Motherless Days of May

By Victoria Looseleaf

Thank God for arts and culture, otherwise we don’t think we would have been able to get through this trying period. (Do the half-green/half-purple jacaranda trees signify our mood – drought-stricken and unable to be in full bloom?) Probably: Our dear Aunt Judy passed away a few days ago – suddenly, it seems – and while we were reeling from the news, we had to sit in court as a potential juror for eight hours one day and then again two days later, only to learn that we would be dismissed, as the trial was a minimum 20-day affair – and we, happily, are leaving the country for part of that time.

And while May continues to be sad (it’s the third Mother’s Day without our mother, and now one without Ma’s sister, our Aunt), April ended with a bang: We checked out the divine Annette Bening doing Ruth Draper at the Geffen Playhouse (through May 18), where her rendition of The Italian Lesson is priceless.

We also caught Frederica Von Stade (aka Flicka) at the Wallis in the West Coat premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s, A Coffin in Egypt. This was a comeback of sorts for the mezzo (we adored her Cherubino), but having to listen to her complain (through song), about being a rich man’s philandering wife/widow for the entire 78-minute performance, made us want to jump into that Texas coffin with her. Seriously.

We also caught Mikhail Baryshnikov at the Broad Stage (his third appearance since the Westside venue opened in 2008), in Man in a Case, and were, we’re sorry to say, somewhat disappointed. Yes, we could watch Misha sit in a chair all night – literally – but this Chekhovian endeavor did not work for us, until, that is, he took an inspired tumble down some stairs before donning a pork-pie hat, making him a distant relative to  Breaking Bad‘s Walter White. Come to think of it, if Misha could have broken bad(der), we would have liked the performance a helluva lot better.

Happily, though, on the way to the Broad, we stopped in at the Laemmle Royal (where our erstwhile pal, Bud Cort, once had the premiere of his film, Ted and Venus – we played the harp in it…), and where our dear friend, Taylor Negron was having an opening: Snow Paintings, as part of the movie theater’s series, Art in the Art House.

Negron‘s 17 oil portraits are fabulous (full disclosure – Negron once painted a watercolor of us!), and are on view until July 25 (his self portrait, right). We wrote about this master of comedy, monologues, directing, acting and writing plays for the LAT in 2001 and, after a recent, albeit lengthy interview with this artistic force of nature at the Four Seasons, where we saw Giancarlo Esposito (Gustavo Fring on Breaking Badokay we’re still addicted to the show we never watched when it aired, but continue to currently binge on, ad infinitum), and wanted desperately to get our picture taken with him but Negron balked – we managed to write up a rather lengthy Q & A for KCET Artbound. (How do 3,000 words sound!) Hmm, they sound kinda great, so here they are!

In the interim, the Laemmle series, curated by Joshua Elias (himself a fine artist), is definitely cool, and each film screened at the theater begins with a video, Why I Paint? directed by Logan Heftel and narrated by Negron.

We admit it: We love the dude. We also love Ate9 Dance Company (click here for our LAT story), and covered the troupe’s world premiere, Mouth to Mouth for Fjord Review. They’re off to New York soon, so let’s hope they’re welcomed in the Big Apple the way they have been here.

Last Friday and Saturday was Highways 25th Anniversary weekend, curated by the fantastic Dark Bob – on the same weekend that composer/performer Philip Glass was at CAP UCLA’s Royce Hall. We missed the Cocteau masterpiece, La Belle et la Bête, accompanied by Glass and his ensemble, choosing to revel, instead, at Highways, with the likes of performance art mavens Rachel Rosenthal and Barbara T. Smith, poet Linda J. Albertano and several of the L.A. Mudpeople, including their fabulous founder/leader, artist/poet Mike M. Mollett, along with so many others.

But we made it to UCLA on Saturday night with our Irish galpal, Denise O’Kelley (we only saw half of Glass’ five-hour marathon, Music in Twelve Parts so was the Glass half full; she stayed), which was staggering in its delivery, intent and sounds, before running back to Highways for a night of performances. Included on the bill were John Fleck (above), Richard Newton, Fat & F**ked Up (sans tubaist Bill Roper), and a quartet of Rudy Perez dancers, only to return to Royce again on Sunday night for a performance of the composer’s The Etudes.

On that night, Glass (left) played an acoustic Steinway, alternating with Maki Namekawa and Sally Whitwell. Gorgeous, heavenly, incomparable. It’s stuff like this – and the thrill of also being at Highways’ Jubilee Anniversary – that makes life in Los Angeles a bit more bearable.

