By Shari Barrett
During the forced shutdown of theaters due to the Covid pandemic, The Actors’ Gang in Culver City kept its employees on salary and health insurance, adapted their outreach programs in schools and prisons to a virtual format, and continued workshops with its actors online. The group’s Artistic Director Tim Robbins shares, “But what was missing was what theater reliably provides: a place of gathering and community. I began writing Topsy Turvy (A Musical Greek Vaudeville) as a response to the seeming disintegration of community and the widening chasms between all of us that were exacerbated by the lack of human contact during lockdown. This turmoil was indeed the stuff of Greek tragedy and comedy.”
To that end, the world premiere of Topsy Turvy (A Musical Greek Vaudeville), written and directed by Robbins, is set in a humorous and comedic hybrid world of classical Greek theater and a raucous vaudeville show when the unity of a Greek Chorus of mortals is suddenly shattered when they can no longer meet in person due to an unseen, mysterious illness. Desperate for a solution to end their imposed isolation from each other, the Chorus invokes the Gods, seeking divine intervention to help mend their divisiveness and restore their ability to get together in person to sing.
There are thought-provoking visits from a Vegas-inspired Bacchus and Cupid (Scott Harris and Luis Quintana), the Aztec goddess Coatlique (Maga Shukar stepping in for Stephanie Galindo), the biblical character Onan (Scott Harris), and Dionysus and Aphrodite (Scott Harris and a resplendent Guebri Van Over). Mixed in with the Gods are magicians, hypnotists, Mongo the acrobatic monkey (played to the hilt by Megan Stogner), and The Great Distracto (portrayed by five energetic actors) as the Master of Ceremonies determined to disrupt The Chorus from getting back together. Chaos (Luis Quintana) ensues.
Lessons are learned and forgotten, the Gods lose patience and leave, while The Chorus ponders how to get back out into the world despite the warnings of death awaiting just outside their doors, something we all experienced. After much soul searching, The Chorus accepts the only solution which will reunite the world’s people. You may think that is love, but according to Aphrodite, it’s so much more than just that.
Topsy Turvy is among the earliest stage works in response to the distress of the last four years. And everyone, Gods and mortals alike, gets to have their say before the evening is over. Robbins continues, “We’ve all just lived through a big, dramatic life event and people responded in different ways. I traveled between one end and the other. The play is intended to be a catalyst for a conversation. It’s really about a society in chaos, a society that has lost its sense of up and down, a world gone topsy turvy. And in classic Greek plays, that is when the Chorus calls on the Gods for help.”
Six original songs written by Tim Robbins along with original music created by David Robbins and Mikala Schmitz enhance the play’s emotion-packed scenes, featuring projections by Cihan Sahin and evocative lighting design by Bosco Flanagan. The small, onstage orchestra perfectly mesh with the magnificent choral harmonies of fifteen actors whose soaring voices will wrap you up in thinking about how you personally handled your own isolation as well as how you felt about others who chose to follow a different path.
Performances at the Actors’ Gang, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City 90232, continue through June 8 with tickets available at www.theactorsgang.com and by phone at (310) 838-4264. Pay-What-You-Can performances are on Thursday evenings with tickets available at the door. Talkbacks with Tim Robbins and/or creators of the play take place after performances on Fridays, May 31 and June 7. After its world premiere run in Culver City, Topsy Turvy will premiere internationally on June 21 and 22 at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Sibiu, Romania, launching this summer’s 31st festival.
Nell Benjamin’s farce The Explorers Club mocks the heyday of male British explorers, set in a smugly secure enclave of an exclusive men’s club filled with privilege and pomposity; a place where adventure seekers with aboriginal blood on their hands blazed a trail for imperialism, colonialism, racism and misogyny with its chief activity the gender-specific sacrament of “brandy and cigars.” Jeff G. Racks’ splendidly appointed set design brings the male-only sexist sanctuary circa 1879 to life at Theatre 40.
Members include woman-hating Professor Sloane (Michael Mullen), a Bible-quoting “archaeo-theologist” who believes the Irish are the lost tribe of Israel and infuriates them by ordering them to leave for Palestine. An aficionado of guinea pigs, whining Professor Walling (Kevin Delude) falls afoul of snake-loving herpetologist Professor Cope (Daniel Leslie) and his cobra “Rosie.” All three silly and sophomoric stereotypes could be straight out of Monty Python or Benny Hill, for those who appreciate that type of British humor.
The forced love triangle that propels the contrived action centers around the club’s acting president, dweebish botanist Lucius Fretway (Matt Landig whose brilliant ability to perform physical comedy adds much-needed laughter), who is enamored of the club’s first potential female inductee, Phylida Spotte-Hume (Meghan Lewis). The newly-arrived female intruder brings a muscular, tattooed jungle specimen she named “Luigi” (Hovhannes John Babakhanyan) from the spoon-worshipping NaKong people, who the club intends to civilize in record time. But no luck with that; for when presented to Queen Victoria, the “savage” slaps Her Majesty, which is his customary greeting rather than shaking hands. That error brings Sir Bernard Humphries, Secretary to the Queen (David Hunt Stafford) into the mix, furious at Luigi’s insult to his boss. But what he really wants is to get the explorers to conquer the NaKong people for God and Empire.
Lucius’s alpha-male rival is Sir Harry Percy (the very tall and handsome Christopher Franciosa), a ruthless explorer cursed with an impenetrable upper-class mentality who never brings his men home alive. However, soon a sole survivor named Beebe (John Combs), now a Tibetan terrorist, comes back with a mob of monks bent on revenge, furious that Harry desecrated their sacred mountain by relieving himself on it. Harry brags about his most recent expedition to the “East Pole,” and that he will soon conquer the “West Pole.” But none of the other explorers question his ridiculous claims.
Frenetic and forced where Gilbert and Sullivan were clever and whimsical, the frantic action is, like the explorers, all over the map, Director Melanie MacQueen turns up the mugging meter and the pratfall processor, hoping for hilarity from cast members who over-act to the point of being ridiculously inauthentic. However, I did enjoy the comedic timing and characterization by Babakhanyan as the native Luigi, even though I could not understand what he was saying. But his comical pantomime skills made his performance such fun to watch. And Michael Mullen‘s period-perfect costumes are gorgeous!
The Explorers Club by Theatre 40 in Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno, on the campus of Beverly Hills High School on Thursday–Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. (dark June 7), with a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. on June 23 only. Reserved seat tickets are $35, available by calling (310) 364-0535 or visiting https://theatre40.org/ Free onsite parking via the driveway at the intersection of Durant & Moreno Drives.
