UCLA Live has dropped its theatre programming. Well, not willingly; UCLA administration has cut theatre from the series’ budget.

This is tragic, because for nearly a decade, UCLA Live has consistently programmed the best performance series in town — and many of the highlights have been theatre. It’s the only place that the Berliner Ensemble played in the U.S. (in a production of “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” that still haunts me); it’s where I discovered The Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio and saw the astonishing “Genesi — From the Museum of Sleep,” which melded placid dream sequences with the twitching disturbances of a David Lynch or Nine Inch Nails; it’s where the Dubliners came over to play Beckett, where “Shockheaded Peter” had its American playdates, where Robert Wilson and Merce Cunningham and David Thomas did things that I’m not sure were theatre or dance or music or performance or what, but which were always mesmerizing. It’s where The National Theatre of Scotland performed their U.S. premiere of “The Black Watch.”

But no more. Dance, music and the lectures series remain intact. “What they’ve done is cut everything related to theater,” Sefton explained.

I don’t know where else in Los Angeles — in Los Angeles! — that one will be able to see this sort of work. No one else brings in shows like this, shows that require enormous theatrical training, often very specialized sets and pieces, and large budgets. At the point at which all the theatre becomes just two-character plays — or, God help us, nothing but solo shows — then there really will be no reason to leave your couch.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 9th, 2010 at 12:42 am and is filed under Theatre, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.