Arts and Entertainment

‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ Goes on Stage at A Noise Within Theatre

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 11 February 2022 on Hey SoCal

Nike Doukas (far right) directing the cast of ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’ | Photo by Eric Pargac / A Noise Within

A Noise Within (ANW) starts the new year with Shakespeare’s “All’s Well that Ends Well,” the fourth production during its 30th anniversary season. On stage from Feb. 6 to March 6, it stars resident artist Erika Soto as Helen and Mark Jude Sullivan as Bertram. Nike Doukas directs this comedy that follows Helen and Bertram as they try to realize their individual dreams before they are eventually united in a fairy tale ending.

“All’s Well That Ends Well” focuses on Helen, a young healer, who convincingly persuades a cast of fools, romantics, and cynics to pursue Bertram, her runaway groom. In a play of wit and deception, these two characters take us with them as they go on a journey of forgiveness, hope, and love where we least expect it.

The play isn’t one of Shakespeare’s popular works, hasn’t been staged as often as his other comedies, and is even referred to as a problem play. Doukas has made it her goal to change that last reference and she might very well have the credentials to do so. She earned her MFA from the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco and is primarily a theatre, film, and television actress. She is also a well-known accent coach and has been directing for five years now.

Twelve years ago, she joined the faculty of the Art of Acting Studio in L.A., the sister school of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City (formerly the Stella Adler Conservatory) where she’s the head of acting; a main responsibility is teaching Shakespeare. Her students go on to work professionally and, in fact, one of them – Niek Versteeg – is in this production of ‘All’s Well…’ as the Second Lord Dumaine.       

While this marks Doukas’s directorial debut at ANW, her association with the repertory company and co-artistic and producing directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott dates a while back. She recalls, “We worked together on many Shakespeare productions as actors early on. ANW puts on one Shakespeare production every season, and sometimes they’d call me to help make the text clear for the actors to understand.”

“And my career as accent coach actually started in the very, very early days of A Noise Within when they were still at the Masonic Temple in Glendale,” adds Doukas. “Geoff and Julia knew I was good with accents and they asked me to do the accent coaching for ‘Our Town.’ It turned out to be a lot of fun so I still do that whenever I’m available.” She was the accent coach for ANW’s previous productions of “The Glass Menagerie,” “Othello,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Tale of Two Cities,” “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” and “Noises Off.”

Asked how she became good with accents, Doukas replies, “It happened organically – I grew up in a family that spoke Greek; my two older sisters are conversational in Greek but I speak it poorly. It’s much like growing up in a musical home, you can’t help but be a little musical. And, being an actor, I was able to use and develop it. When I was at ACT, that was one of the things we had to learn. I did several plays where I had an English accent so people began asking me to help out. It wasn’t something I went after; it was merely happenstance.”

Doukas had pitched a couple of plays to Elliott and Rodriguez-Elliott but this was the first time their schedules meshed. She explains, “It was just timing. They plan seasons and I think they felt this was the right time. They wanted me to direct a Shakespeare play and they liked the idea for ‘All’s Well…’ that I suggested to them. They also felt it fits in with what’s going on in the world right now.”

“Besides, they do so much Shakespeare they wanted to find a play they hadn’t done in a while,” continues Doukas. “And this is one I truly love. Like all Shakespeare plays, it isn’t about one thing – it’s layered. I definitely see that there are two parallel stories: one is that of Helen who is desperately trying to make the world right by joining her life with Bertram’s and the other is that of Bertram who feels stifled at home and is urgently trying to make adventures, go to war, and meet other people.

Nicole Javier and Mark Jude Sullivan | Photo by Craig Schwartz / A Noise Within

“In the play, Bertram finds himself being pushed into marrying Helen whom he thinks of as a little sister. However, he wants agency; he intends to discover himself and what he wants to do in life. So he resists what everyone else recognizes – that Helen is the right person for him. It takes them both a long time, as they go on a physical journey until they’re ready to find each other again.”

Because ANW is a repertory company, Doukas was able to work with actors she already knows. She states, “Knowing them beforehand made my job easier. They have such a wonderful complement of actors there. When it came to casting the play, I knew who would be right for what roles; at least half of the roles are filled with company members. I believe there’s strength in an ensemble where you work with people over and over again; there’s a vocabulary that you share. At the same time, I think audiences really enjoy seeing actors play different roles.”

Doukas says of the experience, “It has been exciting and challenging. Because of Covid, we spent the first week rehearsing on Zoom. Then we got into the theatre while adhering to all the safety protocols. On our third dress rehearsal, we didn’t wear our masks for the first time. That threw them off and they kept forgetting their lines. They sort of memorized each other’s face with their masks on and they felt strange to be without the masks. But everyone has been a real trooper; we were being extremely careful because we’re all aware that shows have been delayed, or have ended, and we want to make sure we get the show up.”

That “All’s Well…” features strong female characters isn’t surprising, according to Doukas. “I think Shakespeare loved women … and he liked them. He thought they were smart, funny, strong, and brave. In this play there are two phenomenal female roles: Helen, who’s the central character, and there’s the Countess of Rosillion (played by resident artist Deborah Strang) who’s like her adopted mother. Helen is the engine for the play – she’s the mover and shaker. Directly or indirectly, she drives almost everything that happens. The countess is sort of her biggest cheerleader and helps her when she could.

Deborah Strang (left) and Erika Soto (right) | Photo by Craig Schwartz / A Noise Within

“But it’s true of all the characters. What I love most about this play is how kind everyone is to each other. It’s almost like ‘it takes a village.’ Everybody recognizes that Helen and Bertram are these wonderful human beings who need help. It’s a beautiful thing to see these strong, kind friendships being forged. Everyone is rooting for the main characters and helping them make the right decisions in their life.”

Doukas is heartened that women are now taking on bigger roles and responsibilities in theatre. She reminisces, “I’m old enough to remember that as a young actress, if you were in a Shakespeare festival, there might be three women in it and the rest were men. You looked around and thought ‘Boy, am I lucky to be here!’ Every once in a while you’d have a woman directing. But that’s just not true anymore. It has been very easy to cast women in men’s roles in Shakespeare productions. In fact, in ‘All’s Well…,’ half the company is made up of women; we have three men roles being played by women and it works very seamlessly. 

“Historically, there were often great roles for young women and older women but there was this big middle age where women just disappeared. Women also didn’t typically run the play – unless it was a Shakespeare play which has great heroines like Rosalind, Viola, and Helen. There are great playwrights from the past – Ibsen and Chekhov – who wrote strong female protagonists but we went through a long period like the 60s when fantastic roles for women were few and far between. And I’m very happy to say that’s over.”

Nike Doukas | Photo by Eric Pargac / A Noise Within

“Women playwrights are getting more opportunity – they’re writing about themselves and what interests them,” Doukas expounds. “When that happens, we get plays that are centered around women. I think women directors are also getting more opportunity so there’s more female perspective. It’s more equitable when everybody gets a chance. And, maybe more importantly, you start seeing what the world really looks like. I find that really exciting. In my experience in theatre, I find that men have been open and receptive to it. Because it’s not going to work unless we all agree that we want playwriting and directing and acting to be equal opportunity. When we stop competing or fighting each other, that’s when we can really make great art. What’s been really gratifying to me is that I feel women are stepping up, in part because men are giving them the opportunity. It can only happen when everybody’s allowing it to.”

As to “All’s Well…” being viewed as one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, she pronounces, “That’s getting to be an outdated perception. I think what people find problematic is that Bertram changes his mind about Helen very quickly. And there’s a bed trick that people get confused by. There are bed tricks in other Shakespeare plays but are not considered problem plays and people change their minds quickly in Shakespeare plays as well.

“The way to make that work is by laying the groundwork for the change of mind so the audience doesn’t wonder where that came from. It’s about developing the character, being scrupulous about the storytelling, and making sure that everything makes sense and that we can track the emotional journeys of the characters. I don’t think it’s a problem play at all and my goal is to change that perception. When people see it, I want them to leave the theatre saying ‘Why do people think it’s a problem play?’”

It would be too farfetched for “All’s Well…” to be regarded in the same category as other Shakespeare comedies overnight. Much like with Bertram, it would take “a village” – one production at a time, one director with a fresh vision at a time. Doukas is so accomplished and adept at wearing so many different hats that this challenge isn’t at all daunting. She relishes the opportunity to show the play in a new light.

And who knows? Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, even Shakespeare experts will come to appreciate “All’s Well that Ends Well’ as a great Shakespeare comedy. It could yet earn a place in the canon.

‘Real to Reel’ Analyzes Courtroom Drama in Movies

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 20 January 2022 on Hey SoCal

Real to Reel: Truth and Trickery in Courtroom Movies’ was published in May 2021 | Photo courtesy of May S. Ruiz/Beacon Media News

Law professor Paul Bergman knew very well that teaching a roomful of college students about an evidence course could get boring. He was also aware that some of them probably stayed up late studying – or partying, as young people at university are wont to do – so he could only go on lecturing for so long before he lost their attention, or they fell asleep.

Bergman started teaching at UCLA in 1970 where he spent the first decade supervising students on actual cases with real clients. He usually had only 12 to 15 students because there was a limit on the number of clients he could work with. A lot of class time was devoted to discussing case strategies so he could help students learn from each other’s experiences. But by the 1990s, he started teaching evidence and other podium courses taught in a large classroom.

“Traditionally, you either read and analyze appellate court cases or you look at real evidentiary issues and discuss those in class,” explains Bergman who is now an emeritus professor at UCLA. “So I thought it would be interesting to present a little courtroom scene from a movie and analyze it as if it were a real courtroom event. They may not be totally accurate but things go on in actual courtrooms that shouldn’t go on either.”

When he looked for a source for these courtroom movies, however, Bergman discovered that while there were several books about practically every other movie genre, there was none on courtroom movies. And proving the adage that necessity is the mother of invention, he resolved to rectify this omission. 

