Theater review: 'Mary Poppins' at the Ahmanson Theatre

 
Mary Poppins wafted into the Ahmanson Theatre on her magic umbrella Sunday evening, and even those who think they’ve outgrown her carpetbag of enchantment will have to admit that her timing is, to use one of her pet phrases, “practically perfect.”

The show, while not intended as a holiday entertainment, takes on a special glow as the days get dark early and merriment is placed on family to-do lists. (Sure, Mary can be a bit of a martinet, but wouldn’t you rather jump into a painting with her than clock more overtime with Scrooge?) More surprising is the tale’s recessionary relevance. Live-in nannies may be a thing of the past, but the story of a cold, uptight banker who discovers his humanity at home after his career falls off the hinges is like some kind of post-Lehman Brothers-WaMu fairy tale.

This musical adaptation of P.L. Travers’ classic invention, a co-production of Disney and Cameron Mackintosh, tries to reconcile the sharp edges of the original stories with the cheerier Walt Disney film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke (the latter of whom made a surprise appearance at the curtain call on opening night, looking impossibly young and dapper). The high-flying spectacle, running on the rocket fuel of such memorable movie numbers as “A Spoonful of Sugar” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” can't help but be delightful. But the contrasting tones between Travers and Disney aren’t any more blendable than oil and water.

Art review: 'Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years'

By Christopher Knight
Art Critic

It resonated like a huge stone dropped into a big pond: A year ago, as reports surfaced that the Museum of Contemporary Art had dug itself into a deep financial hole from which it might not be able to emerge, a shudder rippled outward from Los Angeles to the international art world. Since its fledgling days of 1979, MOCA had grown — in terms of facility, program and collection — into the nation's museum-flagship for art after World War II.

MOCA has not yet fully climbed out of the financial crater, although the balance sheet is far better now than it was then. And this week, the museum opened a remarkable 30th anniversary exhibition of its remarkable permanent collection — the ultimate reason any museum finally matters. About 500 paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, videos and installations by more than 200 international artists fill the Grand Avenue building and the Geffen Contemporary warehouse in Little Tokyo. The show's title urges forward-looking optimism: “Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years” implies there will, in fact, be a second 30 years.

But this is not just a promotional treasure-house show. Installed chronologically by chief curator Paul Schimmel, it also tells a story — although one that's rarely heard. The postwar rise of American art is paired with the simultaneous rise of Los Angeles, from shallow backwater to cultural powerhouse.

At the Grand Avenue building, which spans 1939 to 1979, the distinctive emergence of a mature L.A. art is embedded within the larger postwar prominence of the United States, artistically dominated by New York. At the Geffen — the story picks up in the year MOCA was born.

Two telling works flank the Grand Avenue entry. At the left, a lovely little 1939 abstraction by Piet Mondrian signals Modernism's shift from Europe to America as war loomed. At the right is Sam Francis' luminous cloud of gray-white color, painted in postwar Paris in 1951 as an atmospheric evocation of urban light. Francis later moved to Santa Monica and served as a founding MOCA trustee.

MOCA offers free admission to all through Friday

Suffering from MOCA fatigue after the museum's no-expense-spared 30th anniversary celebration? Well, here's some MOCA-related news that's sure to pique your interest. 

The museum is offering free admission for everyone this week at its locations on Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. and at the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo. Normal operating hours apply, which means that the venues are closed to the public on Tuesday and Wednesday. The offer is scheduled to run through Friday, the museum said.

A museum spokeswoman said free admission this week is being sponsored by Ovation TV. (You'll remember Ovation as one of the parties that helped give LACMA's weekend film program a stay of execution.)

Currently on view at the museum is "Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years," which features works from the museum's permanent collection. 

For MOCA members, the benefits keep rolling through the rest of the month. On Saturday, the museum is hosting a members-only birthday bash. In addition, the museum said it is offering members free museum admission and a 20% discount at select museum stores during Thanksgiving weekend. 

-- David Ng

Photo: Frank Stella's "Ctesiphon I" is one of the works in the current exhibit "Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years." Credit: Mario Anzuoni / Reuters 

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Theater review: 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!' at the Pantages Theatre

Aww, the Grinch is just an old softy.

