by D. Jette

This inaugural production from The REPO Division is a multimedia installation with four short plays clustered around a theme of apocalypse and a future post-human world.  The work is clever and displays a giddily perverse attitude toward the end of civilization and man’s return to a primal state.  The experience provided by the list of some two score artists in several media is well-rounded and interactive, and where some of the works (both plastic and literary) fall short in their execution, there are strong points that propel the evening and make it worth the ticket price.

Some of the writing is superb and the team has certainly achieved their goal of an integrated collaboration; few seams are noticible between the works.  Four plays make up the staged drama but are bound together by theme and device.  ‘Who is Randall Maxit?’ by Clay Hazelwood is a psychological trial of the man who is partially responsible for the evening’s Armageddon.  While played with clarity and charm by Gray Palmer, this episodic work is dragged down by the muddy performances of his two she-devil inquisitors who confuse the action with bizarre hijinx.

‘You Might be Waking Up’ by Sharom Yablon opens with two sexually repressed office workers, played with distracted intensity by Hank Bunker and Tina Van Berckelaer, trapped in an office park after an epic disaster which has left giant crustaceans in charge of the world.  They are joined by an enlightened, self-taught masseuse who dominates the play with his playfully explicit tales of an outside world which is at once terrifying and erotic.  This character, made flesh with an inspired performance by Mickey Swenson, is a highlight of the play and had me belly-laughing and glued to even his subtlest action.

‘Fun Days at Sea’ by Eva Anderson is the most literal of the bunch, and shows the final night on the deck of a sea-bourne cruise ship before the end of the world.  As a deadly cloud of something-or-other descends on their location, two couples and a bartender spend their last moments drinking and cavorting, sharing stories of hedonism and regret.  Michael Dunn and Jessica Hanna are adorable as the two swingers who entice a newly-wed bride whose husband is too consumed by his impending doom to offer solace to his beloved.

‘The Class Room’ by Wesley Walker stands out as the most advanced work in the project, an avant-garde examination of sexual maturity in opposition to childhood innocence and the futile quest to quell unwanted desire.  Lily Holleman is Gloria Maddox, a reporter who has come to interview a controversial educator by the name of Dr. V.  The teacher, played with an unbridled megalomania by LA stage veteran Jacqueline Wright, has devised a method of kindergarten discipline which borders on mind-control.  The dialogue quickly unravels into primal dissertation, and before long, the reporter is undressed and begging for the teacher’s touch.  The action climaxes in a flurry of coordinated movement and anatomical extremes that recalls the work of Tadeusz Kantor and other unsavory avant-garde.  Although the play does not fit neatly into the program’s narrative, Walker and director Amber Skalski achieve a disturbing theatrical event where human complexity is reduced to a filthily organic need for physical contact and quietus.

Bootleg’s deep and irregular playing space is creatively filled with stacked boxes, rations and et cetera, arranged like an underground bunker by designer David Offner.  The lighting design is functional, while the video design is largely ornamental and serves to set the tone of a whiz-bang nuclear age where gas masks are a part of everyday life.  The production largely avoids the more substantial consequences of a holocaust, opting instead to muse on sex and humour in the face of certain death.

The lobby installation is an imaginative profile of a charred, post-nuclear urbania curated with diverse flair by Sandy Rodriguez.  Most notable is a work in bronze and enamel by Allessandro Thompson titled “What Would Journey Do?” At first glance the melted polymer semi-sphere resembles the mounted head of a downed aeroplane, but upon a closer look reveals a universe of exploding stars in an inversely colored iris.  This color scheme carries over to a series of postcards in watercolor by Scott Winterrowd depicting various nuclear tests, commoditizing these horrific events as if they were a common roadside attraction.

Not all the work echoes this campiness and whimsy, with work by Jorge Javier Lopez and Vincent Villafranca representing a more sober, if morbid, side of devastation.  Villafranca’s bronze figures are like bone-chilling toys cast in carbonized flesh, and an installation by Derrick Maddox reads like the sandbox of an eight year-old after the Bomb.

The project is headed up by Andrew Hopper with other plays directed by Adrian Alex Cruz, Amber Skalski and Gordon Vandenburg, with scripts by Eva Anderson, Clay Hazelwood, Wesley Walker and Sharon Yablon.  The ensemble includes Shawn Buchholz, Hank Bunker, Alana Dietze, Michael Dunn, Jessica Hanna, Lily Holleman, Niamh McCormally, Ben Messmer, Gray Palmer, Babar Peerzada, Alina Phelan, Mickey Swenson, Tina Van Berkelaer, Annie Weirich, and Jacqueline Wright.

The lighting design is by Brandon Baruch, scenic design by David Offner, Costume design by Caroline Duncan, stage managment by Lara E. Nail. Music and sound design is by Andrew Hopper with help from Sean Healey.

The lobby installation is curated by Sandy Rodriguez with works by Ron Dotson, Jorge Javier Lopez, Isabelle Lutterodt, Derrick Maddox, Rigo Maldonado, Anne Martens, Guadalupe Rodriguez, Rebeka Rodriguez, Sandy Rodriguez, Brian Scott, Allessandro Thompson, Armando H. Torres, Vincent Villafranca, Victor Wilde and Scott Winterrowd.

The play is performed Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 7pm through May 10th, 2009.

Bootleg Theater is located at 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057 (Just West of Alvarado St.)

Ticket prices: $25.00 ($10.00 for seniors and students)

Reservations online at www.bootlegtheater.com or by phone at (213) 386-3856