“I thought, ‘Well, I’m an academic, I should write one,’” Bergman continues. “I only wanted to write about movies that I had actually seen. But in 1994 there were no DVDs; some of the films were available only through the UCLA film archive so I had to go into the basement of a Hollywood building and someone had to change the reel every ten minutes. I asked Michael Asimow, whom I’ve collaborated with on other law publications if he would be interested. Together we watched and analyzed 150 movies, including such classics as ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ ‘Inherit the Wind,’ ‘Anatomy of a Murder,’ and ‘A Few Good Men,’ which was out by then. In 1996 our first book called ‘Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies’ was published.”

Response to “Reel Justice” was very positive and led to the publication of a second edition in 2016. It has also been published in China in a Chinese language edition. Then in 2020, during the pandemic, Bergman and Asimow embarked on writing a follow-up to “Reel Justice.” Fortunately, this time around, the movies they chose were available on DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and streaming on cable. “Real to Reel: Truth and Trickery in Courtroom Movies” was published in May 2021.

Bergman on Kauai in 2019 for a film clip program for a conference of lawyers and judges | Photo courtesy of Paul Bergman

“All the movies from ‘Reel Justice’ were integrated into this new book, which we divided into chapters based on themes,” describes Bergman. “The difference is the first book mainly discussed the story of the movie. For our sequel, we introduced a new format which focuses on the courtroom proceedings – it’s more of an analysis of the courtroom action and its messages about law, lawyers, and the legal system.”

“Courtroom movies often have a twist ending or a climax that you don’t see coming,” adds Bergman. “In ‘Reel Justice,’ we revealed the ending with a ‘spoiler alert’ warning. For ‘Real to Reel’ we stopped short of telling people how it ended; instead we directed readers to the appendix. We want to encourage our readers to actually see the movie for themselves first so we don’t want to give it all away and spoil it for them. Of course, some people don’t really mind knowing the movie’s conclusion and would still watch it anyway. But this time, we gave readers an option.”

Bergman, who received his J.D. from UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall), clerked on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and was an associate at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp in Los Angeles before entering his teaching career, has penned more than 50 law review articles and book chapters on a wide range of subjects, including the images of law, lawyers, and justice in popular culture. One of his award-winning essays discussed the contribution of the 1970s TV show Emergency! to the development and legalization of the paramedics profession. Another article examined the ethics and lawyering techniques of Horace Rumpole, the crusty barrister featured in the classic British TV series Rumpole of the Bailey. He has also written a book chapter that describes different uses for film clips in a law school Evidence course.

Paul Bergman receiving the UCLA award for Distinguished Professor | Photo courtesy of Paul Bergman

A respected academic, Bergman’s teaching awards include: The University Distinguished Teaching award; The Dickson Award for distinguished service and scholarship by a UCLA Emeritus Professor; and the American Board of Trial Advocacy Award for trial scholarship and teaching.

An unexpected, gratifying consequence of the publication of Bergman’s first book was the recognition he received for his contribution to the field of law. He has given film clip-based presentations to groups of lawyers and judges all over the country as well as in the UK and Japan. He has also appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, including The Today Show and the nationally syndicated radio program Champions of Justice.       

Expounds Bergman, “It’s given me an opportunity to share films … I’ve spoken at conferences in Washington D.C. with supreme court justices. My personal life has expanded because of the people I meet when I bring them my love for movies and why they’re important. We haven’t done any of that for this new book yet because of Covid but I’m scheduled to give a presentation at the International Society of Barristers in Hawaii sometime in March.”

Many lawyers might look askance at others in the same profession who watch courtroom dramas which aren’t real. However, people’s perceptions about the courtrooms, law, lawyers, and the justice system, and their expectations from these are the reality lawyers, judges, and those connected to the justice system have to contend with.

Bergman defends the genre’s place in everyday life. He says, “For most people, it’s always a bit real. Like I tell my law students, when you meet a new client or a witness, they think they know a lot about you. But what they think they know is not based on meeting you and it’s probably not based on meeting a lot of lawyers. It’s because they’ve watched a lot of movies and TV shows about lawyers and they think they know what’s going to happen. So the messages these movies send about lawyers, the law, and the legal justice system influence how people behave with you and react to you. Movies have an impact on people’s lives even if they’re not accurate. This is how people think ‘Jeez, I didn’t realize this is how trials are like.’ There’s a theory that people remember content but they don’t remember the source. The messages in these movies are important – whether they’re right or wrong. And sometimes they’re a little of both.”

The first letter Gregory Peck sent to Bergman | Photo courtesy of Paul Bergman

Being cinephiles, Bergman and Asimow enjoy rating the movies in the books they wrote. Much like film critics, they rank movies on a one-to-four gavel system – four gavels for the classics. Moreover, Bergman doesn’t cloak his admiration for the actors who made big impressions on audiences. He has always been a big fan of the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird” and its lead Gregory Peck. In fact, when he finished writing “Reel Justice,” he sent a letter to the actor requesting him to write the foreword to it. Gregory Peck responded but declined. Bergman mailed him a copy of the published book anyway and the actor sent a letter saying “Your book, written with Michael Asimow, is excellent, fascinating. I have read many of the cases including To Kill a Mockingbird and The Paradine Case.” In the letter, Peck further disclosed, “I quite agree with your evaluation of The Paradine Case. On matters concerning the script, there was dissension between Selznick and Hitchcock. Selznick prevailed and pumped up the love triangle in a way that went against Hitchcock’s grain. It was the last picture they made together.”

Movies, like theatre, – and what’s more akin to theatre than courtroom drama – are a mirror we hold up to ourselves. They reflect society and popular culture. And because movies, like plays, are written by people with beliefs and convictions, and directors have perspectives and points of view, these often are embedded within. Inevitably, movies can foreshadow what’s to come, effect change, and even change laws.                       

In the movie “Adam’s Rib,” director George Cukor filmed Katherine Hepburn – who played the role of Amanda Bonner – addressing the jury. But because the camera was facing her, in essence, she was speaking to the viewers. It was released  in 1949, two decades before the advent of the women’s liberation movement. In the play and film version of “A Few Good Men,” playwright and scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin successfully and memorably “dramatizes and personalizes an abstract issue such as the legitimacy of using civilian norms to evaluate military discipline.”

“Real to Reel: Truth and Trickery in Courtroom Movies” marries Bergman’s love for movies with his advocacy for the law and its practice. Its dissection of courtroom events is interspersed with asides that reveal his wry humor. It could easily win over even those with an innate distrust of lawyers.        

Belinda Lei’s ‘Not THAT Rich’ Exposes Competition Among Asians

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 14 December 2021 on Hey SoCal

“Not THAT Rich” book cover | Photo courtesy of Belinda Lei

Asians are often stereotyped as the ‘model minority’ – overachieving, law-abiding, non-complaining people who soar above whatever challenges and obstacles are thrown at them to attain financial and personal success. That their accomplishments sometimes come at great cost to their mental well-being isn’t openly discussed.

This is what Belinda Lei explores in her young adult book called “Not THAT Rich,” which follows the lives of senior high schoolers as they navigate the stressful, highly competitive college admissions period.

The daughter of immigrants from Mainland China, Lei was born and raised in Walnut and Hacienda Heights in the eastern San Gabriel Valley. And while she says she’s grateful that her parents brought her up in predominantly Asian American communities where she wasn’t made fun of and bullied for what she ate and how she looked, it also meant being in a pressure cooker environment.    

From her typical Asian upbringing – multi-generation family members in one household – she knows how Asian kids have to strictly adhere to the path their elders set out for them. “I also grew up with my grandparents, from whom I learned traditional Chinese values and an immigrant work ethic from a young age,” relates Lei. “My family promoted what they deemed best for me based upon what they thought would secure me a happy future – financial success, a reputable profession, and a devotion to family. As a teenager, I admittedly resented the expectations that seemed so unachievable and felt like I was simply following a mold – that of the model minority.

Belinda Lei’s publicity photo | Photo courtesy of notthatrich.com

“However, having recently turned 26 and now looking back, I empathize with why my family pushed me so hard when I was younger. Though I do believe there is a balance to everything (something I explore a lot in the book). With generational and cultural gaps, a lot of communication and understanding can be lost. And with mental health issues on the rise amongst adolescents and young adults too, it’s now more important than ever to try to bridge these gaps and develop common ground on this definition of ‘success’ and ‘happiness.’”                     

Asked if the title of her book is a reference to Kevin Kwan’s “Crazy Rich Asians” book series, Lei replies, “Yes and no. Originally, ‘Not THAT Rich’ was going to be called ‘SGV’ as a nod to the San Gabriel Valley, where the fictional Winchester High is located in. But over time, as I tailored the book to a young adult audience, I began to think about the books I loved as a teenager, like ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘Crazy Rich Asians.’ For ‘Crazy Rich Asians,’ I was incredibly excited for not only the book series but also its fully Asian and Asian American cast in the movie adaptation.

“At the same, I also understood the stereotype that might be reinforced with it – that Asians are crazy and rich. Coming up with ‘Not THAT Rich,’ was a sarcastic response in some ways to ‘Crazy Rich Asians.’ What does being rich really mean? What are the sacrifices and struggles that it entails to achieve what we stereotypically deem as rich? Why do we pursue wealth in the first place? These are all questions I was hoping to address in the book although admittedly, I’m still trying to figure out all the answers myself!”

“I wrote ‘Not THAT Rich’ through the lens of being the book that I wish I had as a high schooler,” Lei describes. “Growing up, there wasn’t much Asian American representation in pop culture, and even when there was an Asian American actor on TV or in a book, I felt like it didn’t reflect my own experience of being a second-generation daughter of Chinese immigrants. I wanted to write a book that encompassed the glitz and glam I sought out in books growing up (like ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘The Clique’) but also gave readers a glimpse into the diversity of perspectives and experiences that can be found in the world of being Asian American (like ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ to a certain extent, despite it being set in Singapore).

