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“˜War Music’ binds former Bruins

By Alex Wen

Jan. 14, 2004 9:00 p.m.

There’s a UCLA connection making beautiful music at the
Geffen Playhouse.

UCLA alumnus Bryan Davidson’s “War Music,”
which is currently running at the Geffen through Feb. 22, is an
Ovation award-winning play (the Ovation is Los Angeles’
equivalent of the Tony) about three wartime composers struggling to
come to terms with the pain and violence of their times. (The play
spans the duration and the aftermath of both world wars.)

“War Music” just happens to be directed by Jessica
Kubzansky, a visiting professor of theater at UCLA, and also stars
Jeremy Maxwell Kramer, who graduated from UCLA in 1997 with a
bachelor’s in theater acting, in three different roles.

Kubzansky uses seven actors to cover the play’s 40-odd
roles.

“The “˜doubling’ (of roles) in a way helps to
connect the three acts of the play, which take place in different
time periods and revolve around three separate classical
composers,” said Davidson, who graduated from UCLA in 1995
with an M.F.A. in playwriting.

“For instance, Jeremy (Kramer) is this amazing actor who
plays different roles in each act,” said Davidson. “But
these three characters have, in a sense, an archetypal
connection.”

Davidson hopes the actors will be able to convey to the audience
a subtle sense of continuity through their collective performances,
something that proved successful in the play’s earlier run in
2002 when it premiered at the 99-seat Los Angeles Theatre Center.
That stint earned the play Ovation awards for World Premier Play,
Ensemble Performance, and Lighting Design. The cast and crew hope
to build on the play’s early acclaim.

“What was great about having the same cast was that we
were able to hit the ground running,” said Davidson.
“And (the actors) are not resting on their laurels.
They’re actually digging in, and (as a result), it’s
now a deeper, richer play. There were things we wanted to keep
digging at, and keep pushing.”

“My motto for this run was “˜Further up and farther
in,'” added Kubzansky, happily quoting, she notes, one
of her favorite authors ““ C.S. Lewis, from his seven-book
masterpiece, “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

Kubzansky, undoubtedly one of America’s hottest theater
directors at present, recently directed and concluded a triumphant
run of a play by yet another UCLA graduate, Sheila
Callaghan’s “Kate Crackernuts,” to much acclaim.
She is full of praise for her newest favorite writer ““ none
other than Davidson.

“I have a passion for amazing writing,” said
Kubzansky. “Both Sheila and Bryan are truly poets for the
theater; they really are. Their language is rich and thick, and
chewy and poetic. “¦ There is a sense that the language (of
their work) is textually rich, and that’s one of the first
things I look for in plays.”

Davidson started writing “War Music” at UCLA in
1995, and he is still tweaking it, having re-written portions of
the play for the current run. “I was joking with one of the
actresses that I’ve been working on this play longer than the
actual world wars depicted in the play,” said Davidson.
“I started (writing the play) to get out of having to write a
paper. “¦ The class was dramatic theory (taught by then-UCLA
visiting professor and famed playwright Leon Katz), and I said I
could either write a paper, or I could actually write a play
embodying these theories.”

Katz agreed to allow Davidson to write a play instead of a
paper, and so “War Music” was born, at the expense of
yet another potentially tepid academic paper.

With the timing of what’s going on in the world right now,
the play cannot help but resonate with a particular relevancy.

“It’s a play about war and music, and the
intersection of the two,” said Davidson. “When I wrote
(“˜War Music’) in 1995, I certainly had the Gulf War at
the back of my mind.” But both Kubzansky and Davidson,
however, are adamant that any relevance to the current world
climate will not be forced upon the audience.

“The play is first and foremost representative of its
times,” said Davidson. “It definitely evokes the
nostalgia of its (various) time periods, but at the same time
it’s also universal … especially in terms of
music.”

Davidson’s lifelong love for music is clearly evident. He
once played the viola semi-professionally, he confesses bashfully.
His viola has also been spotted at recent rehearsals. “Music
is this very primitive language. It’s as if there’s
something hardwired to our brains. (Music) taps so deeply into our
emotional core in ways language cannot always do. And for that
purpose, it’s incredibly powerful as a force to sustain
people in times of crisis,” offered Davidson.

A former English undergraduate with a minor in music from Loyola
Marymount University, Davidson was nudged toward playwriting while
at LMU. “At that time I was writing a lot of poetry,”
said Davidson. “And I had this professor who said to me:
“˜Your poems aren’t actually poems ““ they’re
monologues. I suggest you try the theater department. I think you
may be in the wrong place.'”

The right place, as it turned out, was UCLA’s School of
Theater, Film and Television, where Davidson seamlessly segued into
the dramatic world of Tony Kushner, Bertolt Brecht and
Shakespeare.

“I don’t think music and drama are dissimilar at
all,” said Davidson. “Music has a certain immediacy of
emotion. I think that drama has that same power because it’s
live and happening right in front of you. And when it’s
happening right, you lose yourself in that.”

Student discount tickets available. Call (310) 208-5454 or
visit www.geffenplayhouse.com for more information.

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Alex Wen
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