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THE MILK TRAIN DOESNТT STOP HERE ANYMORE Despite the talents of director Tony Richardson and a cast that included Tallulah Bankhead, Tab Hunter and Marian Seldes, Tennessee WilliamsТ play closed on Broadway in 1964 after only five performances. It was not one of WilliamsТ best plays. However, director Simon Levy and a terrific cast headed by Karen Kondazian do a magnificent job of bringing this black comedy to life. In a passionate performance, Kondazian plays Flora Goforth, a drug-addled, wealthy widow holed up in an Italian villa. SheТs ostensibly writing her memoirs with the help of her devoted secretary, Blackie (Lisa Pelikan), but itТs not going well and their work is interrupted when a young man trespasses on the grounds to deliver a book of poetry to Flora. His name is Christopher Flanders (Michael Rodgers), but as the Witch of Capri (Scott Presley in drag) warns Flora, the young man has been nicknamed The Angel of Death in light of his past visits to aging divas. The production design is as superb as the cast. Shon Le BlancТs costumes evoke both the excesses and reserve of the early 1960s. Kathi OТDonohueТs gorgeous lighting suggests the beauty of the Italian coast as reflected on Travis Gale LewisТ multi-functional set. The Glory of Living and Loyal Women In theater, thereТs never a cop around when you need one. Such is the case in two harrowing plays currently running at Burbank venues. By the time the police finally arrive in Rebecca GilmanТs The Glory of Living (Victory Theatre Center), weТve sat through kidnappings, murders, rapes and a young couple skipping out on their motel bill. The story begins calmly enough in the Tennessee trailer of Jeanette (Saige Spinney), a prostitute who reaches out to her interstate-trucking clientele and others via CB radio. While she services a lug named Jim (Kelly Van Kirk) behind some hanging sheets, her 15-year-old daughter, Lisa (Rachel Style), watches TV a few feet away with JimТs sidekick, Clint (Martin Papazian). ClintТs a buttery-voiced ex-con who wears down surly LisaТs resistance; we know sheТs fatally hooked the moment Clint steals a kiss and the girl hesitates before deciding not to complain to mom. We also guess Clint has a kink or two when he declines the whore-motherТs invitation to her bed, preferring instead to peek at Jeanette in action through those hanging sheets. HereТs a man, we figure, whoТs more at ease impressing suggestible girls; and, before you can say УCharles Starkweather,Ф Clint and Lisa flee JeanetteТs pleasure dome for marriage and a life of conjugal crime on the road. Lisa settles into a grim routine of trawling small towns for bored, slightly stupid young women who are willing to join her on car rides. LisaТs passengers soon find themselves handcuffed to motel beds and fed a diet of potato chips and rough sex with Clint. Act 1 mostly unfolds in the claustrophobic confines of these anonymous rooms, where the scruffy feng shui inevitably puts an unhappy bed at the storyТs center of gravity. In a way, The Glory of Living is Bug by other means, in which Gilman exchanges homicidal sexuality for the drug-induced paranoia of Tracy LettsТ play. The law catches up to this fugitive couple by intermission in Alabama, although by then itТs too late to restore our faith in a cosmic justice. And, frankly, much of the interrogation scenes that follow are nowhere near as interesting as those depraved motel moments. Yet with Act 2 comes the awful realization that itТs not Clint but his wife, Lisa, who actually pulled the trigger of his gun, who the postman is ringing twice for. She is the one seen by the authorities as the murdersТ auteur, while ClintТs merely considered her ghost writer. This puts her on sticky legal ground, especially since LisaТs just turned 18 Ч the legal age in Alabama for getting a driverТs license and dying in the electric chair. Although most of The Glory of LivingТs violence occurs offstage, there is enough onsite bitch slapping and verbal torment to keep us sitting on the edge of our seats while also squirming in them. GilmanТs 1998 play, a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2002, is disturbing yet undeniably sad Ч not only because Lisa is a blank-faced innocent, but because the people she and Clint have encountered are such clueless lambs. By playТs end, Lisa hasnТt absorbed ClintТs predatory sixth sense about human nature, but sheТs adopted a Darwinian view of the world and the weaklings who must be culled from it. УThey was gonna die anyway,Ф she nonchalantly tells her lawyer (Pete Gardner), in her beguiling, fractured grammar. УThereТs just people as are gonna get killed. ItТs the way it is.