I went to see the play Friday night. What follows are some comments (actually rather a lot of comments about Albert Hall, theatre in general and theatre in L.A.). I really urge those who can to go see Albert Hall.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead!
The Lone Star Ensemble production of Amber Benson's play, Albert Hall is a beautifully realized meditation on the theatre, particularly the state of theatre in Los Angeles. As director James Kerwin and members of the cast pointed out during the Q & A following the play, and is mentioned less directly within the play itself, in Los Angeles the much larger film and television industry holds tremendous power. Theatre often is seen as a stepping-stone to something else. Plays are sometimes mounted in the not unreasonable hope of attracting a casting director or some other Hollywood power broker (witness the My Big Fat Greek Wedding phenomenon--the movie finds its origins in a one-woman play that is seen and then shepherded by some Hollywood powerhouse types into a smash independent film). For many, this is a problem.
And for many the questions becomes: what's the point of theatre in this golden land where soft westerlies off the pacific intermix with the harsh heated energy of Santa Anas blowing in from the desert; where the seasons--deluge, mudslide, drought and firestorm--are of the same piece as the tweaked out notions of paradise envisioned by a meth addict; where actor-model-waiter-spokesperson hyphenates meet writer-waiter-producer-teacher hyphenates over cups of decaf double tall lattes at the local Starbucks, and earthquakes motivate large numbers of the population to get into their cars, drive the freeways and report to local news outlets their observations (There was a sudden jerk. It felt like a smooth rolling motion, like being on a train. The water in my pool splashed over the side. The dishes shook.). Is it any wonder poor Albert Hall, the ostensible protagonist of the play, who "like everyone else" in L.A. is a writer, has experienced a nervous breakdown at the age of 30 after losing the digital file containing his novel?
But in a larger sense, it's not so much that Albert has gone crazy, but rather that he has "gone native" in a whole new way. Albert has evolved (or is evolving) into the embodiment of a place where the problem is no longer that the center is not holding, as Joan Didion famously observed of California decades ago, but that the center has dissolved altogether; where paradise and apocalypse have become a luminous, radiant, incandescent one; and where the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, between "real life" and performance have blurred into meaninglessness. So goes the 4th wall.
The play begins with the director, James Kerwin, making some announcements regarding the performance and the Q&A afterwards. While Kerwin is speaking, the actor who will play Albert (Brian Stanton) comes on stage behind and takes down a piece of yellow tape (of the same stuff used to mark off the boundaries of crime scenes). The tape reads Fourth Wall---Do Not Remove.
As he takes down the tape, the actor dialogues with the audience while simultaneously slipping into character. The audience learns that "he," Albert Hall is living at home after experiencing a mental collapse, and that he finds his mother overbearing and his doctor anything but a caring physician. Soon his mother (wonderfully played by Johanna McKay) enters the scene. She's a wack-job with a feather duster who seems to view Albert's breakdown as a personal afront of sorts. One minute dusting the furniture, the next minute pruning the plastic plants, and the next pushing Ovaltine, she is a whirlwind of miss-motivated energy. Not long after Mom's entrance, Dr. David appears. He's a pill-pushing charleton who displays the well-manicured moves of a teleevangelist of the less strident kind. While supposedly acting in Albert's best interest, mother and doctor seem incapable of doing the only things Albert asks, to listen to him or to leave him alone.
Albert's only friend is the audience itself, with whom he attempts to engage in conversation. But this friendship is also the mark of his insanity. Albert's mother and doctor know Albert is mentally ill because he "sees" the audience.
Act 1 ends with Albert exiting the stage, called to the lobby or heaven by a disembodied voice. For Albert, all the world's been a stage and now he is choosing to exit. Or is he choosing suicide? It all depends on your perspective, on where you think the "real" resides.
During Act 1, from the theatre's ceiling are suspended two large picture frames, which demark the forward end of the performance space. Albert often times moves in front of the frames; however, his mother and his doctor do not. The frames also serve as frames for "photographs" of people that Albert references (when Albert speaks of his sister for example, "she" walks onstage and "poses" within one of the frames). Near the back of the stage, behind a small love seat, sits a television, which is playing continuous tapes of the Fox 24-hour news station. The television sits on top of a pedestal that holds a dozen or so VHS videotapes. (The television is playing as the audience enters the theatre, which begs the question in another way, when did the performance begin?)
During Act 1, as Albert alternately interacts with the audience and his mother and doctor, among other things, he and his mother engage in a contest of sorts over the television. Albert wants it off; Mom wants it on.
Try to imagine it this way, behind Albert is his supposed window on to the world, the television, a window that he refuses to look through and which might also be seen as a frame of sorts. The television is playing 24-hour news (something that "frames" the facts for viewers--I could make some snarky comments about the Fox news network and its particular framing of the news, but I will resist). In front of Albert hang the picture frames, which are really frames within the larger frame that is the theatre's proscenium arch.