Okay, L.A. is a tad more than bearable, depending on what freeway we’re on, what peeps we’re dealing with and the productions we’re seeing (for the most part, damn good). Indeed, we even found time to submit a short story we penned, The Oudist (fiction, for sure), which will be in a new anthology, Gen F, edited by artist-of-all-trades Gordy Grundy. We’re actually kind of excited about that. Our piece is picaresque satire and begins like this:

Not so long ago, I had a farm in Africa. A hash farm. Well, to be more precise, I wasn’t the sole owner of the property, like Karen Blixen and her coffee farm in Kenya, or wherever the fuck that farm about which Isak Dinesen wrote and whom Meryl Streep played in Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa, in her letter-perfect accent where she got to fuck Robert Redford amid rhinos, rattlers and roasted coffee beans.

Oh, and btw, anybody wanting to know what an ‘oud’ is, it’s an Arabic lute! Indeed, we’re finally thinking about getting our fiction act together…again – in between juggling our journalism gigs that barely pay the rent and running around town like the arbiters of taste we are. Or perhaps we should try our hand at memoir: Don’t Let Us Die On Doheny and Men and Other Natural Disasters are but two of the books we began writing a while ago, meaning we really must start budgeting our time better. The question, though, is, when? We’re currently doing the reporting for another LAT story, this one on Ballet Preljocaj (we saw his Les Nuits last year in Aix, and will also be doing the pre-concert talks at the Music Center 6/20-22; cover photo by Jean-Claude Carbonne).

But before that we shall be reporting from Wolfsburg, Germany – there, we’ve said it – on Diavolo (photo at left from GlassFluid Infinities). It’s part of the complete trilogy, L’Espace du Temps that we’ll see at the Movimentos Festival, after which we’ll get caught up on the art scene in Berlin, instead of serving on a jury – for a travel article for Performances Magazine. And on the long-haul flight, we’ll most certainly be reading Sandra Tsing Loh‘s hilarious new book, The Madwoman in the Volvo. Shout-out to you, Ms. Loh!

Oh: We’re also happy that our yoga guru, Romancing Your Soul‘s Barbara Simon, has found a home for her students again: It’s the incredible Kohn Gallery, which just opened on Highland in Hollywood, and where we did our downward-dogs amid Mark Ryden’s enormous show. The dude’s got a thing for Lincoln (as in Abe) and lowbrow surrealism. (Lady Gaga-like meat-draped porcelain, right; the artist, below left with BB’s Aaron Paul)

As Ate9’s Danielle Agami doesn’t use a mirror in her choreographic/Gaga practice, there are also no mirrors in the Kohn space (why would there be, as there’s more than enough narcissism in the entire fucking art world as it is), and whose largest room is currently painted peach and looks like something out of the Baroque era.

Talk about going Baroque: We received a Google Alert with a link to our Lost Leo DiCaprio Interview, (pictured at left with the artist and an unknown, at least to us, hipster), which was the cover story on a show we never watch, Entertainment Tonight. But check it out, so what that it’s only a few minutes of the uncut, two-part gab-fest we videotaped with the budding star when we still had frizzy hair and he was still, er, talking to us. Harrumph!

Less than two weeks into the merry month of May and we’re giving final exams to our USC students this week, before it’s back to L.A. Opera, where Plácido Domingo is singing (how long can the mega-tenor continue in such stellar voice, albeit now it’s more of a baritone), along with the exquisite Nino Machaidze as Thaïs. This production is running in rep with A Streetcar Named Desire (both close the season, along with a recital by Russian heartthrob Dmitri Hvorostovsky). We saw the world premiere of Streetcar up in San Francisco in 1998 (oy, where does the time go), with Renée Fleming and Rodney Gilfrey, before he decided to be called, well, Rod, and who will not be singing the role of Stanley Kowalski, as those honors go to Ryan McKinney.

Based on Tennessee Williams’ elegiac play, with music by André Previn and libretto by our very own Philip Littel, the opera is but another medium through which Williams’ words ring loud and clear. Indeed, we love, love, love the Marlon Brando-starring, Elia Kazan-directed film, and watch it again every chance we get (perfect for those non-stop flights to Europe). And why not, as we live by Blanche DuBois’ poignant last words, especially as heartbreakingly spoken by Vivien Leigh: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

With that, dear readers, we depend on your kindness to read this missive, as we sign off for now, with both sadness and sweetness in our hearts – remembering we had such a beautiful Aunt Judy, and her sister, our mother – if only for too short a time. But, as Beckett once said, We go on,” somehow managing to get temporarily assuaged by great art.

 

As Tosca (Maria Callas, below), so beautifully sings/declares, Vissi d’arte…vissi d’amore…so, too, do we.

 

 

About Victoria Looseleaf

Victoria Looseleaf is an award winning arts journalist and regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, KUSC-FM radio, Dance Magazine, Performances Magazine and other outlets. She roams the world covering dance, music, theater, film, food and architecture. Have pen - and iPad - will travel! Her latest book, "Isn't It Rich? A Novella In Verse" is now available on Amazon. Thank you for reading! Cheers...
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