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Tag: Review
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THEATER REVIEW: King of the Yees
Sierra Madre PlayhouseEvery so often I make it a point to see plays that I’ve seen before – plays I thought terrific or felt could have been done better. In the latter case, when the play is done better, it’s an especial joy. This is the case with the current Sierra Madre Playhouse production of King of the Yees (through June 12), which I reviewed when it was at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2017. Whereas I found that previous production great fun, I thought it marred by an overly manic tone and an underly energetic lead. I’m happy to report that this production directed by Tim Dang is just right, with pitch-perfect casting and staging.
Lauren & the Chiropractor (Harmony Zhang, Tom Dang); Sierra Madre Playhouse; Photo by Robert Velasco Lauren Yee’s semi-autobiographical play is about Chinatown, and what it means, told through the story of a father-daughter relationship at a turning point. It begins with Lauren, a 30ish Chinese American woman (Miley Yamamoto), and Larry, her father (Christopher Chen), standing in front of the Yee Fung Toy Family Association building. They’re arguing whether the tradition-bound association, or Chinatown for that matter, has any relevance anymore. Then we realize it’s a rehearsal when they’re interrupted by the “real” Larry (Dennis Dun). At which point the “real” Lauren (Harmony Zhang), author of the play, appears. She has already moved to New York, and plans to move even farther — to Berlin, where her non-Chinese husband has found a job. Of course, he doesn’t like it that she’s leaving, while she feels guilty but knows her life has to move on.
(Miley Yamamoto, Christopher Chen); Courtesy of Sierra Madre Playhouse; Photo by Robert Velasco The playwright presents a number of Chinese stereotypes in this play – the overbearing parent, the Chinatown gangster, the carping shopkeeper, the healer with the long white beard — but she gives them a fresh twist, so that we both laugh at and with them. The set is simple and spare, dominated by a large red double-door. It’s the door to the association, and also serves the door to the Netherworld, through which Larry later disappears. In repeatedly speaking directly to the audience and having actors appear in the audience’s space, “King” cleverly breaks down the “fourth wall” of theater.
FBI & Shrimp Boy Shootout (Miley Yamamoto, Harmony Zhang, Christopher Chen); Courtesy of Sierra Madre Playhouse; Photo by Robert Velasco I can’t say enough about the terrific cast, with extra kudos to Dennis Dun, who manages to inject real pathos into a character – Lauren’s father – who can too easily veer into dismissible caricature. I also want to mention the fifth actor, Tom Dang, who adeptly and often hilariously jumped into multiple roles, including the healer with the long white beard and also a wildly colorful Yee ancestor.
If you’ve not been to the Playhouse before, it may be small, but it is very charming, with good sight lines all around. All in all, well worth the trek to Sierra Madre.
Sierra Madre Playhouse
87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd.
Sierra Madre, CA 91024
For ticket info, check: https://www.sierramadreplayhouse.org/ -
Book Review: STREET ART & SOCCER
“The Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology in Football Fan Graffiti and Street Art” By Mitja VelikonjaThe Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology
in Football Fan Graffiti and Street ArtBy Mitja Velikonja
176 pages
DoppelHouse Press
Graffiti and street art are often considered synonymous since they affect the urban environment in similar ways. But graffiti is onomastic: the essential purpose is to advertise one’s presence; it’s the big “I am” that challenges metropolitan anonymity. That is also achieved with latrinalia, slogans and phrases that serve as necessary disruption of daily life. Graffiti is a platform for outsider political and social activism among those who consider themselves silenced or purposefully omitted from larger societal colloquies.
Unlike street art, which is generally sanctioned and can remain an element of the street for an extended amount of time, graffiti is illegal and temporary. Consequently, some writers and sticker-bombers prefer membership in a group from which graffitaro can anonymously promote that to which they pledge allegiance. In Europe, soccer fans known as ultras typically design and produce their own stickers, pasteups and wall pieces promoting their favorite Football Club (FC). These remarkable DIY designs are featured in Mitja Velikonja’s scholarly illustrated book The Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology in Football Fan Graffiti and Street Art, which examines the relationship between European soccer teams and their graffiti-oriented, street activist fans.
