Furious Theatre Company

LA Weekly

Recommended

-Sandra Ross

A motley collection of pill-popping Teddy boys is the focus of Jez Butterworth’s Olivier Award–winning black comedy. It’s 1958, and Ezra’s Atlantic, a London rock & roll club with underworld ties, is drawing crowds with singing sensation Silver Johnny (Nick Cernoch). As Sweets (Eric Pargac) and Potts (Damaso Rodriguez) plot to exploit the singer, the club owner’s son, Baby (Shawn Lee), torments one of the employees, Skinny (Brad Price). After closing time, a speed-fueled card game ensues, and the office is a mess when assistant manager Mickey (James C. Leary) arrives the next day. But he has more to worry about than a messy workplace — Ezra is dead and Silver Johnny is missing. Sharply directed by Vonessa Martin, the all-male ensemble creates a believable picture of London lowlifes at the dawn of rock & roll. Lee dazzles as the mercurial Baby, alternately menacing and charming. Butterworth’s Cockney rhyming slang is expertly handled by the cast, thanks in part to voice and speech consultant Pamela Vanderway. Much of the dialogue is hilarious, but the subject is pitch black. Furious Theater Company at Armory Northwest, 965 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena; Fri.-Sun., 8:30 p.m.; thru March 23. (818) 679-8854. Written 3/6/03

Showmag.com
--Steve Hendrickson

Don’t fear the Furious. Instead, keep an eye out for this skilled ,cohesive and impressive new troupe that has set up shop in Pasadena’s Armory Northwest.

That name – Furious Theatre Company – may intimidate anyone who has sat through those over-the-top shows staged by green, youthful folks mistaking noise for drama. This troupe brings energy, but also craft, nuance, and an encouraging mastery of the details in its production of Jez Butterworth’s Mojo.

This is, in fact, the West Coast Premiere of Mojo, set in 1958 London, where underworld folks muscle in on the emerging rock n’ roll industry. As script, Mojo contains mild disappointments like other Olivier Award winners that have arrived in the West (are these really the best new works in the UK?), but this production never falters.

It begins with the hair. These would-be thugs are comically unsure underneath the bravado, and Christa McCarthy’s hair design tips us off that these folks, like their misdirected locks, don’t buy their own talk.

The talk, with its London underclass pretensions contained in odd metaphors, humorous homilies, and intentional inanities, holds us throughout, thanks to this cast. Damaso Rodriquez is the boastful Potts, Eric Pargac the less assured Sweets, and Brad Price the thoroughly spooked Skinny. We’re not so sure of the intentions of the apparent ring- leader Mickey (played by James C. Leary) or the unnerving Baby (played by Shawn Lee). Nick Cernoch is Silver Johnny, their Elvis-esque quarry.

Director Vonessa Martin ensures the production is lucid, articulate, so that we relish the wordplay, and attune ourselves to the hints of malice that indicate where these people might really be going. You may still be surprised.

Sara Hennessy designed the costumes, Shawn Lee the richly detailed set, complete with sequins, and a checkerboard floor carefully skewed into perspective.

Los Angeles Times
-- F. Kathleen Foley

Why Jez Butterworth's "Mojo" won the 1995 Olivier Award -- for best comedy, no less -- is anybody's guess. Brash, raw and violent, Butterworth's play about disenfranchised young Cockneys on the fringes of the early London rock 'n' roll scene is a bit of a mess, and only intermittently funny.

However, at the Armory Northwest in Pasadena, the Furious Theatre Company has a whacking wonderful time with Butterworth's diffuse and desultory period piece, which affords a grim yet fascinating peep into London's lower depths, circa 1958.

The play opens in the shabby upstairs office of Ezra's Atlantic, an inner-city nightclub. During intermission, Shawn Lee's terrific set transforms into the nightclub itself, working beer taps and all. Outside, it's high summer, but within these cold gray confines, you'd never know it. It's the perfectly claustrophobic atmosphere for these Dead End characters, trapped in Britain's unforgiving class system.

Silver Johnny (Nick Cernoch) is the play's McGuffin, the elusive object of everyone's ambition and desire. A brilliant teen rocker on the verge of stardom, Silver Johnny was "discovered" by Ezra, the club's pederastic owner. Now, Sam Ross, a ruthless mobster, is poaching on Ezra's preserves.

Ezra and Sam are never seen, but the bloody consequences of their altercation trickle down on the club's buffoonish underlings, Sweets (Eric Pargac), Sid Potts (Damaso Rodriguez), and Skinny (Brad Price). For Ezra's deeply disturbed son Baby (Lee), the violence triggers a psychic eruption. Yet for Mickey (James C. Leary), the club's paternalistic and deceptively nurturing assistant manager, the situation spells opportunity.

Director Vonessa Martin orchestrates the resulting mayhem crisply, if somewhat unevenly. Baby and Mickey are beautifully underplayed, while Sweets, Potts and Skinny are broadly comic caricatures -- an odd amalgam that doesn't always serve the play.

