The power of Grief

You need to go see Colin Campbell's "Grief: A One Man ShitShow."

When you hear about the show, you'll probably resist going and that has to do with fear. Fear of solo shows and fear of loss.

Trust me you don't need to scared of this solo show, more on that in a second. A fear of losing those we love...yeah, that's the whole point of this show.

Colin Campbell gets right to it. Three years ago on June 12th, Colin was driving with his wife, Gail, and two teenage children, Ruby and Hart, when their car was t-boned by a drunk driver. Both children died.

That's where the show begins.

It's all too easy to imagine a solo show that's a painful mess beginning with that loss: painful not because of the subject matter but because of the indulgent execution.

That's not this show.

Yes, this show is painful but not because it's selfish or unconsidered but because we live in a culture absent of meaningful lamentation or an acceptance of grief.

That's the deep subject of "Grief: A One Man Shitshow" - how do we grieve and why are we so ill-equipped to deal with not only our own grief but the grief of those around us.

Colin understands how difficult a journey this will be for the audience. He takes care of us by naming that and through his skill as a theatre maker and his generosity as a human. He lets us know that some us might laugh as others cry and he's up front about the tragedy. As he says, "there's no third act reveal."

Instead, he questions: why theatre?

He draws inspiration from the Greeks, reminding us in a lovely quick, comic encapsulation just how much death surrounds the story of Oedipus. Basically everyone dies in horrid circumstances. The Greeks filled their plays with this grief seeing a whole day of tragedies before a quick palate cleanser Satyr play with huge comic phalluses (this isn't lost on Colin). They found value in that grief (and I guess those phalluses).

Colin is using theatre as a guide not for his soul but for ours. He is going to share with us the journey that he's been on the last three years, not to have us indulge in his pain but rather to share with us a journey we will all make. He's guiding us through the grief we've either already experienced or inevitably will.

Now, most of us will never go through the pain of losing all of our children in a car crash. We will all experience loss. It's through the specificity of Colin's journey that we will make sense of not only his grief but our own.

It's a difficult journey but it is never selfish and never exploitative. You will leave this show moved by Colin's generosity and love and devastated that two incredible children died too soon and too tragically.

You will be glad you went and as difficult is the journey is, you'll feel better and your soul a bit bigger for having experienced it.

"Grief: A One Man ShitShow" plays at Sacred Fools in Hollywood as part of the Hollywood Fringe tonight, June 23rd at 9:30 and Sunday June 25th at 11pm. This is Anthony Byrnes Opening the Curtain on LA Theatre for KCRW.

This is Anthony Byrnes Opening the Curtain on Los Angeles theater for KCRW.

Hugo Armstrong devours Vanya

You need to drive to Pasadena to see Hugo Armstrong in "Uncle Vanya" at the Pasadena Playhouse (I know, it's a schlep but trust me it's worth it).

Uncle Vanya is one of those plays that suffers from a Chekhovian reverence. Too often it's all a little too gentile. Vanya is after all a man with hay to bring in before it rains. A man keeping accounts of linseed oil and fiercely craving is brother-in-law's new, young, stunning wife. Hissing samovars be damned, this is earthy stuff.

Hugo Armstrong's Vanya is a force of nature that feels like he erupted from fertile soil. He's a bit disheveled, farmer's suspenders falling from his pants, boots, dirty knees, and the sensibility of someone connected to the land he's been stewarding to turn a profit for decades.

There's a moment in act two when he slices an apple, stabs it with a knife, and then eats it off the blade. There's something dangerous about it. It's the touch of a working man, someone who's knows the value of his food and isn't shy about his appetites.

The real magic is the emotional terrain Mr. Armstrong's Vanya covers with mercurial precision. Like devouring that apple (or the bowls of soup he licks clean with his knuckle), he sucks every ounce out of this part. At moments blisteringly funny then instantly tragic beyond measure. You get a visceral sense of this tormented soul who's devoted his life to supporting the vain, gouty academic career of his late sister's husband. He feels like a penned in beast whose finally been set free to try in vain to break free of the last bonds. His massive frame moving through the set like a lithe animal searching for relief. His words finding every shift and nuance of meaning. It's a stunning, heartbreaking journey.

The cast that surrounds this Vanya is lovely and well directed by Michael Michetti. The translation by Richard Nelson, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky is immediate and modern. Perhaps most notably, it completely shatters that Russian fourth wall and gives the characters each an aside - sharing directly with the audience the quandaries of their souls.

This startling directness does the story good. There's still that lovely formality of lines like "Ladies and gentleman, lunch is ready" and the lyrical poetry of "and yet she still searches in her clever books for the dawn of a new life." Chekhov's gifts are not abandoned - but the urgency of his despair and concern is all the more present. As Dr. Astrov laments the destruction of the landscape around him, you feel the prescient Chekhov almost speaking directly to us of our own time "those who live one or two hundred years after us, and whose path we're laying out - will they remember us kindly?"

Will they remember us kindly? It's jarring.

If you've been looking for excuse to get back to the theatre, this is it. You won't see a finer Uncle Vanya than Hugo Armstrong's.

"Uncle Vanya" plays at the Pasadena Playhouse through June 26th.

This is Anthony Byrnes Opening the Curtain on Los Angeles theater for KCRW.

An angry, brutal Lear at the Wallis

Director John Gould Rubin’s angry, angry “King Lear” at The Wallis launches right in with Edmund’s bastard speech.

Now either that last bit made perfect sense and made you go “hmmm” or you have no idea who Edmund is or why he’s saying anything about the baseness of bastards.

Depending on which camp you're in, it might be a good hint on whether this production of “King Lear” is a good pick for you.

Anger aside, this is not an entry-level Lear. This is a I’ve-seen-Lear-more-than-a-couple-times and really want to see a slick, stripped down take with video loops, a drone-y, near constant sound bed and more than its fair share of vitriol - Lear. If that’s you, go. You’ll love it.

If you’ve got some questions, stick with me.

The Wallis production is built around actor Joe Morton as a modern King Lear. As he struts onto stage for the opening scene in a hipster green plaid suit and orange tinted glasses to divide up his kingdom, in this case a symbolic set of rolling banquet tables, one of the first things you notice is how present the language is. Even amidst the constant sound score that underpins every scene, you feel Shakespeare’s words leaving an impression in the space.

The space has been reconfigured into a sort of ‘promenade’ stage with the audience seated both in the house and onstage - separated by an alley of a playing space, filled with those banquet tables, some slick metal chairs and several LED screens. The world of this Lear is modern, and more than a bit dystopic. We see video loops of flooding, fires. The actors are often toting phones and either filming themselves or their counterparts and we see those screens fill with text threads and the like.

Back to Edmund from the opening scene: he’s Gloucester’s bastard son “some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a brother.” He’s out to get that brother, Edgar, and it plays out almost like a tik-tok frame up capturing the plot on those screens.

The cast is rounded out with Gloucester and Lear’s three daughters: Goneril, Regan, and the beloved Cordelia who doubles as Lear’s Fool.

It’s a tight, elegantly designed and brutal “King Lear.”

But is it a good “King Lear”?

It’s an angry Lear. It’s an unrelenting Lear. In a great way, it expects a lot from its audience, I’m just not sure it repays the favor. It’s a complete work of art. You will love it, or not, for what it is. Walking out, for all its energy, there isn’t much revelatory in this Lear. Perhaps against a world that wasn’t so unrelenting, an audience could find a way in. Right now, it feels like another angry tragedy.

“King Lear” plays at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills through June 5th.

This is Anthony Byrnes Opening the Curtain on LA Theater for KCRW.