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LOS ANGELES TIMES
'Unrelenting Relaxation' Looks at WWII Sex Slaves and 'October' Is Haunted by Lee Harvey Oswald
"Don't know much about history," Sam Cooke sang in 1960, speaking then and now for most Americans. Amanda DeMaio and Brook Stowe didn't know or care much about writing historical plays--until inspiration hit them in very different yet equally unexpected ways. The result: Two historical dramas that open this weekend in small Orange County theaters. DeMaio's play, "Unrelenting Relaxation," is about five women trying to waken the world to the nightmare that befell them as "comfort women," sex slaves to the Japanese military during World War II. By telling their long-hidden stories in documentary-like remembrances a half-century after the fact, they aim to purge themselves, win redress and warn their beholders against what nations and individuals can do when they go to war.
... DeMaio, 30, is a company member of Stages, the small theater in Fullerton where "Unrelenting Relaxation" first was seen in 1995. The writer-director is reviving the show at the Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills with three members of the original cast. Six years ago, the Fullerton resident was stunned by a "Dateline NBC" report on comfort women. From 1932 to the war's end in 1945, these captives were held in "Houses of Relaxation," where they were serially raped, day in and day out, by processions of Japanese soldiers. Why hadn't she heard of this sordid and pitiable patch of history before? Others needed to know about it too, DeMaio decided. And the story would have strong roles for women, one of her main playwriting objectives. DeMaio turned to the Internet for accounts of surviving comfort women. She said the materials were sketchy then--not until 1991 had long-silent victims begun to come forward with their testimony in hopes of winning apologies and reparations from the Japanese government. Since "Unrelenting Relaxation" was first produced, several books have been published on the subject. Museum exhibits; the documentary films "Murmuring" and "Habitual Sadness;" and a 1999 play, "Hanako," which premiered in 1999 in Los Angeles, have shed further light on the episode. Most accounts deal with the Korean women and other Asians who made up the vast majority of the estimated 200,000 enslaved by the Japanese. However, some were Europeans captured in Asian territories conquered by the Japanese or captives sent from Europe by Japan's ally, Nazi Germany. The "Dateline" story DeMaio saw was about Europeans, and she decided to write about European characters. There was a practical consideration, in that most of the actresses she was writing for at Stages were white. DeMaio does not think she is co-opting an Asian story by focusing on white women who went through the same horrors. "If there are concerns like that . . . it's more important that the story be understood and known."
... DeMaio's dramatic methods are more traditional and straightforward, although audiences will have to make an imaginative leap concerning the characters' ages: It is set in the present, but instead of aged survivors recounting long-ago events, we see their younger selves talking as if the horrors had just happened. Their stories come out in fragmented bits of monologue that overlap and interweave. A full understanding of what happened builds slowly and incrementally as the play goes on. DeMaio doesn't get bogged down in historical information about dates and places and the politics and logistics of the atrocity; her thrust is to show who these women were before the war, what befell them, and what toll was taken of each one's sense of wholeness and humanity. "There is nothing that has ever happened that history will not justify," one of the survivors says bitterly near the end. DeMaio hopes her play will make it harder for ignorance to provide a cover for the bogus justifications and denials we've come to expect from Holocaust apologists. She wants to jolt audiences into awareness, just as the television news report six years ago left her startled that she could have been ignorant of such an enormity. "I hope that there's a recognition that things like this happen," she said, "and that things happen all around you and you may have no idea."
---Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2001
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LOS ANGELES TIMES
For many out-of-town vacationers, the days leading up to New Year's Eve last month might have seemed like the end of the world: Disneyland, because the park was packed, turned away visitors. But unlike Clark Griswold, the long-suffering hero of "National Lampoon's Vacation," no one forced his way into the park at BB gunpoint. A crisis was averted because there is much more to Anaheim than Disneyland and Disney's new California Adventure. Anaheim is home to two professional sports teams, a burgeoning music scene, delicious regional and international cuisine and a lot of alternative attractions as well.
...On the Fringe
Still within the city, though a little off the beaten path, are even more amusements for folks of all ages. The Camelot Golfland amusement park (3200 Carpenter Ave., [714] 630-3340) has go-carts, batting cages, a maze, water slides, a huge arcade and a pizzeria. RockCity Climbing Center (5100 E. La Palma Ave., Suite 108, [714] 777-4884) is a popular place for kids and adults to scramble up walls without hurting themselves or the furniture. And the Chance Theater (5576 E. La Palma Ave., [714] 777-3033) is a 70-seat playhouse dedicated to the development of original plays, but still knows how to put on a fun Gilbert and Sullivan musical.
