a ceremony about evil
by Douglas Messerli
Jean-Claude van Itallie The Serpent /
Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, directed by Ron Sossi / the production I saw with
Howard N. Fox was on March 8, 2020
Let me begin this review with a series of
appreciations. I truly admire Ron Sossi and all that he has done over now 50
years at the incredible Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in, first Hollywood, and soon
after, West Los Angeles. There is to my thinking no more of an exciting company
presenting US and European-born theater classics in the city. Some of the most
exciting theater works I have experienced in this vast crucible of theatrical
explorations has been at his Odyssey theater.
He’s gone everywhere, from Samuel Beckett, Ezra Pound, Max Frisch,
Bertolt Brecht, Stephen Sondheim and into this incredible season 50th-51st
season, to Irene María Fornes, Gertrude Stein, Sam Shepard, and others—something
you must simply bow down to. What other theater in the US might present the
great singer of French Chansons, Julia Migenes on the very same day as
Jean-Claude van Itallie’s 1968, The Serpent? It is truly astounding.
Every season of the Odyssey’s schedule is exciting, offering enticingly
original productions of new and older theatrical productions that excite me. I
have praised so many of their productions that I nearly blush, as if I were a
theater hack devoted to their remarkable annual seasons..
The very thought, moreover, that he produced, as his company’s very
second production in Spring 1970, only two years after the highly controversial
late 60s production, is breath-taking. Los Angelenos must have felt their
pulses expanding with wonderment. I wish I would have been there, the year
Howard, my now husband and I, first met back in Wisconsin. Sossi is a master at
recreating experimental theater in a way few others are in Los Angeles.
For example, the tree containing the
forbidden fruit in Chaikin’s version was made up of only males, mostly gay it
appeared, hissing and lisping, as in their entanglement some shook their
fingers between the crotches of the others, suggesting both rather phallic
images as well as the duality of tongues with which the serpent spoke. In other
scenes, the entire company groans and moans as if suffering the hell of their
own evil behaviors.
Of
course, the version I saw in the tape was in a gritty black-and-white, while
the Odyssey production was in muted colors, browns, whites, and dark reds. And,
unlike Sossi’s cast, Chaikin’s worked with him for several months even before
he brought in van Itallie to create a more coherent structure and a slight
narrative thrust.
Sossi clearly attempted to reiterate that relationship by initially
having the cast members read of out some of the names of audience members (mine
was among them), and later, after Eve gives in to the serpentine seduction,
even passing out a few apples to audience members: the woman in front of me
joyfully bit into one. Yet the Odyssey’s mostly West Side Los Angeles audience,
I believe, were not quite ready to submit, as Chaikin’s late 60s audience might
have been, to the experience of the Eucharistic sermon of man’s evil to his own
kind—which includes not only the essential Eden scene, but the death of
President Kennedy (Dresel-Kurtz plays Jackie), the shooting of Martin Luther
King (performed by Woodberry), a wild sexual orgy as the cast, freed from their
lack of knowledge, go into choreographed sexual passions, as well as the murder
of Abel by Cain (Gilbert). One woman, in our audience, was evidently unprepared
for the sexual energy released, howling loudly through the scene, as if she had
never imagined sex pantomimed on stage. Surely in 1968, no one at the Open
Theatre would have laughed out of what was clearly utter embarrassment.
At
other moments the audience seemed more contained than transformed by the
ceremonial experience the director was attempting to create. The
Beckettian-like lament—"I’m in the middle, having lost the beginning, and
going to the end”—might have been lost for some of this audience members,
although it says everything about the condition of those suddenly discovering
that they are soon to die. As a critic, I often get asked by caring and
well-intentioned women and men, “What do you think this means?”
I
don’t want, however, to suggest that Los Angeles audiences are not capable of
enjoying profound theater. The more I attend this city’s theater events, the
more profoundly I am moved by their willingness to attend and contemplate
complex works, and this audience, in its sincere applause, totally embraced van
Itallie’s work.
One
of the most touching moments—which I think moved every one of us—was Cain’s
remorse for having killed his beloved brother because God had refused his
sacred offerings. Just a few days earlier I had witnessed Queen Elizabeth’s
sudden remorse for her beloved Deveraux’s death at the LAOpera. The absolute
shock of what Cain has just done in this play presents an entirely new vision
of what, in the Old Testament, is simply presented as an unforgiveable crime
which dooms him to an expulsion as severe as Adam’s and Eve’s.
Even
Sossi seemed to suggest his own reservations about reviving such timely
ensemble-based works.
Many of the ensemble
projects of that time are difficult
to re-create, as they
featured large casts and were highly
personal in terms of
actor input and content…unique
products of their
time and place. …At this point we have
no idea if this
“Ceremony for Theatre” speaks to the
audience of today,
yet so many of his themes are
universal enough to
make me believe that it has a good shot.
He
argues, and think quite rightly, that despite those reservations, The
Serpent was “do-able.” It is, and I truly appreciate this director’s
willingness to dig back into that history to let us see a new vision of such an
iconic work.
Los Angeles, March 11, 2020
Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and
Performance (March 2020).
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