Journalist/documentarian Phelim MacLeer talks about his controversial play "Ferguson," a work of verbatim theater in that it's comprised entirely of excerpts from grand jury testimony in the Michael Brown case; Costume designer Lisa Padovani on mashing up influences for her work on "Gotham"; French artist Vincent Lamouroux's piece "Projection" covers an abandoned Silver Lake motel and it's surrounding palm trees with lime wash.
Ferguson: 9 actors walk out on play over how it depicts Michael Brown
Journalist-turned-playwright Phelim McAleer’s new play “Ferguson” uses grand jury testimonies from the Michael Brown shooting case to present the polarizing court proceedings. A piece of what McAleer calls "verbatim theater," "Ferguson" is a word-for-word read of excerpts from grand jury testimony.
“Ferguson” raised almost $100,000 on crowdfunding site Indiegogo and has been controversial from the beginning.
Ferguson Indiegogo fundraising video
Citing an agenda on McAleer’s part and other conflicts, nine of the 13 actors who were first set to perform in the play have dropped out. What's more, the Odyssey Theatre, where the play is running through April 29, has gone to the unusual length of distancing itself from the production.
Ferguson play director interview
The Frame host John Horn sat down with “Ferguson” playwright Phelim McAleer.
Interview Highlights
As you say in the play, there were 25 days of testimony. But your play runs about two hours, so clearly there’s some subjective editing. As you’re looking through all of those transcripts, were there things that you felt had been underrepresented?
“I’m one of the few people who’s read all 5,000 pages, most of them several times. There is no credible witness, none, who said Michael Brown had his hands up saying ‘Don’t shoot.’ It’s just not there... They all crumbled under questioning or when presented with forensic evidence. And people need to know that."
There was obviously a lot of drama about the staging of this play itself. That nine of the original 13 actors who were cast decided not to perform in the play. What were their objections, and how did you respond to their objections?
“Well there was [the idea] that this was somehow unbalanced. That I have conservative politics is another one. And then just, ‘I don’t want to be part of it, I’m getting too much pressure from my family and friends to a personal, political reasoning.' I hope I’m not misrepresenting them, but I think there was a little bit of madness as well."
The play focuses on excerpts of testimony and clearly you have a subjective view of which excerpts you’re going to show. How is that not a subjective interpretation of the event itself?
“Every article, every newspaper article you’ve ever read about Ferguson is a subjective editing of the Ferguson incident. And, you know, most newspaper articles are 600 words. Most radio pieces are three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes. So everything you’ve ever heard about Ferguson is edited. So this is the longest piece, I think, existing about Ferguson. So it’s the least edited, the least subjective, actually, about all of the pieces you’ll ever hear about Ferguson."
“Ferguson” opened at the Odyssey Theatre (2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd, 90025) on Sunday, April 26 and will run through Wednesday, April 29.
'Gotham' costume designer Lisa Padovani is totally fine with being called a 'control freak'
The Fox show "Gotham" provides a new take on the origins of Batman and his supporting cast, and their looks are a huge part of defining these characters. Lisa Padovani is the show's costume designer and took the Frame through how she draws her inspirations.
Executive producer Danny Cannon told Padovani that he wanted the show to feel timeless, but she says they ended up drawing more on the late '80s and early '90s, while also including a touch of modernism.
"And I throw in other periods, because a big factor for us was to give it a kind of a 'Blade Runner' feel, where's it's a lot of different decades of culture inspiration rolled into one," Padovani says.
Fish Mooney
The character of Fish Mooney gave Padovani a unique opportunity, because Fish being an original meant there wasn't any comic book source material it had to be compared to.
"I am a big believer in go big or go home. Especially if you're doing something like this, that's based on a comic book. Let's have fun with it."
Before Jada Pinkett Smith was cast in the role, the character was more old Hollywood, with the idea of an old showgirl opening a club while being in cahoots with the mob, Padovani says.
