautifully evocative song.
Throughout Theatrum's production, dances appear at integral moments that help us feel what the characters are feeling. I could write an entire post for each one of the dances, but probably the most important dance is the war dance.
Right after our battle scene, in which Posthumous fights like a champion, we enter a scene in which Posthumous is surrounded by dead bodies: the ones he killed and the ones of his compatriots. The song playing in this war site is beautifully chosen, as it combines two extremely evocative songs: This Bitter Earth and On the Nature of Daylight. Each blindfolded, nameless body rises in jolted movements, their limbs unable to extend in the graceful way they did when living. After heartbreaking twitches and struggles, each body lets go of a white handkerchief and falls to the grown again, lying still.
Posthumous throws himself to the ground and tries to cover himself with dirt. This singular gesture, had it just been acted, would've potentially been hyperbolical and overly dramatic. But in the context of the song, of the dying bodies, this gesture of regretting his survival and wanting to be buried with the horrors of war moves every emotion I could be clinging to. It makes his despair in the subsequent scenes much more tangible, as I've lived through the horrors with him through the dance.
This beautiful way of rendering emotions that are not written in Shakespeare's folios was unexpected and so moving that I regret seeing this production only twice.
How wonderful it is to get the opportunity to compare and contrast two different productions of the same play.
I feel that this is one of the great benefits of Shakespeare's legacy: every new production I see (the good ones, at least) tell me something new about the play - even when it's a play I've studied ad nauseum and know intimately (see my thoughts on Macbeth).
We actually saw Theatrum Elysium's Cymbeline precisely because we knew that A Noise Within was putting it on a month later. We couldn't let this chance for comparative theatre to pass us by. In fact, we've already secured tickets for a third Cymbeline production this year, which will take place in December at The Broad Stage.
Having said that, I'm going to try my best to focus on ANW's Cymbeline independently from Theatrum Elysium's, leaving some of my comparative observations for a subsequent post.
I got excited when I realized that Adam Hunter was going to be playing the parts of Posthumous and Cloten. I knew that he'd make a killer Cloten, having just seen him in Boston Court's The Government Inspector, where he played Khlestakov - a self-entitled, arrogant, self-interested, good-for-nothing, vice addicted son of someone of moderate importance. I was really intrigued to see how Hunter would play Cloten's foil, Posthumous, and I must admit that I enjoyed his lethargic portrayal of this banished, conflicted, credulous man.
I also enjoyed the two boys, Cymbeline's abducted sons who have grown up as mountaineers. I buy the sibling rivalry, and their immaturity helps solve two main problems:
- They sell the idea that the boys would feel a kinship to Fidele upon first meeting him. The idea of kids making fast friends is readily acceptable.
- It explains why Guiderius somewhat hastily kills Cloten and then proceeds to cut off his head.
A weak point in this production, however, was Imogen. Now, I understand that because Cymbeline is a Romance, it most closely resembles a comedy, but her character wasn't believable in any way. For instance, during the final court scene with the Disney ending where all loose ends and neatly tied into a big bow of love, Posthumous wouldn't keep his eye off of Imogen, regardless of where she moved or who she interacted with. She, however, seemed to forget she was supposed to be tragically, painfully in love sometimes. She's too quick to accept the different solutions that come before her: too quick to accept the plan of being a boy, too quick to be with the mountaineers, too quick to leave with Caius Lucius. Not only did I not believe that she was hurting for her husband when she believes him dead, but her performance was outright laughable (literally: people cracked up) when she asks the corpse where his head is.
Regardless, I enjoyed the accessibility of ANW's Cymbeline. The pacing and the direction made it easy to follow this Shakespearean play, which can be challenging at times.
We learned about the dance troupe, Diavolo, through Steve Connell - a spoken word artist we saw last year in his two-man show, The Word Begins (co-written and performed with Sekou Andrews).
We enjoyed The Word Begins so much, that we saw it twice, and we were sold on any future projects Connell and/or Andrews participated in in the future. So we had been waiting for Diavolo's show for months with much anticipation.
It's difficult whenever you build up that much hype for yourself about something: you run the risk of being let down. But Diavolo's performance The Broad Stage far surpassed any expectations we could have had. Going to a Diavolo show is like seeing a stripped down version of Cirque du Soleil: excellent dancers/performers/athletes with no elaborate costumes, props, light, set changes, trapeze, etc. With Diavolo, you get a piece where beautiful movement interacts with an intricate architectural element, combining dance, gymnastics, and in the the case of Transit Space, spoken word.