OK, yeah, you know that already because as a child you, with someone you loved, flipped through the wild rhymes and even wilder illustrations of the original Dr. Seuss book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" and as an adult you, with someone you love, still make appointment viewing of the Chuck Jones animated special. Heartwarming as they are, those versions also convey a hint of menace – enough bad behavior to convincingly set up the Grinch's conversion to goodness once faced with the true spirit of Christmas. But in the stage extravaganza visiting Hollywood's Pantages Theatre this holiday season, the Grinch is harmless from the start.

That's good news if you intend to bring a young one who might easily be scared by the Grinch at his Grinch-iest, bad if you're a traditionalist who likes a Grinch with some bite. I ended up in both camps because, while I prefer some bite, I attended with a 12-year-old and a just-turned-3-year-old who sat pretty much squirm-free through the 80-minute presentation.

In keeping with its family orientation, this cuddly live version also supplies twice as much of grudgingly obedient dog Max: a graying Max who narrates the story and his puppyish younger self during the long-ago events. There's also more face time for the families of Who-ville, who, like those in the audience, are made giddy – and slightly crazy – by the holidays.

Shag-carpeted in green fur, the Grinch, as portrayed by "Lazy Town's" Stefan Karl (replacing the originally announced Christopher Lloyd), is first seen in what can only be described as a Bette Davis pose: haughtily draped across the entrance to his cave, his lips stretched into a sideways frown. Playfully over-the-top from the get-go, he's soon stalking the lip of the stage, pointing to the front rows and challenging: "You want a piece 'a me? C'mon, put 'em up."

The old and young Maxes ("Night Court" and "The Practice's" John Larroquette as the former, James Royce Edwards as the latter) are outfitted with stiff, curlicued tails reminiscent of Bert Lahr's in "The Wizard of Oz," which sway with merry abandonment. Larroquette delivers "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" – one of two key songs by Albert Hague and Dr. Seuss that have been retained from the 1966 animated special – in a deep, gravelly voice that befits a dog but likely won't lead to an upcoming appearance on "America's Got Talent."

This "Grinch" is a holiday tradition at San Diego's Old Globe, where it is about to begin its 12th year, and was glitzed to Broadway proportions for New York in 2006 and '07.

In its expansion to full-on musical, the story is given eight gooey-sweet songs by composer Mel Marvin and lyricist Timothy Mason (who's also the script writer) that too often feel like padding. Fairly entertaining, however, are a Grinch nightmare of screaming kids and their noisy presents, and one-man production number, complete with solo kick-line, for the hammy Grinch.

A handful of scenes go on a minute or two too long, triggering fidgetiness in kids. The 3-year-old with me sat rapt until the show's final 10 minutes, when, as 6:30 approached, she was late into her day and becoming owlish about everything. As we gathered our things, the 12-year-old ran a checklist of costumes, dancing and singing, and declared, "It was all good." (While I was misting up during the Grinch's humanizing encounter with Cindy-Lou Who, I'd looked over at her and could have sworn she was wiping something from the sides of her nose, but she vigorously denied this afterward.)  

As for me: Well, even though my theater-geek side felt a tad undernourished, it must be admitted that, like the protagonist, "In Who-ville they say / That the Grinch's small heart / Grew three sizes that day!"

– Daryl H. Miller

"Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Performance schedule varies, but includes 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; and weekend performances at 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m. or 8 p.m. Ends Jan. 3. $25 to $100. (800) 982-2787 or www.BroadwayLA.org. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.  

Kate Hudson sings, hoofs her way through 'Nine'

Whatever your opinion of Kate Hudson's acting abilities, it's hard to deny that her Hollywood pedigree and off-screen romances make her an ideal starlet for "Nine" -- a musical about moviemaking, fame and life led under the glare of the paparazzi.

Our friends over at the Ministry of Gossip blog have posted some video footage of Hudson singing and hoofing her way through one very hectic musical number in which the actress (playing an American journalist dispatched to Rome) extols the virtues of Italian cinema.

"Nine" is based on the 1982 Maury Yeston musical, which itself is adapted from Federico Fellini's "8 1/2." The Weinstein Co. plans to release the film next month in the U.S.

