“Cardboard Piano” Another Triumph for Diversionary Theatre

Recently The La Jolla Playhouse presented playwright Hansol Jung’s “Wild Goose Dreams”. It played to relatively positive reviews. Yours truly was not a fan.  

Another of her plays “Cardboard Piano” now in a West Coast Premiere on stage at Diversionary Theatre in City Heights through Feb. 25^th is so much more to my liking. The play and the production under the astute direction of Jacole Kitchen bring about a partial triumph over love and hate, reconciliation, acceptance and recovery.

In “Dreams”, the South Korean native focuses in on a North Korean defector who left her family behind and only through the wonders of the Internet, found romance with a South Korean father whose family now lives in the U.S. The play pivots between North and South Korea.

“Cardboard Piano” takes place in Northern Uganda where teenagers Chris (Kate Rose Reynolds), whose father is an American Christian missionary and Adiel, a native Ugandan, (Andréa Agosto) are in love.

They are preparing to recite their wedding vows and get out of dodge to settle in Tunisia. Same sex marriage is against the law in Uganda and the girls, after their secret ceremony, plan to leave. Outside their window a civil war rages.

Kate Rose Retnolds and Andrea Agosto

The two dance to the music of “Unchained Melody” and prepare to gather their things when a young Ugandan rebel, thirteen- year old Pika (John Wells III) falls into the room and passes out. They tie him before tending to his wounds (his ear was severed). The two girls agree, “We have to escape this place, (metaphorically) this prison.”

To calm his nerves and rebuff Pika’s remorse at not being a good person worthy of having a good soul, Chris tells him a little story of how she always wanted a piano. Knowing that her parents couldn’t afford a real one, her father made her a cardboard one of cereal boxes. It so angered the child that she tore it to shreds.

Soon after she found the piano in her father’s study all pieced together. “Every time we break something, it’s OK as long as we fix it. And I did, so it’s ok.” Pika: “I do not know how to fix my soul.” This story will come back to haunt Pika /Paul, but no spoilers here.

Now properly bandaged and successfully hiding Pika from one of the rebel soldiers (Wrekless Watson) who came looking for him, the girls are so relieved that they kiss for relief in celebration of their accomplishment.

Andrea Agosto and John Wells III

Seeing this Pika, who had returned to the scene of his rescue, is witness to this wrongful act and shoots at the girls while making a getaway. “What were you, you were doing like a man and his wife.”

Fast forward fifteen years and Chris has returned to the Mission to burry her father’s ashes on the hallowed grounds around the church. Inside Paul (Wrekless Watson) the new pastor, is rehearsing his sermon in front of his wife of two years, Ruth (Andréa Acosta) in the now fixed up chapel her parents built.

Wrekless Watson and Andrea Agosto

Ruth and Paul go back and forth about his sermon on forgiveness, neighbors helping neighbors and zeroing in on just who their neighbors might be.  The discussion volleys take on new meaning when Ruth brings up  the mention of Francis (John Wells III), a young and frightened congregant who is being banished from the church by Paul because he is a   homosexual.  

Jung’s play is an eye opener on all fronts but in the main just how closely the characters and attitudes in “Cardboard Piano” mime just what is going on in our country today. Homophobia, hypocrisy in the church by closing eyes to abuse, xenophobia, racism, prejudice, you name it and it’s all there. And like the message in Chris’ story, where is the forgiveness and how do we continue to fix what we perpetuate after the Genie has been let out of the bottle?

Kate Rose Reynolds

With strong performances by the talented, and making their debut’s on Diversionary stage, the cast of four in ‘Piano’ forge headlong into these probing issues.

Kate Rose Reynold' Chris has just the right looks, facial expressions and demeanor to make her character as strong as she needs be. As the only white person and as an American, her views reflect the upight and on the other hand, non filtered opinions and accusations. She doesn't let Paul off the hook for his past indescretions, Pastor or not. 

Andréa Agosto is beautifully nuanced as both Adiel and Ruth. Her soft spoken and reassuring voice is so lyrical and expressive that one could listen all day. Jennifer Braun Giddings' native and colorful costume in Act II is simply stunning. Agosto wears it well.

