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| Photo by Caleb Wertenbaker |
Composed and Written by Rinde Eckert
REDCAT
(631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles 90012)
Date of reviewed performance: January 25, 2012
Cast
Nathan - Rinde Eckert
Olivia - Nora Cole
Originally staged 12 years ago in New York , And God Created Great Whales began a limited run on Wednesday night that lasts only through the weekend. Created, composed, and performed by Rinde Eckert, this suitcase musical highlights Mr. Eckert’s strong vocals, piano and even ukulele skills. Aided onstage by the ethereal Nora Cole, the piece documents the struggle of Nathan, a composer with aggressive memory loss, as he completes his opera about Moby Dick. Amid a sea of post-it notes and antiquated cassette players, Nathan works against time, himself and occasionally his own muse.
Nathan is kept focused by a series of cassette tapes. One to remind himself of how far along he is in his work and what he must do to continue, one to record his thoughts, one to record his music, one to remind him of how his system of reminders works and so on...
Even though it sounds depressing, there are actually moments of funny – particularly early on. There’s some smart-crowd humor in the droll instructions coming from the ever present cassette players and some broad physical comedy in Nathan’s lumbering attempts at dance. As Nathan’s muse, Olivia, Nora Cole works just as hard onstage and is often more captivating. She is Nathan’s cheerleader, taskmaster and the last connection he has to his memories. However, quite late in the play Olivia begins to have her own agenda, desires and feelings – separate from Nathan. This is a bizarre and disruptive moment in the show because she is a product of Nathan’s imagination and her behavior isn’t organic to what’s come before. Frankly, it feels included just to give Ms. Cole her own solo. The song is lovely and Ms. Cole is an amazing singer but the whole scene is out of place.
While the concept is great and the show starts off strong, the songs start to sound the same after awhile and the production loses steam. Mr. Eckert jumps from song to song to song, displaying more of Nathan’s time in Herman Melville’s world than his own. There’s little concentration on the deterioration of the man himself and, thus, the emotional connection the audience expects to have by the finale never materializes.
And God Created Great Whales runs through January 28th at 8:30pm with an additional performance on January 29th at 3:00pm. Tickets runs between $20-$25 (Students $16) and can be purchased at the box office or through REDCAT's website. For more information, the box office can be reached at 213-237-2800.
Directed by David Schweizer
Produced by Susan Endrizzi Morris
Lighting Design by John Torres
Costume Design by Clint Ramos
Production Stage Manager: Scott Pegg





