LA Views V is part of ongoing localized series put on by Company of Angels that visits a different aspect of the city each production. The latest is a collage of stories revisiting the aftermath of the court ruling four Caucasian police officers not guilty in the Rodney King beating case. Embellishing a highly concentrated moment in race relations history, Views tries to illustrate the melee that resulted in countless deaths, injuries, fires, damage, and $1B in financial loss. Ironically, the prescient angry white male film Falling Down starring Michael Douglas (who plays a man who goes postal after no longer being able to bear witness at society’s ills) was lensing at this time in Los Angeles.
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| Tripp Pickell, Jully Lee in "Rise Up" |
“Burning Palms” explores the top/bottom relationship in anal sex as a metaphor for Caucasian domination over minorities. Ernesto (Matt Pascua) struggles with his partner to take their relationship to the next step while mayhem permeates the city surmising that his lover just wants to “conquer his ass.” The less sensitive Paul (played with a layer of slime by Kenneth Sears) sees things more simply: “We’re two dudes from the USA. Sodomy is our birthright!” And the mention of Malcolm X prompts Paul to respond, “He’s not preaching to this hard-on.” It reminded me of Veronica’s Remington University suitor in Heathers who just wants “to get laid.” The couple soon finds them relying on a young black comedian and his disabled mother.
In “Switzerland,” a small-business operator must defend his commercial ground during a standoff between a black thief seeking reparations indirectly from his black victim. “Kicks” offers a younger counterpart of the thief who gets schooled by his mother.
The first portion of “Rooftops” is compelling, which is no small feet, considering that most of the scene is in Korean. The situation is tense and understandable enough, as a family guards their vulnerable building from the rooftop like snipers.
Additionally, there is an obligatory parody on white liberal guilt, with a young woman pulling her hair “trying to feel something” while her film-student boyfriend switches channels between a program on cannibalism and the news reports on the riots. Much more interesting would have been a self-entitled actress-wannabe carting away a whole rack of clothing from a store on Melrose I recall reading about.
The finale introduces old movie glamour with “Clean” and ties Hollywood’s legacy into the production’s topicality. The elegant corpses of Big Mama Willie Mae and Miss Gypsy Rose Lee rise from the grave at Inglewood Park Cemetery like ghosts from American Horror Story. They play the collective conscience of two thieves responsible for more than just stealing, while lamenting the town’s star-studded past (like references to the Beverly Theatre now being “a swap meet”) and the rubble left in its wake.
The performances are a mixed bag, but every time Lynette DuPree stepped onto the stage, her smooth, silky voice brought with it an intoxicating energy. More specifically, Jully Lee as weatherperson Gina Oh was quite touching and nuanced as a fish out of water who involuntarily receives a trial by fire in her first onsite reporting.
The humor of the script often comes through. Gina informs her boss, “You can be Connie Chung. I just want to be Fritz Coleman.” A restaurateur schools a man about to shoot another, “The only beef here goes in the burritos.” A mother questions her son who wants to “Stick it to the man”: “So, there’s only one left?” The dialogue can almost get earnest, but maudlin, “Audition for this life: your life,” a mother instructs her aspiring artist son.
Some of the directing choices are a unnecessarily cartoonish. When discovering his neighbor is gay, a big black man does a double take and in his best Scooby Doo voice exclaims, “Huh?” During an emotional scene, the attempt to raise the stakes by having two semi-concealed, nondescript actors chanting and repeating the fears of a character’s mind only comes across as over the top.
Dissonant sounds echoed in the darkly lit stage during the opening: a large, regular-height room with thick square beams and a stage flush with the floor. Other than a potential technical glitch involving a set-piece at the back of the stage not opening up, the commotion that permeated the segues between each scene was quite effective: clever transitions with rioters yelling while moving set furniture.
There is a perpetual nighttime feel to scenes, which may have been due to the guerrilla performance space, but served the production well. Scenic and prop designer Art Betanzos’ ramshackle set was carefully assembled, including a symbolic wall of shoeboxes.
Many of the pieces play like unfinished one-acts, with no through line to coalesce in the finale and give the production the profound impact it seeks. It offers no answers, but its self-importance sometimes gets in its own way. Certainly a scene set within the police force or otherwise would have been warranted, even tough the focus is on the common minority “in the streets” and the effect they have on small businesspeople. But, the concern isn’t excessive police force and brutality, the imbalance between authority and community, but the underlining tension it unleashed.
The play closes the 27th of May.
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