“Most importantly, I wanted the book to be fun. Young adults already have so much on their minds these days from juggling family, friends, education, and just being a teenager. The heaviness cast in 2020 by the pandemic and political turmoil made it even more important for me to write a lighthearted and juicy book that helped readers escape into a satirical world and, at the same time, draw out reflections about identity, motivations, and consequences.”

At the book launch of the Chinese version of ‘Not THAT Rich.’ From left, Monterey Park mayor/councilman Peter Chen; Duarte mayor Sam Kang; South Pasadena Mayor Michael Cacciotti; former assemblyman Mike representing congresswoman Judy Chu; former mayor of Walnut Mary Su; Belinda Lei; San Gabriel mayor Chin Ho Liao; Rowland Heights USD board president Cary Chen; RHUSD board member Agen Gonzalez; and board member Erik Venegas | Photo courtesy of notthatrich.com

But while Lei writes about high schoolers and their experience, her book is centered on her truths and others may not relate to them at all. She clarifies, “’Not THAT Rich’ only represents a tiny sliver of the extremely diverse and dynamic racial, socioeconomic, and cultural diversity of the L.A. region. It’s merely based on the world that I grew up in. I highlight a variety of backgrounds, thoughts, and experiences in the novel, but it doesn’t represent the 20 million Asian Americans who can trace their roots to more than 20 countries.”

“Asian Americans are an extremely heterogeneous group,” continues Lei. “Unfortunately, many people see us as a homogenous one. I was starkly aware of this ‘othering’ while writing it in 2020 and consuming reports about the increase of anti-Asian hate crimes due to COVID-19. How is it that my racial identity can brand me as someone who should ‘go back to my own country’ when the country that I’ve been born and raised in is the U.S.? I hope the stories that I weave can help subvert these misplaced prejudices by highlighting how being culturally American and culturally connected to another country should not be mutually exclusive.

“Lastly, think about who is not represented in the novel. Yes, ‘Not THAT Rich’ is fictional, but it does reflect the demographics of the area that I grew up in and the access and opportunities that I was surrounded by. It is very much a book about privilege. While it does not tackle issues of racism and classism head-on, this ‘fun, juicy, and dramatic’ world, unfortunately, does show how socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and educational opportunities are intimately intertwined in America.”

Spoiler alert – to say that “Not THAT Rich” depicts Asian parents in unflattering light would be a kindness. While they realize in the end how they have created a toxic environment for their children and redeem themselves by righting the wrongs, it could have happened sooner. And Lei is preaching the moral of her story by launching the Chinese version of her book so non-English-speaking parents can read it and, through it, develop self-awareness.                 

“I would like for the book to reach a worldwide audience, but my goal from the very beginning has always been that if I can reach only one youth out there and make them feel heard, then it has been worth it,” adds Lei. “In that sense, I’m already proud of how far it has come, and seeing it continue to rise in popularity is the icing on the cake. Target recently began carrying the English edition of my book online and as businesses are opening up more, I’m hoping to get it into more brick and mortar bookshops.”

‘Not THAT Rich’ book in Mandarin | Photo courtesy of notthatrich.com

In January, Lei will be returning to Yale to finish the final year of her MBA degree and will graduate next December. Since her first year there, though, she has been a strategy consultant, software engineer, and is currently a product manager at Citibank. She is also the managing director of an anti-bullying non-profit called Act to Change, which focuses on Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

“The organization first started out in October 2015 as a national public awareness campaign on bullying prevention among youth under President Obama’s White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI),” Lei explains. “I had been a senior intern at the White House Initiative to help spearhead the launch of the AAPI Bullying Prevention Task Force – a coordinated cross-agency effort to address bullying amongst youth. The report released by the task force resulted in the creation of Act To Change and when it officially became a non-profit in 2018, I joined as a founding board member and now I’m the Managing Director.

“I wear a lot of different hats in my role – I’m responsible for various initiatives like our Homeroom with Tan France series where Tan France conducts virtual school visits to talk about bullying and our most recent bullying survey in collaboration with Next Shark and Admerasia. I can also be hopping on calls about fundraising or making TikTok videos. This doesn’t include being our in-house developer where I help manage the website, acttochange.org, or our digital campaigns. It is like my second job.”

With Lei’s multitasking abilities and various pursuits, it’s difficult to foresee where she’ll be a decade from now. In fact, when queried about that, she confesses, “It’s a tough question that I never know how to answer for interviews! Being in my twenties, I feel like my life is constantly changing and with all my different interests I can see myself in multiple different situations in ten years. If I had to choose a dream state for me in my thirties though, it would be being in the entrepreneurship space and continuing to create products or experiences that make a positive impact on communities.”

We can predict, though, that we might see a sequel to “Not THAT Rich” in the not-too-distant future; Lei’s already brainstorming on it. Hopefully, in it the kids will have gone on to university and beyond, and are on the road to living fully realized versions of their younger selves.

But that ideal isn’t limited to Asians – it is something we all aspire to.     

‘Borderlands’ Now on View at The Huntington’s Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 6 December 2021 on Hey SoCal

Installation view with There-Bound by Enrique Martinez Celaya | Photo courtesy of Joshua White / JW Pictures.com / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

It has been a banner year for American Art acquisitions at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Many of these new pieces will join other existing artwork at the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries in an ongoing permanent collection display called “Borderlands,” which opened on November 20.

Christina Nielsen, Hannah and Russell Kully Director at the Huntington, declares during the exhibition’s press preview, “Borderlands celebrates the importance of the beautiful and historic collection we have in a way that opens up the story and allows for new voices, new interpretations, and new ways of looking. What you see across the galleries is sometimes a trans-national conversation and sometimes a trans-historic conversation.”

“The Huntington has a responsibility to convey the relevance of historical collections to contemporary audiences and to consider our shared past from multiple perspectives, as we begin to create a vision for the future,” Nielsen said. “Borderlands addresses these goals by presenting a more expansive history of American art in a beautiful and thought-provoking installation – from the re-imagined entrance area through a freshly conceived group of galleries, where objects interact with one another in new ways, drawing connections across media, time, and cultures.”

The Huntington’s Thea Page and Christina Nielsen at the “Borderlands” press preview | Photo courtesy of M.G. Rawls / TheSortsofPasadenaHollow.com / Beacon Media News

Two contemporary artists, Enrique Martinez Celaya, 2020-2022 Huntington Fellow in Visual Arts, and Sandy Rodriguez, 2020-2021 Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Fellow, along with strategic loans helped re-imagine the historical collection from multiple perspectives. Together they assembled the various pieces into four themed rooms – “Homelands,” “Crossing Borders,” “Americans Abroad,” and “Breaking Barriers.”        

Spread out over about 5,000 square feet of gallery space, the exhibition is a reinstallation of portions of The Huntington’s American Art collection works of renowned artists Mary Cassatt, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer dating from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. New acquisitions include photographs by modern-day artists Mercedes Dorame and Cara Romero and a notable painting by Thomas Cole.

Dennis Carr, Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art, explains, “We have organized these galleries under the theme of Borderlands, which looks at places where cultures came together historically, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To envision the arts in America in terms of the ‘borderlands’ metaphor, we looked at how artworks have registered the crossing of geographic, political, social, linguistic, and personal boundaries. The history of the United States has been shaped by innumerable borders, whose endurance or dissolution continues to impact us today.”

Martínez Celaya’s “There-bound” — depicting a variety of migratory birds flying across the building’s front windows — is painted inside the expansive glass façade of the Scott Galleries’ north entrance. It creates a stunning dialogue between the artworks inside the gallery with the famous landscapes and living collections at The Huntington. The glassed-in lobby and loggia radiate a chapel-like effect when the work is illuminated by sunlight. Custom-made seating he designed for the space encourages visitors to linger and take in the view of the garden and the San Gabriel Mountains beyond.

“YOU ARE HERE,” a watercolor by Sandy Rodriguez is the thematic anchor in the exhibition | Photo courtesy of M.G. Rawls / TheSortsofPasadenaHollow.com / Beacon Media News

An 8-by-8-foot watercolor called “YOU ARE HERE” is the thematic anchor in the exhibition. Painted by Los Angeles-based artist Sandy Rodriguez, it is a multi-lingual map of the greater Los Angeles area, representing the topography, language, flora, fauna, and land stewardship in the region over time and illustrating the movement and histories of peoples who have called, and still call, the area home.  

The first room in the installation, called “Homelands,” centers on Rodriguez’s work. Raised on the California-Mexico border, she investigates the methods and materials of painting across cultures, with particular focus on indigenous histories and knowledge. In addition to YOU ARE HERE, the room features her drawings of botanical species that yield pigments and medicinal treatments for respiratory illnesses or susto (trauma), reminders of the devastating effects of the pandemic.   

A single accordion-fold book (a traditional Mexican book form) contains records of Rodriguez’s meticulous study of botanical specimens at The Huntington. Also debuting in this room is a newly acquired 1824 painting of Ioway Chief Moanahonga (Great Walker) by the artist Charles Bird King and photographs by Native American artists Mercedes Dorame and Cara Romero.

Thomas Cole’s majestic “Portage Falls on the Genesee” | Photo courtesy of M.G. Rawls / TheSortsofPasadean.Hollow.com / Beacon Media News

“Crossing Borders,” the second gallery in the exhibition, examines the relationship between landscape and American expansion and exploration in the 19th century with paintings by Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, Martin Johnson Heade, and Thomas Moran. Many of the featured artists crossed borders, depicting the farthest reaches of the American continent.

Additionally, this room looks at how artists often erased Indigenous presence, picturing a landscape devoid of human occupation and ready for economic exploitation.

“This colonialist view embodied a land-centered conception of nationhood, at a time when landscapes were becoming profoundly altered by rising development and industrialization,” Carr describes. Here, the recently acquired, Thomas Cole’s “Portage Falls on the Genesee” (ca. 1839) makes its first appearance at the Huntington. This majestic 7-by-5-foot painting captures the epic scale and Romanticism that define the Hudson River School, an artistic movement that Cole presumably founded.    