Hudson plays Stephanie, a correspondent for Vogue who becomes entangled in the sordid affairs of Daniel Day-Lewis' burned-out auteur. Hudson's role was played by Saundra Santiago in the 2003 Broadway revival of "Nine" and by Stephanie Cotsirilos in the 1982 production. 

Rob Marshall, who has racked up impressive choreography and directing credits on Broadway, seems to have put Hudson through quite a physical workout, judging by the video. Or maybe the rapid-fire editing just makes it seem that way.

-- David Ng

Photo: Kate Hudson and Daniel Day-Lewis in a scene from "Nine." Credit: The Weinstein Co.

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'Obamao' artwork tests limits of free speech in China

Anyone who has been following President Obama's visit to China this week has no doubt heard of "Obamao" -- the graphic superimposition of Obama's face on the body of Chairman Mao that has found its way onto T-shirts and other souvenir items around the country.

The phenomenon, which was first reported during the summer, has reached a cultural tipping point this week, as Obama makes his way through the country as part of his first tour of Asia as president. Everyone -- NBC as well as  Gawker -- has weighed in on "Obamao." On Friday, the Christian Science Monitor reported that the Chinese government had gone so far as to ban the image by threatening to shut down vendors selling the popular T-shirts. Apparently, the government fears the image will offend the visiting president.

Culture Monster finds it is somewhat ironic that the Chinese government is cracking down on an image of Obama just as Obama himself publicly urged the country to embrace the freedom of speech. As reported this weekend in The Times, Obama spoke recently in Shanghai about "free expression, worship, political participation and access to information," which the president termed "universal rights."

"They should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities, whether they are in the United States, China or any nation," he said.

Obama also stated that unrestricted access to the Internet "should be encouraged."

MOCA's permanent collection goes on view, temporarily

The Museum of Contemporary Art has had a rather erratic history when it comes to displaying its permanent collection.

One reason is structural: The museum's largest space -- the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo -- was never climate-controlled for temperature and humidity. Especially with older works, from the 1940s through the '70s, conservation concerns cannot be ignored, so the marvelous Geffen's uses are limited.

Another reason is programmatic: Curators like to organize temporary exhibitions. Museums also incur debts with other museums to trade exhibitions. And MOCA has a genuine interest in bringing important shows to Los Angeles. Altogether, those program concerns can mean that permanent-collection galleries get uninstalled to accommodate traveling and temporary shows.

A third reason is philosophical: From the start, MOCA has wanted to shake up the standard narrative of contemporary art. One way to do that is to keep shuffling the permanent collection, organizing and reorganizing its display as a periodic series of temporary installations with different viewpoints.

More reasons can probably be found. But one result has been the forfeiture of the deep and unique bond that can grow between a visitor and a museum when the finest work in a permanent collection is on permanent display. Like the difference between dating and marriage, the bond develops over the long term. And the possibility for that bond is what distinguishes a museum from any other cultural institution.

The 500 works in "Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years," the sprawling exhibition that opened to the public Sunday, brings the point home. I'll have a review of the show in Tuesday's paper, but one thing "Collection" made me wonder is what will happen in May, when this latest (and largest) iteration of the permanent collection as a temporary exhibition comes to an end. Perhaps by then it will have been on view long enough for people to realize what we've been missing.

In the meantime, MOCA has launched an excellent website for the show. Exploring about 100 works, it has good photographs and abundant information. Much of it is drawn from "This Is Not to Be Looked At: Highlights From the Permanent Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles," a sumptuous book published last year. (The book concludes with a chronology of more than 100 permanent-collection shows at MOCA, starting with the 1985 presentation of the Panza Collection -- seven Rothkos, 11 Rauschenbergs, 16 Oldenburgs etc. -- acquired the year before.)

You can find the "MOCA's First Thirty Years" website here, and find "This Is Not to Be Looked At" here.

-- Christopher Knight

Photo: Artist Wangechi Mutu's "She's Egungun Again," 2005, collage. Credit: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Gustavo Dudamel prefers European seating for L.A. Philharmonic (with caveats)

When Gustavo Dudamel led the Los Angeles Philharmonic earlier this month in Verdi's "Requiem," audiences may have noticed that the second violin section had reverted to its old seating arrangement, wedged between the first violins and the woodwind section.

