a farewell to Evidence
Does it seem like a lot of my posts are melancholic farewells to arts organizations? Unreal. Don't get me started on how Los Angeles, the State of California, and the alleged Richest Country in the World (you know, the good old USA?) don't support the arts. Criminal negligence.
Anyway, another one bites the dust. The Evidence Room is soon to be no longer, more or less due to an internal dispute, but the phenomenally talented uberDirector Bart DeLorenzo is producing his last piece at their wonderful Beverly-near-Alvarado hub. Last night I saw the third-to-the-final night of the Evidence Room's swan song, Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, which Chekov wrote while he was dying, young and worldly-old at age 44.
All about endings. All tragi-comedy, comic tragedy, manic humor veering off into bleak despair and back again.
Who knew that Chekov could sound so much like California, with real estate developers, handsome sexual predators, oversexed underlings, and looking good? Who knew that Chekov could look so much like the United States, bloated and unaware that our butts are being kicked? Who knew that Chekov could hit so close to MY bone, about wasted money and wasted time?
And of course, who knew that Chekov could sound so much like a theater director's accounting for moving on?
Bart and Chekov. What a team. It is ALL it all in there, VERY physical comedy, loveable complex buffoons, tragedy, and leaving the wreckage of one's past. This is not the heavy, lugubrious Chekov we expect. Nor is it "Chekov Lite." This is Chekov presented to us, BY us, FOR us, slamming us with both spectacle and pain.
I wrote about another piece that the Evidence Room had done, on a previous blog:
http://laurelpaley.blogspot.com/2005/11/go-see-theater-ellen-evidence.html
Now I realize it wasn't just the amazing piece of writing. It is the living bodies of committed actors, the extraordinary text, AND the penetrating vision of a director that come together to cause it all. A fragile, nebulous web. A community willing to submit itself to the text AND to the direction.
The Evidence Room location will remain a theater. It is a wonderful space for that. AND Bart DeLorenzo will direct again [taking the name "Evidence Room" with him]. How could he not? But the Evidence Room as we know it has only two more performances left, tonight's and tomorrow night's.
Farewell.
Anyway, another one bites the dust. The Evidence Room is soon to be no longer, more or less due to an internal dispute, but the phenomenally talented uberDirector Bart DeLorenzo is producing his last piece at their wonderful Beverly-near-Alvarado hub. Last night I saw the third-to-the-final night of the Evidence Room's swan song, Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, which Chekov wrote while he was dying, young and worldly-old at age 44.
All about endings. All tragi-comedy, comic tragedy, manic humor veering off into bleak despair and back again.
Who knew that Chekov could sound so much like California, with real estate developers, handsome sexual predators, oversexed underlings, and looking good? Who knew that Chekov could look so much like the United States, bloated and unaware that our butts are being kicked? Who knew that Chekov could hit so close to MY bone, about wasted money and wasted time?
And of course, who knew that Chekov could sound so much like a theater director's accounting for moving on?
Bart and Chekov. What a team. It is ALL it all in there, VERY physical comedy, loveable complex buffoons, tragedy, and leaving the wreckage of one's past. This is not the heavy, lugubrious Chekov we expect. Nor is it "Chekov Lite." This is Chekov presented to us, BY us, FOR us, slamming us with both spectacle and pain.
I wrote about another piece that the Evidence Room had done, on a previous blog:
http://laurelpaley.blogspot.com/2005/11/go-see-theater-ellen-evidence.html
Now I realize it wasn't just the amazing piece of writing. It is the living bodies of committed actors, the extraordinary text, AND the penetrating vision of a director that come together to cause it all. A fragile, nebulous web. A community willing to submit itself to the text AND to the direction.
The Evidence Room location will remain a theater. It is a wonderful space for that. AND Bart DeLorenzo will direct again [taking the name "Evidence Room" with him]. How could he not? But the Evidence Room as we know it has only two more performances left, tonight's and tomorrow night's.
Farewell.
posted by laurelpaley at 10:09 AM
1 Comments:
Things come and go in Los Angeles. Very few sites are truly permanent here.
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