Haiti’s Quest for Liberation Continues in Bloody ‘Dessalines’

“Dessalines (The Heart) Blood and Liberation: For the Love of Freedom, Part II,” at the Greenway Court Theatre, is the second offering in Levy Lee Simon’s sweeping historical trilogy about the Haitian fight for independence. Like the first play in the trilogy, “For the Love of Freedom, Part I: Toussaint,” Simon’s massively ambitious enterprise alternates between the authoritative and the excessive.

As the play opens in 1802, Toussaint L’Ouverture, the visionary leader of the Haitian revolution that freed the islands’ blacks from slavery--and the subject of part one of Levy’s trilogy--is languishing in a dungeon in the French Alps. Insurgents are still at large in the countryside, but relative peace and prosperity reigns on the island.

Jean Jacques Dessalines (vigorous, grandly heroic Abner Genece), now a top-ranking officer in the French army under Napoleon, is enjoying the riches and prestige of his position when he learns of a French plot to reintroduce slavery on the island. Born a slave, the outraged Dessalines, popularly known as “The Tiger” for his ferocity in battle, breaks with the French forever, takes command of the indigenous rebel forces and leads his country to independence.

But there’s a dark side to this popular hero. After ascending to power, Dessalines engages in the kind of bloody and genocidal deeds that rival the French at their most sanguinary. Simon doesn’t flinch from dealing with Dessalines’ later atrocities. However, Dessalines’ progression from hero to tyrant is curiously abrupt and insufficiently explicated here. Also, outrageous overstatement sometimes derails Simon’s otherwise smooth-running narrative, as in the case in which a French lady beheads a slave girl for a minor infraction and serves up her head at a genteel banquet. Even if such an outrage actually occurred, it’s a grisly aberration that undermines the piece’s historical veracity.

Director Ben Guillory again helms the mind-bogglingly complex proceedings, which are enlivened throughout by musical director Leon Mobley’s wonderful live percussion music. The briskly staged dance and battle sequences by choreographer Ayana Cahrr and fight choreographer Yvans Jourdain deserve high praise, as does Guillory, who, as before, presides over his enormous and passionate cast with appropriately military efficiency, mitigating Simon’s occasional lapses with sheer zeal.

“Dessalines,” Greenway Court Theatre, 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 20. $20. (323) 655-4402. Running time: 3 hours, 5 minutes.

*

Ozzy Might Like Odd, Now-Dated ‘No Scratch’

Somewhere within the 21st anniversary revival of “No Scratch” at the Fremont Centre Theatre, one character exclaims: “We’ve been trying to figure it out all afternoon.” They aren’t alone.

The reference is directed at the show that several characters have paid a bundle to see, but it is equally pertinent to the bigger picture they and everyone else, including the audience out front, are trapped in.

Writer-director Frederick Bailey’s 1981 construct about a criminal gang that presents living-room vaudeville as a front for nefarious operations is billed as a “radical farce.” Well, that’s one way of putting it, although “rhetorical fuss” also applies, or “Rottweiler fierce,” or just plain goofy.

During the Reagan era of its premiere, with notables like Beth Henley in the ranks, and actor Stephen Tobolowsky supplying tunes like “That Cat in the Backyard With a Fat Tail,” this may well have seemed anarchistic. Well, that was then.

The designs are striking, with Victoria Profitt’s seedy set delineating the sort of slum one can imagine existing in the “Ferocious Depression of the 2020s.” The amphetamine-powered ensemble is tireless, with Will Utay’s ringleader suggesting the late James Gleason reinvented by Quentin Tarantino.

However, high energy can take a show only so far; it can’t supply satirical point.

Although undeniably different, “No Scratch” seems most recommendable to the Osbourne brood, fraternity boys and fans of the self-consciously weird.

“No Scratch,” Fremont Centre Theatre, 1000 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Oct. 27. $16-$18. (626) 441-5977. Mature audiences. Running time: 2 hours.

*

Musical ‘Paradise Lost’

Is a Scattershot Spoof

You know it’s spoof territory when a timid Satan is teased by the other devils as “Loser-fer” and the serpent’s brassiness rivals Bette Midler on a third curtain call. They’re just two of the players in “Paradise Lost: The Musical,” a new show by Michael Merriam, a first-time writer-director in his 20s, and the fledgling Lancer Entertainment Inc. production company, founded by 22-year-old James George.

In a celestial-size understatement, Merriam describes his creation as “loosely based” on Milton’s epic poem about Satan’s expulsion from heaven and Adam and Eve’s tricky days in Eden and beyond. Setting up in the comfy Forum Theater at the Festival of the Arts in Laguna Beach, “Paradise Lost: The Musical” isn’t much of a musical. The 10 songs--ditties really, many without resonance--are tossed about, almost as afterthoughts.

Merriam and his cast tweak those Old Testament fogies and their sermonizing ways. Some passages are imaginative and, better yet, actually funny. Satan (Marcus Woodswelch) puffs himself up throughout (you can almost hear him chanting a daily affirmation in his horned head: “I am truly evil, and, yes, people are really scared of me!”), and Adam and Eve (Shane Barach and Candace Johnson) enjoy a tilted rapport. Johnson, who shines, is given the sole memorable number, “Reflection,” which she renders sweetly as a ballad of love turned sour.

Overall, however, “Paradise Lost: The Musical” has a scattershot feel. Tighten here, retool there, and Merriam could have something. Maybe not paradise found, but something more than an extended series of skits.

“Paradise Lost: The Musical,” produced by Lancer Entertainment Inc., Forum Theater, Festival of the Arts, 650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Ends Oct. 5. $20-$25. (949) 487-9260. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.