"bobrauschenbergamerica" made LA Weekly's Steven Lee Morris's list of favorites for 2010

The LA Weekly's Steven Lee Morris compiled his list of favorite shows for 2010, and bobrauschenbergamerica received a mention.
Check out his review here, and the whole column below:

L.A. Theater in 2010
Thanks for the memories
By Steven Leigh Morris Thursday, Dec 30 2010

Top 10 list? No thanks. We already have the L.A. Weekly Theater Awards for that — details to be announced shortly.

ENDANGERED THEATERS THAT DESERVE HELP

City Garage got booted from their Santa Monica digs in November after their lease expired. At last report, they had stripped of the theater they'd occupied for 15 years and were homeless but working on a deal with Bergamot Station. The theater has been and remains a local treasure for its presentation of audacious texts, with Frenchwoman Frédérique Michel's arch and deliberately automatonic stagings of works including those by Heiner Muller, Caryl Churchill, Charles L. Mee, Ionesco and Molière — all packed onto a tiny stage and helped along with Paul Rubenstein's lush soundscapes and Charles M. Duncombe's production designs.

A Noise Within: Glendale's classical rep company is trying what most small theaters gave up on decades ago, and for good reason: moving "up" to midsize, where the economic challenges in our subsidy-free zone are tempestuous. Just ask the Colony Theatre or East West Players. ANW tried this a few years ago with a brief, frustrating and frustrated sojourn to Cal State L.A.'s Luckman Fine Arts Complex. But they are determined, and are in the midst of a successful (so far) capital campaign that includes construction of a new Equity-scale theater in Pasadena. We haven't seen construction from the ground up of any theaters that remain regularly used since Burbank's Falcon Theatre (1997), Pasadena's Boston Court (2003) and downtown's REDCAT (2003). The challenges of sustaining a midsize theater in Pasadena will be daunting. And as frustrated as I sometimes am with the company's aversion to inventiveness, the baseline of competence and skill in conjunction with a long tradition of presenting classical works from all genres to new audiences makes it imperative that the company's experiment in up-sizing succeeds, for all our sakes.

Gunfighter Nation is a new company marked by the return of long-standing L.A. personality-playwright John Steppling, who serves as the company's co–artistic director along with his son, Lex Steppling. And, like the working together of father and son, the company has drawn its acolytes from two generations: One, that of Steppling, includes the playwright-descendants of the Padua Hills Playwrights Workshop and Festival (founded in 1978 by Murray Mednick and Sam Shepard); and the next generation, which brings to the art the consciousness of social and community service. In the company aesthetic, one generation informs the work of the other, which is a rare gift and melding of purposes that's happening in the rehearsal halls and accompanying taverns. They've also put on some pretty good plays in their first year, including Steppling's latest work, Phantom Luck. Like many new endeavors, they exist on tenacity and prayer to the gods of a desperately fragile economy. They are perhaps the only new company with such a long history. I hope they make it.

SHORT-ANSWER QUIZ TO PISS PEOPLE OFF, 10 POINTS EACH

• What's the difference between art, artsy, and artsy fartsy?

• Is multidisciplinary work, and the promotion of it, really such a threat to traditional presentations — or can we all just get along?

• Does the blending of music, video and online technologies on our stages really draw a new generation of theatergoers, or is that just the fantasy of faculty and students from Cal-Arts and the programmers over at REDCAT, that's disconnected from the real world?

• Does L.A. theater really suffer from a lack of inventive (concept) directors?

• If you answered "yes" to the above, please answer the following: (a) If so, why? (b) If so, is that such a bad thing? If you answered "no" to the above, please move on to the next question.

• Why is it that the United States' most famous concept directors find most of their employment in Europe, Canada and South America rather than in their homeland? (a) People outside the United States are stupid and pretentious; (b) People inside the United States are stupid and crass; (c) Concept directors have no respect and therefore don't deserve any. (Only one answer, please!)

• Does L.A. theater suffer from a lack of autobiographical one-person shows? If so, why?

• Does L.A. theater suffer from a lack of shows named [Fill in the Title]: The Musical! If so, why?

• Why is the Fountain Theatre always sold out when it just does plays about bitter musicians and graveyards?

• Should actors be paid for their work? If so, should they be paid even if their production loses money? Why?

• Should investment bankers be paid for their work? If so, should they be paid even if their company loses money? Why?

• Did you enjoy this quiz? If so, why? If not, please move on to the next question.

Please submit your answers to smorris @ laweekly.com. Correct answers will be posted at blogs. laweekly. com/ stylecouncil/stage-news in early 2011. There will be prizes for the best correct answers. If you answered incorrectly, you will be condemned to anonymity.

