King O’Leary ~ Saturdays and Sundays in August at 11AM @ 9070 Venice Blvd. ~ FREE

One afternoon in Old Havana,  I huddled in a barroom along with a dozen others in the midst of a vengeful downpour. From our dry perch, we watched a skinny drunken man with a mustache stumble down the cobblestone street and pause in the slanted rain. Screaming and shouting at the sky until his veins struggled to escape his neck, he was knocked down by the elements. Each time he slipped, he would pick himself up again, defiant in the rain, and straining. His heavy drenched wife-beater started sliding off his thin frame, but soused and insane, he kept on in one of the most tortured physical displays I’ve witnessed. Knocked down again and again by the merciless ferocity of nature, he fought just as relentlessly with the invisible demons blocking his path.

King Lear, lost and stripped in the wilderness, has an equally powerful moment in his eponymous play. He is no longer king with a castle, or father to three doting girls, but a lone fool among battering showers and haunted winds that fight around and within him, clawing desperately at his buried soul. Whether reading the play’s text or soaking in Kurosawa’s lush Samurai masterpiece Ran (a twist on Lear and Japanese myth with a dose of Lady Macbeth), or even finding parallels in other plays, this moment hits me hardest of any, cutting through the postures of identity and into the tragedy of an identity lost. In the end, whether we are kings, stars or beggars, we are naked and we are alone. King Lear is the tragedy of fooling yourself with material wealth, with yes-men, and self-grandeur, and the challenge of finding truth beneath life’s many facades. But that’s King Lear, and this is King O’Leary!

If life has taught me anything, it’s to turn tragedy into comedy, something The Actor’s Gang has mastered in transforming Lear into O’Leary, a free weekend production in the park for families which gleefully melds Shakespeare with Pee Wee’s Playhouse and a demented Howdy Doody Show episode. The talented Actor’s Gang cast becomes a living, breathing, mad-capped cartoon, and like Shrek or Toy Story, manages to keep adults laughing longer than the kids, with rapid-fire riffs on pop culture and sly bawdiness. All this just to warm up for their afternoon matinees of Bury the Dead, an anti-warfare play currently showing in the Ivy Substation, featuring some of these here same actors.

Lear is the story of a ruler who finds he’s “too old to cut the mustard anymore” and divides his kingdom among his daughters, splitting the lands between the two who flatter him with words, while exiling the one who loves him but speaks not a word of praise. King O’Leary sets the show’s themes of greed in the Old West, specifically a prospector’s boom town.

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I suggest Harry Potter fans stay away from the Rogue Artists‘ adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s “The Comical Tragedy OR Tragical Comedy of MR. PUNCH.” It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s not for humans period. It’s for puppets. Only creatures made of wood can withstand this two-hour ride on the planet of the puppets where humans’ distorted features forever expose the latent predator in all of us. Think twice before you step in the theater, because, like The Professor (Tom Ashworth) says to his apprentice: “When you put Mr. Punch on, there’s no taking him off. ”

The Punch (Tom Ashworth) and Judy (Miles Taber) show.

MR. PUNCH is the story of a young man (Miles Taber) reminiscing about a life-changing summer when as a Boy (Connor Merkovich/Sean Eaton,) despite grumbling and protesting, his parents sent him away to spend the summer at His Grandpa’s (Dana Kelly, Jr.) Grandpa runs a fair by the sea with The Boy’s hunchback Uncle (Kerr Seth Lordygan.) The young parents laugh at The Boy’s desire to stay with them and cut even deeper by adding that Grandpa might eat him for supper.

Settled by the English seaside, the Boy spends most of his time with the fair’s main attraction: Mr. Punch. “Families are supposed to love each other,” he whines while watching Mr. Punch torturing his newborn. The star miniature obeys the little master. Suddenly, flowers bloom on the tiny stage. The sun rises. But the Creature takes a 360 degree turn to spew a “IT’S MYYY WOOORRRLLLD TOO!” so convincing it blew the house down. Think before you enter. Disneyland’ small world might never ever feel the same. It is a Mr. Punch’s world and Mr. Punch does whatever the hell he wants.