Act 1 presents the aftermath of Albert's nervous breakdown, during which his mother and doctor will continually challenge his grasp of the real. But the audience's grasp is likewise being challenged. Both (Albert and the audience) must decide what is "real" as they see in and around this set of frames within frames within frames (think of the disorienting house of mirrors in a carnival).
More importantly, Act 1 is doing two things at once. It's telling a rather conventional story of nervous breakdown and conflict between son, mother and doctor, and it's breaking some of the major theatrical conventions of the realist stage--the framework by which most people measure theatre--most importantly talking across or through the 4th wall.
But at the same time, Act 1 is also upholding one of the other great conventions of the realist theatre; it is telling a story cut to the size of everyday life. (One of the hallmarks of realist theatre is that it tells the stories of everyday people--think of the heroine in Ibsen's A Doll's House, a housewife who has fallen into economic troubles. Where other theatres, classical Greek and nineteenth century American and English melodrama, to name two examples, tell stories of great heroes and great villains, realist theatre tells tales by in large of the middle class.) Here in LA, Albert's story is ironically and regrettably entirely mundane. It is the stuff of Ibsen.
This set of conflicting frameworks, of theatrical conventions kept and broken will be observed and re-observed in the subsequent acts.
Act 2 tells a story from Albert's childhood. It's set in the mid-1980s and the set and costumes adhere to the time period (lots of mirrors, lots of pink and aqua, two tacky pictures on the wall--Patrick? Nagel prints, I think). The rear wall holds two doors, between them hangs a mirror, or is it a window? While the hanging picture frames from Act 1 are gone, we now have a new frame within a frame.
The director makes great use of the two doors; characters fly in an out as if they are performing French farce. But it's the mirror/window that intrigues.
In Act 2, we see the get together that follows the funeral of Albert's father. At one point, Albert's father appears in the mirror as a ghostly presence, later he will come through the door and enter the scene as a ghost. Except there's a problem, of sorts, Albert's family is Jewish and therefore do not "believe" in ghosts. Within this logic, it only follows that Albert's father's interactions are limited to his oh so very sexy widow (a gentile many years his younger), otherwise he cannot be seen (or can he?).
Another set of conventions or beliefs has been added to the mix. Again, the audience and Albert must decide what is real. Again, some conventions of realism are being played with, while other conventions are being upheld. While perhaps exaggerated, the production goes all out in deploying the tropes and styles of the 80s, from the music to the fashion to the use of sound effects (Atari game sounds, in particular), in other words, it achieves the sense of time and place that are hallmarks of the realist stage.
[It just crossed my mind that the television is now moved to the front of the stage and faces inward away from the audience. Also, it is no longer a "television" since Albert is at one point in Act 2 playing a video game, complete with vintage joystick. The stage has been reversed both literally and figuratively. The after life, as it were, resides behind the mirror, instead of in the audience.]
Act 3, as others have pointed out, is less improvisational than it was during the staged reading. It is much more clearly the "scene" of Albert's nervous breakdown where he ceases to be Albert and becomes his alter ego, Mr. Sadface: a clown who, among other things, avoids left turns. It begins with Mr. Sadface being questioned by his doctor from Act 1. (While he is being (cross)examined by his doctor, the people Albert references perform a rictus tableau vivant behind him. Something interesting is happening with time here, but I haven't figured it out yet. Also, the "mirror" of Act 2 is now clearly a window, through which Albert's mother and sister "observe" his treatment.)
At some point, the actor who plays Albert/Mr. Sadface breaks character announcing that Act 3 is not working for various reasons. He refuses to participate in the charade. (Stanton's skill as an actor is in much evidence here as he masterfully confuses the audience with his intentions.) More confusion takes place as other actors come on stage and begin to argue. The director, James Kerwin (or is he now an actor?) attempts to take charge. Kerwin announces to the audience that Act 3 will be started from the top. Another actor puts on the clown suit and begins reading from the script, but chaos continues to erupt. Stanton, the actor who plays Albert, continues to interfere. In a desperate act to regain control of the stage, the director "shoots" the actor who plays Albert. Stanton (or is he Albert) falls to the floor.
Whereas during the staged reading of Albert Hall, the actors called "for a doctor in the house," in this production Albert's "father" acts as the doctor. While the "death" during the staged reading had greater stage affect, many in the audience truly could not figure out what was going on, the "killing" of the actor who plays Albert is clearly theatrical. The gun looks and sounds like a stage prop, etc.
Act 3 ends in the same manner as Act 1, with Albert leaving the stage to "discover" what is real.