As the name suggests, “Americans Abroad,” the next room in the exhibition, features American artists working abroad. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, unprecedented numbers of American artists traveled abroad to connect with Europe’s history and its flourishing modern art scene. Some found greater freedom from the strictures of race, sexuality, gender, and class than they did at home. Artists were especially inspired by Impressionism, the Aesthetic Movement, and Art Nouveau, represented in this gallery by the works of Cecilia Beaux, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, Lockwood de Forest, and Louis Comfort Tiffany, among others. Many artists also adopted non-Western, Asian and Middle Eastern forms and motifs. The newly acquired painting “Bank of the Nile Opposite Cairo, Egypt” (1879–86) by Lockwood de Forest is on view here.

‘Xenobia in Chains,’ a marble sculpture by Harriet Goodhue Hosmer and ‘Hermosa,’ a pigment print by Cara Romero | Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

In “Breaking Barriers,” “Zenobia in Chains,” Harriet Goodhue Hosmer’s monumental marble sculpture, shares the space with Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting “Daniel in the Lions’ Den,” which is on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “These works each speak to the idea of breaking down barriers,” says Carr.

Hosmer’s life, like that of the ancient queen she sculpted, was defined by rebellion. In her 20s, Hosmer moved to Rome to become a professional sculptor, finding support from a circle of creative expatriate women who broke 19th century social expectations by living alone, pursuing artistic careers, and, as was the case for Hosmer, being open about their queer identity. Hosmer became one of the most successful American sculptors — male or female — of her era. Nevertheless, when Zenobia was exhibited in the 1862 Great London Exposition, some male critics wrote that a woman could not possess the skill nor strength to execute such a significant work.

Tanner’s painting in this section highlights the work of artists of color in the 19th century. An African American artist born in Pittsburgh, he gained international acclaim for his paintings, including those with religious themes like Daniel in the Lions’ Den. That he chose to depict Daniel — a biblical character unjustly condemned to death — can also symbolize the systemic persecution of Black Americans, both in his time and ours.

Installation view of Decorative Arts | Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

At the end of the exhibition, visitors reach a loggia where Martinez Celaya’s handmade bench beckons. He speaks about his project for The Huntington and describes the painting on the glass façade. He also graciously agrees to a short interview for Beacon Media to talk about his background and his work.  

Martinez Celaya discloses that he was originally from Cuba and was raised in Puerto Rico. He started out as an artist when he was younger, before becoming a physicist, only to go back to his first love — art. He came to the United States for college and graduate school.

“First, they acquired my sculpture outside — which was also the first time they acquired from a contemporary artist — and that’s how I got to know them,” he relates how his partnership with The Huntington came about. “They then asked me to be their first Visual Arts Fellow; this is almost the end of two years’ collaboration.”  

Martinez Celaya’s painting for the “Borderlands” exhibition combines his interests in literature and philosophy. He expounds, “I’m particularly drawn to T.S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ because of their circularity; the idea that in every end is a new beginning and every beginning has an ending. This seems quite fitting to the concept of migration and movement – the moment you leave the place you come from, you’re beginning elsewhere. That circularity of time is the theme of this work.”

Enrique Martinez Celaya (on left) and The Huntington’s Dennis Carr is (on right) | Photo by M.G. Rawls / TheSortsofPasadenaHollow.com / Beacon Media News

“Birds are the metaphor for people’s migration, exile, shift – different cultures, languages, and histories moving through the landscape and time,” he continues. “I’m fascinated by what that means — the dislocation and reinvention that come with that. This theme is fitting in California, especially Los Angeles, a place that brings in people from all over the world who came here for many different reasons. L.A. is a city of immigrants, much more than maybe London is. I’m interested in how migration is representative of a certain condition of being in California. That’s why I used California freeways as part of the design, it’s not only the movement of people, but this state has always been the point of intersection for all this movement.”

As for his last project as a Visual Arts Fellow, Martinez Celaya reveals, “I’m thinking of doing the art of exile for the lecture because I’m an exile, and exploring that as an act of reinvention — of leaving something behind and creating something new. I came here to flee the political situation in Cuba. And while the border is now open, I can never go back. You really can never go back once you leave. I came here when I was 21 so I’ve been for a long time. I do exhibitions around the world but I’m now an American. I’m more Californian than anything else.”

Carr hinted during the press preview that Martinez Celaya’s “There-Bound” painting may become a permanent part of the gallery’s collection of American Art. The peripatetic birds he painted — much like him — may have found their home.      

‘A Christmas Carol’ Returns at Pasadena’s A Noise Within with All New Music

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 22 November 2021 on Hey SoCal

The cast of “A Christmas Carol” | Photo by Eric Pargac / A Noise Within

After missing out last year on A Noise Within’s (ANW) “A Christmas Carol,” we can once again take in this much-loved show when it returns on stage from Dec. 2 to 23, 2021. Adapted from Charles Dickens’ novella by co-artistic director Geoff Elliott, it has been an annual holiday tradition and is celebrating its ninth year at ANW.

We’re also in for a treat with all-new, original musical compositions created by resident artist Robert Oriol, an accomplished composer and sound designer who was the recipient of the 2019 LADCC (Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle) Special Award for Distinguished Achievement in Theatrical Design. Speaking by phone, Oriol talks about being a lifelong musician, and his work at A Noise Within and on “A Christmas Carol.”

“I’ve been writing songs for rock bands to play on stage since 1975, but it was with the advent of computers in 1984 that I sat down and started writing music for others to perform,” Oriol states.

He goes on to explain, “You could write orchestral music from your studio without having to hire an orchestra at the outset. You could get it to a point where your music comes across, have it approved, and then take it to an orchestra, if necessary. Once computers got up to a certain speed, you could do the bulk of the writing and arranging yourself much quicker than you could have done prior. So that was when I was able to write more complex arrangements strictly for orchestra; it allowed me to write different styles of music to fit the play’s music requirements.

“The very first show I did for ANW was ‘Grapes of Wrath,’ where there was a Dust Bowl Era band on stage and I was the musical director. I didn’t write much music for it because a lot of the music came with the show — they were all acoustic instruments for the period — bass, banjo, and guitar. The next show after that was ‘Pericles’ which was a big orchestral show, and it still stands as one of the biggest shows we’ve ever done as far as sound.”

Robert Oriol, at far left, during “A Christmas Carol” rehearsals | Photo by Eric Pargac / A Noise Within

Oriol became a regular on so many ANW performances that it was only a matter of time before he would become a resident artist. He recalls, “There was one year when I was involved in three plays in one season. I was the composer for ‘Figaro’ and ‘Julius Caesar’ and I was in the band for ‘Three Penny Opera.’ I was setting up the music stands for ‘Three Penny Opera’ when they asked me if I wanted to be a resident artist. Probably because I was working so hard on all three shows and I was always there.”

And for someone who claims he doesn’t really enjoy putting the words to the music, Oriol did exactly that for ANW’s productions of ‘Tartuffe,’ ‘Figaro,’ ‘Julius Caesar,’ ‘Imaginary Invalid,’ ‘King Lear,’ ‘Tale of Two Cities,’ ‘Henry V,’ and ‘Argonautika.’

It was only natural, then, that Oriol would also be writing the music and lyrics for ANW’s longest-running show. He says, “I’ve been wanting to do the music for ‘A Christmas Carol’ and we started talking about it in 2016. But the rehearsal phase would usually be when they had just finished a brutal tech for a major Shakespeare play. It just kept getting pushed back for various reasons, like scheduling, and it was simply easier to go with what they already had because the cast literally knew every word of the songs and the choreography — putting new music in would make it a much longer tech process. So, I’ve been chipping away at it since 2016. It’s very rare that I have that kind of time to work with on a play — usually it’s a rush job with only a couple of weeks to do the whole show. This time, I could look at past productions on archival video; I could score it like a film, which is a real luxury.”

Asked about his process, Oriol responds, “After reading the script, I would get ideas from the producer about what era the play is set and what type of music is right for it. But it’s different at ANW with Geoff and Julia because we’ve known each other so long now. I’ll just send them some ideas and they’ll say ‘Yes,’ or maybe ‘A little less of this here,’ and they’ll tell me how long it needs to be. The key at that point is to just stay flexible because you know things are going to change. I just try to do as much of that as I can and then start attending rehearsals as early as possible. The first rehearsal is usually very telling because then I can hear the play, even though I’ve read it a few times — hearing the actors say the words changes everything and gives a real idea of direction. I usually record that and work with it. Then I start writing music where it should be under, try to come up with transitional ideas.” 

Alan Blumfeld as Christmas Present | Photo by Craig Schwartz / A Noise Within

For “A Christmas Carol,” the music was going to stay in the same vein as the previous production. Oriol relates, “At first I was only going to do a sound design plan. And then we talked about redoing the Fezziwig dance. The instruction was to make the dance the same length so they could use the same choreography, and I did that. The dance has a completely different music but it has the same tempo and length, with the same section structure as the original. But we kind of gave up on the idea of having the same length. Then the songs became completely different, although they’re in the same place in the script, they have the same subject matter, and the same characters are singing them.”

Adds Oriol, “Previously, the song ‘Glorious’ was used three times in the play. Instead of doing that, we have three different songs where ‘Glorious’ was used in the original production. The final song is actually the same melody from the Fezziwig dance. People with an ear for music, to some extent, will recognize that they’ve heard that music before.”

The actors will be working with the musical director on the songs. Oriol says, “That’s just not something I’m good at because I don’t sing well. I do hear the songs in my head and how I want them sung but it’s a matter of how we get there. I know keys will change — two of them already have because Geoff is singing and he wants them to be an A major rather than what they were. And I’ll be expecting more of that and we’ll just take it as they come. I’m really looking forward to hearing the actors actually sing these songs.”

“Tech on the show will take place on the 27th, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Previews start Friday, December 3rd. We get feedback from preview audience in a sense because the presence of 300 people inside the theatre alters the acoustics of the space dramatically. Having them there really helps me determine if something is too loud, or too quiet, or if I need more of this here and more of this there.”