Trajectoire
The first piece Diavolo opened with was Trajectorie, a piece that first debuted in the 90s. It's obvious why they still do it: not only does it show us tremendous feats of athleticism, but it also conveys a story of struggle. Of teamwork. Of the beauty and difficulty of a journey.
The architectural element in this piece looks like a boat that rocks back and forth. It gets turned 360 degrees, deconstructed and even stopped completely. The dancers perform around it, over it, below it, inside it. The movement is exciting, keeping you at the edge of their seat wondering what they're going to do next or how they can possibly top the previous trick. The piece plays with you, scares you, make you think the dancer might fall of the boat, or get caught below, or won't make their landing.
But the constant movement also renders the moments of silence - of stillness - beautiful and tender.
Transit Space
This piece aims to reflect Los Angeles, echoing Dogtown and its skater culture. To that end, the piece contains more props and moving pieces, such as skateboards with no wheels and a network of wooden and steel slides.
These slides get connected, separated. They become bridges, walls.
The spoken word aspect of it brings forth themes of discovery, journey, belonging, escaping, going home. Through its different voices, both male and female, it reflects the ethnographic diversity of the area and the shared conflicts between people and the sense of community. We see the dancers as lovers, friends, and neighbors, trying to find themselves while also reveling in the moment.
The piece itself moves like the slides, with highs and lows: movements of great intensity evolve into moments of stillness - pausing for reflection.
It's meaningful that both pieces are about journeys, both physical and internal ones, yet they're expressed in very different ways, through a variety of means. It's wonderful to note how much of that expression comes through movement along, how a single hand gesture can carry emotion that we struggle to articulate.
*Reminder: this is not a review of the performances, but my own attempt at writing with the one-word prompt, like Rogue Machine does for this monthly event of awesomeness.
When I hear the word "blood," several gory instances of my youth flash by. Like the time I fell off my high chair and landed on my chin on the kitchen tile, needing stitches. Or the time I fell and cut exactly the same spot while ice skating, needing more stitches. Or the time a kid punctured my skull with two wooden sticks in a bouncy house, ruinining my pink and purple party dress. Or the time I spit coagulated blood after a vessel burst in my inner lip, and I had to tell the foreign exchange student who was staying with me that I was fine. Or the time I learned how to surf in Hawaii, and how the coral cut my knee open, requiring eleven stitches.
No, blood and I aren't strangers. We're more like acquaintances who run into each other at parties and exchange banal pleasantries while we each busy ourselves with our phones or the hors d'oeuvres until someone comes to relieve us from our awkward societal duties.
But when it gets down to "blood" in a more metaphorical sense, I can't help but to think in matters of national identity.
I never really thought about my blood until my sophomore year in college, when a friend came to visit me in Mexico City over winter break. Here's where my background gets a little complicated, so in a nutshell: I was born in Miami, Florida one month early but grew up in Mexico City, where my parents were born and raised. I lived there until I was eighteen and went to college in British Columbia, Canada. I went back to Mexico City every summer until I graduated - point at which my parents were living in the Los Angeles area, so I moved here.
Now back to the story. Over Christmas break, a friend came to visit, and as I was telling him all about Mexican history at the National Palace, he stopped me in the middle of my narrative and asked, "Who's 'we'?"
"What?" I asked.
"Who's 'we'?" he repeated. "You just said, 'We welcomed them.'"
"Oh. 'We' is the Aztecs. 'Them' refers to the Spaniards - Cortez and his crew."
"So you're Aztec?"
"Well, no. Actually, no."
"Where's your family from?"
"Spain and England on my mom's side. Polish and Russian on my dad's."
"Then wouldn't you be 'them'?"
This was the first time I thought about blood in terms of familial lineage - as opposed to a collective cultural history. He was right: technically, my blood brought me closer to 'them,' the conquistadores. But I grew up as Mexican: the history of Mexico, of my country, being my history.
And so began my exploration into a national identity and what that means. When and how do we leave one identity behind and pick up the other?
When I lived in Canada, being Mexican was cool and exotic. Someone would ask me where I was from.
"Mexico City," I'd reply.
