Essential Arts: MOCA director on his way out, Susan Stroman’s return to the stage
More leadership uncertainty at MOCA. The Julius Eastman revival. Susan Stroman’s Henry James moves. I’m arts and entertainment editor Laurie Ochoa, your guide for this week’s essential arts stories. Carolina Miranda is at the Venice Architecture Biennale and will return next week.
PHILIPPE VERGNE’S EXIT
Less than two months after Museum of Contemporary Art director Philippe Vergne fired chief curator Helen Molesworth, the downtown L.A. museum’s board of trustees announced it would not renew Vergne’s contract, which is up next year. “How is MOCA ever going to find anyone as suave, friendly, urbane and genuine as Philippe Vergne?” said artist Ed Ruscha to Times arts reporter Deborah Vankin. But fellow artist Lari Pittman, who resigned from the MOCA board this year and was a staunch supporter of Molesworth, saw opportunity in the decision: “Sadly inevitable news but a more hopeful prognosis for MOCA. Time to hire a woman as director!” Los Angeles Times
Times art critic Christopher Knight points out that Vergne is “the third MOCA director in a row who hasn’t been able to make the switch from smart, talented curator to top administrator at a major art museum.” This, Knight adds, “is serious….MOCA, a major art museum of international significance, has been without an effective director going on 20 years — half its lifetime. That desperately needs to change — and fast.” Los Angeles Times
Plus, a chronology of MOCA in flux since 2000. Los Angeles Times
A REASON TO KEEP ROOTING FOR MOCA
For all the of the administrative turmoil at MOCA, the museum’s art exhibitions continue to give hope. Consider Lauren Halsey’s “deft” and “absorbing” installation “we still here, there,” which Times critic Christopher Knight calls “a successor to Mike Kelley’s ‘Kandor 10B (Exploded Fortress of Solitude).’” The day-glo cavern “locates the shifting shadows and perceptual conundrums of Plato’s cave in the backyard and garage of her grandmother’s house in South Los Angeles, where the artist built the show’s big grotto...emphasizing the ad hoc and handmade against an era dominated by digital razzle-dazzle.” Los Angeles Times
Plus, openings, closings and ongoing art shows in Carolina Miranda’s datebook. Los Angeles Times
A NEW U.S.-MEXICO BORDER?
The Venice Architecture Biennele has just opened in Italy and the Times’ Carolina Miranda is there, examining how the world’s architectural thinkers and practitioners are applying the massive exhibition’s open-ended theme, FREESPACE. For U.S. Pavilion curators Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui and L.A.’s Mimi Zeiger, the theme prompted the exhibition “Dimensions of Citizenship.” “How do we complicate this idea of understanding where we belong and not being beholden to national citizenship?” Zeiger asks. Seven design teams were invited to explore that question. Miranda talked in depth to Southern California’s Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, who have reimagined the U.S.-Mexico border for the exhibit and propose “a new 154,000 square-mile border region they call ‘MEXUS’ … with a shared culture, economy and environment.” Los Angeles Times
‘THE BEAST’ AND SUSAN STROMAN
Sometimes a play hits the stage because its creators want an excuse to work together. For five-time Tony-winning choreographer and director Susan Stroman (“The Producers,” “The Scottsboro Boys,” “Contact”), the chance to work again with three-time Tony-winning composer John Kander (“Cabaret,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman”) and two-time Tony-nominated writer David Thompson was irresistible. Arts writer Barbara Isenberg spent time with the three as they prepared for the opening earlier this week of their new musical “The Beast in the Jungle” at New York’s Vineland Theatre. It’s a modern retelling of the Henry James novella set to a waltz beat. As Stroman said of James’ protagonist, “John Marcher certainly waltzes through life.” Los Angeles Times
‘TYRANT,’ SHAKESPEARE AND TRUMP
“What can Shakespeare or Plato or Machiavelli or Herman Melville teach us about Trump?” asks Times theater critic Charles McNulty. In his review of “Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics,” by Stephen Greenblatt, who “helped pioneer an approach to Shakespeare that creatively engages the historical contexts of the plays.” McNulty points out that while Greenblatt does not mention Donald Trump, the president “haunts nearly every page” of the book. “It’s strange reading about the dynastic ambitions of York (father of homicidal hunchback Richard III) and thinking about Jared Kushner and the Trump scions.” Los Angeles Times
REINTRODUCING ‘VIOLET’