This seating was the standard for the orchestra at its previous home in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Sometime after moving to Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003, Esa-Pekka Salonen decided to shake things up by placing the second violin section on the opposite side of the stage from the first violins, in what is known as European seating -- and it has stayed that way for the most part ever since.

So does the "Requiem" mean that Dudamel has reversed Salonen's decision? The answer, according to violinists in the orchestra, is no.

They say Dudamel intends to keep the European seating introduced by his predecessor but that certain pieces like the "Requiem" require placing the second violins in their old spot.

Monster Mash: Barnes Foundation groundbreaking; 'Hair' moving to London; Hawaiian skulls head home

-- Moving forward: Groundbreaking has taken place for the Barnes Foundation's new museum in Philadelphia. (Philhadelphia Inquirer)

-- Hair again: The Tony-winning revival of "Hair" will open in London on April 14, featuring the original Broadway cast. (Broadway World)

-- In with the new: The Humana Festival of New American Plays has announced the world premieres for its 2010 edition, which runs February through March. (Playbill)

-- Eastern promises: Is Poland becoming the next international center for the world of contemporary art? (Wall Street Journal)

-- Public art stunt: An artist who scaled the Sotheby's building in New York in an attempt to drape it in masking tape has been arrested. (New York Post)

-- Heading home: A museum in Stockholm has returned a series of 22 tribal skulls to Hawaii. (Honolulu Advertiser)

-- Corporate largesse: Deutsche Bank has signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Art HK, the annual Hong Kong art fair. (Bloomberg)

-- Two-hander: Sarah Paulson will join Linda Lavin in the cast of the Broadway premiere of Donald Margulies' "Collected Stories." (Playbill)

-- And in the L.A. Times: Eli Broad is considering three cities for his planned contemporary art museum; celebrities attend MOCA's 30th anniversary party over the weekend.

-- David Ng

Photo: a scene from the Broadway revival of "Hair." Credit: Joan Marcus

Eli Broad dangles a museum and a $200 million endowment in front of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and a west side city to be named later*

Eli Broad is ready to build himself a west side museum to house his 2,000-piece contemporary art collection, and send it into the world with a $200 million endowment that he reckons will give it a $12 million a year budget before another penny is earned or raised. That would be the largest single hunk of cash ever bestowed on the arts in Southern California, save for the $700 million 1976 bequest ($2.65 billion in today's dollars) with which J. Paul Getty launched the Getty Trust. [*An earlier version of this post listed the amount as $2.65 million.]

The main questions facing Broad are where and when. At age 76, he wants the "when" to be ASAP, with a minimum of bureaucratic red tape. As for the "where," city officials in both Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are vying  to provide it -- Beverly Hills on the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard, a property that Broad says the city would have to acquire then lease to him for a token amount, and Santa Monica on 2.5 acres the city already owns next to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Meanwhile, the "what" has gotten much bigger since Broad's plans to build a new headquarters and museum for his Broad Art Foundation surfaced a year ago. A conceptual design he sent last month to city planners  in Beverly Hills call for nearly 50,000 square feet of exhibition space (including a 6,100 square foot outdoor area for sculpture), up from the 25,000 previously estimated.

Theater review: 'Baby It's You!' at Pasadena Playhouse

If the Shirelles can’t quite do for “Baby It’s You!” what Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons did for “Jersey Boys,” please don’t blame the music. The sound of this path-breaking girl group, which skyrocketed up the charts in the early ’60s with such hits as "Dedicated to the One I Love" and 'Soldier Boy," still has an infectious charm. But these singers deserve a better-written vehicle for the roller coaster of fame than this patchwork musical, which opened Friday at Pasadena Playhouse.

The show’s authors, Floyd Mutrux (who also directed) and Colin Escott, have actually focused the drama on the person who discovered the Shirelles, Florence Greenberg (Meeghan Holaway), a  housewife from Passaic, N.J., who went on to build a leading independent record company. She’s a fascinating figure, a Jewish woman who crossed racial and gender lines on her way to establishing a rhythm and blues dynasty, but her trailblazing tale isn’t told with much subtlety or depth, and the group that ignited her success ends up looking like a quartet of well-coiffed ciphers.

