I experienced déjà vu when I read the synopsis of the new musical Leap of Faith, in the Center Theatre Group’s just-announced plans for the Ahmanson Theatre in 2010-11. It’s about “a part-time reverend and full-time con artist” whose love for a pretty woman “forces this ultimate cynic to take a real leap of faith.”
I had seen a very similar-sounding show the preceding evening: Nightmare Alley, at the Geffen. I guess this is suddenly the musical theme of the year - con men who pose as preachers.
Nightmare Alley, Jonathan Brielle’s adaptation of William Gresham’s Dust-Bowl set novel, is lumbering and predictable. Hoary, fuzzy plot turns throw the whole enterprise into question. The production and performances are stronger than the material, as already pointed out by Charlotte Stoudt and Les Spindle.
I’d like to turn the conversation back to a much more original and smaller-scale musical, See What I Wanna See - in which a preacher poses as a con man.
Jason Graae in R Shomon, act one of See What I Wanna See
Michael John La Chiusa’s 2005 musical, in an exciting staging by Daniel Henning at the Blank, is about much more than that particular twist. It’s really about the quest to know “the truth” - or even to define it. Stephen Colbert might put it in these terms: truth…or “truthiness”? Distinguishing between them is a challenge that sometimes seems impossible, La Chiusa illustrates.
LaChiusa drew on short stories by the early 20th century writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Both acts begin with brief scenes inspired by Akutagawa’s “Kesa and Morito,” about two illicit lovers in the final stages of their affair in medieval Japan. But then the action in both acts moves to New York.
Most of the first act is devoted to “R shomon” - a 1951-set version of the same tale (”In a Grove”) made famous by the Akira Kurosawa movie Rashomon, in which a murder is recalled by witnesses who tell very different stories. Most of the second act of See What I Wanna See consists of “Glory Day,” a post-9/11 adaptation of Akutagawa’s “The Dragon,” about a disillusioned priest who stages a religious hoax.
It sounds complicated. And LaChiusa probably tried to cram too much into one intimate chamber musical by adding the two “Kesa and Morito” prologues. They certainly grab our attention - as onstage simulated sex usually does, even if Kesa (Lesli Margherita) is more clothed than Morito (Doug Carpenter). They passionately sing their thoughts as they go at it. But the scenes are too brief to adequately represent Akutagawa’s original story, and they don’t add much to the themes that are developed more extensively in the other two segments.
Doug Carpenter and Lesli Margherita in R Shomon
“R shomon,” the main event of the first act, explicitly refers to the movie. The murder in the narrative takes place in Central Park during the night after the New York premiere of Kurosawa’s film. The movie theater’s janitor (Jason Graae), who had earlier screwed up the spelling of the movie title on the marquee by leaving out the “a,” is the onlooker who first stumbles upon the corpse. Then we hear the testimonies of the murderer (Carpenter), the victim’s wife (Margherita) and the victim himself (Perry Ojeda) as channeled by a medium (Suzan Solomon).
On paper, these characters appear sketchy to the point of stereotype. But LaChiusa’s bluesy-pop-inflected score and the cast turn them into much more fascinating people, ably backed by David O’s five-piece band above the stage. The lyrics pointedly express the solipsism of the phrase “See what I wanna see” in greater detail - listen to the murderer: “Does the sun really rise in the east?/Does the earth really spin around the sun?/ What’s it matter in the least?/What’s real for me ain’t real for everyone.”
Jason Graae in Glory Day, act two of See What I Wanna See
In the second act’s “Glory Day,” the protagonist is a priest (Graae) who never thought he would adopt a relativistic “see what I wanna see” perspective. But as he tried to comfort victims of 9/11, he gradually lost his faith and concluded that his atheist aunt (Solomon) was right all along. Now he’s so exasperated with the “gullible dopes” he sees all around him that he decides to yank their chains by posting a notice in Central Park with this big news - that in three weeks, Jesus will rise from the nearby pond.