---Chris Ceballos, Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2001
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AOL DIGITAL CITY
The Chance Theater, a quiet and unassuming little building in Anaheim, offers theater lovers a great getaway from their usual entertainment fare. Offering versions of famous plays, as well as world premieres, this small theater gets talented actors and directors working for the best reason of all: they truly love what they are doing. Additionally, they are always on the lookout for new talent and plays, and have a very liberal submission policy for local artists. The acoustics and sight lines are very good throughout the theater, and the plays themselves range from the conventional to the outrageous.
-- Daniel Bernstein, AOL Digital City, May 18, 2001
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ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
ARTS: If you present theater of quality, the audiences will come, company directors agree. The challenges for O.C.'s small stages lie elsewhere.
Anyone who has lived in Orange County for a while knows that the old, L.A.-promulgated image - it's a sun-drenched, culture-starved suburb populated by surfers, political extremists and people with mouse-ears on their heads - died a welcome death long ago.
Among the county's assets are a nationally respected theater company, a superbly designed performing arts center with a renowned dance season, and an opera company and symphony orchestra with rising reputations. But a community's commitment to the arts isn't measured simply by counting the number of jewels in its cultural crown. A more accurate measure can be taken by examining what's happening at the grass-roots level. How do the county's cities and towns treat home-grown talent planted in their own back yards? Are we ardent supporters of the arts on a local level, or merely big-name junkies who can't be bothered with anything that's not showing at one of the county's performing-arts temples? If the theater scene is an accurate indicator, then our support for culture is more than skin-deep, though the relationship is not without its problems.
At a round-table meeting last month, the artistic administrators of five small but serious-minded theater companies agreed that there's a ready market for challenging, intelligent work at the community level - if certain familiar demons such as rental costs, marketing challenges and volunteer burnout can be kept at bay. Everyone made clear that one of Orange County's most attractive characteristics is that it is emphatically not L.A. - and vive la difference. "There are about 300 theaters up there," said Brian Kojac of Fullerton's Stages. "I did the L.A. thing, and it's like doing theater in hell. Most of the people (coming to shows) were out-of-work actors searching for a theater company to hook up with between TV auditions. So the audience wasn't theater-goers, they were theater-doers looking for their next job."
Kojac's lament highlights an age-old complaint about L.A.'s smaller theaters: they're nothing more than platforms for actors to be viewed by agents, producers and other Industry power brokers. Everyone agreed that TV and film dominate theater to an unacceptable degree in the world capital of mass- market entertainment. Orange County's theater scene, on the other hand, is graced by artists with long- term connections to the place. To them, the stage is a career, not a means to a different end. "I've lived and worked in Orange County most of my life," said Wade Williamson of Vanguard Theatre Ensemble, another Fullerton company. "When I went to school here, all (my friends) were looking for a place locally where they could get some work. That's the main reason our company has been here for so long (Vanguard is in its 10th season). Most of our members are local and want to stay here." Companies such as Vanguard have developed a local fan base as well, Williamson said. "Most of our audience comes from within a 10-mile radius of the theater. Some people come from south county and a few travel down from L.A. once in a while, mainly to see friends on stage, but the bulk of our audience is subscribers coming from our neighborhood."
"Nobody in my company really wants to travel up to L.A. to do theater," adds Mark Palkoner of Hunger Artists Theatre Company, a Santa Ana troupe. "It's all about accessibility. We want to stay where we're comfortable and where we feel we can have the best possible productions." Orange County's college and university theater programs have acted as incubators, drawing talent together and creating personal and professional relationships that last well past graduation. Most of the members of Hunger Artists are from Orange Coast College, as is Dave Barton of Santa Ana's Rude Guerrilla Theater Company. Others went to Fullerton College, California State University, Fullerton, or the University of California, Irvine - three large and respected theater programs. "There are plenty of good people coming out of local (theater) schools," Barton said. "Finding talented and willing actors isn't a problem."
Half a house is heaven
Aesthetically, the five theaters are surprisingly diverse. Stages offers a mixture of original scripts, familiar names and titles and more obscure work. Anaheim Hills' Chance Theater specializes in new plays. Rude Guerrilla, on the other hand, seldom debuts new work ("I can't find anything by local playwrights that excites me," Barton said), preferring to produce plays with challenging, often controversial themes; some of its productions, such as Terrence McNally's "Corpus Christi," hold special interest for the county's gay community.