Still, it takes an intrepid company to tackle a piece this challenging, and the young Turks at the Furious Company are nothing if not daring. Voice and speech consultant Pamela Vanderway does her typically fine job overseeing the play's Cockney dialects, which are, on the whole, remarkably convincing.

Back Stage West
-- Laura Weinert

The Furious Theatre Company has a few things in common with this play: Both are the result of mammoth amounts of youthful, nervous energy channeling itself into something like art, and both have that veneer of hipness and daring that can be such a refreshing antidote to the conservative fare of moldier theatres. Mojo is Jez Butterworth's influential 1995 play about a group of 1950s working-class Teddy boys at the dawn of rock 'n' roll--a bleak world where pills, petty crimes, and violence provide the main entertainments. It's a play by a young playwright that feels like a play by a young playwright. At its best moments it is a fast-paced tennis match of expletives and cockney rhyming slang that is delightfully musical. At its worst it's a nihilistic portrait of a nihilistic world that doesn't seem to take us on a very meaningful trip. Though, of course, that's the point. Butterworth's thugs don't suddenly emerge as philosophers. They're thugs, plain and simple, start to finish. Mojo traps us and its characters inside Ezra's Atlantic, a second rate rock 'n' roll club, for a 24-hour period following the murder of the club's owner and the disappearance of its star act, Silver Johnny--evidently kidnapped by a rival music manager.

Language is the most exciting thing about his group of wannabe musical entrepreneurs, and this is an ensemble that absolutely masters the tough timing and subtle shifts required by a viciously demanding text, despite that some of the cockney accents seem like muddied cocktails of regional influences. Eric Pargac and Damaso Rodriguez are well cast as a tight-knit couple who complete each other's sentences. Rodriguez gets the snappier, more abrasive lines, yet Pargac's face registers reactions that are often the most exciting things onstage. Brad Price gives a brilliantly focused performance as the club's hyper-nervous employee, who'd just as soon get the hell out of there and go back to working with juke boxes.

James Leary handles the play's most difficult role with aplomb, the man-in-charge. We watch him barking marching orders to the group, patiently handling their constant immature flare-ups as a kind of father figure, only to discover that he is the darkest one of the bunch. Shawn Lee impressively handles another tough role: the club owner's abused/abusive child, who reacts to his father's death with a confused denial.

There are homoerotic moments in spades here, which are clearly delineated thanks to Vonessa Martin's clear-cut--if occasionally emotionally awkward--direction. Much of the interest comes from watching these pairs of male couples engage in petty power squabbles that flirt with--and finally culminate in--violence. Hats off to Sara Hennessy's excellent costuming, and kudos to whoever engineered the bloodbath at the play's end--vivid and disturbing as the characters themselves.