"We went a little more badass, a little bit more fashion forward and street. And I used a lot of skins and textured leathers and ominous looking brocades. And we went short. Instead of it being more of a gown look, we went short on her."
While costumes are important on the show, there's a balance between showing off and letting the characters take the lead.
"Really, costume designers are supposed to be telling the story of the writer and the director. It's supposed to enhance the story, it's not supposed to overshadow the acting or overshadow what's going on in the story. But, for this show, because it's not a strict period piece, it's a fantasy piece, just like a movie like 'Cinderella' — everybody's waiting for that blue dress. It's kind of the same thing. I set it up, especially for Jada Pinkett, where people were really looking forward to seeing what she was going to wear each week."
Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin
The character was given different elements intended to tease the characters bird-villain future (though it's still significantly more subtle than the 1992 "Batman Returns" version).
"I based his jacket on a tux jacket from about 1918. I really liked that high, wide, wing-like lapel that's got the high peaks."
That extended head to toe.
"The shoes, I went with a very pointy, elongated, kind of an exaggerated foot, 'cause he starts walking early in the season with a splayed foot, like a penguin. So it just exaggerates that posturing by putting that kind of shoe on him."
Ivy Pepper/Poison Ivy
One of the younger generation in the cast, alongside the kid versions of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle (Catwoman), Ivy Pepper's look was inspired by punk rock god Johnny Rotten.
"I'm personally very inspired by early punk and new wave and rock and roll, and it's very much a part of my life, and how I think, and how I dress, and how I live every day. So I saw the actress that they hired, and iI was happy to see that she was a real redhead. And Johnny Rotten just immediately came to mind."
She saw the spirit of Johnny Rotten in the character.
"I just thought, this is a street urchin that runs wild, does whatever she wants, and has got this edge to her. And I thought, let's put the holey sweaters on her that Johnny used to wear, and let's mess her hair up, and just make her look like an anarchist. So, she loved it. Everybody else seems to have loved it, so I think yeah, he was a great role model for her."
TV versus film budgets
Padovani has to costume her characters on a TV budget and a TV schedule, while continuing to try to top herself (and keeping her cast away from the buffet to keep them fitting in tight outfits). She says that shows like "Rome" raised the bar for costumes on the smaller screen, bringing costume drams to television.
"It wasn't just, 'hey, let's see what we have on hand and what we can quickly pull together from a store.'"
Network TV also means more episodes per season and less time to shoot them than on cable. Padovani says that, when she worked on "Boardwalk Empire," she had 12 to 15 for an episode, while "Gotham" gives her 7 to 9.
"Me personally, in my work ethic, in my life, I never settle. If I have the very last second before it goes on camera, I will tweak it 'til the very end. I've been called a control freak — I don't see that as a negative thing, because it's my product, and I just want to make sure I'm doing the very best I can for anything I work on, no matter what the budget."
Padovani pulls from costume shops in New York, where "Gotham" is shot, as well as renting from California shops and having plenty of costumes made for the show's characters, particularly Fish Mooney.
Quality and HDTV
High definition has made it easier to spot small flaws on TV, but Padovani says it hasn't changed anything for her.
"I feel like my brain has always been HD," Padovani says. "If buttons on a jacket are not sewn in the same direction, I will make sure that they change it. If there's a stitch that's out of step with the rest of the stitches on a collar, I will change it. I'm a maniac about ties. I make most of the ties for my principles on the show. I went through a couple of different tie vendors before I found one that I felt was consistently good quality."
Padovani says that quality is everything.
"I have some very good vendors that sew and know my sensibility. It's like bespoke — it has to be perfect, because that camera is right there, and everybody's got a movie-style screen in their home now, so yeah, everybody sees everything. And just like a pimple, if there's a stitch out of whack or if the pearls are crooked around the neck, just, that's all I can see. I can't see the acting, I can't see the story, I just concentrate on the flaw that is not helping tell the story — which is a curse!"