Velikonja posits that sticker bombing and stenciling reveal how soccer fan graffiti is never ideologically neutral or apolitical, and the statements being made often cover more than a single issue. The observation that soccer is a “means by the powerful to pit workers against workers in competition and as a potential tool for nationalism” means that in some cases the graffiti is about intense societal differences as well as sports rivalry. In The Chosen Few, Velikonja discusses such direct display of political preferences and values, as well as fans’ self-image and the recognizable aesthetics of their stickers or stencils.
The Chosen Few book cover, image by Tauras Stalnionis Much of the graffiti and street art in The Chosen Few relies on altered versions of iconography already familiar to the public. This ensures that passersby, attracted by the striking image, will examine the sticker long enough to parse that it’s promoting a specific soccer team. For example, one sticker bomber fan of Slovenian Celje Football Club uses a metonymic image of Travis from the film Taxi Driver and the line “I got some bad ideas in my head” to express their disdain for other teams and non-fan society in general. The negative side of this “economy of means” is that present-day advocates of the extreme right resort to displaying swastikas and other Nazi symbols to promote their favorite soccer club, even though ironically, that team might have nothing to do with such ideology.
Although graffiti is an ancient method of visual communication, it is only in the last 20 years that it has matured to become a familiar element of self-expression in the urban arena. Consequently, Velikonja’s analyses are an essential addition to any discussion about the connection between football and graffiti, as well as its effect on social affairs in the streets. To be sure, an abundance of facts is necessary to support a thesis, but in this case it weighs down the fascinating nature of the subject. Velikonja’s exhaustive research makes The Chosen Few so dense that, while a compelling read, it could use a little more about markers and less about Marx.
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Top Films of 2021
What a year, and what a year for films—many of them delayed in production or distribution due to COVID, but roaring back as the theaters reopened. Below is my list of top theatrically released films of 2021; films I have had a chance to see thus far.
I’m struck by how many were directed by women—a group which usually represents less than 10% of directors in the top 250 grossing films in the US, according to the long-running “Celluloid Ceiling” study. In my list, they are more than half. It’s also interesting that several super-hero/sci-fi films made my list—it’s not a genre I’m fond of, because they usually rely heavily on traditional and very tired tropes with white guys saving the world—but the ones below are not typical.
Marvel Studios’ BLACK WIDOW. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved. Black Widow
Directed by Cate ShortlandMore blow-’em-up action from the Marvel franchise, but the backstory to Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and her foster sister (Florence Pugh) makes this a better than average superhero saga. You see, both were raised to be spies and assassins by the nasty Patriarch to serve his nefarious ends.
CODA, 2021 CODA
Directed by Sian HederA coming-of-age film about Ruby, a 17-year-old living with her deaf, working-class family in Gloucester, MA. She’s discovered music, and yearns to leave and continue her studies, yet wants to remain part of that family. The film is anchored by a most winning performance by Emilia Jones as Ruby.
Drive My Car, 2021 Drive My Car
Directed by Ryusuke HamaguchiThis quiet masterpiece takes its time unpeeling layers of the characters’ complicated and unhappy pasts. Trying to forget his wife’s untimely death, a stage director (Hidetoshi Nishijima) goes to Hiroshima, casting for and rehearsing a multi-lingual version of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” while being chauffeured around by a young woman (Toko Miura) with an unexpected past of her own. Miura is mesmerizing, playing someone numbed by tragedy, and who survives by keeping a close watch on the world around her and filtering the truth from lies.