About the only issue these five stages share is economics. They all struggle - some more successfully than others - to reconcile artistic and financial imperatives. "Right now a big priority is trying to pay the bills," said Chance Theater's Oanh Nguyen. "And we're trying to find a balance between what we started with and what, financially, makes sense and will keep us open. We started with a season that was something like 15 original plays. I think we made $15." This season, Chance will offer 14 plays, nine of them original works. "Financially, things are much better, but we're still in debt," Nguyen said.
Most administrators agreed that finding and producing work that satisfied them was easy compared to the Herculean task of marketing it successfully. Getting derrieres into paid-for seats is still a daunting task, even though none of the five companies has more than 70 or 80 seats to fill for each performance. Corporate and public grants are almost nonexistent for groups of this size; they're kept afloat by box-office revenues, donations and massive volunteer effort. "Finding a way to advertise your shows, to somehow get the word out to the right people, that's really hard," Williamson said. "We haven't changed our marketing tactics one iota in 10 years." Most small theaters don't have the resources to conduct even the most basic market research. Advertising is minimal.
For many companies, finding a reasonably priced performance space to rent in pricey Orange County is the other major financial challenge. Rude Guerrilla and Hunger Artists face steep increases in their monthly rents. Both companies may be forced to move from downtown Santa Ana, an area that has benefited from significant redevelopment in the past few years. Changing location carries an obvious risk: losing your fan base. Such, apparently, was the fate of Alternative Repertory Theatre. The respected, feisty Santa Ana company was 12 years old when it closed its Grand Avenue storefront in 1999 and took a hiatus while preparing to move to Santa Ana's Artists Village. But the upgrade of locale proved fatal. The new building's opening was delayed for months, and ART's plays never drew the crowds in Artists Village that the company had enjoyed in the old location. Despite its impressive new digs and a $50,000 grant from Irvine's BMC Software, ART closed its doors within months of reopening. Many theater administrators saw ART's demise as the sad consequence of another danger that threatens the county's small theaters: founder fatigue. "What did them in wasn't a lack of money or an audience," Kojac said. "If they'd worked at it, their fans would have returned. Why did they go out of business? Burnout. They lost their passion, their support group, the people that made the theater survive from day to day.
"I can identify with that. Sometimes it's very hard to slap a smile on and go into Stages each day. After nine years, I'm tired. But if other people who help keep the thing afloat don't have the passion to do it, we're going under. There's nothing I can do to stop it."
"You have to get a constant flow of new people coming in, or you're not going to make it," Williamson added. Like Kojac, he is worried about his company's future. "My ensemble is down to the lowest number (of volunteer members) it's ever been. There are only two or three of us who are doing everything."
While many administrators (particularly those from the older companies) expressed reservations about their theater's survival, nobody thought the county's audiences were to blame. "There's an undeniable hunger out there for good theater," Barton said. "It's nothing new; it's always been there." Kojac agreed. "People read reviews. People are looking for something worthwhile. Sometimes an audience likes a show but a reviewer doesn't. That can be deadly, but it means people are engaged in the scene. On the other hand, even a bad review can sell tickets if it's (accompanied by) an interesting photo."
"It doesn't take much to get us excited," Nguyen said. "Even half a house will do so much. Half a house will put passion into the artists on the stage. And, believe it or not, it will pay for everything. With half a house, we're in heaven."
--Paul Hodgins, Orange County Register, June 17, 2001 [top]
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ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
THE CHANCE
Oanh Nguyen and Chris Ceballos launched the company as Spare Change Productions in 1997, an outgrowth of the duo's "Theatre of Chance" from their days at Anaheim High School. The troupe, dedicated to the development and production of original plays, produced its first show in Orange in 1997 - an original about Gen-Xers (themselves), titled "Undeclared." In 1998, they landed a space in an industrial/commercial area of Anaheim Hills and set about converting it into a full- fledged theater. Century Cinemas donated 54 movie theater-style seats to the young troupe from its recently closed Cinedome. Dubbed The Chance Theater, the new venue opened its first show in late 1998 - another original, "Is Pepperoni a Vegetable?" In 1999, Spare Change presented 10 more shows, all originals. Six were under the banner of "Main Stage," four more as "Evolving Stage." Audience turnout was spotty, and by the season's end, the troupe awakened to the realization that its survival meant producing established plays. Spare Change did exactly that in 2000. Of its 14 new productions, five were well-known works such as "Ten Little Indians" and the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas "H.M.S. Pinafore" and "The Mikado." "Spare Change" now designates original works by troupe founders, while the theater and its shows are The Chance, which has 32 shows to its credit.