I LIED: HERE ARE SOME OF MY FAVORITES FOR 2010, BUT IN NO COMPETITIVE ORDER

Ann Randolph's Loveland at Santa Monica Playhouse; Psittacus Productions' A Tale Told by an Idiot at Son of Semele; everything I saw at REDCAT; Lynn Nottage's Ruined at the Geffen; Palomino at the Kirk Douglas; Stage Door and A Wolf Inside the Fence at Open Fist; Independent Shakespeare Company's Much Ado About Nothing in Griffith Park; all of the War Plays trilogy presented by Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble at the Powerhouse; the Calabasas International Theater Festival; the Hollywood Fringe Festival; Gertrude Stein's Brewsie and Willie, directed by Travis Preston for Poor Dog Group; Mary Lynn Spreads Her Legs at the Steve Allen Theater; Opus and The Train Driver at the Fountain; Anton's Uncles, Theatre Movement Bazaar at the 24th Street Theater; Tom Jacobson's The Twentieth Century Way at Theater @ Boston Court; Shaheed at the Peggy Feury Studio; Jon Tuttle's Holy Ghost at Theatre of NOTE; Shem Bitterman's Influence at the Skylight; Nan McNamara's lead performance in Wit at Actors' Co-op; the SpyAnts' (sic) production of Charles L. Mee's bobrauschenbergamerica at [Inside] the Ford; City Garage's production of Paradise Park; Baal at Sacred Fools; An Oak Tree at the Odyssey; Four Places and The Sunset Limited, presented by Rogue Machine at Theatre/Theater; and Zombie Joe's Underground, just for being ZJU.

Finally, this year's Talent and Tenacity Award goes to Antaeus Company for being so talented and tenacious. This is the first year they have presented a full season, which corresponds, by sheer coincidence, to the first year that the T&T prize has been bestowed. It comes with this humble recognition and whatever rewards derive from being talented and tenacious, but it does not come with money. After all, this is theater in Los Angeles.

John Charles Meyer in "Same-O"

Our member John Charles Meyer (Kidnapped by Craigslist: The Graveyard Shift, bobrauschenbergamerica, Terminus Americana) is appearing in Bootleg Theater's Same-O by Ken Roht, who was our choreographer for bobrauschenbergamerica. It's part of the popular 99¢ Store Shows, and it runs through December 19th, and resumes after the holidays from January 6-30 at The Bootleg Theater (formerly The Evidence Room) 2220 Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles.

You can read one rave review from LA Weekly here, and other reviews, along with more show information, can be found here.

So if you have time, make plans to see part of our TheSpyAnts family at work.

Thanks!

See John Charles Meyer in "The Taqwacores"

John Charles Meyer - who is presently appearing with us in Kidnapped By Craigslist: The Graveyard Shift, and who has previously been in bobrauschenbergamerica, and Terminus Americana - is also in the feature film The Taqwacores, which opens tomorrow night in the Los Angeles area.

You can see it at either the Sunset 5 - 8000 Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood, or the Edwards University Town Center in Irvine.

For Sunset 5 screenings, you can buy tickets here, and here for the Edwards University Town Center.

The Taqwacores is a feature film about the Muslim punk rock scene (yes, you read that correctly), but the core of the story deals with the complexities of being young and Muslim in modern-day America. With a humble budget, a cast of unknowns, and a first-time director, the film has gone on to win festival awards around the globe and find a distributor for limited theatrical release in the US and France. The only caveat I offer is this: I have a very small role; you’ll catch me on-screen for a mere couple of minutes. But it is a bold and beautifully-crafted movie with a timely and important message. I may be a bit biased of course, but the critics agree:

“One of the Ten Best Films from Sundance 2010”
-Time Out London

“Sure to appeal to fans of Trainspotting, Fight Club, anything by Gus Van Sant...”
-Los Angeles Times

“Busting out with strong vision.”
-The Huffington Post

Mari Marks demo reel

Mari Marks (bobrauschenbergamerica, The Reunion, has been a member of TheSpyAnts since 2007, and this is her demo reel.

Jennifer Etienne Eckert's Demo Reel

Jennifer Etienne Eckert - bobrauschenbergamerica, What If? (2008), The Reunion (2006), Rudolph The Red Hosed Reindeer - is a longtime member of TheSpyAnts, and this is her demo reel.

“bobrauschenbergamerica”: Now-Feb. 28 @ [Inside] the Ford

By Cesar Cruz

bobrauschenbergamerica is incredibly entertaining. Directed by Bart DeLorenzo, written by Charles L. Mee and choreographed by Ken Roht, the play brims with colorful characters, 43 different scenes (a range of musical numbers) and is backed by explosive energy.

It’s a tribute to the late artist Bob Rauschenberg and his work; actually, it’s not about Rauschenberg but about what he saw. Rauschenberg’s work is a reflection of America, which consequently involves love stories, picnics, business schemes, shootings and, of course, a person in a chicken costume strolling across center stage. Through collages, Rauschenberg realized a technique that came to be known as “Combines,” which are collages created from nontraditional materials (e.g. pictures, familiar prints, sculptures, tennis balls, stuffed goats) that attempt to blur the line between art and life.

Reviewing bobrauchenbergamerica is like describing another description. The collage of scenes that makes the play, as well as the themes and characters, work more or less as a mirror than a story. There’s nothing logical about the production, yet it makes sense; like 10 people giving their interpretation of one piece of art – at the same time! Each scene takes you hostage and relentlessly impresses sheer exhilaration for living in a country where people make up their lives as they go.

The play works quite well. I barely notice that an hour and 45 minutes, with no intermission, passes. This depiction of America, as seen through Rauschenberg’s eyes and under DeLorenzo’s direction, is fearless and optimistic, but best of all unedited.

If you get tired of a scene, rest assured it will soon end. However, much like life, you don’t always like what you see or what you get. Some scenes may be outlandish, but in a way that forces you to acknowledge the myriad forms reality can take.

bobrauchenbergamerica, while sensitive and philosophical, gives your eyes a workout, then sends you back into the world.

