Art review: Robin Rhode at L&M Arts

South African artist Robin Rhode is known for ingenious, storyboard-like narratives depicting a lone figure (sometimes the artist, sometimes not), interacting with drawings on the wall or the ground behind him.

For his first solo outing in an L.A. gallery, Rhode also ventures into more conventional modes of sculpture and photography. An oversized rubber stamp in the shape of the moon and crumpled images of abandoned post-Katrina houses both feel labored, but most of the works on view at L&M Arts are actually quite magical.

Art review: Natalie Bookchin at LACE

A murmuring 18-channel video installation by Natalie Bookchin at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions is an affecting meditation on perceptions of race, specifically concerning African American men. The subject is socially, politically and emotionally fraught, and its charged complexity is prone to artistic treatments that are rote or sentimental. Bookchin deftly avoids those traps.

The video installation comes from a documentary tradition. Documentaries are always socially minded, and this work does not turn away from grim realities; they include statements and assumptions by and about fellow human beings -- black, white, Asian and Latino; male and female; young, middle-aged and old -- that can make you wince. But it is the opposite of sensationalist. Instead, the Los Angeles artist fashions a slowly unfolding, non-linear narrative that quietly haunts the imagination.

Absorbing the installation takes time, since the initial encounter is disorienting. The large rear gallery at LACE is dark, with 18 flat-screen monitors suspended in space around the room. At any given moment, most of the screens are also dark; intermittently they light up in dispersed groups of two, three or more with brief bursts of talking heads -- sometimes ranting, sometimes questioning, always earnest.

Cabaret review: Andrea Marcovicci at the Gardenia

The golden age of the supper club is reborn at the Gardenia, where Andrea Marcovicci is currently holding court in "Smile." This self-described workshop of her new cabaret act finds the record-breaking song stylist turning her incisive facility with the Great American Songbook toward creating uplift in these trying times, which she does, brilliantly.

Marcovicci's veiled, fragile-edged instrument remains an idiomatic voice, made less for display than interpretation. Accordingly, when she disappears inside a lyric, or shifts registers with a melisma that illuminates a melody's structure, the spirit of Mabel Mercer is nigh.

Together with invaluable musical director Shelly Markham and bassist Nate Light, Marcovicci approaches the airtight set with an unforced desire to connect with us, from her endearing "It's Only a Paper Moon" to her heartfelt final rendition of the title song.

Along the way, we get chestnuts -- "Ain't We Got Fun?," performed with verses and lyrics intact -- and rarities -- David Ross and Marshall Barer's marvelously poetic "Beyond Compare," here almost a one-act play.  Her take on "12th Street Rag" is slyly bouncy, her pairing of Rodgers and Hart's "Thou Swell" and "This Can't Be Love" palpably rapt.

"Isn't This a Lovely Day?" and "Pick Yourself Up" as tribute to Fred Astaire is one highlight, "If I Had You" and "It Had to Be You" another. Her infectious enthusiasm supplies Marcovicci with choice conversation fodder, whether recalling the Incomparable Hildegarde or introducing "(I Asked) the Moon" songsmith Babbie Green, in attendance at the reviewed performance.

And when Marcovicci brings her 93-years-young mother Helen on stage to amaze us with chops worthy of Lee Wiley, time and space dissolve. As such, "Smile" is caviar for devotees of the art of the diseuse, and a cabaret must-see.

ALSO:

Neeme Jarvi, Ralph Kirshbaum at Disney Hall

'American Idiot' at the Ahmanson Theatre

Christine Brewer sings in 'Albert Herring'

-- David C. Nichols

Andrea Marcovicci in "Smile," The Gardenia, 7066 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. 9 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Ends March 24. (323) 497-7444. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Photo: Andrea Marcovicci performing in 2004. Credit: Peter Kramer / Getty Images.

Art review: Tam Van Tran at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects

There’s enough art in Tam Van Tran’s exhibition at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects to fill three solo shows, and each would be as stimulating and emotionally satisfying as the best exhibitions out there. Quantity and quality dovetail in “Adornment of Basic Space,” giving visitors a wide range of deeply engaging experiences.

Clay and paper are the main ingredients Tran uses to make his paintings and sculptures. To some, he adds recycled beer bottles, chlorophyll and algae, along with thousands of staples.

These unusual materials function formally, adding color, texture and density to Tran’s organically elegant abstractions. They also add meaning, linking his flexible fusions of mismatched media to the environment they are a part of and to the cycle of life, which no one escapes.

Art review: 'Claire Falkenstein' at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts

At Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, “Claire Falkenstein: An Expansive Universe” is a treasure trove of idiosyncratic gems by an artist who was once well known in the U.S. and Europe but is not currently thought of as an integral part of Los Angeles art history. That may change. In any case, don’t miss this opportunity to see 33 works Falkenstein (1908-1997) made from 1939 to 1981.