	*LA Weekly* *Recommended* -Sandra Ross A motley collection of pill-popping Teddy boys is the focus of Jez Butterworth’s Olivier Award–winning black comedy. It’s 1958, and Ezra’s Atlantic, a London rock & roll club with underworld ties, is drawing crowds with singing sensation Silver Johnny (Nick Cernoch). As Sweets (Eric Pargac) and Potts (Damaso Rodriguez) plot to exploit the singer, the club owner’s son, Baby (Shawn Lee), torments one of the employees, Skinny (Brad Price). After closing time, a speed-fueled card game ensues, and the office is a mess when assistant manager Mickey (James C. Leary) arrives the next day. But he has more to worry about than a messy workplace — Ezra is dead and Silver Johnny is missing. Sharply directed by Vonessa Martin, the all-male ensemble creates a believable picture of London lowlifes at the dawn of rock & roll. Lee dazzles as the mercurial Baby, alternately menacing and charming. Butterworth’s Cockney rhyming slang is expertly handled by the cast, thanks in part to voice and speech consultant Pamela Vanderway. Much of the dialogue is hilarious, but the subject is pitch black. Furious Theater Company at Armory Northwest, 965 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena; Fri.-Sun., 8:30 p.m.; thru March 23. (818) 679-8854. Written 3/6/03 *Showmag.com* --Steve Hendrickson Don’t fear the Furious. Instead, keep an eye out for this skilled ,cohesive and impressive new troupe that has set up shop in Pasadena’s Armory Northwest. That name – Furious Theatre Company – may intimidate anyone who has sat through those over-the-top shows staged by green, youthful folks mistaking noise for drama. This troupe brings energy, but also craft, nuance, and an encouraging mastery of the details in its production of Jez Butterworth’s Mojo. This is, in fact, the West Coast Premiere of Mojo, set in 1958 London, where underworld folks muscle in on the emerging rock n’ roll industry. As script, Mojo contains mild disappointments like other Olivier Award winners that have arrived in the West (are these really the best new works in the UK?), but this production never falters. It begins with the hair. These would-be thugs are comically unsure underneath the bravado, and Christa McCarthy’s hair design tips us off that these folks, like their misdirected locks, don’t buy their own talk. The talk, with its London underclass pretensions contained in odd metaphors, humorous homilies, and intentional inanities, holds us throughout, thanks to this cast. Damaso Rodriquez is the boastful Potts, Eric Pargac the less assured Sweets, and Brad Price the thoroughly spooked Skinny. We’re not so sure of the intentions of the apparent ring- leader Mickey (played by James C. Leary) or the unnerving Baby (played by Shawn Lee). Nick Cernoch is Silver Johnny, their Elvis-esque quarry. Director Vonessa Martin ensures the production is lucid, articulate, so that we relish the wordplay, and attune ourselves to the hints of malice that indicate where these people might really be going. You may still be surprised. Sara Hennessy designed the costumes, Shawn Lee the richly detailed set, complete with sequins, and a checkerboard floor carefully skewed into perspective. *Los Angeles Times* -- F. Kathleen Foley Why Jez Butterworth's "Mojo" won the 1995 Olivier Award -- for best comedy, no less -- is anybody's guess. Brash, raw and violent, Butterworth's play about disenfranchised young Cockneys on the fringes of the early London rock 'n' roll scene is a bit of a mess, and only intermittently funny. However, at the Armory Northwest in Pasadena, the Furious Theatre Company has a whacking wonderful time with Butterworth's diffuse and desultory period piece, which affords a grim yet fascinating peep into London's lower depths, circa 1958. The play opens in the shabby upstairs office of Ezra's Atlantic, an inner-city nightclub. During intermission, Shawn Lee's terrific set transforms into the nightclub itself, working beer taps and all. Outside, it's high summer, but within these cold gray confines, you'd never know it. It's the perfectly claustrophobic atmosphere for these Dead End characters, trapped in Britain's unforgiving class system. Silver Johnny (Nick Cernoch) is the play's McGuffin, the elusive object of everyone's ambition and desire. A brilliant teen rocker on the verge of stardom, Silver Johnny was "discovered" by Ezra, the club's pederastic owner. Now, Sam Ross, a ruthless mobster, is poaching on Ezra's preserves. Ezra and Sam are never seen, but the bloody consequences of their altercation trickle down on the club's buffoonish underlings, Sweets (Eric Pargac), Sid Potts (Damaso Rodriguez), and Skinny (Brad Price). For Ezra's deeply disturbed son Baby (Lee), the violence triggers a psychic eruption. Yet for Mickey (James C. Leary), the club's paternalistic and deceptively nurturing assistant manager, the situation spells opportunity. Director Vonessa Martin orchestrates the resulting mayhem crisply, if somewhat unevenly. Baby and Mickey are beautifully underplayed, while Sweets, Potts and Skinny are broadly comic caricatures -- an odd amalgam that doesn't always serve the play. Still, it takes an intrepid company to tackle a piece this challenging, and the young Turks at the Furious Company are nothing if not daring. Voice and speech consultant Pamela Vanderway does her typically fine job overseeing the play's Cockney dialects, which are, on the whole, remarkably convincing. *Back Stage West* -- Laura Weinert The Furious Theatre Company has a few things in common with this play: Both are the result of mammoth amounts of youthful, nervous energy channeling itself into something like art, and both have that veneer of hipness and daring that can be such a refreshing antidote to the conservative fare of moldier theatres. Mojo is Jez Butterworth's influential 1995 play about a group of 1950s working-class Teddy boys at the dawn of rock 'n' roll--a bleak world where pills, petty crimes, and violence provide the main entertainments. It's a play by a young playwright that feels like a play by a young playwright. At its best moments it is a fast-paced tennis match of expletives and cockney rhyming slang that is delightfully musical. At its worst it's a nihilistic portrait of a nihilistic world that doesn't seem to take us on a very meaningful trip. Though, of course, that's the point. Butterworth's thugs don't suddenly emerge as philosophers. They're thugs, plain and simple, start to finish. Mojo traps us and its characters inside Ezra's Atlantic, a second rate rock 'n' roll club, for a 24-hour period following the murder of the club's owner and the disappearance of its star act, Silver Johnny--evidently kidnapped by a rival music manager. Language is the most exciting thing about his group of wannabe musical entrepreneurs, and this is an ensemble that absolutely masters the tough timing and subtle shifts required by a viciously demanding text, despite that some of the cockney accents seem like muddied cocktails of regional influences. Eric Pargac and Damaso Rodriguez are well cast as a tight-knit couple who complete each other's sentences. Rodriguez gets the snappier, more abrasive lines, yet Pargac's face registers reactions that are often the most exciting things onstage. Brad Price gives a brilliantly focused performance as the club's hyper-nervous employee, who'd just as soon get the hell out of there and go back to working with juke boxes. James Leary handles the play's most difficult role with aplomb, the man-in-charge. We watch him barking marching orders to the group, patiently handling their constant immature flare-ups as a kind of father figure, only to discover that he is the darkest one of the bunch. Shawn Lee impressively handles another tough role: the club owner's abused/abusive child, who reacts to his father's death with a confused denial. There are homoerotic moments in spades here, which are clearly delineated thanks to Vonessa Martin's clear-cut--if occasionally emotionally awkward--direction. Much of the interest comes from watching these pairs of male couples engage in petty power squabbles that flirt with--and finally culminate in--violence. Hats off to Sara Hennessy's excellent costuming, and kudos to whoever engineered the bloodbath at the play's end--vivid and disturbing as the characters themselves.