Andrea Agosto

Kristin Flores designed an impressive interior in both acts aided by Chris Mueller’s lighting design and Haley Wolf’s sound design. Keeping everything moving as it should Jacob Bruce’s fight choreography is top notch.

Wrekless Johnson serves both his characters well; first as the brutal soldier in Act I but more commanding in his performance as Paul in Act II trying to hide the truth from Chris and then showing the seething anger trying to justify his place in his community. 

John Wells III makes a strong impression as Pika in Act I but his role as the young gay man being ostracized from the church is a bit underwritten. Most of the story orbits around the other three and if some of it doesn’t rankle you, you’re in the wrong place. 

This gets two thumbs up. 

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through Feb. 25th

Organization: Diversionary Theatre

Phone: 619-220-0097

Production Type: Drama

Where: 4545Park Blvd. 92126

Ticket Prices: Start at $15.00

Web: diversionary.org

Photo: Simpatika

“Cloud Tectonics” At New Village Arts Still Mesmerizes.

New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad is currently mounting José Rivera’s 1995 dream play “Cloud Tectonics” through Feb. 25^th.

Twenty- three years ago the La Jolla Playhouse produced “Cloud Tectonics” in the Mandell Weiss Theatre with Tina Landau directing and starred Camilla Sanes and Louis Antonio Ramo. The memory is still vivid in my mind.

Poster from 1995 Production

I found Rivera’s splay mesmerizing then. Today under the deft direction of Herbert Sigüenza with the gorgeous Nadia Guevara and equally handsome Jose Balistrieri as the two protagonists Celestina del Sol and Aníbal de la Luna, I am still in awe of the enchantment it radiates and the questions it raises.

We can talk about time standing still, or of time fleeting. In any event time is something we all need more of. In the José Rivera’s “Cloud Tectonics”, time stands still for Celestina del Sol, who according to her own calculations has been pregnant for the past two years and is about 50 years old.

We first meet Christina thumbing a ride at the bus stop at the corner of Virgil and Santa Monica and very pregnant and it is pouring ‘cat’s and dogs’. She is looking for the baby’s father. “He’s a very handsome and dishonest man.”

 Aníbal, on his way home from work, can't just leave her there so stops and gives her a ride. “You’re just out there hitching? In a hurricane? Pregnant” For fun?”… “it’s the storm of the century and nobody should out in it.”

Jose Balistrieri and Nadia Guevara

“Raging floods on Fairfax…bodies floating down the LA River. LAX closed (He’s a luggage handler at the airport.)…if the Big One came right now, forget it, half the city would die.  But that’s LA for you: disasters just waiting to happen.”

As one thing leads to another we learn that she has no place to go, she’s childlike and has no concept of time (“I was safe in my house! Papi and Mami had it all worked out for me! They took away all the clocks.”) They finally end up in Echo Park at Aníbal’s place ‘until the rain stops.’ 

Just how long they stay together is a mystery. From the moment they enter Aníbal’s place, time stops. All clocks register 12:00 and remain that way for the rest of the scene. He wants to know how far along she is in her pregnancy, “Isn’t knowing how pregnant you are a little basic? Like knowing your age?”

They go through the motions of toweling off. He makes quesadilla, they engage in small talk; the baby, what it was like in her room in Montauk where there was no order, everything was on top of everything.

One has wonder if we haven’t entered into the Twilight Zone. “Time? Is time blue? Does it taste like steak? Can you f**ck it? Or is it just the freight train that runs you over every single day breaking you into smaller and smaller pieces?”

Knowingly or unknowingly love is in the air, at least for the time Celestina and Aníbal are together. They are interrupted by the arrival of Aníbal’s brother Nelson (Javier Guerrero) just on leave from the Army wearing some weird looking ‘uniform’.

Jose Balistrieri and Javier Guerrero

The brothers, as different as night and day have not seen each other in six years. The apartment comes to life with his arrival. He’s robust, loud and doesn’t hesitate to show his feelings good or bad. He falls over heels in love with Celestina and wants her to promise she will wait for him when he returns from the war in Syria. (The original text reads Bosnia). He will take over the role as father to her long overdue baby.