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TWO COMEDY SHOWS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS IN AUGUST:

“EL VERDE” opens on August 1st FOR TWO WEEKENDS ONLY!!!! at CASA 0101, 2009 E. 1st Street, LA, CA 90033. Click here to read about the episodes I saw at Casa 0101 last year. For more information go to www.casa0101.org.

Also opening this weekend is the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors’  all new sketch comedy “JUST LIKE WHITE PEOPLE” which is “SAVAGELY FUNNY yet STRANGELY CIVILIZED!”

July 31st through August 24th. Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun @8pm at THE COMPLEX (Ruby Theater), 6476 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90038 (west of Highland Ave.)

$15 General, $12 Students/Seniors, $10 groups of SIX or more. $5 for Preview July 31st.
Buy out the house for $8 each! 2 for 1 every Sunday! (sorry, no doubling on discounts!)
Special: if you pay to see the show once, you can see it again for FREE if you bring a paying friend!

Kanzo. Photo by Mikel Healey.

frankiely: Tell us about your first encounter with Burlesque.

KANZO: My first time was at the Fourty Deuce on Melrose where they do a mainstream kind of burlesque. I felt so empowered by it. I didn’t feel ashamed to watch. It was such a relief to feel good about something that can be considered bad. This was not degrading to women, men were not throwing money at them saying come over here and do this sexual act for me. It was accepted in the room that this was a performance and I was so taken by the connection the girls had with the audience since I’m a performer as well. I was blown away by what they did and how they did it with such confidence. They didn’t take everything off and they were able to captivate and suspend the audience’s attention by teasing them… which is what it’s about.

frankiely: Can you expand on that? Being a French woman by trade, burlesque to me evokes Laurel & Hardy usually with their clothes on.

KANZO: Burlesque in major cities has changed over time, it died and was revived and died again and was revived again. What is interesting here in Los Angeles is that the girls make a comment, maybe political, social or cultural like La Cholita…

KANZO: She’s a great performer and dancer, her persona comments on how we see Chicanos or Latin people in our culture today, maybe not immigrants from Mexico or Central America but the pocha, if you want to say the term… the Chicana of Los Angeles. She dresses up in very traditional forms of folkloric dresses but she has her twist for the new generation. She represents neo-burlesque, the new wave, the new Chicana, what it is to be a Latina in today’s L.A.

Each performer has their own personality, their own act. Ruby Champagne calls herself the Mexican Spitfire of Burlesque; her inspiration comes from the 1930’s Golden era of Mexican cinema. She’s got the glamorous look. Her routines are very classic, it’s not just about the body and about stripping, it’s about her as this persona and you follow her dialogue, her dance, and yes it involves taking off clothes but it’s really about the revealing of the personality.

Ruby Champagne. Photo by Laura Creecy.

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Toraichi Kono and Charlie Chaplin.

I attended two out of the three plays presented at EdgeFest’s LA History Project at the Autry National Center last Sunday. Circle X’s 1pm production of Tom Jacobson’s “The Chinese Massacre” which “chronicles the first race riot in Los Angeles history, when 19 Chinese men and boys were lynched by a mob of 500 people from all nations” was a truly impressive debut even if still in the workshopping stage. The play generated many laughs while staying true to the hard facts. Or attempting to. Indeed, some of the funniest moments were born out of the playwright’s desire to confess to us that all the research he did came from press clippings and studies that might or might not tell the absolute truth. Sometimes the playwright gave us two points of view on the same person or incident from two different sources with two very different agendas, which made the play very timely as we’re dealing with two presidential candidates with two very different versions of our future, our past and our present. I highly recommend that you add your name to Circle X’s e-mail list to stay informed about the future of this disturbing yet necessary play.

I stayed for the next presentation: the first act of Lodestone Theatre Ensemble’s “My Man Kono” written by Philip W. Chung and directed by Jeff Liu about Toraichi Kono who was Charles Chaplin’s valet for 17 years “before being arrested as a Japanese enemy spy on the eve of World War II.” This first act was extremely moving and also enlightening - does anybody know that Charlies Chaplin was the subject of an attack on his life while visiting Japan? - thanks to a terrific cast all around and an outstanding Garrett Wang as Toraichi Kono, all impassive face and bottled up emotions against Donovan Oakleaf’s Charlie Chaplin pirouetting around the stage with open arms and an overflowing heart. I must say when the play began I was embarrassed for whoever had the formidable task of bringing Charlie Chaplin to life but that’s exactly what Donovan Oakleaf did and I’m still recovering from the shock of having been in the genius’ presence. I also recommend that you go to Lodestone’s website to get a chance one day in the near…distant… future, as Philip W. Chung promised us, to witness this intriguing pair who, ironically, ended up having more in common when they grew apart.