Ф An Impending Rupture of the Belly Matt Pelfrey''s galvanizing black comedy resembles those nightmares that nag at one''s psyche the following day -- too off-kilter to accept as reality, yet infused with imagery too haunting to dismiss. Spinning a tragicomic fable of paranoia and violence in suburban America, this powerful new play might be thought of as an update to Jules Feiffer''s Little Murders for the post-Sept. 11 terrorist age. Director Dбmaso Rodriguez leads a superlative cast through a lightning-paced production that steadily progresses from hilarity to horror, as the tension escalates like an ever-tightening vise. Clay (Eric Pargac) is an average-Joe family man in Pasadena; he and his wife, Terri (Aubrey Saverino), joyously anticipate the birth of their first child. Yet Clay is increasingly wary of the dangers of the modern age and is determined to protect his family -- fearing that if terrorists don''t strike, natural disasters or flipped-out citizens will. Clay suffered through a road-rage attack on Sept. 11, 2006, and his pessimistic work supervisor (Doug Newell) drills thoughts of doomsday into his head. When a boorish neighbor (Troy Metcalf) disrespects Clay''s property, the situation spins wildly out of control. Rodriguez helms a seamless ensemble effort. Pargac finds the perfect balance between empathetic Everyman and foolhardy neurotic; his climactic character shift is bone-chilling. The superb Saverino provides the requisite voice of reason, though her character makes a fatal error of judgment. Shawn Lee elicits huge laughs as Clay''s dope-dependent slacker brother, rationalizing his self-destructive lifestyle at every turn. Metcalf excels as the exasperating neighbor, and Newell is equally effective as a self-appointed moral compass for Clay who takes apparent delight in Clay''s turmoil. The milieu is spellbinding: the unnerving noises of honking horns and barking dogs emanating from Cricket S. Myers'' fine soundtrack, the congested landscape of skeletal homes in Dan Jenkins'' inspired scenic design, and the unnerving mood shifts in Christie Wright''s fabulous lighting design. Powered by up-to-the-minute relevance, Furious Theatre Company''s premiere staging of Pelfrey''s thought-provoking work is mesmeric from the first moment to the last. Sliding Into Hades Ultimately, however, the well-chosen and earnest cast, acting as if they had been encouraged by director Ron Sossi to maximize their vocal and physical creativity, is left in the dust raised by the episodic haste and confusion with which the story is told. It''s also a shame that Henne''s graceful writing, including rhymed couplets at the start, eventually tails off into more conventional, if still forceful, prose. And though there is a strong sense that the performance has special personal meaning to the actors, due perhaps to a death in the company which delayed the opening for a week, its power is muted by being generalized. The acting is variable. Abelew verges on outstanding for most of the evening, creating moments of Lear-like despair at the end. Beth Hogan plays a variety of characters -- including a riotous drunken boat-person who ferries the dead across the Styx -- with strength, passion and purpose. As young Orpheus, Losoya anchors the first third of the play with an abundance of distraught emotion and impressive amounts of energy spent scampering around the set. The two main Eurydices, Cignoni and Marina Bakica, meet their simpler challenges more easily, their Teutonic and Latin accents appropriately suggest their exotic natures, and more than beautiful enough to make Orpheus'' infatuation convincing. Bad Seed Some might say that childhood is the face of virtue and incorruption and that kids say the darndest things. But when someone is born corrupt and evil, not even the likes of Bill Cosby can forgive those things that defy beliefs of the innocence of youth. Buzzworks Theatre CompanyТs production of Bad Seed playing in Hollywood''s The Lounge Theatre, however, redefines this innocence in a disturbingly hilarious new way. Based on Maxwell AndersonТs stage adaptation of the novel by William March, the playТs over-exaggerated characters Цfrom the drunken grieving mother of a dead boy (Mo Collins, who shares the role with Melissa Peterman) to the not-so-childlike Rhoda played by a full-grown male (Director Danny Schmitz)Ц make one feel guilty for finding humor in those darndest things 8-year-old murderess Rhoda Penmark does to get her way. Bad Seed is given a twist of improv with a dash of West Hollywood in addition to the