It’s a pleasure to discover her funky little collages on painted wood, jittery abstract gouaches and rock-solid clay sculptures, all made in San Francisco before she moved to Paris in 1950. Three pieces from her years in Paris stand out: a brass necklace that seems primitive and Egyptian; a dense little tumbleweed made of strands of copper and partially melted chunks of glass; and a 6-foot-long swirl of metal woven to resemble a space-age chrysalis.

In 1963, Falkenstein moved to California, where she settled into a beachfront studio in Venice and began working on many public commissions. She also made tiny sculptures that fused copper and glass, dot paintings that paid homage to Lee Mullican and elegant screen-like reliefs, all while experimenting with unlikely combinations of cast resin, Mylar and enamel.

Throughout the show, the sense of discovery is palpable. It matches the ethos of fearless experimentation that Falkenstein embraced as she hopscotched among media, finding surprises and laying the groundwork for such contemporary artists as Liz Larner and Pae White. Like Falkenstein, neither confines herself to a single medium and both are equally inspired by art, craft and design.

-- David Pagel

More art reviews from the Los Angeles Times 

Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, 357 N. La Brea Ave., (323) 938-5222, through April 28. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.jackrutbergfinearts.com

Image: Claire Falkenstein, "Values," 1945. Credit: Jack Rutberg Fine Arts.

Theater review: 'Death of a Salesman' on Broadway

The Great Recession is the unbilled star of Mike Nichols’ Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” — the scene-stealing specter, invisible but ever-present, that gives the production its ferocious relevance more than 60 years after the play’s birth.

But there is a member of the official cast who is doing just as powerful a job of reclaiming the drama for a new generation. That performer is Andrew Garfield, the rising Los Angeles-born, British-raised actor who captured attention as the brooding, ethical Eduardo in “The Social Network” and whose casting as the new Peter Parker in “The Amazing Spider-Man” is likely to catapult his celebrity to intergalactic heights when the film is released this summer.

But Hollywood fame seems rather trifling when held up against the wrenching artistry of Garfield’s portrayal of Biff, elder son of Willy Loman, the protagonist of Miller’s tragedy of the common man, here played by Philip Seymour Hoffman with commanding bluntness.

 

Art review: Delia Brown at Country Club at Martha Otero

The world economy is a surreal stew of cooked books, epic bankruptcies and uncertain ambitions. Its out-of-whack atmosphere takes queasy shape in Delia Brown’s 13 new paintings, most of which depict sexy women lounging around the beachfront pools and tropical gardens of the super-rich.

Sipping champagne, listening to music and posing like tourists, the attractive thirtysomethings wear bikinis, berets and fatigues, à la Che and rebels everywhere. In hot tubs, on patios and in designer dining rooms they act like college kids on spring break — not as brazenly, or as drunkenly, as on “Girls Gone Wild,” but purposefully and pointedly.

A sense of good-student seriousness runs through Brown’s domestically scaled oils on linen. If the members of a graduate seminar in French literary criticism, circa 1985, designed a book cover that was meant to make fun of themselves and their professors, it could be any one of the wickedly contradictory images in her exhibition at Martha Otero Gallery, in collaboration with Country Club Projects.

Titled “Last Exit: Punta Junta,” Brown’s suite of paintings refers to Tom Lawson’s 1981 essay, “Last Exit: Painting.” To his manifesto that defended painting from its postmodern detractors, Brown adds the sing-songy sound of a nursery rhyme gone south. “Punta Junta” evokes both the beauty of Caribbean vistas and the ugliness faced by start-up governments and wanna-be leaders, who presumably act on behalf of ordinary folks.

The conflict between leisure and labor, privilege and privation, is Brown’s subject.

To make her paintings, she used her savvy as an artist to gain access to the vacation estates of some 1 percenters, who let her use their St. Barts retreats as the backdrops for such rebel fantasies as “Guerrilla Villa,” “In There Like Swimwear” and “Les Demoiselles de Saint Barthelemy.”

Brown’s pictures of conspicuous consumption gone wrong are nothing if not divisive. On one level, they are pricey items that cynically capitulate to the powers that be. On another, they present a world that has been turned upside down, its exclusive properties occupied by 99 percenters. In the absurd world captured by Brown’s realistic art, it’s hard to know where fantasies end and nightmares begin.

-- David Pagel

More art reviews from the Los Angeles Times 

Country Club at Martha Otero, 820 N. Fairfax Ave., (323) 951-1068, through April 14. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.marthaotero.com; www.countryclubprojects.com.

Images, from top: Delia Brown, "Guerrilla Villa," 2008-09; "In There Like Swimwear," 2008-09. Credit: Country Club and Martha Otero.