Here is Sunday’s line-up for Part II of the festival:

11 AM
Watts Village Theater Company
At Risk
By Judy Soo Hoo
Directed by David Catanzarite
In a fictional middle school in South Los Angeles, every student is at risk, and so is every teacher. Watts Village Theater Company’s offering to the festival explores the history of United Teachers of Los Angeles through the eyes of a rookie and the motley band of veterans who get him through his first year.

1PM
About Productions
Bleeding Through
Written by Teresa Chavez and Rose Portillo
Directed by Teresa Chavez
A multi-media work inspired by Norman Klein’s novella Bleeding Through Layers of Los Angeles, which uncovers the narrative ghosts, both fictional and non-fictional of Angelino Heights, and addresses historical forgetting and the erasure of memory.

3:30PM
Native Voices at the Autry
Serra Springs
By Larissa FastHorse
Music by Brian Joseph
Lyrics by Brian Joseph and Larissa FastHorse
Directed by Robert Vestal
Two teens, two adults and one strange dude deal with some major surprises during one magical night at a protest to save the last sacred site of the Tongva people in West Los Angeles.

What: EdgeFest Los Angeles History Project
When: Sunday, July 13, and Sunday, July 20, 11AM, 1PM, 3:30 PM
Where: Autry National Center of the American West, Griffith Park Campus, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, CA, 90027-1462
How Much: Free
Reservations: Not required.
More Info: lahp@edgeoftheworld.org

Greg Watanabe, Peter Wong and Michael Hornbuckle. Photo by Michael Palma.

I’ve seen the Warriors perform twice and plan on never missing one of their shows in the future. They’re naughty, smart, edgy, scrumptiously silly and I am eternally grateful to them for teaching me all the things I always wanted to know and was afraid to ask about the Asian male body. Ignorance is not bliss. To sample their mighty comedy, take a look at some of the videos clips available on their MySpace page like Video Dating, A John Woo Family Dinner and my absolute favorite: The Slow Asian American Film Festival. Or go to Little Tokyo tomorrow to see a screening of the Emmy Award winning documentary “Mighty Warriors of Comedy.” The Warriors will be there!

“18 Mighty Mountain Warriors and the ImaginAsian Center present the Los Angeles premiere of the Emmy winning documentary “The Mighty Warriors of Comedy!” produced by Kibi Anderson and Sung H. Kim.
Using a combination of personal interviews and live concert footage, “The Mighty Warriors of Comedy” takes a look at the members of this innovative all Asian American comedy troupe from the Bay Area as they struggle for success and deal with the ups and downs of life. They’ve been “Up and Coming” since 1994, but will that change as some of them make the move to Los Angeles? They’re trying to sell out but will anyone buy?

Thursday, July 17 @ 8pm at the ImaginAsian Center, 251 S. Main Street, LA, CA 90012 in Little Tokyo.

$12 General Admission
$10 groups of 10 or more

Info/Reservations:
818-754-4500 or email 18mightymountainwarriors@gmail.com or
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/38124

Including:
* MC Tamlyn Tomita!
* Live performance by 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors
* a special collaboration with the Tuesday Night Cafe Project, featuring Keiko Agena, Alison De La Cruz, Shin Kawasaki, and traci kato-kiriyama.

Here’s an event brought to you by EdgeFest you don’t want to miss! I hope Agenlinos will come out and support it. I’m posting this Sunday’s schedule. The second day of the festival is Sunday, July 20th and includes a performance by the Watts Village Theater Company, a play about the ghosts of Angelino Heights and one about the last sacred site of the Tongva people found in West Los Angeles. This line-up alone is worth the price of FREE admission!

