Monday, June 10, The Damned and The Avengers will be playing their second bill together in the LA area, and it is not to be missed! The Glass House in Pomona will host the 1980 lineup of the Damned with the incomparable Rat Scabies on drums, the lineup that recorded two of their best albums, The Black Album and Strawberries. The Avengers, who are tighter and more intense than ever, will be opening.
I know it’s a school night, you probably have to download the DICE app, and Pomona is a bit of a slog for some of you, but this show is so worth it. Doors open at 7:00 PM.
The phrase “rollicking farce” is often used to describe the works of English playwright Joe Orton and encapsulates “Loot” right along with Orton’s “What the Butler Saw”.
The current offering in the Studio Space upstairs at the Long Beach Playhouse should please all fans of Orton as well as aficionados of fast paced ensemble theater.
LOOT is Joe Orton’s masterpiece of dark comedy where we follow the fortunes of two young thieves – Dennis, an undertaker at the funeral parlour, and Hal, his sometime lover, whose Mum just died. When Inspector Truscott turns up, they need a place to hide the loot. But with the money in Mum’s coffin, there’s no place for Mum, whose body keeps reappearing at the most inopportune times. Aided and abetted by Mum’s former nurse, Fay, and trying to put one over on Hal’s gullible father, the duo prove that nothing is sacred in a farce that seethes with black, baleful mirth.
Leading the ensemble are Jack Loeprich as Hal and Ronan Walsh as Dennis who both tag-team every scene forward with high energy and broad, physical comedy. Two charming and very funny fellows who do an admirable job.
On Saturday, June 8, the Independent Shakespeare Company in Atwater Village will feature the final performance (to date) of a remarkable production of Samuel Beckett’s 1961 two-act play “Happy Days.” The production, which is part of the 2024 Samuel Beckett Society’s annual conference on the Irish author’s life and body of work, stars the award-winning actress Monica Horan as Winnie, a woman who, despite her unusual predicament – she is buried up to her waist in a sandy stretch of a unidentified landscape, yet remains optimistic and wistful, even though she will eventually sink into the ground, leaving only her head visible to the audience. Winnie’s husband, Willie (played by Tim Durkin), who remains largely hidden behind the mound, and who is as monosyllabic in conversation as Winnie is lively and garrulous.
For Horan – a veteran stage and television actress who is perhaps best known for playing Amy MacDougall Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond” (created by her husband, writer/producer and “Somebody Feed Phil” star Phil Rosenthal) – playing Winnie was the culmination of a multi-year process that, as you’ll read in this interview/essay below, bridged not only time and geography but also her own need for creative expression and challenge in the face of personal and global roadblocks. What she discovered in the process of performing “Happy Days” is both a unique perspective in performing and a pathway into Beckett’s work, which proves far less enigmatic and impenetrable than the reputation that sometimes (unfairly) orbits his plays.
The Beckett Conference performance of “Happy Days” takes place on June 8 at 7:30 p.m. A Q&A with the cast, director Melissa Chalsma, and crew follows the performance. For tickets and more information, please visit iscla.org/happy-days.
Havana Nights at the Fairmont Century Plaza. Photo courtesy of Fairmont Hotels.
Warm summer nights are coming, making it a great time to experience Havana Nights. Inspired by the mystique of 1950’s Havana, this new Cuban-inspired outdoor cocktail lounge is located at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Century City.
This pop-up bar features fire pit seating and five beautifully decorated custom-built cabanas that evoke a classic Havana vibe with a modern twist.
Havana Nights’ curated cocktail menu featuures hand-crated Mojitos, Cuba Libres, Rum Old Fashioneds, and more made with SelvaRey rum. One of the most sustainable rum distilleries in the world, this premium rum brand is co-owned by Bruno Mars.
The dining menu, created by Executive Chef Ramon Bojorquez, features Cuban classics including Cubano sandwiches, croquettes, and plantain chips with guacamole and bean dip.
Tropical-inspired greenery, beautiful decor, and Latin music contribute to the vintage Cuban feeling. A changing array of exclusive activations – Cuban band performances, DJ nights, mixology evenings, game nights, cigar rolling, and more – keep things lively.
Located in Los Feliz, Mírate was recently honored as one of the 50 Best Bars in North America, according to World’s Best. That acclaim was due in no small part to Beverage Director Max Reis, an expert in all things agave who previously manned the bar at Gracias Madre.
This Monday evening, Reis will be at The West Hollywood EDITION for the chic hotel’s periodic Lobby Bar Takeover. There, Reis will create original cocktails using Don Fulano Tequila, a ground-to-bottle estate tequila that’s the product of five generations of superior tequila makers.
