The Black Rider

Ahmanson Theatre
135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.
Through June 11
Tuesday-Friday 8 p.m., Saturday 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.
Sunday 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $30-95
(213) 628-2772
www.TaperAhmanson.com

Let it be said: The work of Waco-born avant-garde theater artist Robert Wilson isn't for everyone. However, if you are willing to endure his enigmatically slow staging, his signature staccato movement, and his sometimes inaccessible storytelling, there are tremendous dividends at the end of the theatrical rainbow.

The Black Rider, which Wilson first staged in Germany 16 years ago after beat poet William S. Burroughs wrote the book and the eccentric, flophouse-inhabiting composer Tom Waits wrote the music, is a quintessentially Wilsonian work -- meaning it is a visually sumptuous, if sometimes frustrating and obtuse affair.

The show is based on an age-old story and -- more specifically -- a fable of German folklore about an Everyman who makes a pact with the devil in order to successfully woo his love to matrimony. In this case, the office clerk Wilhelm (an irresistible Matt McGrath, whose smile lights up the vast auditorium) makes a deal with the devilish Pegleg (the satanic, sexually ambiguous vocal powerhouse Vance Avery). The devil provides magic bullets so that the father of Wilhelm's fiancee will see that he is a hunter of sufficient ability to deserve the hand of the fair Katchen (Mary Margaret O'Hara). Of course everything goes wrong when the moment of truth arises, proving Pegleg's early point that “a devil's bargain is always a fool's bargain.”

As with most Wilson works, the pleasures are in the journey, not the destination. Moments of breathtaking theatrical beauty haunt the viewer willing to surrender to the director/designer's demanding vision and peerless command of light and color.

In many ways the great surprise of The Black Rider is Waits' appealing score. With many of the actors adopting the composer's familiar rasp in their delivery, the Kurt Weill-like compositions offer an earthy grounding for the flights of visual fancy in Wilson's endlessly inventive design.

It bears noting that in the first act the Ahmanson audience includes many who sit resentful of the show's glacial pacing and seemingly pretentious staging. I thought the man next to me was going to explode. But if you can stick it out, a supportive, if smaller, crowd remains for Act II, breathing a sigh of relief and applauding louder than they ever did in the presence of the plebians. Is this the height of pretension and audience self-satisfaction? Perhaps. But there must also be a place for such unapologetically theatrical artistry in our culture.

Wilson may offend and perplex. But he also dazzles and delivers. -- Christopher Cappiello

Equinox

Odyssey Theatre
2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A.
Through May 28 -- Thursday-Saturday 8 p.m., Sunday 3 p.m.
Tickets: $25
(310) 477-2055
www.odysseytheatre.com

One type of theater that you don't come across often is the “what if” play, which takes what we know of historical figures and places them in a situation to see how everything unfolds. In the world premiere of Equinox, playwright Joyce Sachs does this with the most delicate touch as she explores a possible day in the lives of members of the celebrated Bloomsbury Group.

The story centers on Vanessa Bell, the artist and elder sister of Virginia Woolf, who is often overlooked by history. Both sisters were integral members of the Bloomsbury Group, an informal collection of artists, writers and intellectuals who began meeting at the Bell household in the early 1900s. As creative types tend to do, the group rallied against social convention, united in their pacifist beliefs, sexual promiscuity, and intellectual resolve. By 1923, when this play takes place, the group continued to meet socially, but had passed the peak of their glory years.

Jules Aaron directs this play as if he's slowly unwrapping a gift. Much of it is spent exploring the increasingly unstable relationship between Vanessa (Carolyn Hennesy) and her longtime lover, artist Duncan Grant (Robert Stephenson). It is the morning after a party, and the last guests have left their summer cottage. The story moves methodically- -- we learn the two have been together for 10 years, but that Duncan was once her brother's lover, and Vanessa is still married to Clive Bell. All are the marks of a carefree, bohemian lifestyle, but it's clear that theirs is not an easy relationship to maintain. Hennesy's performance is especially keen as she subtly expresses her dissatisfaction over finding her lover in bed with another man the night before, even though it seems this is a common enough occurrence.

Technically, the plot advances when the couple's old friend, the dashing mountaineer George Mallory (Ralph Lister) appears at their doorstep. But in reality, the play continues to reveal layer after layer in their relationships. Sachs manages to create more than one interesting dynamic, using both fact and imagination to achieve this. Mallory had been lovers to both Vanessa and Duncan, and throughout the evening Lister alternates his seductive intentions between the two, resulting in crackling chemistry all around. It is also interesting to see the character of Vanessa, one of the most celebrated liberal intellectuals of the time, so naturally waiting hand and foot on the men, who run around together like little boys. When Mallory asks Duncan to accompany him up Mount Everest, Vanessa pragmatically points out that her lover has become accustomed to the comforts of their routine.

In fact, considering the title -- the day of the year when summer turns to fall -- it seems that Sachs is using the trio's complex relationship to explore the tipping point of the Bloomsbury Group, and to make some commentary on the inevitability of change. Even the tightest bonds can disintegrate over time, and, as it happens in every generation, age will always force some to choose security and conformity over rebellion and passion. -- Sarika Chawla