Opera Review: 'Albert Herring' at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

Aficionados of big voices have been waiting for Christine Brewer to appear in a Los Angeles Opera production for a long time.  Indeed, there were a couple of occasions where she was dangled tantalizingly before us, singing song recitals somewhere in town while Wagner’s “Ring” operas -- her natural habitat -- were playing at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. 

But Brewer’s LA Opera debut finally came Wednesday night in a most unorthodox way -- slipping into the cast of Britten’s chamber opera “Albert Herring” toward the end of its run.  That’s right -- a chamber opera, and a comedy at that, written for an ensemble cast of equals. 

Fortunately, Brewer’s part -- that of the lordly arbiter of small-town morals, Lady Billows (which she sang in the Santa Fe edition of this production in 2010) --  can sort of lend itself to a Wagnerian soprano. Britten used one, Sylvia Fisher, on his own recording of “Herring.” 

Theater review: 'The Color Purple' at Celebration Theatre

Everybody say "amen": The joint is jumping over at Celebration Theatre with its raucous, exultant staging of “The Color Purple.” Featuring a cast of 17 and a vibrant five-piece orchestra tucked behind an upstage planked wall, this L.A. intimate-theater premiere sweeps you along like an old-fashioned tent revival.

Set against the backdrop of the Depression-era Deep South, Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of an ugly duckling’s journey to joyful self-acceptance has biblical sweep. Impoverished African American teen Celie (Cesili Williams) struggles to escape a cycle of abuse from her father (Corey Jones) and husband, Mister (Michael A. Sheppard); meanwhile, her sister, Nettie (the luminous Kelly M. Jenrette), travels across continents in search of her life’s mission.  

It’s tough to dramatize Celie’s internal liberation, so “Purple” charts her progress through encounters with female role models. Defiant Sofia (vocal powerhouse Constance Jewell Lopez) won’t kowtow to husband Harpo (Terrance Spencer) or the town’s white mayor; chanteuse Shug Avery (“American Idol” finalist La Toya London) encourages Celie to embrace her sensuality and true sexual orientation.

Marsha Norman’s respectful book inevitably simplifies Celie’s struggle, and some of director Michael Matthews’ scene work feels overstated. The strength of the production is its unabashed theatricality, and Matthews and company work wonders with the songs by Brenda Russell Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, including the gospel-inflected “Mysterious Ways,” the irresistible “Brown Betty” and the moody “African Homeland.”  (The choreography is courtesy of Janet Roston).

The up-tempo cast is terrific, led by the lovely, soulful Williams as Celie, whose wary smile breaks your heart. (And church ladies and local gossips Sixx Carter, Lorie V. Moore and Brittney S. Wheeler steal every scene they’re in.)

Above all, this exuberant “Color Purple” creates an opportunity to count blessings -- including 99-seat theaters that take on challenging shows with minimal budgets. Celebration Theatre’s raise-the-roof production shows up the bigger, better-funded venues in town. In L.A., less is so often more. Pantages, Center Theatre Group, La Mirada, are you watching?  

--Charlotte Stoudt

More theater reviews from the Los Angeles Times

“The Color Purple,” Celebration Theatre, 7051B Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends May 26. $34. Contact: (323) 957-1884 or www.celebrationtheatre.com. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes. 

Photo: Cesili Williams, left, and La Toya London. Credit: Barry Weiss

Theater review: Culture Clash's 'American Night' at Kirk Douglas

Speak softly and carry a big schtick: That’s the guiding principle of “American Night: The Ballad of Juan José,” Richard Montoya’s fast-paced fantasia on U.S. history, now running rampant at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Developed in collaboration with Culture Clash, the gleeful “Night” uses sketch comedy, song and a dizzying number of wigs to survey the glories and pratfalls of the American Dream. 

Dream, as in emphasis on slumber. The night before taking his citizenship exam, an exhausted Juan José (René Millán, nicely understated) tries to wrap his head around constitutional amendments and the logic of the Spanish-American War. Dozing off, he takes a picaresque spin through two centuries of “democracy,” bumbling into the famous (Jackie Robinson), the infamous (the Ku Klux Klan) and the obscure (see below). Consider “Night” as revisionist vaudevillian history of the United States from a (Howard) Zinn-master. Bemused, sly and sometimes moving, the evening affirms that we the people are indeed free to pursue happiness, despite metered parking in Culver City until 11 p.m. 

Fluidly directed by Jo Bonney, who shares a development credit with Culture Clash, “Night” is nimblest when it exposes the strange bedfellows of the American project. Shawn Sagady’s projections slide along upstage corrugated panels, leaving the stage a free-for-all where, for instance, Sacagawea (Stephanie Beatriz) is imagined as a brainy Ugly Betty, wearing a retainer and in need of a quick trip to REI to procure appropriate footwear.  (Her response to her face on the dollar coin? “I look fat.”)