Tuesday, April 14, 1998
Creating a monster
THEATER: It’s animation, it’s opera, it’s Philip Glass. And
‘Monsters of Grace’ is making sure that no one will accuse one of
L.A.’s oldest performance venues of having a conventional
reopening.
By Nerissa Pacio
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Call it the Sony Playstation for opera buffs. Or the Imax
theater for poetry lovers. But whatever becomes of the ambiguous
label for the high-art, high-technology hybrid "Monsters of Grace
1.0," opening tomorrow at UCLA’s newly reopened Royce Hall,
composer and co-producer Philip Glass is sure to remain oblivious
to the critiques.
"I don’t read what critics have to say," Glass says carelessly
in a rushed, mumbled breath, barely masking his New York lilt.
"Let’s just talk about people shall we? The people are the ones
seeing the performance, after all."
But it’s funny that Glass should focus so much on the people,
especially since the 68-minute work-in-progress performance,
created and co-produced by opera and theater director Robert
Wilson, renders three-dimensional computer animated images to the
libretto of ancient Turkish poet, Jalaluddin Rumi.
Though Glass’ well-known ensemble composed of two male and two
female voices and six wind players, will provide the well-balanced,
ornamental musical touches to the digitized, English-translated,
multi-sensory spectacle, dropping headline names of live performers
won’t serve as the key tactic to draw the crowds namely because the
performance’s focal point isn’t really the people, but the images
and objects.
"(It’s) image, movement, text, lighting and costume – all the
elements of the last 20 years of theater are reconsidered and
radically changed," Glass says.
Born from an embryonic idea nurtured by producer Jedediah
Wheeler after the 1992 restaging of his first Wilson-Glass
collaboration, the opera "Einstein on the Beach," Wheeler decided
to bring the two artists together again, this time, for a
performance that would travel worldwide.
"’Einstein’ had only been seen in New York, which is odd for a
masterpiece – even odder for a work created by two Americans," says
Wheeler, president of International Production Associates. In
search of another realization of the Wilson-Glass collaborative
spirit, Wheeler sought to produce another avant garde opera.
"I wanted a piece that explores objects, light and music,"
Wheeler says.
Similar to "Einstein’s" famous scene called "the bed," in which
a 25-foot bar of light moves from a horizontal to a vertical
position for 25 minutes accompanied by a saxophone solo, then
ascends for another 25 minutes backed by a capella soprano vocal
noises, "Monsters" carries the idea of objects as performers to a
stereoscopic level.
"There aren’t even words, but just vocal sounds (in "the bed").
It’s thrilling and it creates an empathetic moment with the
audience in a way that I found completely at odds with conventional
wisdom," Wheeler says. "Most people would assume you need
performers on stage, you need opera singers singing, a love story,
conflict. Why was everybody so involved in this inanimate
object?"
And from that question as the departure point, "Monsters" was
born.
But in a time when megabytes are quickly replacing human
intellect and memory no longer refers to the capacity of the human
mind, what will become of theater when 3-D shades replace guilded
opera glasses?
"It will open the door to all kinds of new theatrical
experiences. 3-D animation work in ‘Monsters’ has allowed us to do
things on stage that couldn’t be done before on stage, and even in
film," Wheeler asserts. " The space has changed. You’re looking at
infinite space as well as close proximity … This is 21st century
technology. It’s not an end but a beginning to what can be
done."
Glass still remains firm that the human aspect is not lost with
"Monsters," despite its title that sounds more like a hot-selling
computer game than an opera. With both Glass’ ensemble providing
live music and the personal and emotional movement evoked by Rumi’s
love poems, Glass says something more is added, not taken away, by
the theater’s technological realm.
"The poetry is astonishingly beautiful. Even though it was
written 800 years ago, it sounds like it could have been written,
well, tomorrow," Glass stresses.
And so, beginning with an idea, moving on to rough storyboard
sketches, animated opera will arrive. From shadowed figures atop a
house and a swooping bird with wings outstretched, to scrawled
boxes, spheres and jagged lines, Wilson’s jumbled images, brought
to life by Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company’s animation,
combine with Glass’ live and electronically mixed instrumentation
to bring eight completed of the 12 planned scenes in "Monsters of
Grace."
Theater doesn’t seem to be coming to a halt, at least not now
anyway. And although these creative forms of animation, which are
not just limited to cartoons and video games but rather cross over
into the many genres of art, may just be a fad, dubbed passe five
years from now, it seems to be working for the art of theater as of
now.
"It keeps opera relevant. It allows us to engage in a modern
dialogue," says Michael Blachley, artistic director of UCLA’s
Center for the Performing Arts.
So without a conventional plot-oriented story to follow or human
characters to love and hate, will it actually work for the
people?
"We’re not making it easy for anyone," Wheeler says. "It’s like
going to a museum and seeing a painting. You’ll want to see it
again before you understand it. You’ll take in some things, but you
won’t get all of it."
OPERA: "Monsters of Grace" shows April 15 to 26, with all
evening performances at 8 p.m. and two matinee performances April
18 and 19 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $35 and $16 with UCLA ID. For more
information, call (310) 825-2101.