"Oh! Mexico!" They'd say enthusiastically. You see, most Canadians I talked to knew more about Mexico than just the beachfront resorts and their reputation for excellent nightlife; many of them had been to archaeological sites and spoke highly of my home country. I was proud to be Mexican in Canada, and I often used that as a way of describing my behavior.
For instance, if I barged into your room - akin to Kramer in Seinfeld - this invasion of your privacy could easily be explained by the lack of personal space issues in a city with 23 million people. You try riding in the metro at arm's length of the next passenger ...
But when I moved to LA, the conversation went something like this:
"Where are you from?"
"Mexico City."
"Oh."
It was a slap in the face. It was a crude awakening to the realization that being Mexican in the United States - and particularly in Los Angeles - meant something different. "Mexican" here is a loaded term that carries a lot of baggage. Immediately people make assumptions about my level of education, my family, how I got here, and what gives me the right to be here.
This one time, I caught one of my friends describing me to one of his friends as his "educated Mexican friend."
And I heard my dad doing something really brilliant whenever he got asked where he was from. "Originally from Mexico," he'd say. Sometimes he'd also responded with, "I moved here from Texas," which is a statement of fact that cleverly avoids the question.
You see, my dad is white. As I mentioned earlier, his parents were born in what is now Ukraine and Poland, and he speaks English with almost no accent. Similarly, I could "pass as white" if I wanted to.
When I first moved here, right out of college, right after Canada, The Land of Tolerance, I thought it was disgusting that my dad would play into this rejection of our national identity. I wanted to live here and be the proud example that Mexican people have a rich history, a rich culture, and can have the same level of education and be just as wordly - or perhaps more so - than your average Joe. But I soon found that introducing myself as Mexican within the first five minutes of a conversation put up a barrier. I was surprised to see how many people won't carry a conversation with you after that. Or how they suddenly hear my accent, when they had no idea I had reason to have one five minutes ago.
Soon enough, I, too, began responding with, "Originally from Mexico." Just last month I actually claimed to be from California while on a Vegas trip with my girlfriends.
And this makes me feel like a traitor.
I think back on this one time when, at a club, a very white, very blonde guy was hitting on me and asked me where I was from. "Mexico," I said. "Are you, like, 100% Mexican?" he asked.
"Really? 100% Mexican? What does that even mean?"
'Cause I guess percentages and fractions mean something here. If you're all American, what makes you different from one another? "Oh, well, I'm half Irish on my mother's side and half Polish, but my dad's family is from Holland."
But how much of that are you really? What makes you Irish or Polish or Dutch? Is it the random holidays your family might still celebrate? Or songs your mom sang to you at night when you were little? Or traditional family dishes that you have at special occasions? Or is that all gone? Is it solely your genetic composition ... and is that enough to claim heritage?
Poor guy ... he had no idea what he'd gotten himself into when he asked that. I bet he wasn't expecting to get a whole dissertation at a club.
I miss the days when I was sure about who I was and what impetus made me me.
'Cause I was never the posted child for Mexico, either. I grew up in a household where my whole family spoke English and Spanish. We all graduated from the same high school - an American high school - with Mexican and American high school diplomas. And I always wanted to study and build a career abroad. I knew that Mexico was going to have very little to offer me - unless I dropped my dad's name at every interview I ever went to.
I used to be in tune with Mexican politics, and I used to be a much more political person. And I feel so out of touch now. Mexican issues don't feel like my issues anymore ... but neither do American issues. I feel wrong, deceitful forming a stance, a strong opinion on what I think is right for either country.
And every time I go back to my home country, to the city I was raised in, I feel further and further removed from it.
All my life, I've started off sentences in one language and ended them in another. I've celebrated Halloween just as much - if not more - as Dia de los Muertos. I grew up in a bilingual, bicultural environment.
So I feel Mexican, and I feel American, but I don't feel Mexican American - at least not in a chicano kind of sense. So I don't really know where that leaves me, or what that means. The intellectual side of me tries to remind me that it's just a label, and that people are far more complex than a single label. But my emotional side has trouble accepting that as a reality. My emotional side wants to belong, wants to wave a flag fervently, and it'd be easy to say that I could just raise two flags, but it feels hypocritical.
So where does that leave me? What do you do when your blood is not enough to define you? How do you create a new definition?