Greenberg’s personal and professional struggles seem as if they’re being sign-posted with stick figure drawings (Holaway has a pungent presence, but she can’t breathe life into moribund lines), while the historical themes of the character's journey are bullet-pointed as though for an intermediate-school quiz. We encounter the character early on arguing with her husband, Bernie (Barry Pearl), about wanting to find work in New York. “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and look back and think I coulda done something,” she tells him after singing a few lines from the song that will one day be one of her company's big sellers, “Mama Said.”

Memorializing banality, in many shades

No one disputes that the 1975 exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” was a landmark show. Attendance at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., wasn’t huge, and the presentation didn’t introduce any unknown talent.

But the show put a name to a phenomenon — the proliferation of straight, seemingly uninflected photography of the banal, built environment — and that name stuck. What remains cause for discussion is what exactly "New Topographics" meant, and why the term and its attendant attributes have had such an enduring influence.

A restaging of the exhibition at the L.A. County Museum of Art raises those persistent issues and provides a framework for their debate. More than 100 of the 168 photographs in the original show have been reassembled, about 10 each by Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel Jr.

“What I remember most clearly from the original show,” Gohlke recalled, “was that almost nobody liked it. I think it wouldn’t be too strong to say that it was a vigorously hated show. Some people found it unutterably boring. Some people couldn’t believe we were serious, taking pictures of this stuff. And actually, that attitude is still very alive and well.”

For Leah Ollman's Sunday Arts & Books story on the show, click here.

Shakespeare, terror and Bill Cain's 'Equivocation'

As he watched the World Trade Center towers implode, Bill Cain, playwright and native New Yorker, felt a surge of fury pass through him. But as an ordained Jesuit priest, he was able to tap into another, equally powerful emotion. “I knew the only way to respond to it was with tenderness as fierce as that anger,” he said recently. “And so the journey from rage to tenderness was what I felt my spiritual work had to be.”

For Cain, 62, that journey also turned out to be the writing of “Equivocation,” a speculative pyrotechnic historical drama set in London in 1605 that will open Wednesday and run through Dec. 20 at the Geffen Playhouse. A hint of the play’s scope and ambition is that its main character is the most celebrated, influential author in the history of the English language.

But William Shakespeare, nicknamed “Shag” and portrayed by Joe Spano (an Emmy nominee for “Hill Street Blues”), is merely one of the complex, colorful personages who populate “Equivocation.”

While the Geffen production of “Equivocation” doesn’t go out of its way to point out parallels between the responses to the events of 1605 and to those of  2001, the soft-spoken Cain makes no bones about his belief that those two historical moments share certain qualities.

“It struck me very much that the politics of the United States is a politics of radical division,” he said. “And what we are trying to do now, as Shakespeare tries to do in the play, is to write a new soul into the country.”

To read Reed Johnson's profile of Cain in Sunday Arts & Books, click here.

Photo: Joe Spano, front left, plays Shakespeare opposite, from left, Troian Bellisario, Brian Henderson and Harry Groener.

Credit: Ringo H.W. Chiu / For The Times

John Adams, the L.A. Phil's other new kid

What does a renowned, Harvard-educated, Pulitzer Prize-winning classical music composer say just after the standing-ovation world premiere of his new symphony “City Noir” at Walt Disney Concert Hall, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of its wildly celebrated new music director, Gustavo Dudamel?

“That was rockin’, wasn’t it?” says a beaming John Adams.

Yeah, that’s the way “we old boomers” talk, Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. President Deborah Borda, 60, jokes of her longtime friend and colleague Adams, 62. It doesn’t seem to surprise her during a conversation at the gala party following the Oct. 8 premiere that Adams would use the phrase when talking about “City Noir,” a work inspired by Hollywood’s classic noir films of the 1940s and ’50s.

Besides — it was rockin’. The buzz at the Latin-themed post-premiere affair seemed to have less to do with the generously distributed “Pasión” cocktail created in honor of Dudamel’s first Disney Hall concert as Philharmonic music director — an alarmingly sweet combo of rum, pineapple, coconut juice and grenadine — than with the afterglow of the music.

