[N.B. The following is a guest post by BrotherMeister, and the date is the posting date. It was, I’m sure, not a freebie. I periodically approve non-CM posts, so feel free to contact me if you’d like to be a guest contributor. CM]
This amazing event in Laguna Beach, CA was completely unknown to me before serendipitously seeing a catalogue of last year’s show on the coffee table of our L.A. friends in March. Immediately intrigued, we jumped when given the opportunity to attend this year’s show. (Friends of theirs—whom we’ve known for years—always buy a block of tickets.)
The inadequate short description of the event is that over the course of an evening, works of art are recreated on stage with live performers replacing the human subjects. Think of Victorian tableaux. All in a cleverly designed amphitheater and with a live orchestra and narration.
It is truly stage magic that occurs nightly for two months every year!
We were informed by our friends that the show normally is pretty loosely themed and, indeed, this year’s theme of Under the Sun really might easily have gone in any number of directions. As it turns out, the entire first act gave the history of Laguna told through era-appropriate art from statues of Native Americans to paintings of missionaries, early town settlers, and the beginnings of the artist communities. Orange farming was represented by 1800s-era crate labels, impressionist seashore scenes were shown, and even art nouveau lamps were recreated by (truly) bronzed beauties. Particularly thrilling to me were the ’60s- and ’70s-era modern art paintings, including a very striking, and famous, op-art surf poster. Surfers were then represented across myriad pieces from photo-realistic murals to still and action-packed statuary.
Act 2 dropped the narrative for a more traditional tour through several famous artworks. Monet, Manet, Gauguin, the photo of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, and—as is tradition—DaVinci’s The Last Supper all got their due.
The painted backdrops and foredrops (?) are impressive; the painted models and their costumes even more so. Lighting design is paramount to making the illusions work. And work they definitely do! Apparently audiences have been clamoring for more deconstruction so several times throughout the evening, the artwork gets assembled with the curtain raised, but it’s still thrilling—perhaps even more so—when the 3-D models ‘flatten out’ via placement and lighting. Each piece elicited ever-increasing applause as the night went on.
In one case, Monet, a subject (along with other painters) in one artwork, stepped out of that painting and a different painting in which he was also a subject was assembled on the stage. So he took off his jacket, exposed his opposite side (painted appropriately), and slipped into the new piece. It’s difficult to put into words how amazing this was to see in person. It truly messes with your brain to watch. In the best way possible.
Most of the ‘action’ happened stage center, but there were pieces on either side of the stage, in the bushes surrounding the audience, and in other spots as well (think origami birds flying overhead).
I can’t quite figure out how I’d missed this fantabulous show before now, but I will definitely be going again.
BrotherMeister
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