Nadia Guevara with Javier Guerre

From the ethereal to the reality when the clock starts ticking, what emerges from the ashes of ‘The Big One’ or Armageddon  – a monster with seven epicenters-releasing unimaginable waves of energy and killing many unprepared people", will blow your mind.

But by plays end, nothing is as we might expect. A brave new world?  Hold on to your hats. Rivera has so pretty ingteresting thoughts on how the world will transform after all is destroyed.

Sigüenza has a mighty reliable cast in hand making this magical realism, this enchanting piece of theatre flow naturally. While the world outside is headed for a disaster, two lovers float through time, as it stands still, in a tiny apartment in a suburb of Los Angeles.

Nadia Guevara, last seen in “The Secret Garden” has all the naïve and youthful qualities about her, yet she radiates a sexiness that attracts men to her. She plays well off of Balistrieri who is almost able to get his feet on the ground while floating through space falling in love with a mysterious woman who takes hold of his being.

Aníbal: “What better way to respond to a miracle than to fall in love with it?”

Surreal and mysterious from the start, the play seems to take on a life of its own as the two lovers, one named for the sun the other the moon lose each, lurch forward in another moment in time some forty years later, and find each other in a surprising turn as the hands of time have now caught with them.

The Bed and all its celestial surroundings

Set designer Christopher Scott Murillo creates a small, but functioning apartment with racks holding huge plastic bottles of water, a sofa and in an area off stage, a kitchen. After pulling back a shower like curtain, a huge bed with ladders on either side to climb takes over the entire back stage while plastic umbrellas line the sides.

Rain and thunder can be heard throughout most of the play created by sound designer Mark Spiro who also composed the background music. Paul Canaletti, JR. makes wonderful use of the lighting, Ben Cole is fight choreographer and Carmen Amon designed the costumes.

There is something fascinating about time and time travel that draws me to a play like this. What would it be like to travel through time or back in time, or to stand still in time? If that were the case what would we find, lose, or gain? What could we change, stop from happening, or live in that period, somewhat like the characters in Dana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series.

Time in a bottle, anyone?

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through Feb. 25th

Organization: New Village Arts

Phone: 760-433-3245

Production Type: Fantasy

Where: 2787 State Street, Carlsbad, CA, Carlsbad Village

Ticket Prices: Start at $33.00

Web: newvillagearts.org

Venue: New Village Arts Theatre

Photo: Daren Scott

San Diego Rep’s “Vietgone”: A Love Story and A War Story and A Story To Be Savored.

The San Diego Repertory Theatre in downtown San Diego is currently staging the San Diego premiere of Qui Nguyen’s “Vietgone” through Feb.18^th.

It’s a love story, a war story, as far as we know a true story and an original. I loved every one hundred twenty plus minutes of it. Off the bat, Bravo to director Jesca Prudencio and playwright Qui Nguyen.

Lawrence Kao and Ben Levin

Nguyen’s story comes alive from the get-go when Shaun Tuazon (who plays no less than five different characters) steps to the stage and introduces himself as the playwright. He then reads off the customary pre show announcements: “Note the exit(s) (in this case the Lyceum has only one), candy wrappings, and cell phone turned off, no recording devices and we are off to the races.

And then:  ‘all characters in this work are purely fictitious? But. What?  So one could say that everything is real as far as the eye sees, it’s just the way the eye sees it? Naw! Stick around.   

For years, my consciousness did not want to see, hear, and know any more about the war in Vietnam, having lived through ten years of it blaring out on our TV set with more images than I care to remember.

And yes, I was one of those against our going there, staying there, losing ‘our boys’ there and treating them like dirt when they came back…and the fact we are still dealing with the drugs, the homelessness, the wounded and for all I know, a thousand other ongoing tragedies cause by our politicians’ lies, gnaws at me.

But, I must confess, Nguyen’s blatant in your face politically offensive to some, creatively sexy, and unapologetically insulting to many (“Fly Lise! Fly Lice! Who rikey eating fly lice?”) is probably the only way to get our attention in his originality and not being afraid to put it all on the line. (“Damn, there’s whole lot of white people up there.”)

