Camino Real
Reviews

Rarely traveled 'Camino' stops just short of theater heaven

JULIO MARTINEZ, Daily News

When Tennessee Williams' "Camino Real' opened at the Broadway National Theater in 1953 it was a resounding failure. The play's hallucinatory complexity drove critic Walter Kerr to condemn it as "the worst play yet written by the best playwright of this generation.' Though seldom produced, this seminal work has outlived both playwright and critic. In a brave debut outing in its new American Renegade Theatre home, the Company Rep has admirably captured the desperation and comical despair of the soul-dead denizens of a surrealistic purgatory. The 24-member ensemble is guided by an energetic, let-it-all-hang-out staging by Artistic Director Hope Alexander.

The setting is the mythical Latin American crossroads of Camino Real, a hellish refuge for a motley assortment of life's castoffs, culled from literature and folklore. They are terrorized by a trigger-happy militiaman (played by April Stewart), and ever threatened by a trio of comely but ominous street-cleaners (Sara Miller, Christal Cureington, Rebekah Kochan), who cheerfully sweep up the cadaverous remains of the condemned. The action is ruled over by Gutman (Malachi Throne), the deceptively soft-spoken proprietor of the Sietra Mares Hotel, who counts off the succession of scenes as a series of dreamlike "blocks.'

The initial block is conjured up by the arrival of Don Quixote (Ron Slanina), who is immediately deserted by his not-so-faithful Sancho Panza (Edgar Aguirre). Quixote's squire senses the evil that permeates this place. Not so wise are the town's inhabitants, who all want to leave but are rendered inert by their own inadequacies, made tangible by the vast unknown desert that stretches beyond the exit at the top of the town square.

Alexander impressively underscores Williams' often heavy-handed philosophical imagery while keeping the flow of character interaction moving at a near-frenetic pace. As each block unfolds, the purposeful bedlam on stage and throughout the aisles makes increasing sense. The characters become more defined and more sympathetic. Not every member of this large ensemble manages to completely inhabit his or her role but there is no lack of commitment to the director's vision.

Many of the portrayals truly stand out, most notably Michael Uribes' endearing portrayal of the lost American, Kilroy. Named for the World War II icon, Uribes' Kilroy is a pitifully callow young Yank whose abject loneliness is only occasionally mollified by memories of his "one true woman' and the golden boxing gloves won before his undersized heart gave out. The production is blessed with Slanina's wonderfully seedy village setting, effectively underscored by the evocative lighting of Luke Moyer and the mood-enhancing original score of Max Kinberg.

