Curtain calls

“The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea” The
Celebration Theater Through Nov. 24 (323) 957-1884 2
Paws

Just when you thought there weren’t nearly enough live
snakes performing on local stages, playwright Cherríe Moraga
brings her adaptation of “Medea” to Hollywood, complete
with obligatory reptiles and plenty of murderous revenge.
“The Hungry Woman,” however, takes place in the future,
after a revolutionary war has exiled Medea (Lina Gallegos) to a
murky border region reserved for homosexuals. Here she is forced to
choose between the love of her lesbian partner, Luna (director
Adelina Anthony), and the welfare of her son, Chacmool (Ramon
Granados Jr.). If it all sounds a little far-fetched, it is. Moraga
does a commendable job of blending the Greek tragedy with Mexican
myths like La Llorana, but her attempt to hold Medea up as a
rallying symbol for lesbian empowerment strays too far from the
realm of credulity. The original Medea makes a sympathetic
character, even though she killed her own children, because she was
a victim of Jason’s cruel indifference. In Moraga’s
version however, Medea is the one who strays from her marriage
vows. She may not have had a choice about her sexual preference,
but she never has to face the possibility of raising a child on her
own with no money, as the character does in the original play.
Clearly, living in exile has taken an enormous emotional toll on
the characters in this play, but it’s a big leap from feeling
marginalized to killing your own son, and Moraga just doesn’t
quite connect the dots. The production has its own problems. The
Celebration Theater barely accommodates the number of scene changes
in the play, making the story difficult to follow at times. And
13-year-old Granados, while displaying plenty of wide-eyed charm,
is far too prone to mumbling. The play does have a few bright
spots, however. Gallegos demonstrates a flair for playing a woman
at her worst, and Anthony proves she can take her own direction
better than anyone. But as a whole, “The Hungry Woman”
fails to satiate as a believable piece of theater. -Sommer
Mathis

“Alagazam” The Actors’ Gang Through
Dec. 21 (323) 802-1764 3 Paws

The freaks come out at night, and they’re setting up camp
on the Actors’ Gang stage. “Alagazam,” directed
by Brent Hinkley, is the new late-night show at the stalwart
Hollywood venue. It is billed as “the strangest show on
earth,” and if the production doesn’t quite rise to the
claim, it is still an intriguing spectacle. Playwrights Adam Simon
and Tim Robbins (founder of the Actors’ Gang) use a traveling
freak show to satirize the way television brainwashes the audience
into compliant consumers and glamorizes war for the corporate
barons who profit from the massacre of young men and women. Cyrus
T. Grifter (V.J. Foster), a snake-oil salesman and ringmaster, has
brought his traveling freak show to town. Among Grifter’s
cavalcade of oddities are a pair of pinheads, a bearded lady and a
human animal. The freaks perform mini-productions including biting
satire and graphic violence reminiscent of Bertolt Brecht’s
post-war productions like “Drums in the Night.” The
anti-war sentiments of the freaks’ performances infuriates
the sponsors who seek to pacify the masses. The ideological
fingerprints of the ultra-liberal Robbins are all over the
production. Robbins who, with partner Susan Sarandon, has been
outspoken against the war in Iraq, includes a scene as subtle as a
SCUD missile where a dead soldier returns to his sweetheart.
However his bully-pulpit is easier to swallow because the freaks
are really freaky and quite funny. The Gang members all have fun
with their roles and provide enough comic depth to balance the
politics. If you like politics with your freakiness,
“Alagazam” could be just the spectacle you are looking
for. -Scott Schultz