Having spent several years working on “A Christmas Carol,” Oriol is really excited about the audience’s reaction. Many of us who have heard his compositions for past ANW productions already know what to expect. We can only be wowed.        

USC Pacific Asia Museum Marks 50 Years with Exhibition

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 16 November 2021 on Hey SoCal

USC Pacific Asia Museum’s ‘Intervention: Fresh Perspectives After 50 Years’ exhibition entrance | Photo courtesy of USC Pacific Asia Museum

USC Pacific Asia Museum (USC PAM), the only museum in Southern California with the mission and vision to further intercultural understanding through the arts of Asia and the Pacific Islands, is marking its 50th anniversary with an exhibition called “Intervention: Fresh Perspectives after 50 Years.” It runs from Nov. 12, 2021 through Feb. 6, 2022.

In its press release announcing the event, USC PAM’s director, Bethany Montagano, states, “As we celebrate USC PAM’s 50th anniversary, we look to the future by asking questions and reflecting on our past as it is embodied in the museum’s collection. ‘Intervention’ offers an opportunity for institutional critique while acknowledging all that the museum has achieved over its 50-year history. The exhibition expands on USC PAM’s groundbreaking legacy, which includes being the first museum in North America to mount an exhibition on contemporary Chinese art with its 1987 show ‘Beyond the Open Door: Contemporary Paintings from the People’s Republic of China.’ As well as the first museum to assemble an exhibition of Aboriginal art in the United States with ‘The Past and Present Art of the Australian Aborigine in 1980.’ We look forward to continuing to present boundary-breaking exhibitions for the next 50 years.”

As with any institution’s milestones, we travel back to its origins and recall the past. To say that USC PAM’s history is intertwined with Grace Nicholson’s is not an entirely factual statement because she didn’t found the museum. However, it is her treasure house of oriental arts where the museum’s treasures are housed. And it just so happens that it’s patterned after the Imperial Palace Courtyard style used in the construction of major buildings in Beijing (Peking). It is such a significant and extraordinary example of Chinese architecture, that it is one of the great treasures of the museum. So it is only fitting that we look at her life’s story as well.                                 

Exterior shot of Grace Nicholson’s Treasure House of Oriental Arts now known as USC Pacific Asia Museum. | Photo courtesy of USC Pacific Asia Museum

When Nicholson, a transplant from Philadelphia who moved to California in 1901, decided to open a business using her modest inheritance, she set up shop on Raymond Avenue. She marketed Southwestern Indian handiwork which she learned about through two of her early customers who had been involved in archeological excavations in Arizona. With the rest of her funds, she invested on basket collections. She got increasingly interested in Native American art and culture and frequently traveled the western United States to buy directly from basket makers and weavers. She established herself as an authority in the field of archeology and was elected to the American Anthropological Association in 1904.            

By 1907, her curio shop needed a bigger location so she moved her business to the corner of North Los Robles Avenue and Union Street. Nicholson hired the architectural firm of Marston, Van Pelt and Maybury in 1924 to build a grand residence to her exact specifications. In fact, every detail, material, and construction — roof tiles, stone and marble carvings, and bronze and copper work — were either imported directly from China, or masterfully copied and made by Pasadena-area craftsmen based on the Chinese originals.

The arched entrance is a replica of the Buddhist library in Beijing. The upturned roofline is designed to prevent evil spirits from landing on it; antique ceramic dogs on the roof keep an eye out for enemies. Cloud patterns and lotus finials on the balustrades of the four courtyard stairways symbolize the ascent to enlightenment and mimicked the marble bridges of Nai-chin-shin-chiao. The structure, when it was completed, was so magnificent it received an award from the American Institute of Architects and became a noted landmark.        

While the building was known as Grace Nicholson’s Treasure House of Oriental Arts, she referred to it as ‘Chia,’ a word with distinct meaning in two cultures particularly associated with her. In American Indian legends, the word refers to a nutritious seed that could sustain someone for long periods of time. And for the Chinese, chia means ‘sacred vessel.’

The first floor of the house served as a gallery where she displayed and sold American Indian and Oriental art objects. On the second floor were more galleries, an exhibition auditorium, and her private quarters. It hosted several cultural organizations and became the center for the arts in Pasadena.            

Nicholson bequeathed the building to the City of Pasadena in 1943 for art and cultural purposes, with the stipulation that she would retain her private rooms until her death. She shared the building with the Pasadena Art Institute until she passed away in 1948. In 1954, the Pasadena Art Institute changed its name to the Pasadena Art Museum and occupied the building until 1970, when it moved to its new location at Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevards and became the Norton Simon Museum.

In 1971, the Pacificulture Foundation moved into the Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art. The foundation eventually bought it in 1987 and renamed it Pacific Asia Museum. Then in 2013, the University of Southern California partnered with the institution. Renamed USC Pacific Asia Museum (USC PAM), it is a vital resource for education and cultural heritage. For Asians like me, this was a monumental development because having USC’s collaboration and support meant our art and culture would get recognition and gain wider reach.        

The courtyard | Photo courtesy of USC Pacific Asia Museum

The 50th anniversary exhibition features seven Asian American artists and scholars who created new artworks that demonstrate new ways to view and engage with the museum’s history and collection of Asian and Pacific Island art. The participating Asian diasporic artists are Antonius Bui, Audrey Chan, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Amir Fallah, Akiko Jackson, Alan Nakagawa, and kate-hers RHEE.

Rebecca Hall, USC PAM’s curator declares, “The artworks commissioned for this exhibition create new ways to view the museum’s collection and serve to remind visitors that USC PAM’s history is complex. Our public has many ways to consider this story beyond how it is presented in our galleries. The artists and their fresh perspectives are asking viewers to ponder for who was this collection created and how does its meaning change when seen through the eyes of our diverse communities?”

About her selection of artists for the exhibition, Hall states, “I had a few artists in mind when I began work on ‘Intervention.’ I specifically sought out artists whose work focused on (at least in part) the questioning of history and representation or whose work engaged with objects and the past in some way. I wanted to work with artists who already had a deeper understanding of the questions we were asking as the impetus for the exhibition, mainly: what do collections and displays of Asian art mean to Asian diasporic communities.”

For this article, I chose to feature Jennifer Ling Datchuk, whose talk at the gallery Art Salon Chinatown Hall had attended and whose work she had seen.

Born and raised in Warren, Ohio, Datchuk is a child of a Chinese immigrant and grandchild of Russian and Irish immigrants. She states on her website that the family histories of conflict she has inherited — which she captures by exploring the emotive power of domestic objects and rituals that fix, organize, soothe and beautify our lives — provide constant inspiration for her work.  

Datchuk earned her BFA in crafts from Kent State University and MFA in artisanry from the University of Massachusetts. While she was trained in ceramics, she often works with other materials including porcelain, fabric, and embroidery. She has received grants from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio and Artspace for her research project about the birthplace of porcelain in Jingdezchen, China.

In 2016, Datchuk was granted a residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany through the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum; she was also a Black Cube Nomadic Museum Art Fellow. In 2017, she completed a residency at the European Ceramic Work Center in the Netherlands and received the Emerging Voices Award from the American Craft Council. She was named a United States Artist Fellow in Craft in 2020. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas and is an assistant professor of studio art at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.    

According to the introduction to the various artists in the exhibition, Datchuk’s body of work reflects cultural identity as an Asian American woman. She uses her artwork to question the cultural, political, and economic systems that maintain a status quo of sexism, racism, stereotyping, and oppression. For ‘Intervention,’ she will be examining and expanding upon representations of women in Asian art.

Datchuk’s ‘Gaze at All Sorts of Flowers’ | Photo courtesy of USC Pacific Asia Museum

Interviewed by email, Datchuk describes her display, “I created a pair of porcelain vessels that rest on metal stands draped in red synthetic hair. The title ‘Gaze at All Sorts of Flowers’ comes from a translation of the text found on the woodblock print that describes the purpose of procreation for familial lineage and honor. I was first attracted to the voluminous pregnant female figures draped in red and how they seemed relaxed in their  time of waiting. I was fascinated to see geishas depicted this way instead of constantly being sexualized or fetishized in their talents for the consumption of men.

“The translation depicted a more rigid expectation of pregnancy, the lack of pleasure from procreation for honor in one’s family. It also detailed the 10 months of pregnancy in the Japanese calendar and how gazing at flowers would make for a happier and easier incubation of a baby. I wanted to reinsert the female narrative to this translation and reclaim pleasure, pain, beauty, and all sorts of flowers to gaze upon.” 

Speaking as an Asian, I know how we are either invisible or dismissed in American society. And as a Filipino immigrant, I feel even less significant because I’m not stereotyped as a ‘model minority’ but a member of an underclass. I ask her if she feels that there is racial disparity even among Asians, and Datchuk replies, “Yes! There is a wide range of racial disparity and it doesn’t help that we get lumped into a big collective of Asians. So much of the histories of Asians in America and the diasporas that exist all over the word are because of war and colonization and this is not taught in schools. We are invisible because our histories don’t exist.” 

Chinese cuisine is one of the most popular ‘ethnic’ food for Americans — actors in American movies are usually shown eating Chinese takeout with chopsticks. One of the displays on Datchuk’s website shows chicken feet, a Chinese delicacy, so I ask if she plans to depict food in any future work. “I use the chicken foot in some of my work as a cultural connector that can elicit feelings of comfort or home and the uncomfortable and disgusting,” she answers. “In some ways I’m always making work about being half and both and the third space this creates for these dual experiences. I’m not sure I will make work about food but I do make work about acts of love through food and culture because they are part of how we visualize care.” 

Datchuk expounds, “My work always comes from living with the constant question ‘what are you?’ In these moments I am seen as an object and different from the question ‘where are you from?’ where you are seen as a perpetual foreigner. I make work about my layered identity of being a woman, a Chinese woman, and how I exist within this third space, of having one foot in each world but never feeling fully whole or accepted. I always start my work from a personal story, a family reference, a current event, and research. I start every form from the history of porcelain and how I can take something from the past and make it present, make the private public, and that the personal is political.” 