Freudian theories written into the original story by William March. Kyle Blitch is the facilitator who stands watch over the PenmarkТs kitchen-slash-living-room atop the refrigerator wearing knee-high tube socks and short shorts, dropping a tissue on the ground whenever the actors stray from the script. The Chicago Conspiracy Trial Culled from the actual trial transcripts, eight men defy Judge Julius Hoffman in a piece of courtroom drama/comedy beyond anything the mind could have invented. Join Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Tom Hayden and the rest of their band of clown activists in the amazingly timely revival, as original creators Ron Sossi and Frank Condon re-join to bring a multi-award-winning theatre event back to Los Angeles. THE CHICAGO CONSPIRACY TRIAL Director Frank Condon brings back the courtroom docudrama (co-written by Condon and Ron Sossi) that put this theater on the map almost 30 years ago. This political equivalent of The Jerry Springer Show depicts the kangaroo court that tried defendants Bobby Seale (Darius Ever Truly), Jerry Rubin (David Mauer), Tom Hayden (John Pollono) and Abbie Hoffman (Andy Hirsch), among others, for conspiring to disrupt the 1968 Democratic National Convention, during which a conflagration of antiЦVietnam war protesters and Mayor Richard DaleyТs (James Manley Green) thuggish Chicago Police Department devolved into a riot. The event is utterly compelling and dispiriting, a clash within an infirm justice system containing prosecutors and defendants who are equally righteous and belligerent soldiers. On stage is a sliver of American history, an antecedent to modern times, in which outrage trumps common sense, wisdom and the most fundamental tenets of the U.S. Constitution. That this drama was lifted from transcripts renders the farce even more upsetting Ч an upset bolstered by the excellent performances. SUICIDE, THE MUSICAL Deeply depressed Greg Cabot (Guy Bracca) decides to do himself in. He tries three times, attempting to hang, gas and finally to shoot himself, but each time he is rescued by his born-again transvestite neighbor, Endora (Alan Porter Rackley). His attempts at self-destruction land him in a psychiatric hospital, where eccentric Dr. Birch (Doug Steves) attempts to psychoanalyze him. The result is a protracted parody of those 1940s psychiatrist-patient tales, from The Snake Pit to Lady in the Dark, in which an all-wise doctor precipitates a psychic revelation and effects an instantaneous cure. Writer-director Mark Rossella employs a broad, loose, obvious sketch-comedy style, with interpolated rock songs by Pete Cimbalo, choreography by Jeremy Lucas and costumes by Cynthia Obsenares. There are some clever performances (including a zany turn by Richie Marin as a randy cat, complete with huge, flopping plush genitalia) and laughs to be had, despite the predictability of the material. But director Rossella seems to have little notion of how to build climaxes, or to segue smoothly between scenes and songs. THE SWINE SHOW SWINE Writer-director Paul PlunkettТs blacker-than-pitch comedy is a ruthless, riotous indictment of a celebrity culture that feeds on shock. Penned 12 years before Britney shaved her head Ч even before E! True Hollywood Stories debuted Ч this prescient satire (with Richard LevinsonТs original music, lyrics by Plunkett) shaped as a docudrama follows the entertainment career of Swine (a deliriously go-for-broke Brendan Hunt) from the farm, where his inbred siblings Goat and Cow (Joe Hendrix and Franci Montgomery) tortured him for giggles, to the top of the food chain in Hollywood, where his every black eye is luridly detailed in the tabloids. While his various abusers take credit for SwineТs fame, his therapist (Ruth Silveira) wonders if his tortured background Ч maybe, say, when his mom (Scott Leggett) fed him dog food for a buck, or that time he was gang-raped by gorillas Ч might have been what molded him into the ultimate superstar beast with a hunger to please. SwineТs crowd-pleasing ditties (music by Richard Levinson with lyrics by Plunkett) mash up bestiality jokes with patriotism. PlunkettТs direction and ensemble are sharp and smart; and though we may laugh as Swine turns a Taser on himself for applause, we also feel a small piece of our soul die. Tom Stoppard''s ("Shakespeare In Love") Hilarious Farce Travesties Academy Award-winning Brit playwright Tom Stoppard (who wrote the Oscar-winning "Shakespeare In Love," the critically acclaimed film "Brazil" and the beloved onstage farce Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) created this amazing play by combining true-life events. In 1918, British consul Henry Carr met history''s most colorful, influential exiles: the Irish writer James Joyce, Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara, and revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin. Their offbeat story is filled with puns, limericks, music hall songs and more.