Though it had a Broadway run in 2014, after a 17-year gap following its 1997 off-Broadway premiere, the musical “Violet,” as Times reviewer Daryl H. Miller writes, is little-known. “Yet [it] tends to make fans of those who encounter it.” He adds, “An invigorating production at Actors Co-op in Hollywood is bound to add to those numbers.” The music is by Tony-winning composer Jeanine Tesori (“Fun Home”), whose “Soft Power,” in collaboration with David Henry Hwang, is now playing at the Ahmanson. Los Angeles Times
MORE STAGE NOTES
French Stewart, Rob Nagle and Emily Goss are part of a strong cast with “crackerjack” direction by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky, according to Times reviewer F. Katheen Foley, who attended the premiere of Steve Apostolina‘s play “Forever Bound” at the Atwater Village Theatre. The problem: “This is one of those frustrating ‘Why don’t they just pick up a phone and call the cops?’ plays that sacrifices sense for coloration.” Los Angeles Times
For our 99-Seat Beat column, Foley also runs down her picks for this week’s best theater choices from the small theater scene, including an immersive “One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest,” adapted by Dale Wasserman for After Hours Theatre Company at Burbank’s Six01 Studio. Los Angeles Times
Plus, openings and more in the week ahead for Southern California theater. Los Angeles Times
KING DANCE
Choreographer Heidi Duckler rarely limits her works to ordinary stages, but her latest project, tentatively titled “Two-Eyed Seeing,” is her most ambitious and unusual yet. Beginning in August, Duckler’s dance company, as Times contributor Laura Bleiburg writes, “will spend two years at and around Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science and the campus of the 3-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital. ... With a recently announced $75,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Duckler’s company aims to create not just dance but a more cohesive community.” Los Angeles Times
Plus, the week ahead in Southern California dance. Los Angeles Times
‘FEMENINE’ ECSTASY
“Fueled by the backstory of the blazingly talented composer, vocalist, pianist and progressive black and gay provocateur...there has been nothing quite like the Julius Eastman revival,” writes Times music critic Mark Swed. Most recently, Monday Evening Concerts built its sold-out program at the Colburn School’s Zipper Concert Hall around Eastman’s 70-minute piece “Femenine.” “You have to give ‘Femenine’ time and the benefit of the doubt,” Swed writes. “The first 10 minutes are little more than a vibraphone playing, ad infinitum. … A grand crescendo after around 40 minutes is the point where effusiveness takes over. I looked around the hall and didn’t see a soul who wasn’t hooked. A big beat followed with injections of ecstasy.” Los Angeles Times
NO FANFARE FOR ‘SOLO’
Times contributor Tim Greiving goes deep to explore the backstory of how the “Star Wars” films lost their iconic opening — “a piece of music that heralded all the early ‘Star Wars’ movies: the 20th Century Fox Fanfare.” The “brassy, regal” composition was written in 1933 by nine-time Oscar winner Alfred Newman, “a founding father of film music” and father to Thomas Newman and David Newman, both Oscar-nominated composers (not to mention uncle to Randy Newman). John Williams wrote his “Star Wars” fanfare in the same key of B-flat major as Newman’s Fox fanfare and, like countless movie fans, considered it the beginning of his score. When Disney announced late last year that it would acquire 20th Century Fox in a deal expected to close in 2019, many hoped that the Fox fanfare would return with this week’s opening of “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” Alas, it was not to be. Los Angeles Times
ONE OF THEIR OWN
“Concerts don’t often feel like a family gathering,” writes Times contributor Rick Schultz,
but following the recent death of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra violinist Katia Popov, LACO created that very setting for its 50th-anniversary season finale” at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Shostakovich‘s Cello Concerto No. 1, Vivaldi‘s Concerto Grosso in D Minor (Op. 3, No. 11), Mozart‘s Symphony No. 39 and an “exuberant rendition” of Derrick Spiva Jr.‘s “From Here a Path” were on the program dedicated to Popov, who gave her final performance at LACO’s April gala before succumbing to cancer. “From the mournful mood,” Shultz writes, “a memorable celebration was born.” Los Angeles Times
Plus, the week ahead in Southern California classical music. Los Angeles Times
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On Twitter: @Laurie_Ochoa
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