In her introduction statement, Montagano references USC PAM’s legacy of showcasing cultures and countries which are not usually at the forefront because they don’t have enough representation. Throughout its 50-year history, it has provided Asian and South Pacific artists with the venue and platform to mount their creations. Because of that — as the exhibition demonstrates — artists are flourishing and, through their artwork, are telling their stories that transcend limits and expectations.  

The Huntington Unveils Kehinde Wiley’s ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman’

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 8 October 2021 on Hey SoCal

Kehinde Wiley’s ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman’ | Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

On Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens (The Huntington) unveiled Kehinde Wiley’s “A Portrait of a Gentleman,” a modern-day interpretation of Thomas Gainsborough’s magnificent 18th century masterpiece. It will be on display at the Thornton Portrait Gallery as part of an exhibition which includes other paintings hanging outside in the north passage. (Thomas Lawrence’s “Pinkie,” another renowned treasure, has been moved there but will be back in the portrait gallery next year.)   

Commissioned by The Huntington to celebrate the 100th anniversary of “The Blue Boy’s” acquisition by Henry and Arabella Huntington, “A Portrait of a Young Gentleman” will be in the museum’s permanent collection and visitors can still view it after the show ends on Jan. 3, 2022.  

Wiley has famously talked about The Huntington having a major role in his formative years. “I loved The Huntington’s galleries; the paintings by Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and John Constable were some of my favorites. I was taken by their imagery, their sheer spectacle, and, of course, their beauty. When I started painting, I started looking at their technical proficiency – the  manipulation of paint, color, and composition. These portraits are hyperreal, with the detail on the face finely crafted, and the brushwork, the clothing, and the landscape fluid and playful. Since I felt somewhat removed from the imagery – personally and culturally – I took a scientific approach and had an aesthetic fascination with these paintings. That distance gave me a removed freedom. Later, I started thinking about issues of desire, objectification, and fantasy in portraiture and, of course, colonialism.”  

Karen Lawrence, president of The Huntington, speaking to the press during a preview one hour before the public viewing remarks, “We’ve long admired Kehinde Wiley’s work and the idea of engaging him with us at The Huntington has been in the works and under development for a few years. It is impossible to communicate how thrilling this moment is for us. We often think about influence as a one-way street: the past affecting the present. But as these two portraits of a ‘young gentleman’ face each other across this gallery and across 250 years of history, we can recognize that the present affects the past – the present powerfully reconfigures the past.”

“Kehinde Wiley’s magnificent portrait does more than engage with Gainsborough’s 18th century  masterpiece ‘The Blue Boy’ and the other works on display in this room,” continues Lawrence. “It really brings Wiley full circle to a place that he himself has said influences his art practice greatly. For it was to The Huntington that he came as a child with his mother and spent much time looking at these oversized portraits and their grand landscapes. He was impressed in two ways – by the sheer beauty of the brushstrokes and the grandeur of the composition – as much as by what was missing – the lack of representation of anyone who looked like himself.

“When we celebrated our centennial at The Huntington in 2019 we committed ourselves to re-examining the past and re-imagining the future. In this sense, our archives and collections are alive. Kehinde Wiley’s painting changes the Grand Manner portraits of the English nobility surrounding us.”

The themes of past and present are further explored when Christina Nielsen, director of The Huntington Art Museum, tells how Gainsborough – who preferred landscapes – became a portrait painter because it was the more lucrative career, how he broke into the London art market, and then gained national prominence.       

Installation view of Gainsborough's 'Blue Boy' | Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Installation view of Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy’ | Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

“Gainsborough called upon the art of artists before him – van Dyck, in particular – and produced ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman,’ as he named it, and displayed it in 1770 at the Royal Academy Exhibition. It was a show stopper. He threw everything at it, including enormously expensive pigments: lapis, azurite, cobalt, indigo. He tweaked artistic conventions and went against reigning art theory of the day, which says blue should not provide a compositional methodology for a painting. It was a sensational success and artists of the time renamed Gainsborough’s painting ‘Blue Boy.’”

Nielsen expands, “The Huntington Art Museum has the enormous responsibility of being the steward of Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy.’ We are the keeper of this work for present visitors and future generations. It is one of the most influential and beloved master paintings in an American collection and we feel it very keenly on a daily basis. In the 250 years since its existence, it has influenced people like Whistler, Rauschenberg, now Wiley, among many others. It has absolutely sparked public imagination. It was on Cadbury tins in Great Britain before coming to the United States and it was in 11 exhibitions across the 19th century. It was reproduced and hanging on the walls of most British homes before it was purchased by Henry and Arabella Huntington in 1921.”

“And as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of its coming here, we also know how beloved it has become not only for British audiences,” Nielsen says further. “It is an American icon thanks to popular culture that emanates from California, specifically the movie industry. Stars from Marlena Dietrich to Jamie Foxx have dressed up and appeared in Hollywood movies as the ‘Blue Boy.’ It’s iconic on so many levels it’s hard not to sound hyperbolic. And if you have a painting like that in your collection, how do you respond for 21st century audiences?”

“There are few living artists today who could respond to the call like the one emanating from Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy.’ Kehinde Wiley answered the phone and responded magnificently. He is a painter who singlehandedly has changed the conversation about portraiture in the country, the power of representation, and the representation of power,” declares Nielsen.

And because everything today is global, ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman’ corresponds in its span. The model looks like someone every Angeleno can relate to – a surfer dude wearing a tie-dyed tee shirt, neon blue shorts, and Vans shoes, standing in a field of bright orange California poppies. Yet, he is anonymous. And there is universality in anonymity, according to Nielsen.   

Christina Nielsen (left) and Karen Lawrence (right) Huntington Library
Christina Nielsen (left) and Karen Lawrence (right) | Photo by May S. Ruiz / Beacon Media News & Hey SoCal

Wiley began working on the portrait during lockdown in Senegal where his Black Rock Senegal multidisciplinary artist-in-residence program is based, so Nielsen thinks his model is a young man from Dakar. The painting moved to his Beijing studio and then to his New York atelier early this summer. It then came to Los Angeles where it was placed in a train with an exact replica of the 18th century frame that The Huntington purchased a decade or so ago for the ‘Blue Boy.’ The frame was hand-carved in Nicaragua.  

Seeing Wiley’s “A Portrait of a Young Gentleman” occupying the space that has been “The Blue Boy’s” pride of place in the last hundred years might come as a surprise to some. It seems like a dissonance from all the paintings of properly-attired personalities in the gallery.

“Some of the Grand Manner sitters are in clothes of the day. Even in the 18th century, fashion was an incredibly important marker,” Nielsen explains. “Kehinde Wiley inserts black bodies into historical stories, and what these people would be wearing today. He’s also very aware of fashion and high fashion; these choices are all incredibly deliberate and conscious. The portraits right now face each other in the characteristic gesture. The details in the Wiley speak to the contemporary.

“All art was once contemporary and Gainsborough’s was revolutionary in his day and was the catalyst for his fellow artists and visitors to that original Royal Academy show. I imagine this will feel catalytic. I know how I felt when I walked into this room and saw it on the wall. I can also say that several days in, I have fully metabolized it and now it feels like it’s always been here. You can’t look at it without thinking of them, you can’t look at them without feeling its presence. It’s incredibly exciting the range of conversations that this will open up for our audiences and I imagine, as always, art will elicit responses across the whole spectrum. It will take time for some people and some will immediately just feel the joy and exuberance.”

Lawrence says, “Kehinde’s portrait of Barack Obama for the National Portrait Gallery transformed everyone’s thought about presidential portraiture – the Grand Manner genre of presidential portrait was stunningly interrupted. And with that of Barack Obama’s added with all the white faces, you could predict how this will enter into the canon. The significance will be great.

“We wanted The Huntington to make invitations to re-interpret cultural practice as well as our historical and literary archives and collections in the library. For contemporary practitioners to activate, motivate, respond to what we have because otherwise, what’s the point? We’ve made that invitation and I think that the audiences for the Huntington will come here and see the continuity of past, present, and future, and embrace that. What is unexpected? What are the different voices? These are opportunities that we want to take. I’m speaking for myself and Christina and we’re absolutely thrilled with what Wiley has chosen to do.”

A Noise Within is Back on Stage for its 30th Anniversary Season

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 28 September 2021 on Hey SoCal

Deborah Strang as ‘the poet’ in “An Iliad” | Photo by Eric Pargac / A Noise Within

After 18 months of shutdown, A Noise Within (ANW) returns to live theatre with a one-person show of Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s modern-day retelling of Homer’s epic “An Iliad.” Directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, it features two ANW powerhouses Geoff Elliott and Deborah Strang in alternating performances as “the poet” and will be on stage through Oct. 3, 2021.

Speaking with us by phone, co-producing artistic directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott explain the theme of their 2021-2022 season, which marks their 30th anniversary, and detail ANW’s protocols to assure theatre-goers that their safety is a top priority.

Asked if there are plays they had originally planned for the previous season that will be included, Rodriguez-Elliott replies, “Yes, we brought back ‘An Iliad’ and ‘Metamorphoses.’ We have just experienced so much change in the world we live in, so our season’s theme ‘We Shattered the Chrysalis’ seemed like a very appropriate one to examine. And ‘Metamorphoses’ is at the center of that because it’s a play about transformation and the healing power of love as a change agent. We felt it would fit into the 30th anniversary season.”

Geoff Elliott as ‘the poet’ | Photo by Eric Pargac / A Noise Within

Continues Rodriguez-Elliott, “‘An Iliad’ is a play with one actor and no intermission so it was a means for audiences to get used to theatre again before we get into full productions. We figured we would learn a lot with this first show and any adjustment that we needed to make, we would be implementing in the following show, which has more cast members. More importantly, this play is always relevant; but more so right now, as we see and read about the rage and conflict going on everywhere. And with the Afghanistan withdrawal, it seems like it was written just yesterday. Additionally, it’s a brilliant piece of writing, and Geoff and Deborah are magnificent! It’s just a wonderful way to re-enter the world of live theatre.”