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138097/ WHO KILLED BOB MARLEY? DonТt expect an answer to the titular question of writer-performer Roger Guenveur SmithТs multimedia piece. And donТt expect to learn much about Bob Marley either. However, aided by Mark Anthony ThompsonТs haunting musical score and Arthur JaffaТs surreal video compilation (edited by K.A. Chisholm), be prepared to learn much about Smith in his monologue thatТs both problematic and engrossing. As Smith relates his experience portraying suicidal poet Albert in JaffaТs independent film set in Jamaica, he moves hypnotically back and forth in time and from subject to subject, from his romance with the filmТs co-star, to seeing Marley in concert and meeting the reggae icon in 1979, to SmithТs heartfelt and moving elegy to his own father. SmithТs wry wit is also on display when he describes one of AlbertТs poems as his ФHemingway, Spalding Gray, Hunter S. Thompson suite.Ф An outside director could have fine-tuned the highs and lows in SmithТs performance. Always an engaging performer, here SmithТs mellifluous delivery and slow moving gait, coupled with the workТs elliptical structure, may make for a dreamlike quality but also borders on the soporific. WHY MARRY? Why stage Jessie Lynch WilliamsТ long-forgotten 1917 social comedy Ч the first-ever recipient of the Pulitzer Prize? Like an old photograph of a pre-suffragette, it conjures a road map showing where the gender wars have been fought across the century. The play contains as much effervescent wit as plays by WilliamsТ British contemporaries, G.B. Shaw and Oscar Wilde, with echoes of IbsenТs A DollТs House . From New YorkТs high society, it tells of the determination by emancipated Helen (Aimee Guichard) to run off with biologist Ernest (Greg Baglia), to work in Paris Ч out of wedlock, no less. Meanwhile, HelenТs sister, Jean (Christine Krench), uses her coquetry to bag wealthy Rex (Tripp Pickell), for whom she has almost no feelings. What else can she do with her life? she asks. Problem is, the scandal of HelenТs behavior might jeopardize her sisterТs plans. The attempts by their pompous, hypocritical brother (a delightful comic turn by Steven Benson) to sustain the double standards of protocol bring into sharp focus marriage as a form of voluntary human trafficking. The play almost heartbreakingly foreshadows the Уfree loveФ of the Т60s, and the soaring divorce rate that followed, underscoring the eternal verity that in a culture spun from commerce, nothing is for free. The play contains some pedantry, which director David Cheaney more or less overcomes with his productionТs charm offensive. His own Wildean courtyard set nicely complements GuichardТs gorgeous costumes. The winking ensemble is pitch perfect Ч especially sassy Guichard, and David St. James in a splendidly wry performance as a local judge capable of sussing out the distinction between what must be and what can be Bush Is Bad Supporters of President Bush may not be amused, but pretty much everybody else with a sense of humor should find Joshua Rosenblum''s musical revue "Bush Is Bad" highly entertaining. Although the show is about as subtle as its title, and some numbers are hit-and-miss, the political revue is pointed and hilarious overall. The West Coast premiere production at the NoHo Arts Center boasts an energetic cast and polished direction from Jay Willick and James J. Mellon, topped by Roger Ainslie''s jocular and eerily accurate impression of our Decider-in-Chief. The show begins with two amusing and straightforward numbers, "How Can 59 Million People Be So Dumb" and "Anyone Can Grow Up to Be President," each displaying flashy choreography and efficient staging. Although "Crazy Ann Coulter," "Mr. Whittington Regrets" and "Get Real" are better in concept than execution, "Torture Has Been Very Good to Me" is a cheerful ditty sung by Alberto Gonzales (Michael Craig Shapiro) with a fabulous reprise that brings his story up to date. "Scooter Libby, Superstar," "Can''t Help Lovin'' That Bush" and "Sure, You Betcha, George" are clever pieces in the styles of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill, respectively. "Culture of Life" effectively skewers its topic group, and "In His Own Words" memorably allows Bush to provide the lyrics. Pest Control - The Musical