The heady sensation made it clear that 28-year-old Dudamel isn’t the only new kid in town at the Phil: The other is Adams, in his inaugural season as the orchestra’s creative chair and curator of the Philharmonic’s first festival of Dudamel’s tenure: West Coast, Left Coast, a three-week event launching Saturday, Nov. 21, that explores California music. 

The multidisciplinary festival will feature composers and performers long associated with California’s classical music scene, including San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet, composer-musician Terry Riley and former L.A. Philharmonic Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, now the orchestra’s first conductor laureate; Salonen’s “L.A. Variations” will be on the program with “City Noir,” also conducted by Dudamel.

Also on the eclectic list are former Beach Boy Brian Wilson and “The Yellow Shark,” a contemporary composition by the late Frank Zappa that Adams will conduct and describes as “fiendishly difficult.” “Being the cantankerous person that he was, when he composed classical contemporary music, he made sure it was hard,” Adams says, with obvious relish.

To read much more about Adams and the festival, head to the Los Angeles Times' Arts page for Diane Haithman's  story.

Photo Credit: Allen J. Schaben/L.A. Times

Activist-actor Russell Means takes his first stage role

He was a controversial figure of the '60's and '70's counterculture movement. He participated in an armed standoff of American Indians against the U.S. government in 1973 at Wounded Knee. Later, in 1987, he ran for president (as a Libertarian). Now activist-turned-actor Russell Means is entering yet another phase of his career -- he's taking on his first role in a stage play.

Means will star in the world premiere production of "Palestine, New Mexico" at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum. Written by Richard Montoya of the group Culture Clash, the drama tells the story of a military officer who is investigating the death of a soldier in Afghanistan. Her search leads her to the soldier's father (Means), who is guarding a secret about his son.

The production opens next month and runs through Jan. 24.

Having acted in both movies and television, Means said he has become fed up with Hollywood portrayals of Native Americans. "Hollywood doesn't treat us with any respect. They've returned to a 1940s stereotype of Indian people," he said. "It's sickening to have to keep righting the wrongs of the scriptwriters."

He said that "Palestine" treats "our people with respect."

"It's a role that has a deep dark secret," he continued. "A shameful secret -- the character is honor bound
to keep the secret. And it's the death of his son and the way he dies which allows for the secret to be told. So that everyone can see what a ridiculous secret it is."

Art review: Frank Paulin at Duncan Miller

Frank Paulin’s first L.A. show at Duncan Miller in 2005 introduced a fine, little-known street photographer equipped with both the poetic instincts and quick reflexes required of the genre. Now the gallery unveils another facet of Paulin’s talent: color.

Paulin, now 84, hit his stride in the mid-1950s, not long after studying under Harry Callahan and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy at the Institute of Design in Chicago. He shot in both black and white and color, but rarely printed in color because of the expense. The most vibrant work here was shot a half-century ago but never printed until this year.

Many of the pictures read like montages, layered assemblages of motion, reflection, and signage, the choreography of the city (usually Manhattan) stilled for a brief, dynamic moment. In "Coca-Cola" (1956), a pyramid of oranges rests on a lunch counter next to grape and lime beverage dispensers. An aproned attendant’s face is profiled beneath a gleaming neon Coca-Cola sign, and framed on one side by a window’s filmy reflection of cars and buildings, and on the other by a jaunty punctuation of product names: Kleenex, Chunky, Tums, Ponds, Milky Way.

In these keenly observed synchronies, Paulin captures the sacred rubbing up against the profane, the ordinary yearning toward the ideal. Window shoppers reach toward the glass as if to test the threshold between everyday and dream. Reflections interweave the solid and diaphanous. Like time capsules newly unearthed, these photographs conjure the rhythms, textures and tones of a period long since past.

– Leah Ollman

Duncan Miller Gallery, 10959 Venice Blvd., (310) 838-2440, through Nov. 28. Closed Sunday through Wednesday. www.duncanmillergallery.com

Photo: "Coca-Cola" (1956). Credit: Frank Paulin, from Duncan Miller Gallery.

Mona Lisa had eyebrows, art expert says

Someone alert Dan Brown. The novelist's best-selling "The Da Vinci Code" contained many conjectures about the history and provenance of the "Mona Lisa" -- many of  which have been dismissed as pure nonsense by  scholars and religious figures.