TRAVIS MICHAEL HOLDER, Entertainment Today

It takes dedication, spirit and a kind of artistic death wish to try to make a fledgling theatre company live and breathe in Los Angeles. It takes an even greater sense of metaphorical jumping out a plane without a parachute to present a troublesome and troubled play such as Tennessee Williams’ 1953 allegory Camino Real. The fainthearted would not go where The Company Rep’s artistic director Hope Alexander has gone by choosing to present this piece as her fragile young troupe desperately tries to gain a foothold in our fickle theatrical community. For this, Alexander must be given high marks for bravery. Through the years of virtual obscurity, Camino Real has been dubbed Williams’ best work by Clive Barnes and his worst by Walter Kerr. Director Alexander first appeared in a production of the play at Berkeley Rep in the mid-60s and directed it previously 20 years ago. Clearly, she is rightfully obsessed with this piece and stands ready to put her company’s reputation on the line to deliver it. Though this mounting is not 100% successful, it would be hard to imagine it even remotely as interesting without Alexander’s signature sense of bold theatricality to help it overcome its inherent flaws and potentially boring, repetitious themes of fractured dreams and the fear of the future at the hands of the tyrants in power in the Camino. These ideas are most appropriate as we crash into our current uncertain global future, as the thousands of us who marched through Hollywood and the world last Saturday try to make a tiny dent in the enormously immoral plans of a government whose corporate backers couldn’t give a shit what any of us feel. Williams’ most obscure play is ultimately about hope—and abandoning our disquietude that we, as individuals, cannot make a difference. More than ever, Camino Real resonates in the brutal, unfair world in which we all must currently exist and, as an artist of great passion, Alexander is the perfect person at this time and place to interpret it. She has led her company of 28 actors well, updating the text slyly and bringing much contemporary flavor to the Camino, from mylar glitter wigs to a rousing Tina Turner-esque rendition of “Proud Mary” by Barbara Roberts. It must have been surprising, in 1953, when the resident hero Kilroy (Michael Uribes) mentioned his quest for finding the local YMCA in the middle of the district’s politically barbaric atmosphere, but something makes me think Williams would be smiling as Alexander heightens the abstract by bringing out a kick-line of ensemble members recreating the Village People’s most famous number. I’m sure he would have also approved of Kilroy entering swinging over the audience members’ heads on a rope or updating the play’s ominous resident street cleaners, whose major job is getting rid of the corpses of eliminated dissidents, as a trio of disco-clad giggling young women. Directing a cast of 28 is a major task and, unfortunately, the unevenness in talent and proficiency in TCR’s ensemble is what rings most false. There are some wonderful skilled performers here, particularly the ever-watchable Malachi Thorne as Gutman, the district’s suspicious ruler, and Ron Slanina as Lord Byron, who makes a brief entrance before getting the heck out of the Camino. Veteran performers commingled with over-their-heads beginners often bring unfavorable results and this mounting of an already difficult piece is thus hampered. Still, one can only hope (no pun intended) that Hope Alexander and her fresh new company continue to grow—and with her imagination and courage, this is almost inevitable. If her Camino Real does not win awards, it should certainly win the support of all of us who wish to see LA theatre emerge from the shadow of the film industry and stand up for the artistic ideals of people like Ms. Alexander. I for one can’t wait to see what she chooses to do next. Call (818) 506-7550 for tickets.

Variations on a key Williams' theme

PHILIP BRANDES, Los Angeles Times

In tackling Tennessee Williams' rarely seen "Camino Real," Company Rep signals gutsy artistic ambitions with a take-no-prisoners inaugural production as the new resident ensemble at NoHo's prominent American Renegade Theatre.

Something of a Waterloo in Williams' career, the still-problematic "Camino Real" (pronounced "KA-minnow reel") baffled 1953 audiences with its kaleidoscopic journey through a surreal landscape densely populated with archetypes from different periods of Western civilization. A far cry from the stories and characters so meticulously drawn from everyday life in the author's more familiar classics, "Camino Real" feels instead like trespassing without a map in an inner realm of deeply private meanings and associations.

In a loose parallel of Dante's descent through hell (transposed into a succession of numbered blocks along a road of precious "royal" illusions, for which the play is ironically named), Casanova (Yvans Jourdain), Camille (Jill Jones), Lord Byron (Ron Slanina), a Mephistophelean narrator (Malachi Throne) and a host of oddballs cross paths with that ubiquitous World War II-era GI, Kilroy (Michael Uribes). The entire action is actually a dream by Don Quixote (Slanina), desperately seeking a replacement companion after being deserted by Sancho (Edgar Aguirre).

The production flexes impressive artistic muscle with intensely committed performances from its 25-member cast. Rather than soft-peddling the play's excesses, a wildly eclectic staging by Hope Alexander -- a veteran of several previous "Camino Real" productions who knew Williams and shared his passion for the play -- fearlessly updates it with contemporary elements ranging from video displays to Tina Turner songs.

Still, despite the inroads that subjectivist realities have made in drama since Williams' time, the work's dissociated, nonlinear sequences can still bewilder and frustrate -- especially if one fixates on unraveling the meaning of each line. The key is to realize that taken as a whole, "Camino Real" is but another variation on Williams' signature theme: the heroic, doomed and inescapable struggle of romantic sensibilities too fragile to withstand the brutal onslaught of modern life. Only here, instead of telling the victim's story from the outside, the perspective is turned inward. Even in Williams' private inferno, the heroes are romantic figures, the villains their oppressors.