Inspired by the best-selling novel by Bill Fitzhugh (The Organ Grinders, Cross Dressing), PEST CONTROL is the story of a New York City exterminator, Bob Dillon, who is misidentified by not only the underworld but also by the CIA as being a notorious and elusive professional assassin. Mistaken for a Уhit man,Ф he is hired to kill the most dangerous man in the world. If Bob fails in this mission, he stands not only to lose the girl he loves but his own life may even be exterminated as he encounters some of the deadliest and most outrageously eccentric contract killers along the way. PEST CONTROL will lead you on a wild chase, set to a rock musical score inspired by the styles of late 70s and early 80s rock with a dash of early hip hop. Evel Knievel BIKERS - http://scooter.kharkov.ua/page/4/ «наменитый ћузей восковых фигур мадам “юссо представил на дн¤х в Ћос-јнджелесе восковую фигуру легендарного американского мотогонщика-каскадера »вела Ќивела (Evel Knievel). —кульптура была представлена в первую очередь родственникам и друзь¤м мотоциклиста. Ќивел изображен в своем традиционном бело-сине-красном кожаном костюме, а за спиной у него, конечно же, Harley Davidson XR750, раскрашенный в цвета насто¤щего мотоцикла Ќивела. "Ќивел был международно значимой фигурой, и его способность завоевывать умы и сердца как молодежи, так и людей старшего возраста своими потр¤сающими, невообразимыми трюками сделала его одной из самых узнаваемых фигур двадцатого века", - за¤вил управл¤ющий музе¤ Madame Tussauds Las Vegas Ёдриан ƒжонс (Adrian Jones). »вел Ќивел (насто¤щее им¤ –оберт рейг Ќивел Ц Robert Craig Knievel) родилс¤ 17 окт¤бр¤ 1938 года в городе Ѕуте, штат ћонтана. — 1960-х годов он занималс¤ трюками на мотоцикле, благодар¤ которым заслужил прозвище "американский сорвиголова". ≈го бесшабашные прыжки, включа¤ знаменитую попытку 1974 года перепрыгнуть каньон Snake River в штате јйдахо, транслировались на все —Ўј. „етыре прыжка Ќивела вход¤т в двадцатку самых попул¤рных спортивных событий телеканала ј¬—. Ќивел не раз попадал в книгу рекордов √иннесса, в том числе по количеству сломанных костей (40). ѕрактически все свои прыжки, за небольшим исключением, Ќивел совершал на мотоциклах Harley-Davidson. Ќивел сам работал вместе со специалистами музе¤ над созданием фигуры и видел скульптуру на разных стади¤х готовности, но к сожалению не успел до своей смерти увидеть завершенную работу. »вел Ќивел скончалс¤ в конце но¤бр¤ прошлого года в возрасте 69 лет. Evel Knievel: The Rock Opera My Uncle Jim was the first man I knew with false teeth. The dentures were only one thing that made him freakish to me. He was a Southerner whoТd married into our East Coast Yugoslavian family; and, as a Protestant, he would surely land in purgatory after he died, but until then he joked with abandon in a breezy cracker voice while scandalizing everyone with bouts of blackout boozing. But it was Uncle JimТs missing teeth that fascinated me. HeТd been a stunt motorcyclist in the same carnival as my fortune-telling Aunt Zola when someone, the legend goes, tossed a cigarette under a wheel as he rode his bike around a centrifugal steel barrel. After the crash he worked as a carpenter and could build a house from the ground up. It was the false teeth, though, with their twin warnings against motorcycles and cigarettes, that made the deepest impression on me. Evel Knievel might be seen as the redeemer of all carny daredevils Ч a motorcycle messiah to my uncleТs John the Baptist. Knievel is the subject of a rollicking rock musical written by composer Jef Bek that is premiering at the Bootleg Theater and which, besides offering a happy shuffle down Memory Lane in leisure suits and denim hot pants, invites us to peer into the Big Empty that was once the American soul. For in his 1970s heyday, Knievel tapped into a vast heartland that wasnТt so much emotionally exhausted by the national debate about the Vietnam War as it was bored by all the talk Ч a heartland in need of escape into mindless entertainment. Enter Robert Craig Knievel, who promised every audience it would get one of two things: either the spectacle of man and machine conquering gravity Ч or a tableau of mayhem. His mission was said to be the restoration of faith in America and the return of the hero, but it was really all about soaring through the air in a glittering jumpsuit and cape at 70 miles per hour. BekТs musical opens in Butte, Montana, where young Bobby Knievel (Chuck DiMaria) works as a copper miner and part-time burglar. Knievel, who as a boy experienced a revelatory moment at a stunt-driver exhibition, makes a drunken barroom bet that he can jump his motorcycle over