Festival Embraces the Globe : Santa Monica's upcoming extravaganza defies the still-predominant theater codes of white, middle-class naturalism

By ROBERT KOEHLER

Sept. 1, 1991 12 AM PT

<i> Robert Koehler is a frequent contributor to Calendar</i>

Eric Trules is no Peter Sellars.

Nor is he trying to be.

As Sellars did for his globe-hopping, mind-bending 1990 Los Angeles Festival, Trules, who was artistic director of Santa Monica Festival ‘91, is trying to bring the world and the city together for a celebratory redefinition of what theater can be.

Unlike Sellars, however, Trules isn’t driven by any overweening vision of the cultural skies opening up over the L. A. Basin.

He will tell you that when he applied to the city of Santa Monica’s arts division for the post, he knew that he was going to get it--although he was up against more than a dozen other applicants. He will also tell you that his plan for the free, two-day event (starting at noon Saturday and continuing through Sunday), the first of its type for Santa Monica, is frankly ambitious.

That’s because it is the first of its type for Trules, as well. In his living room, which doubles as his office, he explains: “I’ve spent this summer learning how to put a festival together.”

A casual glance at Santa Monica Festival ‘91’s lineup suggests that Trules has done some serious cramming. Emceed by ex-Firesign Theatre funnymen Peter Bergman and Phil Proctor, Saturday begins with typical unorthodoxy: the Nigerian Talking Drum Ensemble, followed by actor Bob Devin Jones’ verbal walk through the works of writer James Baldwin.

The festival zigzags across continents, from the Philippines (Bibak dance and music ensemble) to Japan (the Taiko drumming group, Zenshuji Zendeko), from South Africa (Shaluza Boot Dancers) to Brazil (the Ballet Folclorico do Brasil).

Interspersed throughout is a gallery of home-grown artists, some emerging (Jones, storyteller Willie Sims, gospel choir Men of Fire and South-Central Los Angeles-based Grass Roots Dance Theatre), some with established followings (Latins Anonymous, Cold Tofu, El Vez).

And, in a coup for the festival, Trules has managed to corral the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which will present its latest political seriocomic work, “Back to Normal.” It marks the troupe’s first outdoor performance in the Los Angeles area since 1969.

In whatever language, all of the festival’s players defy theater’s still-predominant codes of white, middle-class naturalism. The roster exemplifies what Trules, working with his associate director, Peggy Riley, has in mind for his outdoor show on the southeast corner of the Santa Monica Pier: “Very presentational, full of spectacle, amplified”--and not just electrically.

This even goes beyond Maria de Herrera’s concept when she took over as Santa Monica arts division administrator nearly a year ago. De Herrera, originally from Buenos Aires, was not only intent on consolidating into a single festival the various, often-scattered city-sponsored arts events presented under the rubric “SMARTS FEST,” but on placing that festival into a multicultural framework. (The new, improved festival, budgeted at just under $30,000, de Herrera notes, is more economical than SMARTS FEST.)

“We need to respond to the diversity of the Santa Monica community,” de Herrera notes, “and I’m not sure we did that in the past. What’s exciting is that the performers are thrilled about performing on the Westside: Most never had the opportunity before since they don’t live near here.”

Though the global roster hints that Trules is a curating international traveler, in fact, he only needed to curate by car: except for the mime troupe, every participant lives in Southern California. Trules has found on his freeway scouting that “there’s an incredible number of communities here, and each of them has a community expression of their arts.”

That expression goes far beyond some vague “multiculturalism.” De Herrera confesses that “our concept of theater was really Euro-centric, going into this. So when Eric offered, say, the Nigerian Talking Drum Ensemble, we wondered how this was theater.”

“I helped broaden the city’s intentions,” says Trules, “and explained to them that, in other cultures, theater integrates dance, music, ritual and storytelling. It goes beyond plays.”

Indeed, his visits to various multicultural theaters proved disappointing: “They had great shows, but they took place in living rooms. They wouldn’t work outdoors.”

Trules began to think in two directions for his festival. First was his love for spoken-word performance, which he has displayed in his various local performances, including “Down . . . but Not Out” and “W(Holes).” Indeed, he obtained the festival directorship partly based on his experience curating a spoken-word mini-festival during Los Angeles Festival’s opening weekend in San Pedro last year.

Second, he thought of another of that festival’s great discoveries: El Gran Circo de Chile, which served up their magically comic epics on the very pier where the new festival is taking place. El Gran Circo showed what a majestic theater site the pier could be, and Trules tried--futilely--to bring them back.

“There’s only one other group that does what they do,” he says, “and that’s the San Francisco Mime Troupe.”

Mime troupe dramaturge and primary playwright Joan Holden describes “Back to Normal” as “a play whose title has various meanings: the return of Jimmy, a hero of the Persian Gulf War, to his hometown of Normal, California; America going back to normal after the war; the rise of militarism as a return to the war machine’s old ways, and the morning-after feeling of having to pick up our lives and deal with the banking crisis, the homeless, the deficit.