Okay, lots of description here, and parts of it are mighty sketchy. (I plan to see the play again next week so that I can give a more coherent account of Acts 2 and 3). But here are a few more thoughts...
As I mentioned at the beginning of this lengthy post, Albert Hall can be seen as a meditation on the theatre itself (and, in particular, theatre in L.A., which has a not so pleasant relationship to L.A.'s film and television industry). What interests me the most is how Albert Hall uses the so-called "alienation effects" of experimental theatre. Here, it helps to understand experimental theatre in relation to realism.
While the realist theatre offers audiences "an appearance of reality" by presenting stories that have logical beginnings, middles and ends; coherent characterizations, recognizable costumes and sets, and so forth, it is in many ways incredibly unreal. Characters speak in complete sentences, every conversation has a point, and all stories have resolutions. It's opposite, experimental theatre offers stories without the logic of narrative, incoherent characterization, and sets/costumes that rarely define a particular time or place. But, in many ways, experimental theatre is more "realistic." Face it, in "real life" people only rarely speak in complete sentences, conversations are more often then not pointless, and the only true "ending" to any story (of any life, of any biography) is death.
Digging in a bit deeper, within realism, narrative, characterization and setting suture the audience into the story, and thus create the illusion of a continuous reality. In so doing, realism enables identification. Typically, experimental theatre seeks to block identification. It seeks to alienate the audience through the creation of distancing effects (for example, reminding the audience that what they are seeing is not the appearance of reality, but a construction of ideas).
I see Albert Hall as splitting the difference, as it were, and doing so in really interesting ways. While Albert Hall employs the alienation effects of the experimental theatre, instead of distancing the audience from the theatrical experience, these effects instead serve to "sew" the audience in. (Listening to the audience speak during the Q&A was a marvel as audience member after audience member described his or her feelings of engagement as opposed to distance.)
What Albert Hall does, I think, is create a different kind of relationship of identification, one with the theatre itself. Albert Hall takes us through a glass sideways so that instead of dealing in alienation, it traffics in affect (to act upon or have an effect upon somebody or something; to move somebody emotionally), and thus evokes what might be called a new sentimentality (and seems to me of the same stuff as photographer Douglas McCulloh's mesmerizing Chance Encounters project and the wonderful way critic Steven Johnson conceives of the hypertextual link as "links of association.")
Getting back to my rather long discussion of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles theatre scene, and why Albert Hall?
In many respects, living in L.A. is its own alienation effect, perhaps best symbolized by its freeways. In LA we zip along in our individual worlds of steel, plastic and glass, hurtling through space at ridiculous speeds while talking on our cell phones and listening to Kevin and Bean in the morning or Ryan with Foxy on the side for the drive home. (Much of the thinking about this post occurred last night while I was speeding on the 10, talking on my cell, observing a spectacular moon and listening to Kylie Minogue.)
Put another way, in a land like this to what end theatre? To what degree can the tropes of experimental theatre alienate when the center has already dissolved? It would be hard to fix on a reason for the state of things here ...was it the Manson family, the building of the Bonaventure Hotel, the L.A. riots, hyphenate people, the Northridge earthquake, Good Day L.A, botox parties, the Anna Nicole show...does it even matter?
Albert Hall is a theatre for people who have grown up absurd; it is a theatre for people ill served by the tropes and tricks of mid-twentieth century experimentation. I'm planning on going back. For one thing, I need to think about how popular music fits into the play.
If you live in L.A. or the surrounding area do go see Albert Hall. Even if you're just going for Amber Benson, go see Albert Hall. Theatre is important, even in L.A.
If you're currious about Chance Encounters, here is the link to the exhibition site,
www.cmp.ucr.edu/site/exhibitions/chance/The notion of "links of association" is discussed in Steven Johnson's 1997 book, Interface Culture.
The term, "new sentimentally" is adopted from Thomas M. Disch's brilliant novel, On Wings of Song, a science fiction set in the mid-twenty-first century where people strive to leave their bodies on flights (astral, cyber or real, it's hard to say) of music. Within the novel, the new sentimentality is an aesthetics movement of sorts. The term, new sentimentality is differently used in other discussions, for example, Russian postmodernism.
Edited by: technopagan78 at: 4/23/03 10:25:34 pm
I tell her I came from Kitten board and she wanted me to say hello to Kittens for her. 
I also told her I graduated form UAB and lived next city to her hometown for almost three years, she’s like unbelieving and smile and ask what’s my major than we talk about Birmingham, yes, sweet home Alabama!! 
I also had a black lamborghina & a tiger poster too - nothing too arty 
at: 4/20/03 6:48:10 pm
so she showed up a minute before start time. 
). 
at: 4/30/03 2:05:13 pm