Prior to reopening, ANW developed and refined extensive plans to keep everyone safe which they outlined in a press statement. These procedures include, but are not limited to: staff and crew certifying as COVID compliance officers; initiating a deep clean of its HVAC system for optimal turnover of fresh air; routinely disinfecting high-touch areas; providing PPE; and following LA Department of Health guidelines.

Besides requiring full vaccination for all staff, artists, and volunteers who work onsite, ANW has also put into effect strict guidelines for theatre-goers. Before being admitted into the theatre, all audience members must provide full proof of vaccination. Masks are required regardless of vaccination status and will be available on site until such time that LA County stops requiring masks indoors. At that point, masks will continue to be strongly recommended.

A Noise Within enforces strict safety guidelines | Photo by Brian Feinzimer / A Noise Within

During the months when the theatre was dark, ANW filmed ‘An Iliad’ with Elliott and Strang alternating as “the poet.” Elliott performed it on opening night for a live audience and relates the experience. “It was surreal on a certain level. Like everybody else, other than doing online things here and there, including filming ‘An Iliad’ a while back, we’ve been dormant for a year and when I got out there, I wasn’t prepared for all of the masks. It was a really surreal experience – I had to adjust as I have never done before. It’s beautiful to be back, but also very strange.       

“From an actor’s perspective, it’s a totally different feel. We rehearsed it differently. We knew we had to do it in a certain way because we only had limited time with the resources. It was a three-camera shot. There are seven chapters in ‘An Iliad’ and Deborah and I alternated performing in each chapter. We were very happy with the product but this play was meant to have a live audience for the actor to connect with them. Hearing their response propels you as a performer and you learn something new each time you do it – which doesn’t happen when the show is filmed. There’s something about everyone being in the same room, watching and listening to the story, and everybody relating to what’s happening on stage. You can’t have that anywhere else. It’s a kind of communion; there’s something very healing about it.”

“The show is really a conversation with the audience and when you do it on film, you’re missing that piece because the camera becomes your partner in a sense,” adds Rodriguez-Elliott. “It’s also different from the directing perspective. When you’re filming, the director or director of photography is making choices about what the audience is going to see, whereas in a play you’re on stage and you have a much more open canvas. As an audience member, you get to choose what you want to be looking at at any given time. Essentially, the audience members are much more active participants in a live version then in a film version. And it’s been interesting because a lot of folks who saw it on film have returned to see it live and almost everyone said they like the live version so much more.”

Audiences who have come back to watch the play are reacting positively to ANW’s strict protocols as well. Elliott says, “Overwhelmingly so. The feedback we’re getting is that people are thankful we’re requiring those and that we’re diligent about imposing them. If someone takes their mask off during the performance, our house manager and ushers gently remind them to put them back on, which makes everyone around them feel safe.”

Deborah Strang | Photo by Eric Pargac / A Noise Within

ANW is bringing back their popular holiday show this year and Rodriguez-Elliott addresses it. “We’re making an accommodation for ‘A Christmas Carol’ because it’s all about families coming to watch the show together. We’ll move to requiring children 12 and under to show proof of negative test for COVID. I think by then people are used to that because that’s being done in schools.”

Concurs Elliott, “The joy of the show is having families and their kids there. I have to say that I’ve read reports about Pfizer coming out with a lower dose vaccine for kids which they think will be available by Halloween. I hope – and I have my fingers crossed – that a lot of kids will be able to get vaccinated by then.”

While looking forward to things getting better by the end of this year, they recall the challenges of the past 18 months. Rodriguez-Elliott says, “Like other theatre companies, we tried to find opportunities to stay connected with our audiences on Zoom. We also wanted to keep the artists engaged. It was a challenging time for performers because the lockdown happened very unexpectedly, so they were quickly displaced and essentially out of work. As an artist, what fuels you is working on the art. As an organization, we were ultimately lucky despite all the challenges because we have such a strong support system. Our board did an amazing job of helping us navigate the challenges of the moment. Our supporters and donors responded and supported us in extraordinary ways, as did the foundations. Certainly, the government support was critical to surviving 18 to 19 months and not producing theatre nor having opportunities to generate revenue. It’s unheard of.”

“And, again, from a performer’s point of view, these Zoom readings are such a cheap knock-off,” Elliott expresses in frustration. “The artist is just trying to hang on, trying to connect with partners because the reality is actors feed off of each other. But we’re not in the same room so I’m not really looking at them when I’m speaking to them in a scene. We have to just imagine all that and, man, it’s so synthetic; I don’t think I will miss it.”

Rodriguez-Elliott declares, “It was a place holder but definitely not a substitute for real theatre. That said, in terms of the artistic piece of it, I think we got so adept at the Zoom world that it has been useful in things like being able to provide resources for audiences. Now we’re doing these deep dives where we have directors and artists talk about the play and audiences can participate in advance of attending a production. There are things that can enhance the theatre-going experience but not a substitute for it.”

“Plays like ‘An Iliad’ aren’t really suited for film; and performing on film isn’t what we do as a theatre company,” Elliott states firmly. “At the same time I take my hat off to all the performers and directors who were involved with it because it’s not easy to do. And as Julia said there was a learning curve but I think we actually got very good at it.”

“We also held two virtual annual fundraising dinners, believe it or not,” Rodriguez-Elliott says.  “The first one came up really fast right after everything shut down and the second one was last April. That we got adept at doing – we partnered with a caterer and had dinner delivered to people’s homes. We tried as much as possible to recreate the feeling in the room when we have events.”

Photo by Brian Feinzimer / A Noise Within

While ANW will now stage all plays with live audiences, they will keep some of their virtual programming. Rodriguez-Elliott discloses. “We’ll have the post-show conversations so even if people don’t watch a show on a night with one, they can still participate. We’ll also keep the ‘deep dives’ which our audiences enjoy.”

As much hardship the pandemic and resulting shutdown presented, there were lessons gained, which Rodriguez-Elliott expounds on. “We were still doing a lot of work. We still had to figure out what to do next and how to get through the next three months, but we were able to do it in comfortable clothes. It gave us a chance to consider a work/life balance and I think that’s a positive take-away. The other piece is that we learned to be flexible. It really called on us to change direction a number of times and I think one of the advantages for us was the size of our organization – we’re rather nimble so we were able to make changes as things were coming at us 24/7.

“It has been very moving to see how important the arts are in people’s lives because that’s what we heard over and over again with our community during this period of shutdown – the importance of theatre and community and coming together. On that note, I would like to say that this is a great time for people to support local theatre in the same way that we’re dining out to support restaurants. I think there’s a level of hesitancy. But once they come and they see the protocols that are being followed, and that we’re taking safety seriously and meeting them where they are, I think people will feel more comfortable attending live performances.”

Pasadena Playhouse Returns This Fall with a Party

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 14 September 2021 on Hey SoCal

The Pasadena Playhouse returns this fall with its 2021-2022 season. Danny Feldman, producing artistic director, couldn’t contain his thrill to be coming back to the theatre with a live audience. And it wouldn’t be just your standard seated audience either. But I’ll let him tell you all about it.

Speaking by phone on a recent afternoon, Feldman enthuses, “We’ll open our season in November with ‘Head Over Heels,’ a musical comedy adaptation of ‘The Arcadia’ by Sir Philip Sidney and is set to the music of the iconic 1980s all-female rock band The Go-Go’s. It’s huge and ambitious. I had been working on this for a long time, but I was planning to do it for a future season – there was no way in my mind we could do it this season. However, a few months ago, I went on an artistic retreat with two extraordinary artists – Jenny Koons and Sam Pinkleton – and afterwards we all thought this show is the only way to come back from a pandemic. It just felt so perfect for the moment even if we only had a short timeline to make it happen. This show is joyful, diverse, and wonderfully inclusive. We want to give people one of their best nights out since the pandemic happened.

The Go-Go's
The Go-Go’s | Photo courtesy of Pasadena Playhouse

“The world has changed. It is pretty unrecognizable to me right now and we want people to have that experience. So we’re completely reconfiguring the theatre – there will be no traditional stage and proscenium. The best way I can describe it is the show happens all around you. The story is about a royal family who goes on a journey to save their kingdom and discovers the joy of each other along the way. It is full of comedy, dancing, and great music, and the audience is coming along with them.”

Amidst anxieties about emerging coronavirus variants and mutations, rehearsals on “Head Over Heels” are well underway. Feldman says, “Like everyone, I’m cautiously optimistic, a little nervous, and really very excited to get things going again. At the same time, we’re being flexible because we realize there’s so much uncertainty. It’s truly a piece of art and theatre being created out of the pandemic. And that’s rare because we’re so close to it. I expect years from now there will be plays about what it was like during a pandemic period and what we have is a piece of art created during one, which takes into account the challenges – audience safety concern and all that. But we still feel we can safely pull this off given the guidelines now and the direction COVID’s going. That said, if things change we will adapt and change with it. This is a new world.”

Except for next spring’s premiere of “Ann,” The Playhouse’s 2021-2022 season isn’t what was originally slated for last year. Feldman discloses, “Everything is going to be new because I took a different approach that is reflective of the world that changed. The Pasadena Playhouse takes great pride in the fact that though we’re a hundred-year-old-plus institution, we’re relevant, we’re responding to the moment.

“’After ‘Head Over Heels,’ we’re staging a play that’s a Pasadena Playhouse co-production with the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. and the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. Again, this is a new model of creating work. The play is a teenage retelling of ‘Richard III’ with a rather racy title ‘Teenage Dick’ and it’s a pretty exciting new work by Mike Lew, an amazing young playwright. It sets Richard III in high school where he’s bullied because he has cerebral palsy and he’s running for senior class president. It gets into power and what one does to achieve power and status when they’re a marginalized person. It’s both funny and gut-punching and is really a fun way to approach a classic like ‘Richard III,’ but in a contemporary setting. It’s a wild ride. I think it’s a surprising evening of theatre people will not forget for a long time.”

