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February - April 2008: "RED BEARD / RED BEARD"
LAPD's residency in the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers at
THEATRE 2 GENNEVILLIERS, Centre Dramatique National de Creation
Contemporaine.
RED BEARD / RED BEARD
is a duet for Kurosawa's film and live performers. The production seeks to
answer the question: how to reverse the cycle of hurt and
victimization? The story is set in a public hospital serving the
indigent in rural, feudal Japan. We chose to work with this movie
because its harsh depiction of the dynamics of extreme poverty
resonates today in urban America as it does in the Paris suburbs. The
production, directed by John Malpede, has four casts of 10
performers, each performing simultaneously for intimate audiences, with
three casts performing in French and one in English.
Performances from April 1
till 20.
The production involved 36 residents of
Gennevilliers and 5 LAPD'ers.
Sunday April 13, at 17:30 screening of the REAL DEAL, a documentary about LAPD, and conversation with the LAPD members in the library of the theatre.
For more info. and an interview with John Malpede about the project
reviews:
In 1999 Pascal Rambert directed his play Race with
LAPD in Los Angeles. As the new director of Theatre2Gennevilliers he
has invited John Malpede and LAPD to create a new performance for the
opening year of the theatre.
Pascal Rambert & John Malpede
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: John Malpede
310-259-1038
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LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT IN RESIDENCE IN THE PARIS SUBURB OF
GENNEVILLIERS, AT THEATRE DE GENNEVILLIERS, TO PERFORM “RED BEARD/RED
BEARD”
February 5, 2008: From February 25 through April 20, the Los Angeles
Poverty Department will be in residence in the Paris suburb of
Gennevilliers at THEATRE 2 GENNEVILLIERS, Centre Dramatique National de
Creation Contemporaine, for the French premiere of Red Beard, Red
Beard.
Based in LA's Skid Row, LAPD creates work that connects lived
experience of those who live in poverty to the political and social
forces that shape their communities and lives.
Directed by John Malpede, the production is a duet for the Akira
Kurosawa film, Read Beard, and live performers. The film’s harsh
depiction of the dynamics of extreme poverty resonates today in urban
America as it does in the Paris suburbs, by exploring the question: How
to reverse the cycle of hurt and victimization. " The film makes me
think of Simone Weil," says Malpede, "who wrote a one-line history of
the world when she said something like, 'when my headaches were raging,
I wanted to punch someone else in the head --just to let them know how
I was feeling.' In Red Beard Kurosawa envisions a dynamic in which
degradation is transformed into something positive, rather than
becoming frozen as bitterness." Along with 35 residents of
Gennevilliers, five Angelenos, members of LAPD, will comprise the four
casts (three French-speaking; one in English), who perform
simultaneously for intimate audiences.
Performances take place from April 1- 20, 2008.
ABOUT LAPD
Los Angeles Poverty Department is a theater company comprised primarily
of low income, formerly homeless people living in those blocks of
downtown Los Angeles known as Skid Row. Founded in 1985 by John
Malpede, LAPD creates performance work that that expresses the
realities, hopes, dreams of the homeless, making visible the creativity
and humanity of this often misrepresented and vilified community. For
more information visit www.lapovertydept.org
Other works by John Malpede include RFK IN EKY in 2004, a recreation of
Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 "war on poverty" tour. The play was performed
in five counties in eastern Kentucky. LAPD's most recent production,
AGENTS & ASSETS cast five actors from the LAPD troupe with eight
additional local citizens who are real-life veterans of the crack
cocaine epidemic in a theatrical re-enactment of a Congressional
hearing of the Government’s so-called “War on Drugs.” In 2007, at the
REDCAT Theater, LAPD performed UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA, an original work that
explored the social, economic and cultural conflicts shaping the future
of downtown Los Angeles. alpede is a 2008 City of Los Angeles COLA
Theater Fellow and a 2008 Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology's (MIT) Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS).
ABOUT THEATRE 2 GENNEVILLIERS
Theatre 2 Gennevilliers is a French National Theater, funded by the
National government and for 30 years directed by Bernard Sobel, an
associate of Berthold Brecht. The 2008 season is the first to be
programmed by new Artistic Director Pascal Rambert. In 1999 Pascal
Rambert directed his play Race with a combined cast of LAPD and Cal
State LA graduate student actors in Los Angeles. As the new director of
Theatre 2 Gennevilliers he has invited John Malpede and LAPD to create
a new performance for the opening year of the theater.
ABOUT Red Beard/Red Beard.
Created by LAPD artistic director, John Malpede. The film is shown in
Japanese without subtitles and the players sit in on either and perform
the text "oratorio" style. To create the right scale between live
performers and the film image, the film is not projected but shown on a
19" television. The performers enact scenes in the film and at other
points they perform as a chorus, and use gesture to foreshadow, refer
back to and otherwise amplify emotionally significant moments. To
maintain the scale while performing on the large stage of Theatre 2
Gennevilliers, the production will be carried out by four casts
performing simultaneously, each with its own intimate audience. All
fourcasts and audiences will be on the 40 by 40 meter stage of Theater
2 Gennevilliers, creating moments in which the four simultaneous
performances merge and then diverge.
ABOUT Kurosawa’s Red Beard
The story is set in a public hospital serving the indigent in rural,
feudal Japan. The 1965 film tries to offer a way out to the circle of
decent spiritualization described by Simone Weil, in which the
suffering and victimization become the grounds of greater suffering and
greater victimization. How do you break the cycle of suffering just
when things are most damning and hopeless?
Red Beard, Read Beard a production of Theatre 2 Gennevilliers.
LAPD is funded in part by: LA County Arts Commission; The City of Los
Angles Department of Cultural Affairs; The National Endowment for the
Arts - Theater; the California Arts Council's Creating Public Value
program; the MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital, supported by the
Rockefeller Foundation; The Nathan Cummings Foundation and Animating
Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts Institute for Community
Development.
REHEARSAL PICTURES
    
more rehearsal pics by Patirce Aurand
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Red Beard
Mantis
Yasumoto
Osugi
Tsugawa
Okuni
Sahachi
Onaka
Dr. Mori
Otoyo