Now comes word that at least one persistent rumor concerning the masterpiece is true. Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" used to have eyebrows, according to a French art expert.

Pascal Cotte was granted special access to the 16th-century painting at the Louvre Museum in Paris, according to a report in the London Telegraph. Cotte said Da Vinci built up the painting in layers, the last being a special glaze. He then painted details such as the eyebrows on top of the glaze.

"That could explain why the eyebrows have disappeared," he told the British newspaper. "They have faded because of chemical reactions or they have been cleaned off."

Using a 240 megapixel camera, Cotte was able to see past the top paint surface and examine the layers below.

Among his other discoveries: the dull sky behind Mona Lisa was actually a brighter blue and a finger on her left hand had been moved by Da Vinci to create a more relaxed feeling.

The findings will be a part of the exhibition "The Secrets of Mona Lisa," which is set to open on Saturday at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, England.

The exhibition also features the large-scale infrared photograph of the painting as well as other high-definition images that reveal details of the masterwork. It also features a 360-degree walk around -- a  replica of the painting that allows visitors a closeup of some of the details.

-- David Ng

Credit: Agence France Presse

 

Art review: Alejandro Diaz at Happy Lion

"Homos welcomed!" "Does this sign make me look fat?" "No shoes, No shirt. You’re probably rich."

Alejandro Diaz’s cardboard and neon signs at Happy Lion earn an immediate, reflexive laugh. The thinnest of them stop there, one-liners with modest bite. The best of them, however, linger on, leaving a rich, residual discomfort.

The centerpiece of the Texas-born, New York-based Diaz’s uneven show is the "World’s Largest Cardboard Sign," a freestanding, 10-by-12 foot exercise in simple, self-declarative humor. Far more provocative is the blank, rough-edged, faux-cardboard rectangle that hangs on the wall near its own museum-style label, designating its title as "Homeless and Speechless." This piece is also simple in form, but its muteness resonates; the empty sign sends a complex, contradictory message about disenfranchisement on one hand and the entitled pretense of art-like behavior on the other.

Music review: Dudamel conducts Schubert and Berio

Thursday night, Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new music director, ended the second program of his current monthlong residency at Walt Disney Concert Hall with an extravagantly “finished” performance of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony. This beloved two-movement torso sounded so sonically fleshy and alive that it would have been hard to imagine fleshing it out further with realizations of the final two movements Schubert never bothered, for mysterious reasons, to complete.

But then – if you accept the notion that no score is done until performed, no performance is definitive and the audience completes the work – all music is unfinished, even if some pieces are more unfinished than others. And Dudamel’s fascinating program was designed to show just how slippery this whole concept of finishing is in music. 

The evening began with the late Italian composer Luciano Berio’s rendering of Schubert’s 10th Symphony, which the earlier composer left in bits and pieces when he died. That was followed by Berio’s “Folk Songs,” a modernist refinishing of traditional songs from around the world, here further finished in unique interpretations by soprano Dawn Upshaw.

Alan Cumming's cabaret show returns to the Geffen Playhouse

Forget sexy. Tony Award-winner Alan Cumming is bringing cabaret back.

Following its initial sold-out run a couple of months ago, “Alan Cumming: I Bought a Blue Car Today” returns to the Geffen Playhouse for eight shows Dec. 13-18. Tickets are on sale now through the Geffen box office.

In the one-man show, the Scottish actor-singer unveils a naughty and comical evening. Backed by a five-piece band, Cumming unleashes his comical spiel on just about everything, from gay marriage to ex-lovers. His visceral banter is balanced by his performance of kooky and mainstream songs.

In The Times' review of the show at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, where it played in late September before coming to the Geffen, Charlotte Stoudt wrote: " 'Blue Car' affirms that Cumming is a born performer, delighted by his showbiz life and eager to share its juicy details."

The show's title comes from a sentence the Scottish-born performer had to write for his naturalization test to become a U.S. citizen.

-- Yvonne Villarreal

“I Bought a Blue Car Today” returns to the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood, at 2 and 7 p.m. Dec. 13, 8 p.m. Dec. 14-17, 7 and 9 p.m. Dec. 18. $65-$85. (310) 208-5454. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

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Photo: Alan Cumming in New York. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times