Holland Taylor
Holland Taylor | Photo courtesy of Pasadena Playhouse

Feldman says further, “‘Ann’ follows in the spring with the extraordinary Holland Taylor, the legend – this is her show. It’s a delightful evening celebrating Ann Richards. It gets into politics in a way that is appropriate for today, that is not trying to separate people or create division but bringing people together. Governor Ann Richards was an older divorced woman, single mother, former alcoholic, Democrat in Texas. And Holland just reincarnates her. She’s coming back alive on stage and you feel like you’re having a visit with Ann Richards. It’s a delightful, soul-soothing celebratory evening. After ‘Ann’ there’s a show I haven’t picked yet. 

“Then we close with a party as well – ‘freestyle love supreme.’ This was created from the minds of Lin Manuel Miranda and his collaborators Anthony Veneziale and Tommy Kail who directed ‘Hamilton’ and another production we did with Nia Vardalos ‘Tiny Beautiful Things.’ This will be the first time that the Pasadena Playhouse has a show coming directly from Broadway. It’s a Special Tony recipient and it will be on Broadway for the second time in October, and then it’s coming here next summer. It’s got several things all at once – hip-hop, freestyle rappers, a band, an audience, and no script. The show will be made up every night using words and ideas solicited directly from the audience and then, like magic, you see it appear right in front of your eyes. It’s a wonderful way to round out a season that to me is exciting and pulsating and celebratory and creating a new path forward – different kinds of shows, different ways for audiences to engage with the work.”

While The Playhouse won’t be opening until November, Feldman stayed busy during the pandemic. He says, “We launched our digital platform PlayhouseLive where we had a full program which included commissioned work that was in response to George Floyd and the racial reckoning in America. We also did the Jerry Hermann show about the Broadway composer, which garnered attention all over the country. We offered a Broadway class with hundreds of people across the United States taking it.

“We expanded our footprint. We really worked on redefining what a theatre can be during that time – what it looks like when you’re not confined to four walls of a historic theatre. That was exciting and we’re certainly planning to continue some of our digital work.”

PlayhouseLive was as much a success as it was a revelation. Feldman explains, “The word community changed for us. One of our shows was favorably reviewed by the New York Times. I don’t think that’s ever happened at the Pasadena Playhouse! Our community wasn’t just Pasadena, San Gabriel Valley, and Los Angeles. People from all over the world were watching our content – it confirmed that the name Pasadena Playhouse actually means something around the world. Of course we know that because it’s been here forever, but it really was a fantastic sign of our power and peoples’ understanding of who we are and desire to engage with us.”

Danny Feldmen at Pasadena Playhouse
Danny Feldman | Photo courtesy of Pasadena Playhouse

Asked what he learned during the pandemic, Feldman replies, “I learned to slow down a little bit. I learned that in the absence of performing art, we realized how much we need it, and how much as humans we’re wired to come together and be together. It’s not just we’re wired to tell stories and hear stories, we could do than on Netflix and HBO. It’s the collective experience of sitting in a room with strangers, having the lights go down, playing make-believe, and having shared experience with the actors on stage but also with the audience – laughing together, crying together, applauding together – all of that. It was an opportunity to understand the value of that in our lives and to make sure that when we came back out of that, that we do it wholeheartedly, we do it with intention, and we do it to create good in the world.

“Our role at the Pasadena Playhouse is to make the lives of our community better – to enrich the community. When I try to pick shows, I ask ‘Is this one going to create good in the community – even the challenging ones?’ ‘What conversations is it going to start?’ This season there’s so much celebration – whether it’s Go-Go’s dancing party at the beginning or free style with The Supremes at the end – and how to get people to laugh and engage and come out of their shells together. Or for those who just want to sit back and experience it their way, ‘How do you create a space for them to do that?’ We take stock in these moments. I’m thrilled to be coming back! I can’t wait!”

Feldman ends with a call to action. “We had a year plus of absence of the performing arts. If any of the readers are like me, that was a part of the pain of the year. Now that we have an opportunity to come back, having community here that is full of rich cultural experiences is so important. It’s why I love living here. And the best way our community can come together to make sure that in this very uncertain period we can have a thriving scene and places to go, is to support cultural institutions. Support us here at the Pasadena Playhouse and other local theatres. You can do that by donating if you’re in a position to do it but, even more importantly, become a member, subscribe. Make a commitment that I’m going there a couple times a year. That’s our lifeblood. We need a robust audience to stand up and say, ‘We want this and we’re ready to come on a journey with you’ in order for us to be here for many years to come.”                                      

Reader Reactions to the ‘Blue Boy’s’ Trip to London Next Year

/ May S Ruiz / Leave a comment

Originally published on 10 September 2021 on Hey SoCal

Installation view of The Blue Boy | Courtesy Photo / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

Last month we published an article about the announcement that The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens has decided to loan our beloved “Blue Boy” to the National Gallery in London. Gainsborough’s magnificent work, which left England for the United States on Jan. 25, 1922, will be part of an exhibit that is set to open exactly 100 years since that day.

In its announcement, Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence, remarked, “This masterpiece has made an indelible mark on both art history and popular culture, capturing the imaginations of a wide range of audiences. Given ‘The Blue Boy’s’ iconic status at The Huntington, this is an unprecedented loan, one which we considered very carefully. We hope that this partnership with the National Gallery will spark new conversations, appreciation, and research on both sides of the Atlantic.”  

We in the San Gabriel Valley are so fortunate to have world renowned museums and to have been exposed to stunning works by some of the greatest artists who ever lived. Most of us have never known a time when “The Blue Boy” wasn’t at The Huntington. So we asked our readers to tell us how they feel about it traveling to London and share with us their experience with this piece of art.

While we didn’t receive as many responses as we had hoped, we learned that our readers have informed opinions with information to impart. We also feel that what we did get are representative of people’s reactions and we’re printing them below:

“My informal response to your informal survey is that if the experts say it’s not safe for the painting to travel, then it shouldn’t. I’m also concerned that if the painting does go to London, what’s to keep their museum from saying that the painting is too fragile to send back?

“As you can see, I’m reluctant to let it go.”

Meg Gifford
Pasadena   

“Everybody likes to return home, even for a short visit … and I’m sure ‘Blue Boy’ is among them. So I wish him “calm seas and prosperous voyage.”

“The greatest gift master painters have given mankind is that it doesn’t take an advanced degree in art to appreciate their work.

“Even as a rustic with no refinement, I have stood at length in reverence before Gainsborough’s masterpiece. And in so doing, I convinced myself that if I touched that canvas, I wouldn’t feel a flat surface, but instead Blue Boy’s silken garment and his flesh underneath it.”

David Quintero
Monrovia

‘The Blue Boy’ post conservation | Photo by Christina Milton O’Connell / The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

“I believe it is a wonderful opportunity to return it to the land from whence it came so that a ‘new generation’ can admire its beauty. The concerns cited can be mitigated if those involved will check history regarding other great works of art that traveled outside their respective country. 

“The Mona Lisa was painted in 1503, 276 years BEFORE Blue Boy. Thanks to the efforts of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, France’s national treasure, a very fragile piece of art, was shipped to America. On January 8, 1963, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa made its first appearance when it was put on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. It was transported by the S.S. France ocean liner in a temperature-controlled box in its own stateroom, accompanied by armed guards. The temperature, which was alarm-monitored, would not be allowed to fluctuate by more than one degree throughout the entire journey. Eleven years later, in 1974, the Mona Lisa once again left France to travel to Russia and Japan. It can be done without endangering the masterpiece.

“Françoise Nyssen, France’s former Minister of Culture, once said that she didn’t believe works of tremendous cultural significance should be confined to a single institution. I thoroughly agree.  Whenever possible, great works of art should be shared with the world.

“Thank you.”

Charlotte Farmer
Arcadia

“My first memories of seeing the ‘Blue Boy’ was in the 1970s when my parents took me to The Huntington as a young kid. It was my mom who introduced me to it, saying it’s a great piece of art. But my appreciation of it at the time was due to the fact that the painting was of a child, like me. I remember it also being next to “Pinkie,” and I don’t know if they were meant to be deliberately displayed next to each other. While these were paintings from a long time ago, I felt a connection and kinship with them.

“That impression stayed with me to this day so when we have visitors, I take them to The Huntington and show them the ‘Blue Boy.’ When my cousins from Japan came in 2018 for my dad’s 88th birthday celebration, I took them to the mansion along with a niece and nephew who aren’t from this area. I told them about The Huntington’s conservation project and what the x-rays showed beneath the painting. I was able to share a part of my local culture to two generations. There was a language barrier between my Japanese cousins and my American relatives and they had to use Google translate to communicate, but it was a fun family experience tied to the ‘Blue Boy.’              

“It’s a nice gesture to share the artwork and I hope it’s safe for it to travel that far. However, its absence will sadden many of us who have grown up knowing it’s always been there. I imagine ‘Pinkie’ will also be sad not to have him by her side. What’s going in that space while ‘Blue Boy’ is away?

“I’m a member of The Huntington and I take strolls at the gardens. And every time I go to the mansion, I make it a point to see the ‘Blue Boy.’ It’s a magnificent piece of art and embodies what I think The Huntington is about. There are so many rotating exhibits – even at the promenade area – but seeing the ‘Blue Boy’ always makes me happy. It evokes emotions and memories of my childhood. I’ll be looking forward to its safe return.”   

Stephanie Yamasaki
Altadena 

The board of The Huntington will be glad to know that their decision has more proponents than opponents and art experts can be assured that “The Blue Boy” can safely travel, as one reader asserted. And we can be gratified in the thought that art enthusiasts across the Atlantic will have the rare chance to see and experience the treasure we hold precious.