[Inside] the Ford is located at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., Hollywood. For more information, visit fordtheaters.org.

Backstage review of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

bobrauschenbergamerica

TheSpyAnts at [Inside] the Ford

Reviewed by Jeff Favre
FEBRUARY 03, 2010

"Art was not a part of lives," says the character known as Bob's Mom in Charles L. Mee's 2001 one-act, nonlinear homage to the late American artist Bob Rauschenberg. And regardless of whether the character truly is based on Rauschenberg's real-life mother, Dora (the play's last line reportedly was spoken by her), the sentiment is false and telling because her stories show that art is all around for those who search for it—as Rauschenberg did by using found objects to create the iconic combines and collages for which he is best known. Few playwrights could be better suited than Mee to attempt to translate Rauschenberg's style for theater, because Mee shows more interest in juxtaposition of disparate images and emotions than in telling a coherent story. But those willing to mentally traverse this living museum for 90 minutes—led by a deft curatorial staff (aka TheSpyAnts' 10-person cast and director Bart DeLorenzo)—will discover a wealth of intriguing, visually captivating and funny vignettes among the more than 40 presented.

There are named characters, though it hardly matters, including Bob's Mom (Mari Marks), Phil the Trucker (Danny Parker-Lopes), Phil's Girl (Maria Tomas), and the nonspeaking Roller Girl (Breeze Braunschweig). There's also an entire barbershop chorus that delivers a mini concert. Mee's script delves into the building blocks of art and love, while the visuals involve a rolling bathtub, a man in a chicken suit, and a martini Slip 'n Slide.

DeLorenzo, who has directed a few Mee plays, successfully evokes whimsy when needed, as well as understated sadness, all while keeping a pace that's brisk enough to keep the less compelling moments from dragging down the performance. The cast works in harmony, flitting in and out of scenes as if each actor is part of a single entity. Ken Roht's choreography injects energy and humor to a couple of dance numbers. And Marina Mouhibian's set resembles a collection of Rauschenberg combines, which creates an ideal atmosphere. Not every scene of "bobrauschenbergamerica" is a winner, but as a whole it's entertaining and memorable.

Presented by TheSpyAnts at [Inside] the Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood. Jan. 23–Feb. 28. Thu.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 and 7 p.m. (323) 461-3673. www.fordtheatres.org.

OUTSIDE THE BOX: BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA AT [INSIDE] THE FORD (EyespyLA.com review)

OUTSIDE THE BOX: BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA AT [INSIDE] THE FORD
By M.R. Hunter

What does a man in a chicken suit, a giant bowling pin, a rooster and a kitchen whisk all have in common? Everything and nothing in the LA premiere of Charles Mee’s zany collage-montage tribute to the late modern artist, Robert Rauschenberg at [Inside] the Ford.

One of the most forward-thinking artists of his time, Rauschenberg’s work combined ordinary materials and objects with spectacular splashes of color and familiar images to create pieces that were not entirely art and not entirely sculpture, but something in the space between. Predating the Pop Art movement, Rauschenberg’s “outside-the-box” method inspired the likes of Pollock, Joseph Cornell, and Oldenburg with his break from the traditional, fixed space of the canvas. Art then, literally became for Rauschenberg something outside of itself, a thing discoverable in the everyday and a hodgepodge of the seemingly contradictory connected in tandem and unity.

Inspired by Rauschenberg, Mee conceives a play not bound by conventional Aristotelian unities, but channels the absurdist and radical approach of the artist’s innovative spirit. Like a gallery of Rauschenberg collages brought to life, the action is both startling and disjointed, it confronts and challenges the very idea of art and performance itself, yet is cohesive enough to be visually entertaining. Bart DeLorenzo polishes what might otherwise comes across as amateur and raw into a provocative performance that if nothing else is definitely unlike anything else.


The only discernable thread keeping the wildly assorted vignettes from spinning completely out of control are the recollections of Rauschenberg’s early childhood, as told by his Mom (Mari Marks). Projected on a backdrop behind her are black and white photos of what is otherwise an ordinary, almost painfully average little boy whose humble beginnings hardly indicated the great influence in art he would one day become. As if these family photos were not convincing enough, Bob’s Mom ends each shared memory with the repeated refrain, “Art was not a part of our lives.” Whatever it was that taught Rauschenberg to see the world through his distorted kaleidoscope lenses is a wonder and will remain a mystery much like his vividly odd collages.

All the rest is simply off-the-wall non-sequiturs featuring some amusing anecdotes on relationships, acceptance, and love—if one is intent on ferreting out a theme here. It is better not to try to interpret or judge the merits of each scene, but rather to sit back and let the scenes roll on by like a passenger on a journey through a strange landscape or lucid dream. Eventually, nonsense becomes perfect sense in this wonderland filled with delightful, whimsical characters.

Where else can one find a Roller Girl (Breeze Braunschweig) gliding by on retro-styled skates, while a man dressed in a chicken suit crosses the stage? Then there is the shaken, not stirred body writhing martini bath or the random attack on a metal trashcan with a baseball bat. A pizza delivery boy (John Charles Meyer) recounts his homicidal past with casual indifference while Phil, the Trucker (Danny Parker-Lopes) delivers his own brand of torture with a series of chicken jokes—actually, the one about the egg is pretty funny. While these particular characters and scenes do not directly relate to Rauschenberg himself, they do capture the essence of his work.