a VW Bug. From there itТs a straight line to his disastrous attempt to clear 13 double-deckers at LondonТs Wembley Stadium. Along the way there are broken femurs aplenty, comas and marriage meltdowns with his wife, Linda (Traci Dinwiddie). At its core, BekТs story differs little from the airbrushed Knievel mythology weТre used to seeing in TV movies: Knievel emerges as a young man with enough brains and gumption to realize he wants more Ч much more Ч than Butte can offer. The growing fame he receives from jumping his Norton over ever-widening parking lots of cars and Greyhound buses does not make him wiser, but only turns him into a reckless badass in search of his comeuppance. In BekТs account, KnievelТs long strange trip through emergency rooms, bars and other womenТs beds ends in the arms of Linda, the long-suffering wife who stood with him from the start. In this rock opera she follows in a long line of hillbilly muses, right behind Audrey Williams, June Carter Cash and Priscilla Presley. Without getting into details, letТs just say thereТs a factual disconnect between the showТs image of Knievel and the written record. This poetic-license-taking may be an attempt to aim for a wider family audience down the road, but it doesnТt detract from the musical. Bek has done excellent storytelling work in conflating characters and simplifying events. More than this, he finds a Faustian story at play, one personified by Father Time (Kyle Nudo), who first appears in the early-Elvis gear of black leather and cuffed jeans, later to morph into the sparkly black jumpsuit of the Vegas Presley era. Father Time is no benign wise man, but a Mephistophelean dealmaker who rechristens Bobby Knievel УEvelФ and is always on the verge of dragging the daredevilТs broken body down to the underworld. BekТs score and libretto (music director Jay Dover provides additional music and lyrics) captures the adrenalized vocals typical of such period rock operas as Tommy and Jesus Christ Superstar, and throws in a slight dash of Rocky Horror Show camp. There is a detectable sameness about the numbers, though, which strongly favors power ballads over a few down-tempo numbers. The evening unfolds in 45 scenes that race by in 90 minutes, but somethingТs missing that would lend perspective to KnievelТs motorcycle diary. As a chorus, the friends, newspaper reporters and business sharks never question the championТs journey or his motives. This lack of commentary Ч and straight dialogue Ч and its limited melody palette ensure that the show isnТt as satisfying as Andy PrieboyТs tart telling of Guns NТ RosesТ rise and fall, White Trash Wins Lotto. Nevertheless, Evel Knievel is directed with such over-the-top gusto by Keythe Farley and brought to such gaudy life by an energetic ensemble and design team that we forgive its flaws. DiMaria is suitably slick as Knievel, a showman very much in the vein of Buffalo Bill Cody and P.T. Barnum. He gets strong support from David Kirk Grant as his pal Tex Montana and from Andrew Wheeler as the conniving manager, Marty Sugar Ч who, like the real-life Shelly Saltman, writes a tell-all book that earns him a baseball-bat beating from Knievel. Nudo also memorably stands out as Father Time, but in a show of outsize characters, DinwiddieТs Linda isnТt given enough script to chew on. She remains an underdeveloped character, little more than an addition to the seven-member ensemble that takes on the showТs multiple minor roles. Scenic designer Sibyl Wickersheimer has constructed an elevated horseshoe ramp (striped red, white and blue) that serves as a stage platform while reminding us of the track that was KnievelТs battlefield. Beneath this horseshoe is the power band that propels the evening: Bek (drums), Dover (guitar), Rick Zaccaro (bass) and Gabe Baldazzi (keyboards). Above, Brian FlemmingТs video images, along with archival footage of KnievelТs stunt crashes, are projected onto a screen. (The file films remind us of just how many times Knievel crashed and cheated death Ч in fact, thatТs all he seemed to do during his eight-year reign.) Eric SnodgrassТ crisp ТnТ loud sound design carries the storyТs power and glory without overwhelming this relatively small venueТs acoustics, while Francois-Pierre CoutureТs light plot amply expands on the showТs many mood swings Ч which are aptly crowned and wrapped by Ann Closs-FarleyТs hair and costume designs. (One typical scene features a redneck heaven populated by sexy angels holding tallboy cans of beer.) Shamelessly cloaking himself in the flag while pursuing his fortune, Evel Knievel fed the nationТs brute hunger for disaster by martyring his