Dune, 2021 Dune
Directed by Denis VilleneuveTrue, this film is ponderous and bloated, but wow, is it epic! In adapting the sci-fi classic by Frank Herbert, auteur Denis Villeneuve creates a good ripping yarn about a hero’s journey on a faraway planet patrolled by giant worms. Young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) has to protect his family and save the enslaved people of this strange new world. The casting of hypnotic Rebecca Ferguson as his sorceress mother is brilliant.
Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved. Eternals
Directed by Chloe ZhaoLong ago 10 Eternals were put on earth to fight the Deviants whenever they showed up. This film has a slow burn, but at the end you feel the moral dilemma of the superheroes’ mission and the split in their loyalties to one another. Despite being handicapped with the need to tell too many stories, director Chloe Zhao has injected real heart into this increasingly eroded genre.
King Richard, 2021 King Richard
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus GreenThe story of tennis-dad Richard Williams, whose ambition for his two daughters, Venus and Serena, led to their becoming world-class tennis champions. Will Smith plays the dad, with charm and conviction.
Lamb, 2021 Lamb
Directed by Valdimar JóhannssonA childless couple on a remote sheep farm in Iceland find themselves with a gift child—except is the child theirs to have? You feel their loneliness, you feel their joy, and you feel their deep fear of loss in this remarkable debut feature.
Power of the Dog, 2021 The Power of the Dog
Directed by Jane CampionCampion returns to the big screen after a decade-long hiatus with this Western about the toxic masculinity that undergirds so many Westerns. Set on a cattle ranch in 1920s Montana, the movie has Benedict Cumberbatch playing a bullying Alpha male who decides to take his brother’s new bride (Kirsten Dunst) down a few notches—partly by training her “sissy” son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) in manly ways.
Never Gonna Show Again, 2021 Never Gonna Snow Again
Directed by Małgorzata SzumowskaThis is a strange and strangely memorable fable about a kindly masseuse (Alec Utgoff) who works the homes in a wealthy gated community in Poland—entering lives filled with silence and sadness.
In the Same Breath, 2021 In the Same Breath
Directed by Nanfu WangThis documentary covers the unfolding of the COVID crisis in China —including government denial followed by the complete shutdown of Wuhan, the first pandemic city. The interviews with ordinary people who caught the virus, lost loved ones, and worked in hospitals are compelling. Wang shows how the crisis has been twisted to political ends, in both China and the US.
Velvet Underground, 2021 The Velvet Underground
Directed by Todd HaynesThe story of Lou Reed, John Cale and the band that created that pre-punk wall of sound against the backdrop of New York’s art scene in the 1960s. At one point they were the house band of Andy Warhol’s notorious Factory.
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Books: Jona Frank and John Divola
SoCal Photographers Cover It AllJona Frank’s new book, Cherry Hill, came out this spring almost simultaneously, but coincidentally, at the same time as another book, Terminus, by another SoCal photographer, John Divola. The coincidence is as fortunate as it is fortuitous because their subjects and approaches could not be more different. Even the geography in which they worked is far-flung, with Frank’s attention focused nearby on a Santa Monica lifestyle, while Divola’s ranges northeast to an abandoned military base in Victorville, CA. Though Divola’s is the more esoteric work, each photographer is at the top of his/her game.
In Frank’s Cherry Hill (above) the photographs are heartfelt but amusing. They could be straight out of a soap opera, if the episodes were soulful rather than facetious. What she has created is more of a sitcom. Movie actress Laura Dern plays a mom who is raising a daughter in a vintage Santa Monica home. We see the tussle between mother and daughter as the latter progresses from a bawling infant to an obstreperous 23 year old. Along the way, she assumes, naturally, that she’s much smarter, better, etc., than her mom. Dern sets the pace for the mutual frustration between mother and child as the daughter grows up.
