mouse_rants

went to see culture clash's "zorro in hell".  culture clash is a group of chicano writer/performance artists - they do a lot of political stuff - pretty funny,but often rather thorny.  i've seen a couple of their other things - one at the la jolla playhouse, where they were tonight.  i always rather wonder what they think, performing in la jolla - which is a very wealthy, generally conservative town in a pretty conservative, republican county.  as i said, culture clash are chicanos, and much of their stuff is about the chicano experience in california, from the treatment the native people suffered at the hands of the spanish missionaries to current incidents at the border.  they do it with quite a bit of humor, but there is a message underneath it all - we are people too, we are part of california - and needless to say, they are liberal, pro-environment, and anti-bush.  they had a lot of digs at the antiterrorist activities of the current administration and our "governator" (appearing as el governardor aka don del oro in the play) - oddly, nothing on the 750-mile wall or the anti-immigration stance of local politicians - but they ended up with a plea to stand up against things like that, to fight for justice for the little people, like zorro.  i wonder how many of the audience are of the same opinion (well, to be fair, the theatre is on a university campus, so they are working from a bastion of liberal thought) - and if the performers wonder if they have any chance of making an impact, or if it's just a good place to make lots of money.  still, one hopes that the presence of the piece indicates that there are at least some like-thinkers around - at least enough to return mr. bilbray to his career as a lobbyist, whether or not i deface his sign.  (the ironic thing is, i would probably be caught by our somewhat humorless but very determinedly rule-enforcing security guard, a middle-eastern immigrant who is probably also on my neighbor's not-welcome list.) (i always seem to be in situations where i see things from the most twisted perspective - i believe these neighbors were among the admirors of a previous, much loved and very competant security guard, jose, who really got to know the people and the neighborhood, kept the skateboarders in line, etc. - and left rather suddenly when his employer got a visit from ins, because it turned out he was here illegally.)

of course, being me, i know zorro mostly from cultural references - never saw the tv show.  and what i'm mostly wondering is if one can still get copies of the first book - a bit of pulp fiction published in 1919.  failing that, i will probably hope netflix has the original 1920 douglas fairbanks movie.  i am a failure as a baby boomer.

I wish I could remember exactly what my friend said yesterday, relating Cirque du Soleil and mime in rather less than positive terms.  Her comment was inspired by the traffic jam we had both suffered through, due to the appearance of one band of said Cirque at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.  It was followed by terms such as "mysticism",  "symbolism" and "pretentious".

This comes to mind because apparently Twyla Tharp has dreams of following in Cirque's steps, judging by the acrobats, contortionists and people portraying circus animals she put on stage at the Old Globe in the Tharp-Dylan Project, aka "The Times They are A-Changing" - aka the thing I just wasted my evening on.

For those of you not au courant with the theatre scene, this is a new "collaboration" between choreographer Twyla Tharp and songwriter Bob Dylan - although I strongly suspect Dylan had nothing more to do with it than permitting his songs to be used (at least, I hope he didn't).  It is a musical play about the owner of a run-down circus, his son Coyote, and Cleo, the animal trainer they both love.  It is the story of a young man's difficult relationship with his father and his transition into manhood and responsibility.  I know this because I read the program notes.  I never would have figured it out from what I saw on stage.

I can tell (also from the program notes) that it is highly symbolic and metaphorical, although I don't know of what.  Take the characters - the names are laden with meaning...but why those names?  Nothing in the songs used compels those, or (really) any names at all.  (There is no dialogue;  the play consists soley of Dylan's songs and Tharp's choreography.)  Cleo does make one entrance rolled up in a rug...why, I have no idea. When I first read the program, I thought the circus owner's name was Captain Ahab;  this I felt to some extent explained why he was limping around with a cast-like brace on one leg (for theatrical purposes only;  it was taken off several times in the course of the evening).  I was thus quite confused as to why, after he was (apparently) beaten to death by (what I later realized were) a band of farmhands, the stand-in dummy (which was kicked around to "Maggie's Farm") was prominantly labeled "ARAB".  I managed to steal a look at the program, and discovered that his name was, in fact, Arab - which meant that the final scene, in which the cast (singing "Forever Young" while dressed in red and gold outfits resembling 18th-century naval uniforms) finished up in a boat labeled "Pequod", was even more incomprehensible than it otherwise would have been - unlikely as this may seem.  (There was no suggestion of a white whale;  it must have been present only metaphorically.)

I would say that it would have been better if Ms. Tharp had simply done an evening of her interpretations of Dylan's songs, rather then attempting to string them together into a story, except she appears to interpret them entirely based on surfical visual images, missing completely the deeper meanings within.  "Desolation Row", for example, included an actual tightrope walker and a blind man, as well as a Cinderella-like maid sweeping up.  What this had to do with the story was unclear.  Even her attempts to fit songs into the story were unfortunate.  For example, although "Blowing in the Wind" starts with the line "How many roads must a man walk down/Before you call him a man?", I would suggest that it is not really an examination of  how a son achieves manhood in the eyes of his father - the role it is compelled to play here.  And many of the song choices were just odd - why on earth would "Masters of War" appear in the middle of a circus performance?  And I must complain about the interpretation again - the choreography appeared to symbolize the physical effort of battle, with no hint of the heads of the military-industrial complex the song so searingly indicts.

(Small digression - the play did remind me that a lot of Dylan's songs deserve a rehearing.  The title number had me thinking about the political climate of the 60s, and the changes occurring then - which prompted the thought that the times appear to have changed back again.  "Blowing in the Wind" and "Masters of War" have a new currency.)

Ms. Tharp, I think, would have done better commissioning new music for her story.  (Dylan would have done better performing on an empty stage).  There were intriguing features about it - why, for example, was the circus-owner beaten to death by the farmhands?  His son appeared in that scene, embraced by his father, then pushed out of danger's way - after the relationship had been depicted as one of cruelty and control on the part of the father.  What was the history of that relationship?  What, exactly, was the father's relationship with Cleo?  with the janitor who was also the subject of his abuse?  Why was the dancing bear followed by a performing cow?  So many questions, so little sense.

It did get a great deal of applause - it got, in fact, a standing ovation.  I attribute this to the fact that the dancers were athletic and energetic, and the music was, after all, Bob Dylan (Tamborine Man got applause after two bars).  But the play itself was a mish-mosh - a mystical story, told incomprehensibly in mime, set in a circus....and leaving a definite whiff of pretension. 

I take solace in the knowledge that all of this will mean nothing to (hopefully) all of you.  The play is intended for Broadway, undoubtedly for ticket prices that will put it out of consideration by sensible people;  given the skill level required of the dancers, it is unlikely to appear elsewhere.  In the event it does  show up near you, please take my advice - buy a Dylan CD instead.  One full of protest songs.

(On the plus side - it was only 90 minutes long, which means I got home in time to watch Deadwood.  And I found a restaurant that give you the equivalent of three glasses of a quite decent red wine for $5.50.)