Art is an illusion.
What shimmers across the surface can barely evoke the roiling factors hidden beneath; thus, a piece comes to mean much more than it presents. The same can be said for people, always painting a certain picture, whistling a specific tune, or telling a slanted story.
PCPA, now known as the Pacific Conservatory Theatre, explores these elusive themes in the last production of its anniversary season, 36 Views by Naomi Iizuka. The play takes its title from Japanese artist Hokusai, whose original set of famous woodblock prints of Mt. Fuji offered 36 different depictions of the iconic mountain seen from a variety of places and distances. The elusive and seductive power of art thematically drives the story that explores colliding cultures, romance, greed, and jealousy.
The play opens with Darius Wheeler, art dealer extraordinaire. Or, at least, that’s how the character depicts himself in the opening monologue. PCPA resident artist Andrew Philpot plays Wheeler’s bravado with a subtle smugness that will keep you suspicious of the character all the way to the last curtain.
As he weaves his tall tale about winning rare art in far away places, the play’s simple set begins to reveal a certain fluidity.
A wooden floor is all that adorns the Severson Theatre’s open space for this production, and sliding Japanese shoji walls provide a partition for the backstage area. In a brilliant exhibition of melding set design with technology, the translucent paper of the shoji walls act as a medium for projected images, adding another dimension for the story to plunge into.
Wheeler, it turns out, was gloating to art historian Setsuko Hearn (Jully Lee) in his art gallery space, trying to woo the young scholar with his knowledge of ancient Japanese art. PCPA ensemble actors garbed in black ninja gear silently move a series of wooden boxes into place as the scene solidifies out of abstraction. Wheeler and Hearn begin discussing pieces of sculpture while starting at the blank, empty surfaces of the boxes. Bright, glittering images of the sculptures being discussed are projected onto the shoji wall behind the actors.
The entire room becomes a shifting, changing thing that plays along with the characters who move the story. The resulting outcome of scenic designer DeAnne Kennedy, lighting designer Michael Klaers, and projection designer Adam Flemming’s collaboration is nothing short of magical.
The play slips in and out of abstract scenes that include cryptic poetry and ominous lighting effects. It’s in this ethereal way that we first meet John Bell (George Walker), who is Wheeler’s brainy assistant. Bell is broken from a meditative trance by Claire Tsong (Leah Anderson), who is also employed by Wheeler for her skills in art restoration. It isn’t long before we learn that, while Bell is content with his job under Wheeler’s thumb, Tsong is not. A convoluted past with the cutthroat art dealer has more than art restoration on Tsong’s mind, but she requires Bell’s help to exact revenge.
Things become even more convoluted when a mysterious blonde woman (Karin Hendricks) hires Wheeler for an obviously illegal job.
When Wheeler takes the gig, the audience is left to wonder: “Who is calling whose bluff?” But it’s when Wheeler is seduced by the hope of an artifact that can in turn help him seduce Hearn, that the waters become truly muddied.
In performances fleshed with nuance, each actor provides his or her character with a depth of emotion, so much so that one can hardly guess the true intent of each. Supplemented by the active set and lighting design, which included trailing words across a wall and water flowing on the floor, each word comes to mean more, alluding to the shadowy realm that motivates these characters.
PCPA’s production of 36 Views reminds us that the illusion may, in fact, be completely authentic.
Arts Editor Joe Payne can’t be tricked. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 2, 2014.