Once the cast files in to sit on either side of designer Victoria Bello’s fragmented backstage set, manager Nacirema Naibun (Robert Clements) welcomes us. Charles Gilpin (Dwain A. Perry), an international sensation in O’Neill’s drama in 1920, is appearing one last time as the Emperor Jones.

With a dressing room shift, we follow Gilpin’s 11-year passage from stardom to alcoholic obscurity –  replaced by the emerging Paul Robeson (Jah Shams) after clashing with O’Neill (Jonathan Palmer) over his script’s use of the N-word.  Throughout, the action revisits a key scene from “Jones,” which accrues wider relevance by the eulogizing ending.

Director Ben Guillory has some bright ideas:  a pool hall depicted solely by lighting designer Phil Kong and sound designer Eric Butler; an overhead solo of “Nobody” from Bert Williams (Ted Wynn); various onlooker reactions.

The actors, smartly attired in costumer Naila A. Sanders’ period wear, are capable, with Perry’s commitment self-evident, his colleagues all on the same page. Michael Kass, Kellie Roberts, Ibrahim Saba and Peter Trencher complete their competent ranks.

Johnson’s writing is technically proficient, albeit a shade over-compressed and academically explicated. The work’s brevity almost impedes the larger statement of Gilpin’s story. Even so, “The Emperor’s Last Performance” is hardly inconsiderable, and not just for its historical significance.

– David C. Nichols

“The Emperor’s Last Performance,” Los Angeles Theatre Centre, Theatre 4, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 pm. Saturday, 3 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Ends Sunday. $30. (213) 489-0994, Ext. 107, or www.thelatc.org. Running time:  1 hour, 15 minutes.

Photo: Jonathan Palmer, left, and Dwain A. Perry. Credit: Ed Krieger.

via LA Times

by Ryan Vaillancourt
Published: Friday, March 26, 2010 4:42 PM PDT

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES – The central conflict in the Robey Theatre Company’s The Emperor’s Last Performance revolves around a racial slur, a word whose use is as controversial now as it was during the 1920s, when the world premiere is set.

Against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance, the play centers on African-American actor Charles Gilpin and his personal battle with the n-word.

“Some things never change,” said Ben Guillory, artistic director and co-founder of the Robey Theatre Company, a resident company of the Historic Core’s Los Angeles Theater Center for the past three years.

Guillory, who also directs The Emperor’s Last Performance, knows that the play is first and foremost a period piece that strives to be true to a cast of real life characters, from Gilpin to playwright Eugene O’Neill to Paul Robeson, the luminary for whom the Robey is named. But if the cultural references in Melvin Ismael Johnson’s script reflect 1920s New York, some of its themes are just as relevant in 2010 Los Angeles.

“In the context of the play, that word and the use of it and who should use it if anyone, and who shouldn’t, is discussed in depth,” Guillory said.

The play chronicles Gilpin’s role as Brutus Jones in O’Neill’s play The Emperor Jones. In O’Neill’s work, Gilpin is sent to jail after killing another man in a fight. He later escapes from prison and moves to a tropical island, where he cons the locals into making him the emperor, though he must flee when the natives rebel.

Johnson’s piece, however, focuses on the relationship between Gilpin and the white playwright O’Neill, who wrote the racial slur intoThe Emperor Jones more than 30 times.

“These days O’Neill would have been considered a racist, but back then, he was doing courageous work,” said Guillory.

Ultimately, the Robey production deals with Gilpin’s objection to using the slur in the performance, and the consequences he faces for challenging O’Neill.

“The motives are suspect as to why it’s used so often when it’s written by a white man, and Charles challenges that,” Guillory said. “Then there are questions about the way he challenges.”

Earning the Stage

The Robey Theatre Company’s residency at the LATC coincides with its playwrights program. The effort is helping 18 writers develop works for the stage.

The Emperor’s Last Performance is one of three Robey productions scheduled for 2010 at the LATC. All are products of the playwrights program, Guillory said.

Founded by Guillory and actor Danny Glover 16 years ago, the Robey Theatre Company’s mission is to produce works that deal with the African American and black experience worldwide.

“This playwrights’ process is really about developing new work that deserves production, so the fact that we’re doing three world premieres this year, it’s because the work that’s coming out of the program is just deserving of production,” he said.

The Emperor’s Last Performance runs Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 and 7 p.m. It runs through April 4 at the LATC, 514 S. Spring St., thelatc.org. Ticket information at (213) 489-0994, ext. 107, or robeytheatrecompany.com.

Spring Season

The Emperor’s Last Performance kicks off the spring season at the LATC. The series of plays running at the venue’s four theaters has been dubbed “East of Broadway,” for its location a block east of L.A.’s own Broadway. On the docket are:

April 16-May 16: In Erik Patterson’s Sick, Pamela keeps digging herself deeper into a world of hypochondria.

May 1-30: In Dementia, a production of the resident Latino Theater Company, Moe has a going away party because he’s dying of AIDS.

May 7-June 6: 1951-2006 is a 50-year love story centered on the fourth floor of a brownstone on the east side of Manhattan.

June 18-27: The Robey Theatre Company returns with Transitions, written by Kellie Roberts. The three short plays deal with ordinary people struggling with a call from God.

June 19: The Slumber of Reason is a new dance theater piece developed and produced by the Latina Dance Project. It springboards off prints by Francisco de Goya.

via Los Angeles Downtown News

Gilpin’s irritation and growing discomfort over O’Neill’s persistent use of “the N word” in his play is the focus of Johnson’s fascinating drama; the scene where actor confronts playwright and forces him to defend his artistic choices is one of the highlights. There’s a terrific scene where stage reality blends with real life to a nightmarish degree. You have to admire Johnson for brevity in an era when most plays are overwritten, but at 75 minutes the piece could use a little more fleshing out. Instead of overemphasis on Gilpin’s boozing—which eventually costs him the star-making role—the actor’s early days as a minstrel might be explored.

Dwain A. Perry is captivating as Gilpin in this Robey Theatre Company presentation, conveying the entertainer’s distinctive personalities on and off stage. Robert Clements (as his manager, Naibun), Jonathan Palmer (as O’Neill) and Jah Shams (as Robeson) offer strong support, as do the others in the ensemble, under the careful direction of Ben Guillory—who co-founded Robey with actor Danny Glover circa 1996. Call 213-489-0994, ext. 107.

Seeking further information on Gilpin, I turned to “The A to Z of American Theatre: Modernism” by James Fisher and Felicia Hardison Londre, newly available in paperback from Scarecrow Press. (It’s easier to look things up in Wikipedia, of course, but the info can’t be trusted.) The entry on Gilpin is relatively short—we do learn he became a director in 1916 for the Lafayette Players, NYC’s first black stock company in a century.

More illuminating s is the summary of “The Emperor Jones” and the demon-plagued title character. The entry for African American Theatre is fascinating, with its details on such little known entities as the Astor Place Company of Colored Tragedians, founded in 1884. The 570-page tome covers virtually every aspect of American theatre in the age of modernism from 1880 to 1930, including economics, sexuality, religious drama, vaudeville, the Moscow Art Theatre, and the Yiddish Theatre.

via Examiner

LATC Theatre 4
General Admission: $30
Students: $20

“We talk to the founder of the acclaimed Latino Theater Company about the details of the organization, their upcoming season (and beyond), and their new L.A. Art Walk events.”

via LX.TV