own body on the chrome cross of his handlebars at a hundred fairgrounds and stadiums. Along the way he helped change AmericaТs view of heroism. There was a time when a hero was someone who sacrificed health or wealth for the good of others. After Knievel we stretched the definition to include anyone who wore a costume and threw a ball or wrecked a car for a big check. As a kid I often wondered about the family legend of how Uncle Jim lost his teeth. Was it really because some careless smoker had tossed a butt beneath his wheel, or was it something darker and less heroic? With Evel Knievel, Jef Bek shows us a fearless man who could also be a little dark and something less than a hero. Among the many firsts in the storied career of 1970s daredevil Evel Knievel -- the lines of cars, casino fountains and desert canyons he jumped, or nearly jumped, on his motorcycle -- one is too often overlooked. Knievel was the first to jump the shark. Yes, pop-culture junkies, it was Evel Knievel''s planned 1977 jump over a shark tank in Chicago that inspired the infamous "Happy Days" episode in which the Fonz did the same (in his case, on a pair of water skis). "Jumping the shark," of course, has come to refer to the point when a TV series runs out of original ideas and grasps at any gimmick to fill airtime. To his credit, Knievel got out of the game before he crossed that point of no return. He was seriously injured, and a cameraman lost an eye, during a test run for the shark-tank jump. He never did stunts again. "There comes a time in a person''s life when they say, enough is enough," says Jef Bek, a longtime Knievel fan and the composer-creator of "Evel Knievel: The Rock Opera," which opens this week at the Bootleg theater. "People would come up to him and say, ''Oh, I saw you jump the Grand Canyon,'' when in fact it was Snake River Canyon, or, ''I saw you jump 100 cars,'' when in fact it was 15 cars. So he thought to himself, ''Whatever I do, it won''t be enough for them -- I can''t live up to what they expect of me.'' "He also said, ''Motorcycles don''t have wings.'' Which is a lyric that I took for the show." The through-sung rock opera, co-written with guitarist Jay Dover, has been a pet project of Bek''s for several years. A progressive-rock musician in Chicago, Bek (his given name is Jeff Beck, but he changed it to distinguish himself from the former Yardbirds guitarist) was bitten by the theater bug when he joined John Cusack''s New Crime Productions and learned that "you can really go out there when you''re doing music for the theater -- a great discovery for me." Later, as a member of the Los Angeles-based troupe Zoo District, Bek''s scores helped bring to life a smoldering Nosferatu, in a show of the same name, and accompanied the flight of a pig in 2000''s "The Master and Margarita." "If we were able to get a pig off the ground, I think we can manage to get a bike off the ground," said Bek, 45, who ultimately envisions the show as a Las Vegas spectacle but for now is content to "focus on what we can do with low-tech and make it look high-tech, and to really focus on the story and the songs." Drama, yes; bike, no To realize his vision in a small-theater context -- in other words, on a bare-bones budget of reportedly less than $10,000 -- Bek turned to Keythe Farley, an Actors'' Gang actor-director whose musical-theater claim to fame is as co-writer of the unlikely success "Bat Boy: The Musical." "The biggest challenge here is living up to the name," said Farley, whose wife, Ann Closs-Farley, is doing the costumes. "With ''Bat Boy,'' it was the reverse -- the compliment we got with that was, ''Oh my God, it was so much better than I thought it would be.'' With ''Evel Knievel: The Rock Opera,'' you expect to see motorcycles flying through the air, crashes, huge explosions. Well, can I do a giant rock-show spectacle for 25 cents and a pack of gum? I think I can." Farley helped Bek and Dover hone the script and score and ultimately vetoed one key staging element. "If I could have a motorcycle, what would I do with it?" Farley said. "I realized, not much. You can''t fire it up onstage. It''s an 800-pound beast that becomes a gargantuan pain in the rear. So I hate to give anything away, but we''re using theater magic, the right lighting and video, to create a representation of flying." Far more important than the pyrotechnics, it would seem, is calibrating the piece''s tone. The story of Bobby "Evel" Knievel, a self-made salesman and daredevil from the mining town of Butte, Mont., is pure, uncut Americana, with a thick layer of ''70s kitsch slathered on -- what witness of the ''70s doesn''t