Music numbers liven up the uneasy transitions with line dances and hoe downs choreographed by Ken Roht. Marina Mouhibian’s set design utilizes the open wings on of the proscenium, filling it with splattered canvases and bric-a-brac in keeping with Rauschenberg’s technique. A bicycle and a High Flyer cart hang from the catwalks and the otherwise minimalist space finds room for a ten-foot high stack of cardboard boxes.

Bob Rauschenberg would probably reject the idea of anyone trying to review this play. His vision defies interpretation, went against the grain of it, and like him this production by TheSpyAnts Theatre Company shouldn’t be read by proxy, but seen without any expectations. In the nonsensical yet cogent world of Rauschenberg, the best review for this show would be to tell a chicken joke and end with that.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground?
A: To get to the other slide.
Fin

bobrauschenbergamerica
Runs through Feb 28
Thurs, Fri, Sat at 8pm
Sundays at 3pm & 7pm
[Inside] the Ford
2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East
Hollywood, CA 90068
PH: 323-461-3673
www.FordTheatres.org

Actor's Reporter video on "bobrauschenbergamerica"

Here is a post from our own Kim Estes on Actor's Reporter.com, which features a short video about the show, including introductions by the cast, and director Bart DeLorenzo.

A clip from the first production of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

This is a clip from the first production of bobrauschenbergamerica by the SITI Ensemble in 2001.



Link

A Curtain Up review of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
bobrauschenbergamerica

By Evan Henerson

Look, everything overlaps, doesn't it? Is connected some kind of way. Once you put it all together, it's just obvious. I mean, tie a string to something, and see where it takes you.

When you think about it, this was really a match made in mashed-up paradise. Robert Rauschenberg, the American collageist as seen through the eyes of Charles L. Mee, a playwright who borrows everything from everywhere — mythology, current events, soap opera strands — and tosses it all up on stage in a big crazy quilt that somehow fashions itself into a play.

Director Bart DeLorenzo of the Evidence Room and the members of the SpyAnts Theatre Co. all clearly have the bug, and have brought the L.A. premiere of Mee's bobrauschenbergamerica to the Ford Amphitheatre's inside space. The play is Mee's take on how Rauschenberg, who died in 2008, might have seen the world had he been a playwright instead of a sculptor. The results are delightful if seriously quirky, — a series or largely unrelated musings on love, life, art, existence, the cosmos and cornball chicken jokes, not necessarily in that order of importance.

There is a script (it's up on Mee's (re)making project website, www.charlesmee.com), but DeLorenzo's cast makes you feel like the universe could tilt ever so slightly and some things would end up differently. Indeed, here's betting that the group of elderly barbershop singers who came in for a parade sequence might give way to different roadside entertainment at a subsequent performance.

Our players are a derelict (played by Brett Hren),. . .a stargazer (Eric Bunton) and his dancer lover (Mark Slater) . . . a trucker (Danny Parker-Lopes) and his bathing beauty girlfriend (Maria Tomas) . . . a fickle love-seeking woman dressed up in Jackie O regalia (Jennifer Etienne Eckert) and the man she dumped (Adam Dornbusch). . . a disturbing pizza delivery guy (John Charles Meyer) named Bob and Bob's Mom (Mari Marks). Bob's Mom is either supposed to be Rauschenberg's mother or the pizza delivery boy's. I'm not sure which. I'm not sure Mee intends us to know for certain.

Rasuchenberg is honored in the title, and there are various slideshow musings by Bob's Mom that frequently end with "art was not a part of our life." Otherwise, it's not difficult to see where Rauschenberg ends and Mee begins. Many of the playwright's signature oddities — spontaneous dance numbers, non sequiter emoting, extended musing on love — play giddily across DeLorenzo's staging. That said, the spirit of Rauschenberg is duly honored by DeLorenzo and company.

Props and set pieces, curios of all sorts dot Marina Mouhibian's set. The trucker's girl plays checkers from a rusty bathtub bearing a "No Parking" sign. A door frame, with a stuffed heron perched atop, evokes an empty and decidedly surreal landscape. Plaudits to prop master Hal Perry for finding a 12 foot bowling pin that never even gets used.

Mee's plays are not for the shy, and the cast members attack their roles with gleeful abandon. Particularly fetching is Eckert's Susan, defending her romantic choices while devouring the contents of a cake pan, and Tomas pouring out the ingredients for a martini on a plastic floor canvas and then proceeding to slosh through it. Parker-Lopes, sporting a trucker's beard, smoothly handles an assortment of wince-inducing chicken jokes, and everyone moves gracefully or with appropriate abandon to Ken Roht's choreography.

Praise also is due Breeze Braunschweig as the always skating, never speaking Roller Girl, a vision in 70s era beach shorts and tube socks who proves that you don't need lines to have an impact. What Braunschweig's Roller Girl is doing sitting at the same picnic table as Becker, Carl, Susan and the rest is anybody's guess. In the landscape of Mee's Rauschenberg, everything kind of melds even as it clashes. That's kind of the point.

LAist review of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

by Lyle Zimskind for LAist

"Why does a man in a chicken suit cross the stage?" is not the only existential inquiry tackled by Charles Mee’s challenging but rewarding theater piece bobrauschenbergamerica. There’s also: "Does man have the power to forgive himself?" "What’s it like to swim in a giant martini?" "Do men and women deceive each other or themselves when they fall in love?" And, of course, "Did somebody make a mistake with the slide projector before the show started tonight?"