from Terminus page 23, © John Divola John Divola’s Terminus is a book larger in format than Frank’s but with far fewer pages. All these photographs were, like the one above, made in abandoned houses on the closed George Air Force Base in Victorville. All were, Divola tells us, “exposed as b&w negatives in 2016.” Each looks down a narrow hallway toward a wall on which
Divola has spray-painted a black, sometimes mishappen circle. The deterioration that the hallways reveal is pitted against the indeterminant abstraction of the black circles. Little by little the camera advances down these halls until the image becomes just a vertical, black space—an inescapable end point. -
Pick of the Week: Tiffanie Delune & Kaye Freeman
Band of VicesIt is no stretch to say that the COVID-19 pandemic – principal among several other tragedies, injustices, and horrors over the past year – has fundamentally altered the way we see our world. It has revealed inequities more sharply than any other time in recent memory, and has left in it’s wake unimaginable anger, fear, and death. In The Midst of All That Is, the newest show at the gallery Band of Vices from artists Kaye Freeman and Tiffanie Delune, portrays the only two perspectives that seem to exist in the world of pandemic: the broadly global and the intensely personal.
Freeman’s work catches the eye with her frenetic, expressive style. The paintings appear like snapshots, capturing a brief instant of chaotic energy and motion. They move quickly, and won’t wait for you to catch up. There are recognizable landmarks in her works, from cranes and skyscrapers to the Capitol building, boasting shadowy figures in front of the landmark in an example of artistic clairvoyance.
What shines through most in Freeman’s work are the elements of construction or reconstruction (perhaps even deconstruction.) It’s reflective of the transitory period in which we find our country. There has been an unimaginable amount of loss in this past year, and yet for those of us who remain there exists the incredibly important task of building ourselves up to what we’ve believed ourselves to be for so long.
Delune’s work is, by contrast, introspective to the degree of being auto-biographical as she draws on her Belgo-Congolese heritage. In her absolutely enchanting paintings, figures, such as the young black girl in Hot Pepper, are lost in a mystical land. Some are cautiously present, or else composed of something entirely different to their environment and thus set apart. This is the case for the figures made of embroidery floss, which unravel themselves for their own amusement.
As opposed to Freeman’s chaotic aesthetic, Delune’s works are remarkably structured. In its Kandinksy-esque freedom, elements appear to have settled on the canvas in the most natural of orders, and not a leaf or flower is out of place. This month in Los Angeles, there is hardly better painting to see than works from Tiffanie Delune.
Band of Vices
5376 W Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016
Appointments can be made by email -
Pick of the Week: Andy Moses
William Turner GalleryNature has been the font from which many artists have taken their inspirational sacrament. And it is a pleasure to see an artist who takes that inspiration and so masterfully manifests the power and majesty of our natural world into something entirely new, which is what you will find at Andy Moses’ solo show of recent works at the William Turner Gallery.
Andy Moses is not new on the scene. He has worked as part of the cadre of post-modern greats for most of his career, and has maintained his unique aesthetic sensibility and only ever refined it further. While previous works appear other-worldly, Moses’ collection on display now is far more grounded.
The first works of note are the collection of honeycombed smaller canvases that sit in the back left. They harmonize wonderfully with one another, and offer a natural starting point to the rest of the show. The paint churns and spins, rebounding off one another and appearing like brilliant geodes or St. Elmo’s Fire. These are the groundwork, so to speak, and from here the canvases get larger and take on lives of their own.
The large hexagonal and circular paintings really illustrate Moses’ desired swirling and spiraling effects, drawing the viewer into the whirlpool of brilliantly vibrant color. The gold in particular appears to leap off the canvas like a great whip of light. Here, the lines ebb into and around one another, colliding and crashing like lava flows and ocean waves.
But finally, the true gems of the show are the landscapes. The curved canvases create a panoramic effect, as if looking over a misty marsh or rainbows dancing lightly over rivers. The colors are hypnotic, and the lines which stack and flow one on top of another give the works both height and breadth.
Many words describe the paintings on display at William Turner Gallery: iridescent, geodetic, entrancing, to say just a few. But no words do Andy Moses’ works true justice, as just like in nature, to truly appreciate their beauty you must immerse yourself in them.
