In 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers brought pride
and joy to their hometown when they defeated the New York Yankees
to win the World Series. Two years later, the infamous Walter
O’Malley took our beloved Dodgers to Los Angeles.
In Brooklyn, Dodgers fans’ cherished Ebbets Field was torn down
to make way for a housing project. In Los Angeles, plans to build
a housing project in Chavez Ravine were scrapped, and the largely
Mexican-American residents of the neighborhood were evicted to
make way for the new Dodgers Stadium.
This modern-day epic is the inspiration behind performer-playwright
Heather Woodbury’s "Tale of 2 Cities: An American Joyride
on Multiple Tracks," to be presented in both the Galapagos
Arts Space and the Brooklyn Lyceum this fall.
"I thought the displacement of the two groups of people
on both sides of the country was an interesting starting point
for loss of community and the disappearance of buildings, sites
and our local identity, replaced by brand names and monolithic
symbols," said Woodbury, in a phone interview last weekend.
"The Brooklyn Dodgers were local. The L.A. Dodgers are more
generic."
In "Tale of 2 Cities," Woodbury connects multiple story
lines and time periods. Her characters, she says, are amalgamations
of literary and historic figures, family members and "someone
I heard on the subway."
Of the 10 contemporary characters in "Tale of 2 Cities,"
one is the ghost of a Mexican-American grandmother named Gabriela,
who grew up in Chavez Ravine. Another is Miriam Klinger, who
lies in a coma in Brooklyn, but once lived in Hollywood as the
wife of a Communist scriptwriter. Miriam’s niece Hannah, who
reads her aunt’s diaries, and Gabriela’s DJ grandson, Manny,
connect past to present.
Baseball is the leitmotif running through the play.
"The Brooklyn Dodgers and baseball are symbols of a childhood
ethos," Woodbury explains. But they are also symbolic, in
this case, of loss, like the proverbial home to which we cannot
always return. Woodbury even remarks that home plate looks like
an upside-down house.
In a larger sense, "baseball itself is about building narrative,"
says Woodbury. "Nothing happens for a long time. Then something
happens."
For Woodbury, the script is a blueprint for the actual performance,
and no two performances are exactly alike.
"I have a large canvas. I tell long stories with many, many
characters," says Woodbury. "It’s like a novel, but
it’s performed live. I create it as I go along. It’s semi-improvisational.
My performance is my third draft."
Woodbury creates her various characters solely through voice
and body. "It’s almost like an adult’s game of pretend,
like I’m my own puppet," she says.
Woodbury was raised in northern California. In 1981, she moved
to New York, where she lived in various neighborhoods including
Williamsburg and Park Slope. She moved to Los Angeles in 1997
and says much of her work is based on her "feeling of displacement"
when she moved to L.A., as well as her love of Brooklyn.
Woodbury, who says she once worked in "a seedy bar in Brooklyn
Heights," believes "Brooklyn is an important part of
the character of New York City," especially now that "regular
people can’t afford to live in Manhattan." And she notes
that "many classic New Yorkers actually come from Brooklyn"
such as Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand.
"Tale of 2 Cities" began with a Playwright Residency
at the Public Theatre, made possible by a 2001 $25,000 Fellowship
award from NEA/TCG. Woodbury’s previous "living novel,"
"What Ever: An American Odyssey in 8 Acts," premiered
at PS 122 in 1995 and was performed at venues across America
and abroad, including Laurie Anderson’s Meltdown Festival in
London and the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.
Woodbury said that although she was not originally a baseball
fan, through her research for the play, she has become "passionate
about baseball and the Dodgers." This year she went to a
Brooklyn Cyclones game.
"They lost, but that didn’t matter. I got really pulled
into the game," said Woodbury.
If you love Brooklyn and you’re passionate about baseball, the
Cyclones may well be the light at the end of the tunnel. But
if you still feel a pang of regret when you think of the old
Brooklyn Dodgers and the name O’Malley still makes your blood
pressure rise 10 points, then Woodbury’s "Tale of 2 Cities"
will really hit home.