SUNDAY, JULY 13TH SCHEDULE:

11AM
Son of Semele Ensemble
Record Storm Spreads Ruin!
By Aaron Henne
Devised by Son of Semele Ensemble
Directed by Edgar Landa
A corrupt administration. A leader clinging desperately to his power. A devastating flood.
In 1938, Los Angeles Mayor Frank Shaw, on the verge of being ousted from power, broadcasts over the radio airwaves to a drowning city. His citizens, some living and some dead, converge on City Hall to offer him one last chance at salvation from his past deeds, before he is overtaken by a record storm.

1PM
Circle X Theatre Company
The Chinese Massacre (Annotated)
By Tom Jacobson
Directed by Marya Mazor
Based on historical incident, the The Chinese Massacre (Annotated) chronicles the first race riot in Los Angeles history, when 19 Chinese men and boys were lynched by a mob of 500 of “people from all nations.” Resonant with more recent racially motivated Los Angeles civil disturbances (the Zoot Suit Riots, the Watts Riots, the Rodney King insurrection), The Chinese Massacre (Annotated) brings to light the remarkable, culturally diverse 19th-century Wild West town that exploded into today’s metropolis.
Note: If you’d like to make a reservation for The Chinese Massacre please call 323-667-2000 x354 and leave a message

3:30
Lodestone Theatre Ensemble
My Man Kono
(Act One: The Chaplin Years)
Written by Philip W. Chung
Directed by Jeff Liu
The story of Toraichi Kono, who worked as movie star Charlie Chaplin’s personal valet for 17 years before being arrested as a Japanese enemy spy on the eve of World War II. This is a presentation of Act One of the play which covers Kono’s years with Chaplin.

What: EdgeFest Los Angeles History Project
When: Sunday, July 13, and Sunday, July 20, 11AM, 1PM, 3:30 PM
Where: Autry National Center of the American West, Griffith Park Campus, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, CA, 90027-1462
How Much: Free
Reservations: Not required.
More Info : www.edgeoftheworld.org.

The time is July 19, 1975. Disco 45’s revolve, the Sandinistas have gained power in Nicaragua, and in Culver City a young precocious youth is about to turn twelve. The dramas of sibling rivalry, teen pregnancy and progressive politics play as Sissy blows his candles out.

Playwright Ricardo A. Bracho was born in Mexico City and raised in Culver City. He is an award-winning playwright, a published essayist and a noted speaker and educator. Sissy is the recipient of an Asuncion Finalists Award from Pregones Theater, a Panelist’s Choice Award from the Edward Albee Theater Festival, the UC Santa Barbara Latino Playwriting Award from the Center for Chicano Studies and the George Houston Bass Award from Brown University. His other plays include The Sweetest Hangover, A to B, Querido and Puto.

Directed by Armando Molina with the assistance of Tina Sanchez.

Tickets for “Sissy” are $20 and can be purchased online at www.companyofangels.org. The Box Office information line is (323) 883-1717. The theatre is located within the historic Alexandria Hotel at 501 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

Keirin Brown, Bryan Brown, Ilana Turner, Olya Petrakova. Photo by Taso Papadakis.

“Fearless, avant-garde and determined to make us active participants in the creative process, ARTEL’ shows are as disorienting and exhilarating as a trip to another of my favorite LA wonders, The Museum of Jurassic Technology, where every room defies expectations and logic, stripping us of everything familiar.” Taco

4 MORE SHOWS, 4 more chances to experience the American Russian Theatre Ensemble Lab. performing their revamped take on the adventures of Russian literary martyr, Mikail Bulgakov, in the days of Stalin. I saw the version they performed last November at Highways and was as usual blown away by their originality and fearlessness. I’m going back for more this weekend and can attest that there’s nothing like ARTEL in LA. Read last November’s Taco review to find out why and treat yourself to a mind-opening experience.

ARTEL @ Art/Works Theatre, 6569 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood 90038. June 6th through June 14th. Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm. $15 (seniors/students/hungry artists)-$25.00 (general admission).

Reservations recommended, the last show is closed to being sold out: 1-800-838-3006 or online via www.brownpapertickets.com/event/31312. Click here to view the show’s latest pictures.

Keirin Brown. Photo by Taso Papadakis.