600

Week 85: Los Angeles, CA

When I embarked upon this journey, I never imagined that I would be reaching my 600th performance as Sir Robin, but here it is. I have been counting the shows in hundreds, but following this week I will only have another 70-odd performances, and nine performance weeks, to go. It truly is the final stretch. I don't feel blue about this, or anxious. I actually just feel proud--a real sense of accomplishment for not only the work I have done, but the growth I have achieved as a person in the past nearly 20 months. I am sure I will be reflecting a lot on this in the weeks to come. Truth is, the adventures continue. I am meeting so many fascinating new people, reconnecting with folks from all the different chapters of my life to date, and finding out new things about myself as I go along. LA is an education in many ways and has given me a new outlook in terms of what is possible for me as a working actor; a new sense that there are many more choices available to me than I had imagined.

I started the week with a relaxing day off in the Pacific Palisades/Malibu area. I took a nice drive to the Getty Villa first. The site of the Villa was purchased by J. Paul Getty in 1945 and served as the location of the original Getty Museum.
In 1968, Getty decided to build a reproduction of a 1st century Roman country house, the Villa dei Papiri, on this stunning property overlooking the Pacific in Malibu. It now houses Getty's magnificent collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, and has been expanded to incorporate not only the stunning villa, but a beautiful outdoor amphitheatre, a lovely cafe, and gorgeously landscaped grounds and formal gardens. The marbles, the mosaics, the olive groves and lush plantings of roses and exotic plants, and the collection itself--replete with magnificent specimens of ancient sculpture, gems and jewelry, and rare artifacts, all make for a feast for the senses. The featured exhibits during my visit included a special showing of a rare Etruscan bronze sculpture, the Chimaera of Arezzo, which once was the centerpiece of the Renaissance collection of the great Medici family; also a marvelous exhibition of golden artifacts unearthed relatively recently from an excavation of the graves of the nobility of the ancient kingdom of Colchis (which was the destination of Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the golden fleece). The artistry and imagination of these ancient civilizations was the foundation for what we now think of as Western culture. I was especially delighted by the gallery dedicated to Dionysos and the great theatre tradition of ancient Greece.

From ancient relics to contemporary creations. On Thursday I took myself to the MOCA, or Museum of Contemporary Art, in downtown Los Angeles. The museum is currently running an exhibit of choice pieces from the permanent collection as well as recent acquisitions. I have to say that I feel that contemporary art is a mixed bag. It seems that creating something beautiful and aesthetically pleasing is old hat. Most of the very new pieces at MOCA seem to me to be more political or personal statements, many of them appropriating everyday objects and presenting them in an ironic fashion in order to amuse, shock, provoke thought,or simply provoke. Some of them are interesting, others startling, and some just rather juvenile and confrontational in a way that lacks thought or subtlety. Fortunately, amidst the crumpled pieces of foam rubber and upended commodes were some real masterpieces of modern and contemporary art. MOCA owns some wonderful early Lichtensteins and Warhols, showing the pop masters as they found their voices and before they polished up their styles; they have Jackson Pollock's first, revolutionary spatter canvas, Number One, from 1949; and for me, the most beautiful and exciting part of the current exhibition was a gallery full of canvases by Mark Rothko. Rothko is considered a pioneer of abstract expressionism in painting, although he himself rejected this classification. Like many modernist painters in his circle, he was inspired by primitive art and he felt that it all started with color. His mature works are large fields of color and light; rectangular blocks of contrasting hues that seems to bleed, glow, expand and deepen as you look at them. As much a fan of Baroque art as I am, I really love Rothko. His paintings seem to breathe and express a primal sense of emotional depth and a fascination with space.

And so, lest you think that LA is all red carpet events, botox injections and anorexic starlets, there is a real presence here of art and culture--and I am so glad I got a taste of it this week. My time here has also been enhanced by the reemergence of old friends and fellow students from college and grad school days who live here and have reconnected with me. It's been really great to see these people and learn about the great lives they have made for themselves out here. I hope you are enjoying the dog days of summer, wherever you are. Until next time.