French playwright Pascal Rambert's LOVE'S END as a multinational hit chimes in with the current presentation of White Rabbit Red Rabbit at The Fountain. Each production has had years of successful productions presented in dozens of languages. International Hits! Impressive!
Featuring Beejan Land and Ann Sonneville
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| Beejan Land and Ann Sonneville Photo by Cooper Bates |
Ms Sonneville, as the other partner listens as Land spends the first half of the piece free associating sharply moving to divorce while Sonneville.... Listens.
Attias's static direction leaves the couple virtually motionless, the physical distance approptiately wide and vacant. Land rages: angry and resolute, with little variety demanding the distance between his needs and desires that dismiss those of Ann. He also demands "stuff." A chair. A charcoal drawing.
Beejan lays out his piece and Ann, having been made to suffer his heavy slings and arrows stops him as he attempts to exit the stage.
A breath..
Ann has absorbed what Beejan has had to say.. his attempt at cruelty.. his demands.. and in her own 'poetic way' Ann responds.. It's brutal.
My difficulty with this second part of the discussion regards where Beejan winds up physically: way down right With his lambasting Ann, we see much of the reactions in her, but Beejan, now, is in the dark and as Ann lays out her slashing retort .. She takes stage with a vengeance; pounding away with memories and vitriol.
Ow.
Playwright Pascal Rambert has said, "“The play does not pit one lover against the other. That would be too easy. I’m trying rather to draw two trajectories that, at a certain point, find a form of freedom after an impossible suffering. That story is not the same as the story of a couple splitting up.”
Oh? Really? It's complicated.
The remarkable skills of both Land and Sonneville accomplish an odd expression of love. The essence and the vibration permeate the piece. "I hope you have an inner life.." says Ann.
Returning to The Odyssey, artist in residence director Maurice Attias with a long list of credits brings a human element to this sad tale. The choice to keep the action static: placing Land in the dark as Sonneville's retorts ebb and flow .. razor sharp filled with passion that slices and dices the man now incapable to escape, makes it difficult to see his physical reactions. They are felt. Perhaps that was the goal.
Is it about the craft of acting? Is it about life? Yes.. and it's about uncomfortable stuff that the less poetic of each of us at one time or another might growl. "Oh Yeah? What about YOU?!"
Please plan to experience this excellent production: two well tuned artists delivering amazingly potent lines.. The feat of memory alone is worth a trip to the Odyssey..
Crew:
- Set Design: Stephanie Kerley Schwartz
- Costume Design: Denise Blasor
- Lighting Design: Jackson Funke
- Stage Manager: Jennifer Palumbo
- Poster Artist: Luba Lukova
- Produced for the Odyssey by Beth Hogan and Lucy Pollak
- Presented by Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
:
Love's End
(‘Clôture de l’amour’)
• Written by Pascal Rambert
• Translated from the French by Jim Fletcher and Kate Moran
• Directed by Maurice Attias
• Starring Beejan Land and Ann Sonneville
• Produced by Beth Hogan and Lucy Pollak
• Presented by the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Beth Hogan, Acting Artistic Director
WHEN:
May 17 through June 15
• Previews:
Thursday, May 15 and Friday, May 16 at 8 p.m.
• Performances:
May 17 through June 15
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. / Sundays at 2 p.m.
WHERE:
Odyssey Theatre
2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90025
TICKET PRICES:
• $20-$43
• Friday, May 23 and Friday, June 6 : Odyssey Theatre “Wine Nights” feature complimentary wine and snacks after the show as well as Pay-What-You-Want admission to the performance.
OTHER:
A post-performance conversation with playwright Pascal Rambert will take place on Friday, June 13.
HOW:
OdysseyTheatre.com
(310) 477-2055 ext. 2
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