“The response to this show has been huge. So we couldn’t pass up the offer to perform outdoors in L. A., even though we’re losing rehearsal days on our newly revised production, ‘I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle,’ scheduled to open at the San Diego Repertory on Oct. 15.”

Though the mime troupe’s agit-prop theater definitely props up the political left, Holden has noticed the irony of “Normal’s” tale of pro-war Jimmy versus his anti-war, conspiracy-sniffing mother: It’s the mother who leaves a bad taste. “Some of our fans,” she remarks, “have objected to the mother as too much of a kook. We’re trying to show both sides.”

Although spoken-word work is a specialty for Trules, he had never heard of Sims, until--in the word-of-mouth fashion that helped Trules forge the festival-- L. A. Theatre Works Director Susan Loewenberg dropped Sims’ name during a conversation.

Sims, 47, a busy performer not just in poetry dens but in clubs such as Al’s Bar, calls his frequently rhyming stories and verse “provocative without being offensive. Though for this crowd, I know I’ve gotta keep it around ‘PG.’ ”

He’s including a tale called “The Jazz Man,” about “a white trombone player who walks into a black jazz club and wins over the crowd. Another is ‘Big Screen, Small Talk,’ about how Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Clint Eastwood, when it comes down to it, can’t articulate. As one line goes, ‘I know talk is cheap, but y’all makes millions by saying absolutely nothin.’ ”

Francis Awe, a 39-year-old prince in the Yoruban tribe, lets his drums do the talking. The leader of Nigerian Talking Drum Ensemble (which includes five of his students, plus three dancers) is working on his master’s degree in UCLA’s African studies and ethnomusicology departments. He explains that his special percussion is “able to imitate the human voice. Everything we perform is music, but the important thing is its connection to life.

“Before newspapers and TV and telephones, drums were my people’s means of communication. You could send a message to another village two miles away, or send it to a distant village by relay. This distinguishes African culture from any other in the world.”

Another culture, halfway across the world in the northern fringe of the Philippine archipelago, has not only managed to preserve its ways in the wake of Spanish and American invaders, but bring it here in a kind of re-creation of village life. Bibak, a music-dance ensemble consisting of 130 extended family members who live in various parts of Southern California, won’t be seen on the 50-foot-wide festival stage, but in an open area allowing for audience participation.

Bibak spokesman Marshall Wamdag says the group wants “to correct what we feel are misrepresentations of our dances,” commercialized versions not true to these ancient pieces. Bibak’s program ranges from “Anin-nit,” based on a legend about hunters mimicking the dancing of fairies and elves they discovered in a forest, to “Todok,” involving six gong players and six dancers. Like all of the festival’s ritual-based groups, Bibak provides explanatory narration for the uninitiated.

Leading the procession that kicks off the two-day bash, Ballet Folclorico do Brasil plans to whip across the stage with a showcase of (primarily) dances from Brazil’s Bahia region. “It’s a very rich cultural area,” says the ballet’s director, Joselito Amen Santos. “We’ll include a dance from Carodomble, an Afro-Brazilian religion that’s close to Santeria, and Capoeira, a martial-arts dance that’s also Afro-Brazilian.”

Not satisfied with this cultural stew, Trules is planning for a food and crafts fair next to the performing area, to “encourage people to stay in the area all day, making for an international festival atmosphere.”

That is about as far as Trules will allow himself to go on “the vision thing,” though he does see the theme of freedom linking the work of the Shaluza Boot Dancers’ anti-apartheid songs, Jones’ portrayal of Baldwin’s civil rights saga, and even the culture-bending antics of Latins Anonymous, whose Rick Najera scoffs at the idea of keeping Latino culture “pure. That just means it remains stagnant. I want to take in from all the cultures out there.”

Trules’ sentiments exactly. On the eve of the festival, he is tending to such details as arranging blankets for the barefooted Bibak performers and soliciting volunteer banner-carriers for the opening procession. “Given my limited resources,” he says, “I went as far as I could to pull together this diverse a program. Sure, I do regret not getting the local Chinese opera troupe or a terrific ensemble called Great Leap.”

Hardened by his old performing days in New York (as a clown named Gino Cumeezi) and Chicago (leading the Mo Ming Dance Theatre), Trules reminds that “a festival doesn’t happen until the day of the festival. You spend three months of planning, driving, phoning and then, all of a sudden, there you are, without a net.”

Santa Monica Festival ’91 Schedule

Saturday

Noon: Opening procession

12:30 p.m.: Opening ceremonies with hosts Peter Bergman and Phil Proctor

12:45 p.m.: Nigerian Talking Drum Ensemble

1:30 p.m.: Bob Devin Jones

2 p.m.: Ballet Folclorico do Brasil

3 p.m.: San Francisco Mime Troupe

4:15 p.m.: Bibak

4:45 p.m.: Grass Roots Dance Theatre

5:15 p.m.: Latins Anonymous

Zenshuji Zendeko