Événement

"Largo Desolato: by Vaclav Havel

City Garage stages a timely revival of Havels classic piece about totalitarian regimes, censorship, and the price of integrity. In this semi-autobiographical play, translated by Czech-born playwright Tom Stoppard, a dissident intellectual, Leopold Nettles, is dogged by the secret police, pressured by his friends, and nagged by his housemate to just shut up and go along. Shadowy figures arrive to offer him a deal to stay out of prison but Nettles cant get himself to accept. His world starts to dissolve in a hallucinatory battle of conscience but will he ultimately have the courage of his convictions? Havel wrote the play when he had just emerged from prison in 1984. He went on to play a major role in the Velvet Revolution that toppled communism in Eastern Europe, as well as serving as the first President of the Czech Republic. What would he make of the frightening resurgence of so many of the ideas he sacrificed so much to eradicate?

An eerie, atmospheric staging at City Garage in Santa Monica revisits Havels absurdist 1986 portrait of Iron Curtain paranoiaThe material is well suited to the stylish City Garage aesthetic, as director Frédérique Michel and designer Charles A. Duncombe lean into Havels extensive use of repetition to evoke a visceral sense of Leopolds paralysis. in an authoritarian state, the only thing worse than being a perceived threat is to become irrelevant.

LA Times

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-02-01/largo-desolato-vaclav-havel-city-garage-review

As ever, City Garage surprises and haunts. Every cast member of Largo Desolato is a veteran of the company now, and deliver performances with power as well as precision. The direction continues to use the (seemingly) simple presence of being in the same room with another human being to vast effect. The result feels raw, and terribly honest.

Night Tinted Glasses

https://zahirblue.blogspot.com/2020/02/largo-desolato-review.html