Highlights: "'The Stroop Report' was the first show that sold out a house," Nguyen says. "A dozen Holocaust survivors came to see the show, an original that we workshopped." The show drew audiences from as far away as New York. Its technical adviser was an actual Warsaw Ghetto survivor and guerrilla fighter against the Nazis.
--Eric Marchese, Orange County Register, June 17, 2001
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KTST FM RADIO
The Chance Theater is a small but dynamic local theater troupe that puts on well-designed, quality productions at a fraction of the cost of a Los Angeles or New York Broadway play. Don't let the lower cost fool you into thinking you're getting a lesser show, however. The members of this talented group are consummate professionals second to none, and whenever you come to the Chance for an evening's entertainment, you will be delighted to find performers who give you 110% every time you visit them. The theater focuses on the development and production of original plays.
--"Chief" Jack Hawk, KTST Radio, June 26, 2001
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NORTHERN LIGHTS
Orange resident Erika Ceporius sings, acts, dances and is an Anaheim Hills theater owner
Up until the age of three, Erika Ceporius pretty much just hung out around the house, doing nothing. From then on, however, this month's Northern Lights "Rising Star" was focused on a career in in show business. Born in Pasadena and currently residing in Orange, she is self-motivated, classically trained and hasn't let anything stand in her star-studded path!
The multi-talented Ceporius admits with a dimpled grin to "not being able to juggle or ride a unicycle!" Other than that, she seems to have everything else covered. "At the moment," Ceporius added demurely "I guess I would consider myself a singer first, an actress second and a dancer third." For this highly trained star-on-the-rise, that is just the tip of the performing iceberg.
As a singer, Ceporius has ranged from "Annie" (Camino Grove Auditorium) to opera ("Di Frau Ohnne Schatten," at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion). As an actress, she has wowed audiences and critics in such divergent roles as Shelby, in "Steel Magnolias," to Mabel, in "The Pirates of Penzance." And, as a dancer, this lithe 23-year-old keeps on her performing toes with 17 years of ballet instruction, jazz, tango and swing. Ceporius is a complete package, as a performer.
"Both my parents are musical and sing a little, so I guess I came by it naturally," Ceporius explained. "As a kid, I was always a little ham, singing and dancing all over the house." Her natural talent was recognized by her parents and, at three, she started ballet lessons. "My first recollection of being on stage was dressed up as an alligator, in "Peter Pan." She was, pardon the expression, "Hooked!"
"I always was a dancer that sang," Ceporius said. "Then, in high school, I injured my knee. While I was recovering, I just sort of drifted into the theater department. When I discovered musical theater, which allowed me to sing, dance and act, I thought this is what I want to do with my life."
Serious formal training came for Ceporius when she entered college. She studied musical theatre, at the Boston Conservatory, and theatre arts, at the University of Southern California. A semester was well spent in London, in the Shakespeare program at the British American Dramatic Academy and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
When asked what she considers to be her best work to date, Ceporius replied, " 'Steel Magnolias' was a phenomenal experience on many levels, while 'Penzance' was very fulfilling." Ceporius also received much critical acclaim as a featured soloist in "Broadway '98, directed by Fosse alumnus Ann Reinking, for the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
From "Damn Yankees" and "Sweeny Todd" to "Love Letters" and "The Diaries of Frankenstein" Erica Ceporius has poured her gentle heart and and determined soul into each role, with an ultimate eye on Broadway. In the mean time, Ceprius is fine tuning a local labor of love, as one of the founders, operators and acting mainstays of "The Chance Theater," in Anaheim Hills.
"Oanh Nguyen, remembered me from an earlier play we'd done together and asked me to audition (four years ago) for a "Spare Change Production" of 'Is Pepperoni A Vegetable?' I became more and more involved and ultimately the group of us started The Chance Theater." Increasingly more successful, the Chance hopes some day to be North Orange County's answer to the South Coast Repertory Theater. Ceporius also wrote a play, for the Chance, called "But I Don't Feel Like a Grown Up." "I have great new respect for writers after my first attempt," she said.
Currently Ceporius is in rehearsal for her role as Catherine, in "Pippin," opening August 10, at The Chance. When asked how she would like people to view her career in the future, Ceporius said, straight-faced, "I'd like to be considered as a consummate professional!" She then smiled with her trademark super model "pearly whites" and broke into a lovely musical laugh. I have news for you, Erika, that is how everyone views you now! Erika Ceporius, watch for that name: She's a singer, actress, dancer, writer, theater operator and now Northern Lights "Rising Star."
