DEMOCRACY (SIC) Theater Review

The Democracy Zone: Theater of the People, By the People, For the People 

By Ed Rampell

Don Williams’ com-dram democracy (sic) opens with a movie-like montage, accompanied by a throbbing recorded rock soundtrack and flashing lights designed by the aptly name RAY Jones. (Look closely and you’ll glimpse a red flag with a hammer and sickle in the background.) The rest of this world premiere production presented by the Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company at the Art of Acting Studio Los Angeles is also quite cinematic, a fast moving, often comic pastiche with seven filmic vignettes commenting on America’s contemporary political scene (and what a scene the players make!). 

Riffing on TV’s famous Twilight Zone anthology supernatural series that debuted on the tube in 1959, hosted and co-written by Rod Serling, Alex Best plays an ersatz Serling who welcomes spectators to a “dimension of imagination” called “the Democracy Zone” - a demented domain that I must say is truly “demo-crazy.”

istorically, bigotry has served as the basis for US policy and law often enough that no one should be surprised that we’re at it again, targeting people who had no meaningful choice when they were brought to this country as children. To mask our bigotry, we call these innocent young people “childhood arrivals.” We pretend they broke the law as minors by accompanying their parents who brought them to our country in violation of our constitutionally squalid immigration statutes. But we also pretend we are big-hearted because we will hold off on “deferred action” against these criminals in our midst. Yes, that’s DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the 2012 executive program that is fundamentally a moral hoax and a legal joke, neither of which is among the reasons President Trump has given for throwing the program into deferred chaos.

Dziga Vertov’s The Man with the Movie Camera

V.I. Pudovkin’s short Chess Fever

Sergei Eisenstein’s first film Glumov's Diary

Los Angeles, Sept. 15, 2017 – The Los Angeles Workers Center and Hollywood Progressive co-present a triple feature of films by three of Soviet cinema’s greats. These movies show that the Bolsheviks had a sense of humor.

Come join us in celebration in uplifting the Reeb Avenue Center on Sunday, September 17th in the 2050 S. High courtyard from 3-8 p.m. 

There wil be:

-2 stages with entertainment by: magician Drew Murray, DJ Bill, comedian Michelle Trimmer and musical artist Wyatt Henderson

-BBQ and Pizza 

-Photo Booth

-50/50 Raffle drawn at aproximately 7PM

-Live Silent Auction - drawn at aproximately 6:45PM

100% of proceeds from this event benefit the nearby Reeb Avenue Center, who is making major impacts in the Southside of Columbus. They focus in areas of: GED certifications, pay-as-you-can food market and restaurant, human sex trafficking, drug addiction rehab, children's education, childcare, and much more.

Purchase tickets now and join us for a rejuvenation to the neighborhood, providing hope, jobs and excitement to the Southside of Columbus and our community.

The Greek tragedian Euripides’ rumination on war, Iphigenia in Aulis, is the Getty Villa’s annual outdoor classical theater production reviving a Greek classic at the Malibu amphitheater. Iphigenia was first performed posthumously in 405 BC at an Athens amphitheater with 20,000 seats. Iphigenia won ancient Greece’s equivalent of the Tony or Ovation Award at the city state’s Dionysia festival.

Unfortunately, the Iphigenia production at the 500-ish seat outdoor Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater at the Getty Villa remains startlingly relevant. Iphigenia is set against the background of the Trojan War, which according to legend was triggered by Paris running off with the beautiful Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaus (Michael Huftile). His brother Agamemnon (Mark Montgomery) is the leader of the Greek forces that have assembled at Aulis to set sail with a formidable fleet to recapture Helen of Troy. However, the Greek god Artemis has conspired to prevent this from happening - unless Agamemnon commits an unspeakable act as a sacrifice to the gods.