A series of 43 somewhat-related scenes collectively inspired by the “Combines” of genre-bending 20th-century collagist Robert Rauschenberg, bobrauschenbergamerica is Mee’s idea of what the master would have produced if he himself “had been a theater maker instead of a visual artist.” And like these Combines, the play initially greets its audience with a giddily disorienting juxtaposition of visual cues and gestures. Indeed, that slide projector presentation accompanying the play’s opening monologue so vexed the couple sitting next to me that they started talking back to the stage for a moment and clearly never recovered their equilibrium over the ensuing hour and a half.

Others in attendance, however, may well spend this interval getting progressively seduced into the charismatic bizarro world that TheSpyAnts Theatre Company production team, under the helm of guest director Bart DeLorenzo, creates in the Ford Ampitheater’s “[Inside]” performance space. Set designer Marina Mouhibian incorporates some of the objects found in Rauschenberg’s Combines, along with additional images she contributes on her own (including a gigantic bowling pin), into a fantastic junkyard playground for the ensemble cast to run - not to mention roller skate - around. And by the end of the evening you may be surprised, even moved, to realize how successfully these actors have done the work of building a coherently engaging emotional arc out of the rollickingly complex, sometimes esoteric raw material of Mee’s playful, peripatetic text.

Although bobrauschenbergamerica was first performed by Anne Bogart’s SITI ensemble in 2001, and included in the influential Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave festival two years later, the play is only now receiving its Los Angeles premiere with the current SpyAnts production, running Thursdays through Sundays until the end of February.

General admission tickets are $22.50 via the Ford Theatres’ own web site, $13.50 on Goldstar, and $12 through the LA Stage Alliance.

BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA: A ROMP TheSpyAnts Ensemble at The Ford

BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA: A ROMP
TheSpyAnts Ensemble at The Ford

Clare Elfman
Literary Editor

Los Angeles, California – My bad. I did not do my research. So please, before you see this interesting kaleidoscope of a performance, do yours. I come from old school. A play speaks for itself. Linear. The last act leaves you with something concrete: a message, an emotion, a something. Charles Mee, with this — I guess you’d call this his homage to Rauschenberg — is non-linear, and if you are a careless reviewer who never has studied or appreciated the style of Rauschenberg nor read the text of the inserts in the black folder given at the box office, you will spend the first 30 minutes of this almost two-hour, no-intermission piece rather perplexed, asking what the merde is happening onstage?

I sat for that long in confusion, watching what, to me, looked like a mish-mash of unconnected bits and pieces of action, until finally one character did a monologue that moved me. I recognized that I was not giving the piece its due. I had not done my work as well as the company onstage was madly and non-linearly cavorting to present theirs.

If I had become more familiar with Rauschenberg’s collages, his combination of bits and pieces, thises and thats, unrelated stuff that, once assembled, create a whole, I would simply have known to sit back and let the action sweep over me.  This concept of unrelated bits of action Mee has created to mirror the artist’s style of collage,  so that, as the “play” progressed, a man professes love for a woman, she offers love to an unlikely character, a girl roller-skates by, a guy pushes a bathtub onstage…do I remember a goat? A guy in a chicken suit walks by, a mother shows old snaps (projections) of her artist son but the commentary does not match the pics… And what else? Suddenly the cast breaks into a Broadway chorus or they start to folk dance, or there is a murder, and I’m hanging there thinking, “What the f…” until a pizza guy enters and delivers an entrancing monologue of the three people he killed and another guy does a remarkable Walt Whitman piece, and it becomes quite something else.

So the piece is a non-linear version of Rauschenberg’s style, and to enjoy it, you simply have to let go and stop looking for logic. If I walk through a gallery, my own tastes have been so long developing that, unlike you and you and you and you, I love Matisse colors and Kirschner’s angular faces and Freud’s explicit nakedness and Bacon’s anguished etcetera etcetera, and you like something different. I love Theater of the Absurd because, when you finish with the absurdity, you have a message as clear as if you’d just picked yourself up from your stone bench in an ancient Greek theater. Once I saw a Kelly exhibit — a dirty old rug with an old teddy bear under it — and I asked, “What? What?” Okay, that’s me. Someone else saw it and was moved to tears. In a San Francisco museum, I saw a yellow canvas. Just yellow. What?? And the lecturer explained that it was the “yellowness” that made it so great.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, and if you (I) just let go of traditional notions and sit back and simply experience this one and then come out and hash over what you just saw…you’ve had a great evening of …an homage to Rauschenberg and a bit of a romp.

TheSpyAnts ensemble who performed this interesting piece are: Rollergirl, Breeze Braunschweig, Eric Bunton, Adam Dornbusch, Jennifer Etienne Eckert, Brett Hren, Mari Marks, John Charles Meyer who does a wonderful pizza boy, Danny Parker-Lopes, Mark Slater, Maria Tomas — a great bunch doing their wild thing.

So come prepared, just let go, and afterward decide if this left you with the same “feeling” as does a collage by Rauschenberg.
Interesting and challenging evening.

Ford (inside) until February 28th.

LA Weekly review of "bobrauschenbergamerica" - GO!