His story changed my mind, rightly or wrongly in many ways. When I exited the theatre, I was sold. No spoilers here, but I do have a lot to think about.

The story starts out in 1975 and flashes back and forth in time from the evacuation of Saigon by helicopter pilot Quang (Ben Levin is a beautiful hunk of a guy) to the USS Midway and then to a resettlement camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.

The accommodations might not have been the best, (they bitched about the food) but they were alive. However while Quang was busy rescuing the last of the free Vietnamese, his wife and two children somehow were left behind.

God are you up there watching me
 raging here with this hostility
 Please - don’t let this be - my reality
 That this quest is just a quest - in futility

I just wanna see my boy grow up to be a man Hear my daughter call me dad
 Hold them both and sing them songs
 Don’t tell me - these dreams are gone

At the camp he meets Tong (an exceptionally beautiful Katherine Ko) who has no qualms about having a few tumbles in bed, bunk or on floor with Quang, but is not ready for a serious romance. She is hell bent on assimilating. She plans to enroll in an adopt a family program to get her started on the road to getting work and ‘blend in’ with our American culture.

Emily Coligado and Lawrence Kao

Tong and her mother Huong (Emily Coligado) are at opposite ends of the spectrum on that front. Huong wants to keep her Vietnamese identity and doesn’t understand her daughter. That thinking becomes a minor sticking point when it comes to the food they eat, the language they speak and her so called motherly instincts for her daughter to marry.(“ Do you see what they feed us? Meat. Just plates of meat. And vegetables that have been so deep fried they only taste like grease and salt.”)

Quang, who was familiar with our landscape (he was trained here in San Diego) is lonesome for his family and is on a quest to reunite with them. His plan is to bike it from Arkansas to Camp Pendleton and then hop a plane to Guam to and then fly back to Vietnam (undercover) and reunite with his family.

With his friend Nhan (a perfectly wonderful Lawrence Kao) close behind, they bike it from Arkansas to Camp Pendleton. He then hopes to hop a plane to Guam, then a boat once there and reunite with his family. Overall these are some of funniest scenes in the show once the two are on the road and what and who they meet along the way.

From Justin Humphries comic book projections, scenic and kaleidoscope backdrops of the rolling countryside, along with the horrific film clips of those trying to flee Saigon before it falls, to George Ye’s martial arts battles, to Bo Tindell’s lighting and whoever provided the next to disastrous looking rusted out junk bike the two rode from Arkansas to California to make this long trip the production is simply startling in it’s originality.

Be prepared also for the characters to break out in rap that sounded a lot like the the rap in “Hamilton” (thank goodness for that ‘cause otherwise yours truly would have been in the dark. The lyrics are Nguyen and composed by Melanie Chen Cole (also sound designer).

(“Ironically we’re the ones they call lucky ones-But can we make a new life now that our old lives are done? America tries to help us start all over – By putting us in camps in the middle of nowhere.”)

Just when you thought you knew what was coming next Nguyen pulls the rug out from under our feet and when the final scene is played out, again something I never saw coming, I took a deep breath and shook my head, it was the deal breaker

Katherine Ko and Ben Levin

Without a doubt there isn’t a weak link in Prudencio’s cast. Ben Levin’s Quang, Katherine Ko’s Tong love making is steamy to say the least. Lawrence Kao’s Nhan and Emily Coligado’ Huong are perfectly suited as Quang’s best friend and Tong’s trashy mouthed - mother who just wants her daughter to settle down and have a family. Unfortunately, Tong doesn’t believe in marriage. We’ll see.

But it’s Shaun Tauzon who takes the spotlight each time he’s on stage as one of his five different characters from playwright to hippy to Redneck Biker wrapped in the stars and stripes, to translator. He was last seen locally in  “The Buddy Holly Story” as La Bamba. Such star power is not to be overlooked.

Hats off to the Rep. for continuing to bring diversity to our community. 

See you at the theatre.

Dates: Through Feb. 18th

Organization: San Diego Repertory Theatre

Phone: 619-544-1000

Production Type: Comedy/

Where: 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, CA92101

Ticket Prices: Range from $20.00 to $65.00

Web: sdrep.org

Venue: Lyceum Theatre

Photo: Daren Scott