[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of The Road Theatre Company’s Sleeping Giant, written by Steve Yockey (Mercury, The Flight Attendant) and directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky (Mercury, The Civil Twilight).
We find ourselves in strange times. And strange times must call for art to reflect that strange in beguiling, powerful and sometimes terrifying ways. It’s imperative, in fact, that we are reminded that normal is no longer present and that we are all existing in some kind of dark parallel timeline rapidly dissolving around us.
Sleeping Giant is a play that beautifully, guilefully and with plenty of gratefully received humor, vividly reflects our present fever dream/nightmare. But it does this cunningly, using an ancient lake monster accidentally woken by an obnoxious wedding proposal framed by a colossal and mostly illegal fireworks display at a cabin by the lake. How fitting then that this painfully over-the-top, unnecessary and ridiculously unwanted spectacle should cause the unravelling of us all…
The story of the consequences of the shaking awake of this massive beast is told in a series of vignettes. Various characters living in the lakeside community, going about their business, trying to ignore the disturbances, disappearances, cultish behavior, and giant ghoulish monster feeding on the locals. They argue, panic, comply and die as the atmosphere deepens and the population dwindles. Those who believe the monster is a god willingly give themselves over to trumped-up reasons for sacrifice, while those with more lucid intellects try to leave as quickly and quietly as possible…to varying results.
Is it a fable? Is it a prophecy? Is it our ultimate soggy destiny? Perhaps it is all three. But, I rather see it as a warning to pay attention and stay away from large, loud and unnecessary acts. What happens in our world is always cyclical. We rise and fall on the whims and fancies of a few powerful men and humans seem to desperately need something outside of themselves to believe in – however violent and nonsensical and ultimately destructive a journey that becomes.
Steve Yockey is a brilliant writer with a whimsical emotionally abstract lens on the world. His plays are always threaded with magic, woven with playful truths and completely unforgettable. Sleeping Giant is another gem of a play. With characters as vibrant and real as the darkness of the subject matter. Do we really need lake monsters to awaken to remind us how terrible we can be to each other? Is our fate so completely predestined that we are beyond escape? How can we change our curses into serendipity?
This absolutely wonderful play, full of truisms and intellectual twists and turns, gives these fine actors the kind of scope of play that one would imagine they dream of, each of them rising to the occasion, utterly embodying every warped and twisted soul. They are subtle and skillful and nuanced and believable, even as they play with the horror of the journey we are all on.
As usual, Ann Hearn Tobolowsky deftly guides the progress with an almost invisible hand. Presenting this funny and frightening tale to the audience as if it were the most natural thing in the world to wake up a creature from an icy lake with an eye as big as a house.
The Road Theatre always gifts us the sublimest of stories. It’s as if they seek out only the plays that open up the human code and poke it around a bit. Daring us to see ourselves up close in all our glory and misery. Making a record of the absurdities of life and filling our heads with the magic of the universe.
Sleeping Giant is another gorgeously wrought deeply inspiring play. They are surely the most cerebral theatre company in Los Angeles. And I for one am so grateful to always have so much to fill my head with every time I am lucky enough to see their plays…this play has stayed with me and I know it will remain for weeks to come. Unusual, quixotic, vivid and deeply human, Sleeping Giant is unmissable. Bravo!!!
Tickets:
https://ci.ovationtix.com/35065/production/1223820
When:
January 17-February 23
Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm; Sundays at 2pm
Where:
10747 Magnolia Blvd, NoHo Arts District, CA 91601
The Cast
Sleeping Giant features: Jacqueline Misaye as “The Naif,” Eric Patrick Harper as “The Raconteur,” Justin Lawrence Barnes as “The Messenger,” and Andrea Flowers as “The Convert.”
The Creative Team
STEVE YOCKEY (Playwright) is a Los Angeles-based writer. His plays Pluto, Bellwether, Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, Subculture, Cartoon, Very Still & Hard to See, Blackberry Winter, The Thrush & The Woodpecker, The Fisherman’s Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, Niagara Falls, Reykjavík, Sleeping Giant, Subculture, and Curiosities are published and licensed by Concord Theatricals. He holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Steve recently adapted the NYT Times Bestseller The Maid by Nita Prost into a film for Universal Studios and is working on the horror comedy Violent Shimizu Wants Revenge for Sister Studio. In television, he was a co-executive producer on the series Supernatural and is the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated creator/showrunner of HBO Max’s darkly comedic thriller The Flight Attendant. He is also the creator/showrunner of Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives, adapted from the cult Vertigo/DC comic.
ANN HEARN TOBOLOWSKY (Director) recently directed the World Premiere of Shem Bitterman’s The Civil Twilight at The Broadwater Theater in Hollywood. Previously at The Road Theatre: Mercury by Steve Yockey, Scintilla, by Alessandro Camon and Through the Eye of a Needle by Jami Brandli. In 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, Ann directed Reykjavík by Steve Yockey at The Road, which was filmed live, going on to win the award for Best Stage Play at the Swedish International Film Festival and Ediplay International Film Festival. She has directed numerous readings for The Road’s festivals. At Theatre 40: The Half Light, Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Silent Sky, Good People, As Good As Gold, Bus Stop, Holy Days, Driving Miss Daisy, and Another Part of the Forest. For Skylight Theatre, play readings by Shem Bitterman, Wendy Kout, Anna Mathias.
The Design Team
Scenic Design by Katrina Coulourides; Lighting Design by Derrick McDaniel; Projection Design by Ben Rock; Sound Design by David B. Marling; Costume Design by Mylette Nora, and the Properties Design by Scottie Nevil. The Production Stage Manager is Maurie Gonzalez. SLEEPING GIANT is produced by Danna Hyams and Taylor Gilbert.