--Chris Creson, Northern Lights, July 12, 2001
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YORBA LINDA STAR
With terrorist attacks, gas prices on a roller coaster and a slumping economy, 2001 is not a year that will be remember fondly by most. For those of us lucky enough to live in north Orange County, however, a bright spot that has sustained our optimism and cheered our hearts has been the quality of entertainment on local stages. 2001 was a stellar year indeed. Just consider the following year-end recap of favorites.
Spare Change Productions of Anaheim Hills' Chance Theater had a big year, most notable being the double staging of "Unrelenting Relaxation". To author/director Amanda DeMaio foes my Best Writing & Directing Award, for her sensitive play about Japanese atrocities during World War II. The Best Ensemble Performance goes to the casts at both The Chance and Hollywood's Stella Adler Theatre: Patti Cumby, Kara Knappe, Mo Arii, Cynthia Ryanen, Nora Zimmett, Frank Tryon, Tracy Perdue, and Brandon Puleio.
...Finally, The Chance Theater, under Oanh Nguyen, wins the Nice Touch award for being considerate of those who actually pay the bills. After each show, the cast lines up in the lobby to meet, greet and than all those who came out to support the arts. And Rising Stars who were the Best of the Best this year include: Erika Ceporius, Chance Theater owner and ultimate pro, who does it all...
---Chris Creson, Yorba Linda Star, December 27, 2001
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ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
It's once again been a good year for theater in Souther California, with almost an embarassment of riches to choose from at the area's roughly three dozen theaters. The county's most prestigious regional theater, South Coast Repertory, had strong newly written shows in "Kimberly Akimbo" and "The Beard of Avon". Stalwart regional troupe Fullerton Civic Light Opera put up a new, Frank Wildhorn-sanctioned version of his Broadway hit, "Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical", while Grove Theater Center updated Wilde's satire "The Importance of Being Ernest" to the 1950s. In La Mirada, McCoy Rigby staged a moving "I Ought to Be In Pictures".
Among the county's smallest venues, The Chance Theater is also one of its most vastly improved, with a strong third season bolstered by "Unrelenting Relaxation", "The Angelina Project", "Confirmation", "Dragons in New York" and "Therese Raquin".
Fellow north county storefront theaters Stages and Vanguard Theater Ensemble had their share of fine work as well -- Stages with a dark, intense staging of "The Elephant Man"; a lighthearted new comedy, "Natural Selection"; and the dense, penetrating "Prophets, Profit, and William Blake". Vanguard scored with reliable character studies - "A View From the Bridge", "Foxfire", the rarely seen "Last Summer at Bluefish Cove" and "Lonely Planet".
Rude Guerilla Theater Company and the Hunger Artists Theater Company are keeping the Artists Village kicking with good theater. Rude G had a banner year of offbeat, in-your-face theater, from the very black comedies "Seach and Destroy" and "The House of Yes" to the harrowing "Shopping and F------" and Alex Luu's self-revelaing "Three Lives". Hunger Artists' plate included a riveting "Fool for Love" and "Voyeur", an original stage version of Hitchcock's "Rear Window".
Nearby Long Beach remains a stronghold of quality theater. Long Beach Playhouse continued its 73-year-history of durable work with "Present Laughter", "The Nerd" and Neil Simon's layered "Proposals" on its Main Stage and, in its 99-seater, "The Sum of Us", "Beast on the Moon" and "Mrs. Warren's Profession". Downtown, first-rate International City Theatre boasted a sturdy "View from the Bridge" and delightful stagings of "Honk!" and "A Servant to Two Masters", while California Repertory chose the riveting "Murder" and its seasonal "A O. Henry Christmas". At cavernous Carpenter Center, Musical Theatre West offered a Broadway-caliber version of "The Scarlet Pimpernel".
Closer to home, this reviewer hasn't forgotten the smaller community venues, which time and again prove their mettle. Newport Theatre Arts Center produced a gripping staging of the rarely seen Terence Rattigan drama "The Winslow Boy" and a glittering "Light Up the Sky", while Irvine Community Theater struck gold when it gave the part-romantic comedy, part-fantasy "All This and Moonlight" its Orange County premiere.
THE TOP 10
In no particular order, the 10 Best Plays of 2001:
..."Unrelenting Relaxation" (The Chance Theater): An intense look at a shameful, little-known chapter of World War II.
...Best Performances
Sigalit Solitto ("The Angelina Project")
Paul A. Castellano ("Lonely Planet")
...Best Direction
Amanda DeMaio ("Unrelenting Relaxation")
---Eric Marchese, Orange County Register, December 30, 2001
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