Playwright Rolin Jones reimagines Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," setting it in London's swingin' 1960s; Prince and the publishing house claiming a copyright on "Happy Birthday to You" both lose in court; Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre moves its soap opera dance-drama around L.A.
Contemporary dance meets telenovela in 'Sophie & Charlie'
Contemporary dance is a challenging physical activity. And staging a performance inside a WWII-era church doesn’t make it any easier. There are chairs to rearrange and rummage sale items to move out of the choir loft.
And then there’s the matter of making sure the lead dancer’s hair doesn’t get snagged on the wall mid-show, like it did during a rehearsal for "Sophie & Charlie," which is dance theater in the form of a telenovela. It will take place at four different locations around Los Angeles, starting with the couple’s meet-cute at a funeral and ending with — well, you’ll just have to show up to find out.
“I’m not sure if it’s first of it’s kind,” says Heidi Duckler, the choreographer behind the production. “But I haven’t heard of such a thing before.”
Duckler has made her company's reputation on what’s called "site specific" dance performances. But this project also required some serious TV viewing. Duckler says telenovelas, which became hugely popular here in the U.S. in the '80s, are more than just soapy romances with crazy plot lines. They also spread messages of female empowerment through family planning, a history she was happy to incorporate.
“It informs the movement, it informs the relationship between Sophie and Charlie that this woman in this telenovela really does want more for her life," Duckler says. "And as funny as it is, it's also tragic and you can see her struggles, so she’s both the character in the telenovela and also the viewer watching the telenovela.”
Teresa Barcelo, who plays Sophie, says it took a while to hook into her character, until she realized just how much of her own personal history she had with telenovelas.
“I have so much to pull from, this is amazing," Barcelo says. "I get to reenact most of the things I was mocked for most of my childhood. My mother would come home late, put her novelas on and fall asleep. So I would have to give her a recap the next morning... I would be literally forced — with my mother’s huge, heavy legs on me — to watch novelas.”
Duckler is essentially re-creating a telenovela with various sets. She wanted to do something big, but couldn’t find a suitable venue, so she decided to take the show on the road.
In addition to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Studio City, the venues include Beyond Baroque literary center in Venice, a semi-vacant hospital in South L.A., and Kings Road Park in West Hollywood.
Joe Schenck, who will dance the part of Charlie, says he was also a little taken aback by the scope of the project:
“It was kind of a blank space, you don’t have a frame of reference for what that looks like. So maybe a little bit of anxiety, but a lot of excitement about that huge blank palate right in front of me.”
For dates and ticket information about "Sophie and Charlie," visit Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre.
'These Paper Bullets!' brings Shakespeare to the swinging '60s thanks to playwright Rolin Jones
Anyone who’s a writer, filmmaker, or former student in a high school English class for that matter, puts Shakespeare on a pedestal. But for his new play “These Paper Bullets,” playwright Rolin Jones wasn’t afraid to toy with — and re-think — the work of the Bard of Avon.
Described as a "modish ripoff of William Shakespeare’s 'Much Ado About Nothing,'" Jones's play takes Shakespeare’s comedy about love and manners and sets it in the swinging ‘60s. But as if adapting Shakespeare wasn’t enough, Jones also decided to bring on Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong to revamp some other British geniuses for the play’s music: The Beatles.
Rolin Jones spoke with the Frame’s John Horn about Shakespeare’s modern-day relevance, working with Billie Joe Armstrong and why not to take Shakespeare’s work too seriously.
Interview Highlights
So, first a little personal history: I was a theater student in college, and I know “Much Ado About Nothing” fairly well. At what point do you think “Much Ado” needs an overhaul — a top-to-bottom rebuilding?
There are things in that play that no one probably wants to see anymore. Especially if you were a woman of any age. At some point, you’d be like, “What the hell is going on in this crazy play?”
You think “Much Ado About Nothing” was a little misogynistic?
Well, no, I think it was for its time. And that was awhile back, and things have happened... There’s that. There’s also a lot of plotting that is a little odd for our modern mind. If you go see “Much Ado” and you’re deep into the third or fourth act, there are literally three scenes where the audience knows everything. Thirteen of the 15 characters know everything, and you’re watching two people come around to knowledge you already have... It’s some hard rowing at that point.
But there is a conceit in “Much Ado” that is very smart — if we can give Mr. Shakespeare his props. And that is he has two couples in the play, Hero and Claudio, and Beatrice and Benedick. Both of them should be together, but both of them are not together for very different reasons. And that I suspect is what you found appealing in terms of an adaptation: What does bring a couple together and apart?
Well, there’s two different versions of that love story. One is that young freaky love that is, you know, we saw each other from across the room and we lost our minds. In the Shakespeare play, Claudio and Hero, they don’t say a word to each other and they’re in... Clearly they love each other right at the beginning of the play, even though they’re doing anything they can to deny it. Because literally, it takes one sentence from their friends to go “Oh my god, I’ve been dying for that.”
What Shakespeare did very very well, those Beatrice and Benedick scenes are some of the best things he ever wrote — dramas or tragedies or histories. They’re really quite astonishing and really lovely. There’s one messy, sloppy, crazy scene in there, the quote-unquote "Chapel Scene," that’s just about as modern and as nutty as possible.
Let’s talk about the music. You were collaborating with Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day on this. What were your initial conversations about this collaboration? What did you guys want to do together?
Well, I was in the middle of doing the screenplay version of “American Idiot,” which is the screenplay version of the Broadway show based on the album he had written way back when. And we got this commission from Yale Rep. And I was like, I’ll call him, he’s never going to say yes... No one’s going to get paid, and why would he ever do it? And I called him up and I tried to tell him what “Much Ado” was about, and I need someone to write some Beatle-y tunes. And he was like, “Yeah, sure, I’ll do it.” Click, and he hung up the phone...
So I actually flew up to Oakland to solidify the deal. And we met at this restaurant, and in between him being bombarded by fans over and over again, I just described to him what “Much Ado” was about. And I went on babbling for like 25 minutes. And he was relatively silent and at some point he just said, “OK, let me get this straight. You’re going to rewrite Shakespeare and I’m going to rewrite the the Beatles?” And I was like, “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” And he was like, “All right, what the hell, I got three weeks. Let’s do it.”
Do you think it’s difficult for modern audiences to engage with Shakespeare in a meaningful way? Does it feel like an antiquity with the language at this point?
Shakespeare, look, that dude wrote 36 plays... It’s a language play any time you go to see Shakespeare. So it takes 15 minutes for the audience to sort of warm up and get it. But, there’s a reason why that stuff is still going on.
Clearly, the tragedies are probably where he threw the most of his A material. The comedies, you know, they’re all “Three’s Company” episodes... But otherwise, that’s the thing where you can get a little happy and be a little less, you know, religious about what you’re going to change with Shakespeare.
Because he was doing the same thing — he was ripping off plots, he wrote for specific actors, and he said, "let’s put some asses in the seats and let’s have a great old time." I think that’s what we attempted to do to... If he were alive, I think he’d be pleased. I think he’d be like, “Yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do.”