Photo by Debi Landrie

Review by LA Weekly:

When Bob Rauschenberg's mother (Mari Marks) delivers her tender slide-show about the rural Texas childhood of her artist son, and none of the slides matches the descriptions she's offered, you have to know something's up, conceptually. Whether or not you're familiar with the '50s-'60s collagist painter-sculptor, Charles L. Mee's 2001 extrapolation of what Rauschenberg might have written in order to explain how he assembled junk into evocative reflections on our place in the world stands alone. Marina Mouhibian's set decorates the stage and the proscenium walls with vintage kitsch as the 10-member ensemble plays out a series of somewhat interconnecting sketches about romances gone awry, violence, politics and metaphysics - though there are digressions for a series of chicken jokes. Bart DeLorenzo's staging preserves the tone, inherent the text, that's both wry and frivolous, abstract and pop, with one breakout poetical excursion into Walt Whitmanesque grandeur, delivered by a hobo (Brett Hren) and accompanied by Dvorak's Symphony from The New World. [Inside] the Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., L.A.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 & 7 p.m.; thru Feb. 28. (323) 461-3673. SpyAnts Theatre Company. (Steven Leigh Morris) See Theater Feature.

Stagehappenings review of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

From Stagehappenings.com.

by Robert Machray

Robert Rauschenberg lived in the artistic period between abstract expressionism and pop art. His painting and sculptures display his belief that there is no difference between art objects and ordinary objects. He believed that an object became art when he said it was.

How would his art reflect itself as a live performance? Well, one answer is being presented by the talented and edgy SpyAnts Company, which, with the help of the ubiquitous Bart DeLorenzo, has put on bobrauschenbergamerica by the controversial playwright Charles Mee as part of the shared season at inside the Ford Theatre.

Playwright Mee is no stranger to experimentation. Here he has written a play intended to represent Rauschenberg’s view of America, presented as a play but also reflecting his paintings. Mee has stated, “In the mid 1980s, the whole world was Rauschenberg. We have lots of stories, and we are trying to figure out how to get along in a world where there are a thousand points of view.” So Mee conceived of a series of loosely connected stories (though they all involve love) and more or less threw them together to see how they would make a connection. For Rauschenberg there is always a connection and it's always alive and vital.

II must admit I was totally puzzled about what the hell was going on in this show. I was not alone. But as the piece unfolded I found my mind, as well as the characters, making connections, and the message was one of hope and love. In the rehearsal process Mr. DeLorenzo let the cast more or less improvise how they wanted to present the individual stories. When he liked what he saw it stayed in. The result is a piece that seems almost improvised, but with a structure that emerges as the play develops. The cast, Mee, and DeLorenzo are to be congratulated for this daring and provocative experience in the theatre.

bobrauchenbergamerica plays at Inside The Ford until Feb. 28th.

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ROBERT MACHRAY has appeared in over 150 plays and has worked at 14 Tony Award-winning theatres. He has been nominated for and won numerous awards. Robert has a B.A. from Yale and an M.F.A. from USC. He has taught at USC, UCLA, UCSB, and Pasadena City College.

[Inside] The Ford helps troupes without homes

[Inside] the Ford helps troupes without homes
Its New Play Series provides a venue and resources to companies lacking venues to call their own.

By Karen Wada
January 24, 2010

For TheSpyAnts Theatre Company, persistence pays. Eight years ago, the small, stage-less ensemble fell in love with a crazy new play called bobrauschenbergamerica -- Charles L. Mee's freewheeling romp through American culture. It requested permission to perform the piece but found the rights were tied up. Undaunted, it kept asking -- and kept getting turned down -- until now.

"Lo and behold, this time the rights were available," says producing manager Lori Evans Taylor. "Chuck Mee knew this little company in L.A. wanted to do his show and he said yes."

TheSpyAnts' tenacity also impressed the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. It chose bobrauschenbergamerica for the second season of its [Inside] the Ford New Play Series, which provides troupes that lack permanent homes with a venue and resources to mount productions they otherwise couldn't afford. Mee's play -- an L.A. premiere -- opens this weekend at the Ford Theatres in Hollywood.

"We created this series because one of the biggest impediments itinerant companies face is the high cost of renting," says Laura Zucker, the commission's executive director. "That often prevents them from focusing on putting money into the product onstage."

The commission selects three productions for each winter season at the 87-seat [Inside] the Ford theater, which is tucked into a hillside complex best known for its summer amphitheater shows. In exchange for a subsidized weekly rent of $1,000 -- well under the market rate -- groups receive access to the theater and its lighting and sound systems as well as box office, house management, marketing and publicity services. The cozy performance space has its quirks (notably, pesky pillars), but the Ford facility offers amenities such as free parking and ample restrooms.

"Going to the theater is a whole experience," Zucker says. "What you see on the stage is very important, but everything that happens from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave influences whether you want to return."

The idea of using practical assistance to promote artistic growth isn't sexy, but it seems to be effective -- both at enabling small theaters to pursue ambitious work and creating a showcase for that work. The first season began with two world premieres: Moving Arts' production of EM Lewis' morality-mortality tale Song of Extinction (which won the 2009 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Assn. New Play Award) and Circle X Theatre Company's production of Jim Leonard's Battle Hymn. This season's opener, Ensemble Studio Theatre - Los Angeles' staging of Julie Hébert's Tree, debuted to strong reviews in November.