’Red Bush’ review
Comedian, writer, actress, singer and star of her own one-woman
show, "My Red Bush & Other Stories," Michele Carlo
moved to Windsor Terrace because she fell in love with Prospect
Park. Hopefully, after Oct. 13, when her current show completes
its run at the St. Marks Theater, Carlo will bring it to the
borough she calls home. But just in case she doesn’t, get yourself
to this Manhattan theater, pronto.
Written and performed by Carlo and directed by Park Sloper Allison
Astor, "My Red Bush & Other Stories" is inspired
by a schoolyard photo of Carlo and her five ninth-grade friends.
The show evolves as a series of character vignettes punctuated
by ironic and whimsical slide shows, and recorded rock music.
The stories of these six girls are raunchy, outrageous, and sometimes
surprisingly heart wrenching. Carlo performs the roles of all
five friends.
"Tough-Tit" Terry Tomaselli introduces the members
of the Bloodsisters, as they called themselves. Tomaselli is
a Bronx bad-girl with serious "anger management issues"
that could not be resolved in prison. She did, however, manage
to channel her urban rage into a profitable "street yoga"
school on the Upper East Side.
Edna "Holland Tunnel" Snook is a sweet-looking girl
from the South who certainly has a well earned nickname, even
though she confesses: "I never even stepped foot in New
Jersey." A failure at "telephone fornication,"
she ends up answering the switchboard and dreaming of becoming
a country sex singer belting out songs like, "My baby done
gave me an STD/ My baby made a fool of me."
Velvet "The Stump" Lenahan is an aging actress who
has starred in millions of Thumbelina commercials and was almost
one of "Charlie’s Angels." A natural redhead who will
go to all lengths to prove it, her story is the one that inspired
the play’s title.
Janey-the-Waste has either sold, ingested, sniffed or swallowed
every drug on the market, legally or illegally. But she has never
been to a bar because "that stuff can kill you."
Marie "Grand Canyon" Russo, married to a man old enough
to be her father, prides herself that her body is "not so
bad for 35 and three kids." Her main problems are dealing
with her wayward 13-year-old daughter, her sick husband and the
sexual desires of that 35-year-old body.
Carmen "Hollywood" Garcia is a Puerto Rican who has
discovered that "white is not so much a color as a state
of mind." In Hollywood, she learns how to play both sides
of the fence. In the end she becomes a comic sensation as she
reinvents Carmen Miranda as a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, complete
with banana headdress. The real Miranda was in fact a Portuguese-Brazilian
actress who starred in Hollywood films in the 1940s. (Carlo also
appears as the wild head dress-wearing "Carmen Mofongo"
at Surf Reality in Greenwich Village through Dec. 22.)
Carlo’s ability to transform from character to character by changing
her accent, putting on a bathrobe or donning a wig is truly extraordinary.
She could be the next Carol Burnett. Carlo is a real talent whose
mischievous smile and dancing eyes are enchanting. Her sexy wiggle
is fetching. Her slurred, slow-motion imitation of a druggie
is poignant.
"My Red Bush & Other Stories" runs well over an
hour without an intermission. But the show moves so quickly –
no one misses the intermission.
Carlo, who has light skin, red hair and freckles running across
the bridge of her nose, grew up part of the only Puerto Rican
family in an all-white neighborhood. Her feelings of alienation
from both communities led to her first, more serious show, "The
Search for My Inner Latina," a Sundance Theatre Lab 2000
finalist.
More recently, Carlo has turned her life experience into comedy,
but you don’t have to be Puerto Rican to enjoy or relate to her
offbeat humor. You just need to have a lively sense of humor.
"Tale of 2 Cities: An American
Joyride on Multiple Tracks" will be on stage at Galapagos
Arts Space, 70 North Street in Williamsburg, on Oct. 10 at 8
pm. Tickets are $5. For reservations, call (718) 384-4586. The
show will also be performed at the Brooklyn Lyceum, 227 Fourth
Ave., on Nov. 7 at 8 pm. Tickets are $5. For reservations, call
(718) 857-4816.
"My Red Bush & Other Stories" runs through Oct.
13, Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm. The St. Marks Theatre
is located at 94 St. Marks Place, between First Avenue and Avenue
A. Tickets are $12. For a reservation, call (212) 330-7681.