Keep an eye out this Halloween for partygoers rocking their versions of "Gotham's" memorable costumes — and don't tell Padovani if you see a few stitches out of place.
"Gotham" airs Monday nights; the "Gotham" season finale airs Monday, May 4.
'Projection' paints Sunset Pacific Motel — and the surrounding palm trees — stark white
Driving west along Sunset Boulevard — it’s something most Angelenos have experienced at some point in their lives. For locals, iconic images like the Hollywood sign off in the distance or a swaying palm tree set against a blue sky become commonplace, part of the landscape of a daily commute.
But change one thing about this Los Angeles-specific backdrop, and it’s enough to get people to pull over to the side of the road and pause their everyday routines. People like Ricardo Dawkins.
“Why is this guy painting over trees? It’s white paint. Did someone screw up? I thought it was an act of vandalism at first,” Dawkins says.
But what Dawkins is experiencing isn’t vandalism — it’s art.
“A city is always changing, and mostly we don’t see the changes. In terms of perception, we are always looking for some sort of sameness or symmetry,” says French artist Vincent Lamouroux, the man responsible for the site-specific art installation he calls “Projection.” Vincent and his team have transformed the dilapidated Sunset Pacific Motel in Silver Lake by covering the entire structure — and some of the adjacent palm trees — in a stark white lime wash.
“It’s white, but to me it’s also blank,” says Lamouroux. “This idea of the white is to bring of course light to it, but to have a white canvas. A screen to project any type of desire onto the surfaces.”
The defunct Sunset Pacific, or "Bates Motel" as it’s also known, got its nickname from its location at the intersection of Bates and Sunset. "Bates Motel" conjures the eeriness of the fictional motel of the same name in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” And with the motel’s sordid past as a hub for crime in L.A., the name fits.
Lamouroux says he's had a decade-long fascination with the place.
“The fact that it has been abandoned for maybe more than 20 years, with a loss of... affection for it,” he says. “I think the idea was to bring something completely new for the building. It was a motel, and especially a motel has a lot of different stories, and I think this one had a lot.”
Leslie Robinson is a member of Lamouroux’s team that was tasked with applying gallon after gallon of ecologically-safe lime wash to every inch of the abandoned motel and the palm trees that tower above it.
“It’s been bizarre,” Robinson says, who admits he was a little confused when he first got the job.
“Being up in the boom lift was the scariest part, because the palm trees move, they were swaying back and forth. And also the boom lift was swaying back and forth. That and the wind... It was tricky,” Robinson says.
Nicolas Libert and his L.A.-based arts organization Please Do Not Enter are the organizers behind Lamouroux’s “Projection.”
“Vincent often says it’s a kind of dreaming as being awake. It’s so unusual to see this completely white scenery, these white trees, that you can’t help stopping and trying to figure out what’s happening,” says Libert.
Libert explains part of the concept for the piece.
“With this site-specific installation, it’s to be able to bring art to people that aren’t that used to going to museums, going to galleries," he says. "Art comes and meets them out on the street."
It’s not clear yet what will happen to the Sunset Pacific Motel after Libert and Lamouroux are finished with it.
It could be restored and reopened in all of its vintage 1960s glory, another hip spot in the gentrified Silver Lake neighborhood where it sits. Or maybe the developers who own the property will tear the the structure down and put up condos.
Libert says the mystery surrounding the motel is all part of the experience.
“The next story is not written yet,” he says. “We have expectations. We have predictions. What will happen next after the exhibition, we don’t know that. But that’s probably part of the success of the whole installation.”
But, for the next couple of weeks at least, passersby will be able to document the ghostly white motel — stopping to snap pictures, maybe even a selfie out front. Evidence that they took part in a dream, the altered reality on Sunset Boulevard.
"Projection" opened on Sunday, April 26 and will be on view through May 10, 2015.