"We never would have attempted to produce Battle Hymn unless it was at the Ford," says Tim Wright, artistic director of the 14-year-old Circle X, which is based in Hollywood. "When we started production we had only the first act and a few pages of the second. Normally, we wouldn't operate that way. But working at the Ford is like working with a net. There's a lot more opportunity to take risks. We could focus on completing the piece with the writer and the director because we didn't have to worry about coming up with what ultimately would have been about $30,000 for the rental space alone. We could actually invest in development."

Last season's final entry -- Home Siege Home -- was a different kind of premiere, Ghost Road Company having worked on its adaptation of Aeschylus' trilogy, The Oresteia, for years. "This was the first time all the pieces were seen together," says Zucker. "If we didn't do it, it would not have happened."

The Ford tries to give a boost to companies as well as productions. With TheSpyAnts, says Zucker, "we went out on a limb because they are not as big or as established as some others. But the play is great and they brought in a great director in Bart DeLorenzo. Hopefully, this will propel them forward."

Evans Taylor says the Ford has "opened a lot of doors" for her 10-year-old ensemble, offering TheSpyAnts broader exposure and a chance to experiment in areas such as marketing ("we're running an ad at the Laemmle [movie theaters] on Sunset"). Also, she says, she and her colleagues are working with artists such as DeLorenzo, choreographer Ken Roht and "some wonderful designers who came on board knowing we would be doing the play here."

The Ford program is "a new model -- one the theater really needs," says DeLorenzo, founding artistic director of the Evidence Room, a company that has created and lost several homes, including a Beverly Boulevard location that was a hot spot of adventurous theater-going. "This is exciting because in one place you can see several different companies each pouring its resources into a production. Your shot at three good plays is higher than if you had one company trying to do three good plays in a row. I wish there were more examples of this."

A number of organizations provide or rent venues to specific groups or productions. What distinguishes [Inside] the Ford, says DeLorenzo, "is this is a curated series with quality control."

Terence McFarland, executive director of L.A. Stage Alliance, predicts more such ventures will start popping up given that, by his estimate, a couple hundred local companies and other groups that put on plays lack homes because they can't afford them, would rather invest in staff than overhead or fear the demands of running a theater might limit their artistic aspirations.

The Ford's indoor space has a rich history of nurturing writers and their work. It was created in the 1970s by the Center Theatre Group, which converted part of the 80-year-old amphitheater's storage area. CTG held the Lab -- which featured readings and workshops -- there first, followed in the '80s by the Taper, Too series of new and experimental pieces. When CTG's lease expired in the '90s, the arts commission remodeled the room and gave it its current name. The county joined with A.S.K. Theater Projects and the James Irvine Foundation to host the "Hot Properties" new play series from 2000 to 2004. The Flintridge Foundation helped to support an ensemble theater collective that lasted until 2008.

For [Inside] the Ford, the commission chooses participants through an open competition. (The application deadline for next winter is March 17.) Material that is new or, at least, new to L.A. is preferred. A minimum of three years of producing experience is required.

"We look for a combination of an interesting play and project team with a company that has enough administrative structure to pull it off," Zucker says. "We want each season to resemble a piece of music in that the tempo keeps changing."

This season began with Tree, an intricate unraveling of race and family relations. bobrauschenbergamerica, which runs through Feb. 28, is a collage of vignettes -- love stories, shootings, chicken jokes -- inspired by artist Robert Rauschenberg, the ultimate collagist. In March, Circle X will present the first production of Sheila Callaghan's Lascivious Something, in which an old lover disrupts an American expat's new life with a new wife on a Greek isle.

Even though the Ford series is young and relatively modest (a $182,000 annual budget), it's building momentum. Subscriptions have jumped five-fold, from 20 for the first season to 102 for the current one. LA Weekly included the program among high points of the last decade of local theater.

"It sure ignited things for us," says "Tree" author Hébert. "We not only got a venue -- which allowed us to do the play -- but we got a venue with a great profile that actually appeals to people. And you know how hard it is to get people to come out to see plays in L.A."

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Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Extended trailer for "bobrauschenbergamerica"

Video preview of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

Interview with "bobrauschenbergamerica" director Bart DeLorenzo by Steve Julian of KPCC

Breeze Braunschweig in bobrauschenbergamerica

Pop art-inspired 'bobrauschenbergamerica' opening at Ford Theatre

Courtesy of Lucy Pollak
Steve Julian | KPCC

The late pop artist Robert Rauschenberg liked to delve into mixed media. He’d pick up disparate items as he walked around New York City, find ways to combine them, and add paint. The results placed him alongside Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns in the pantheon of 20th Century artists. Director Bart DeLorenzo says New York playwright Chuck Mee approached his work “bobrauschenbergamerica” in the same way the artist dealt with found objects.

"Chuck grabs his material everywhere – Internet, TV – but he loves the way people express themselves and the way he uses text is very much the same way Rauschenberg deals with objects," said DeLorenzo.


Eric Bunton and Jennifer Etienne Eckert in bobrauschenbergamerica

DeLorenzo directs Mee’s play at Inside the Ford Theatre in Hollywood. Looking through the dozens of scenes in the script, I asked him how many times he had to read it before it sank in.

"A bunch. A bunch," laughed DeLorenzo. "I read it and let it sit in me. And then it came to me like a voice from above."
For audiences, the experience of seeing this play may seem like viewing pop art – kind of disjointed.
"I don’t think it helps to ponder too much while you’re experiencing it, but to let it wash over you and let yourself be transformed by the experience and just enjoy the ride, and then, when it’s over, what sits in you may have some meaning for you in your life. I like to figure it out for myself later."