As crowds take note and gather for the ascension, the priest meets a half-cocked CPA (Ojeda) who’s now homeless, a messed-up Hollywood bit actress (Margherita) and a skeptical TV reporter (Carpenter). I won’t reveal what happens at the ending, but let’s just say that it reinforces the first act’s thematic thrust.
The two acts also share lyrical motifs. Most obviously, both acts end with all the players singing “the truth, the truth” repeatedly. Even if they can’t agree on what it means, they’re consumed with the importance of trying to figure it out.
Still, the two acts are hardly identical. The second act is more somber, more searching than the first act, which is fairly jaunty considering that it’s about a murder. The introduction of the 9/11 material connects “Glory Day” more closely to real events and real people - and of course, ascertaining “the truth” about issues of spiritual faith is a lot more difficult than uncovering “the truth” about a murder.
See What I Wanna See is a challenging piece, with its several stories and its epistemological inquiries, but it’s also full of purple passions and wry comedy. As with many new musicals, listening to the show’s CD after seeing the show engraves the rhythms and melodies of the score more firmly in the brain. I wanna see it - and hear it - again.
By the way, the original producer of the first public version of LaChiusa’s piece (it then used R shomon as the umbrella title) was none other than Michael Ritchie - in his final season at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2004, just before he moved to L.A. to take over Center Theatre Group. I wonder if he’ll see the Blank’s version.
See What I Wanna See, Blank Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thur-Sat, 8 pm; Sun, 2 pm. Closes May 23. 323-661-9827. www.TheBlank.com.
If the truth is elusive in See What I Wanna See, in other situations it couldn’t be more obvious - yet we don’t see it. Or at least we avoid acknowledging it. That’s what Max Frisch pointed out in The Arsonists, now in a translation by Alistair Beaton at the Odyssey.
The stuffy householder Biedermann (Norbert Weisser) is alarmed by news reports of arsonists who insinuate themselves into other people’s homes. But when the same phenomenon starts to happen in his own home, as embodied by the burly Schmitz (John Achorn) and then the more suave Eisenring (Ron Bottitta), he bends over backwards to avoid acknowledging the truth. You might say that he prefers to “see what I wanna see.”
Frisch’s modern classic was apparently inspired primarily by events in Czechoslovakia - first with the Nazis, then with the Communists. Nowadays, it’s easy to imagine partisans of almost any stripe interpreting it to fit their pet causes.
Are the arsonists the equivalent of home-grown Tea Partiers? Or the socialists the Tea Partiers oppose? Illegal immigrants? Or the Arizona cops who would be required to enforce the state’s proposed “papers, please” law against illegal immigrants? Climate change deniers? Or climate change activists? Israelis who occupy the West Bank settlements? Or the Iranian nuclear energy developers? How about the crazies who threatened the “South Park” creators? Or, as my colleague Dany Margolies noted, indulgent parents?
At the Odyssey, director Ron Sossi’s program note refers to the play’s contemporary universality, while mentioning such possible analogies as “Enron, 9/11, the real estate collapse, the bank failures, environmental tragedies etc”. He identifies the place as “somewhere in America…or maybe Germany” and the time as “the ’50s…or maybe Now.” But he wisely refrains from linking the actual staging to any particular analogue. Because Biedermann himself breathes “bourgeois” from every pore - he’s a factory owner who recently fired a long-time employee - right-wingers might claim that it’s a cautionary tale for their side (in case any right-wingers ever go to the Odyssey).
At any rate, The Arsonists (perhaps better known from earlier translations as Biedermann and the Firebugs or The Fire-Raisers) is a remarkably potent piece of theater. Sossi’s cast lights little theatrical fires throughout the production. Miniature models of neighbors’ homes supplement the main set and demonstrate the fruits of the firebugs’ efforts. The truth will out.
The Arsonists, Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. West L.A. Wed-Sat, 8 pm; Sun 2 pm, except dark next Wednesday - and Sunday performances are at 7 pm this week (April 25), and on the closing day, May 23. 310-477-2055. www.odysseytheatre.com.
Photos by Rick Baumgartner.