The Mírate takeover is from 7 to 10 p.m. on Monday, May 27. The West Hollywood EDITION is located at 9040 Sunset Blvd.
Once in a while a play comes along that fires on all cylinders and “Detroit ‘67”, currently playing at the Long Beach Playhouse, is absolutely one these gems.
Set in the “Long, Hot Summer” of 1967, the 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street Riot and the Detroit Uprising, was the bloodiest of the urban riots in the United States at the time.
The tension and flaring tempers outside the basement doorstep of sibling protagonists Chelle and Lank is only the backdrop to the impasse inside; Lank is a dreamer willing to risk their parent’s inherited savings on starting a bar with his best friend Sly, while Chelle is the more practical of the two who flatly refuses to gamble everything that their parents had worked for.
Rounding out the conflict at home and the neighborhood just beyond the door are Bunny and Sly, charismatic and funny, yet sympathetic when the moment calls for it.
Everything seems to be going according to plan until Lank and Sly take pity on a confused, wounded woman from the street named Caroline and bring her into the basement. The only problem is that Caroline is white, while Chelle, Lank, Sly and Bunny are black and in the urban powder keg of the play’s setting, the potential for an explosion is there.
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has unveiled their new seasonal menu for spring with some coffee drinks inspired by Mexican horchata.
The iconic So Cal-based chain is adding rice milk, cinnamon, and vanilla to their espresso or cold brew to create its own versions of the classic Mexican drink.
The Horchata Ice Blended Drink is a cooling, refreshing cooling take on CBTL’s beloved icy espresso drinks, while the Horchata Latte is a comforting variation. Other horchata-inspired drinks currently offered at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf are Horchata Cold Brew and Horchata Cream Cold Brew, the latter of which is topped with a cream cap.
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“Rolling Thunder” * (1977, Shout Select) Soldier William Devane returns to Texas after a seven-year stint as a Vietnam War POW to find a son that doesn’t remember him, a wife engaged to someone else, and a fistful of gold coins as repayment for his captivity. Said coins catch the attention of four desperate types (among them James Best and Luke Askew), who separate him from the loot but not before killing his family and shoving his hand into a garbage disposal; now outfitted with a prosthetic hook, Devane teams up with equally taciturn ex-POW Tommy Lee Jones to track down the quartet in Mexico. Few audiences found favor with director John Flynn and co-scripters Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould’s mix of stark, introspective drama and exploitative violence; even 20th Century Fox disowned the final result when producer Lawrence Gordon refused to cut the grislier scenes and unloaded it on American International Pictures. In recent years, these elements, along with Schrader’s connection to the film, which shares several DNA strands with his script for “Taxi Driver,” have helped “Rolling Thunder” find favor with ’70s-minded cineastes and grindhouse devotees alike (and combinations of the two, like Quentin Tarantino, who named his production company after the film). Shout Select’s new Blu-ray presentation will appeal to that demographic with a 4K transfer taken from the original camera negative and new commentary tracks by Gould and historian C. Courtney Joyner, among others; other new extras include an interview with Joyner about Flynn’s film output, a talk with composer Barry De Vorzon, and Eli Roth’s take on the film from “Trailers from Hell”; interviews with Devane, Jones, and Schrader, as well as trailers and TV spots are all culled from a 2013 Blu-ray release
This Thursday and Friday, Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic will be collaborating with Deaf West Theater and Venezuela’s Coro de Manos Blancas (White Hands Choir) on a semi-staged production of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio. This production, which premiered to raves in 2022, incorporates Deaf actors using American Sign Language alongside hearing singers performing the score.
This particular work – telling the tale of a noblewoman who goes undercover to break her husband out of prison – was completed and had its premiere as Beethoven was becoming deaf himself. He never wrote another opera, but this one hits all of the big themes familiar in his work. I’m excited to see what the company will do visually with the stirring Prisoner’s Anthem, an ode to freedom and humanity from the heart of a political prison.
Ever since its 1805 premiere, there have been events that neatly tied the themes of this work to the immediate present (its storied performance in Berlin in September of 1945 must have been a bit goddamn poignant), and we find ourselves in one of these today. It would be easy to think Beethoven foresaw the present moment when he wrote it, as I expect we’re going to feel it. But the moment had happened before it was written, and it will happen again. Deep, instinctive appeals to our deeper conscience never seem to go out of style.
Fidelio will be performed by the LA Philharmonic and Deaf West Theatre at Disney Hall on May 16 and 17. Use the promo code FIDELIO40 for a 40% discount on certain sections. Tickets, $94 to $259, available here.
Photo courtesy of Deaf West Theater, used with permission.