remember his stars-and-stripes jumpsuit, complete with matching cape and helmet? Filter this larger-than-life story through an earnest, wailing rock-opera score, and one has to wonder: Who''s jumping the shark here? "I wanted to write something that was big and crazy and over-the-top and wild, just fraught with drama," Bek conceded. "My music, unintentionally, has this built-in drama to it. I don''t know why, but everything I write has this epic quality -- everything''s ''grand,'' " he said, drawing out the last word in a mock-English accent. "It''s that theatrical presence I always feel when I listen to a song by Yes or Genesis." As a "Bat Boy" co-author, Farley knows from irony. He''s found that the more he celebrates excess and the less he winks, the better the results. "It''s sincere and gigantic," Farley said of the show. "When you''re watching a guy get into a rocket and fly over Snake River Canyon, that''s an amazing event. What rock music can do is give you that raw emotion onstage. Hopefully, the surprising thing about ''Evel'' is that you''ll end up feeling something. God willing, we''re going to touch your heart. I''m always wary of snickering." girl, 20 After writing a sexually explicit essay, college freshman Jade is referred to the university''s free counseling program where she learns her sessions will be observed and taped for training purposes. Behind the two-way mirror are Sam, a first year grad student, and Marty, an undergrad film student who runs the observation room''s decrepit AV equipment. Both quickly begin observing Jade''s sessions with more than just a professional interest. What follows is a spiral of obsession and betrayal that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. Уgirl, 20 is a riveting psychological drama I was immensely impressed with this world premiere.Ф A Lesson Before Dying From Obie Award-winning playwright Romulus Linney, adapted from the Critics Circle Award-winning novel by Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying powerfully addresses the basic predicaments of a human being striving for dignity in a world that often dismisses it. The play revolves around an illiterate, impulsive young black man living in rural Louisiana in 1948 as he awaits his execution for the death of a white man he didn''t kill. Engrossing, moving and ultimately devastating, A Lesson Before Dying brings to light the timeless subject of the death penalty and the ways in which the imprisoned find feedom even in the moment of their death. An Impending Rupture of the Belly Young married couple Clay (Eric Pargac) and Terri (Aubrey Saverino) are expecting their first child. Clay is nervous about the responsibilities of impending fatherhood, and the litany of things to worry about (terrorism, riots, smallpox crop-dusters over Dodger Stadium) from his friend Adam (Doug Newell) doesn''t help. Clay wants to turn his house into a fortress, but Terri suggests he start small by simply stopping their rude neighbor Doug (Troy Metcalf) from letting his dog defecate on their lawn every day. When Clay and Doug''s confrontation does not go well, Clay spins out of control, lost among the paranoid terrors in his mind. Although the plot of "Belly" seems a little familiar, Pelfrey has a gift for oddball concepts and sardonic dialogue, as when Ray dismisses his life as "follow your dreams and end up in downtown L.A. with no pants." Rodriguez enhances the show with clever staging, such as an open doorway standing in as a bed, and brings an appropriately nightmarish intensity to the "dogs of war" sequence. No one is credited for the choice of music that roars between each scene, but the use of such bands as Fear and Morphine to create a jarring, dissonant vibe is bluntly effective Sliding Into Hades The Odyssey Theater Ensemble''s resident Koan Ensemble surveys the oft-examined Orpheus/Eurydice myth, exploring the human conceit that death can be defeated by pure ego and self-determination. Loosely scripted by Aaron Henne, conceived and helmed by Odyssey Artistic Director Ron Sossi, "Sliding Into Hades" features a seven-member cast that impressively entwine themselves within and around the travails of superstar Orpheus as he breaches the inner sanctum of Hades to rescue his deceased bride, mirroring our modern age conceit that we now can control our destinies and the process of aging and dying. Looking back at a replay of the events of the past, an aged Orpheus (Alan Abelew) is supremely confident that he can still go back and rescue Eurydice, despite the pleadings of his contemporaries that this is not how he should be spending his limited remaining time on earth. |