DeLorenzo said playwright Chuck Mee wrote this work as an homage to Rauschenberg – and to the second half of the 20th century.

"It’s not coincidental, it’s not accidental, the artist is drawn to certain things and the artist combines them, the sensibility within the artist will give them a kind of coherence, which will be an artistic principle in itself."

The play includes musical numbers, a parade and a giant martini-powered slip 'n slide. It alludes to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, and the changing role of women in society.

"It’s a very American play – but it definitely is trying to cover that period of time," said DeLorenzo. "Chuck said to me, the characters in the play are as if you got into a car somewhere around Pennsylvania, and you drove west, and dipped a little bit south, these are the people you would meet on your journey, and in a way, maybe the characters are archetypes of the late 20th century."

bobrauschenbergamerica opens Saturday at Inside the Ford Theatre in Hollywood.

Listen to the audio of the report here.

Playwright set his brain on mishmash when whipping up collage-like salute to U.S. America in a blender

The Los Angeles premiere of Charles L. Mee’s play will open Jan. 23, with previews Thursday and Jan. 22, and run through Feb. 28 at [Inside] the Ford at the Ford Theatres complex, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Los Angeles. Performances begin at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, and 3 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $20 for adults, $12 for students and seniors, and pay-what-you-can for previews and Sunday matinees. For more information, call 323-461-3673 (For group sales - 8 or more - call (323) 769-2147) or visit www.fordampitheater.org or www.thespyants.com.

Charles L. Mee’s play, “bobrauschenbergamerica,” pays homage to our country’s idiosyncratic soul. Mee calls the piece “a wild road trip through our American landscape.”


Playwright set his brain on mishmash when whipping up collage-like salute to U.S.
America in a blender

By Jeff Favre
Posted January 15, 2010 at 12:01 a.m.

Playwright Charles L. Mee didn’t know artist Bob Rauschenberg, and the members of TheSpyAnts Theatre Company had never met celebrated director Bart DeLorenzo.

But this quartet of creative forces has merged for the Los Angeles premiere of Mee’s “bobrauschenbergamerica,” which opens at [Inside] the Ford, the indoor theater at the Ford Theatres complex in Los Angeles. The show is part of the venue’s winter theatrical season.

Mee described the play on his Web site as “a wild road trip through our American landscape — in a play made as one of America’s greatest artists, Robert Rauschenberg, might have conceived it if he had been a playwright instead of a painter: a collage of people and places and music and dancing, of love stories and picnics and business schemes and shootings and chicken jokes and golfing, and of the sheer exhilaration of living in a country where people make up their lives as they go.”

Rauschenberg, who died in 2008, is perhaps best known for his collages, and his “combines” of the 1950s and ’60s, assemblages created with found objects.

The play debuted in 2001 at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky., and almost immediately caught the attention of SpyAnts producer Lori Evans Taylor
.
“We’re always on the lookout for new plays,” Taylor said. “We applied for the rights, but were turned down because the SITI Company (Mee’s frequent collaborator) were touring it. We applied every year, and then finally they started allowing other companies to produce the show.”

It’s understandable why companies clambered for the rights. Neil Genzlinger wrote in his New York Times review that Mee’s play is “much richer than simply bringing a Rauschenberg artwork to life; it is an effort to see our times as they were seen by this artist, who over his long career has shown how junk can be beautiful and how juxtaposition, the mixing of incongruous elements, can be a statement.”

Given the complexities of “bobrauschenbergamerica,” TheSpyAnts went outside its company to find a director with extensive experience working on Mee plays.

Enter DeLorenzo, who as part of The Evidence Room theater company directed “The Imperialists at the Club Cave Canem” and “The Berlin Circle,” and took part in a workshop of Mee’s “A Perfect Wedding.”

“I wasn’t at all familiar with TheSpyAnts when they called me,” DeLorenzo said. “And I don’t exactly say yes to everyone who asks. But I love this play. It’s so much fun. And the company was already familiar with the script, so that’s an advantage.”

DeLorenzo, in turn, enlisted Ken Roht as choreographer. Roht is best known for his annual holiday “99¢ Only Show,” created with props and costumes made from items at 99 Cents Only stores.

“Ken and I haven’t worked together for three years, but he was part of the other Chuck Mee plays we did, and incredibly he was available.”

And DeLorenzo can use all the help he can get. While most of Mee’s plays are unusual, “bobrauschenbergamerica” is composed of 43 nonlinear scenes.

“It’s very complicated,” the director explained. “It’s composed of parts that all seem unrelated — like with Rauschenberg’s collages — and each one needs to be given its own integrity. It may not seem like it, but all together there’s structure and it does tell a story, even though it’s kind of like taking six plays, putting them in a blender, and serving only the top half.”

For TheSpyAnts, getting a slot for this season’s [Inside] the Ford series and producing a high-profile play should only increase the company’s reputation.

“We’re celebrating our 10th anniversary,” Evans said. “I’m not surprised that we’re still going because the core members are still here. And this amazingly theatrical show, which is probably unlike anything you’ve ever seen, is a wonderful opportunity for our company.”

@TO-Tagline:— E-mail freelance columnist Jeff Favre at jjfavre@gmail.com
'bobrauschenbergamerica'