Eastside artists unite for free performance

The first thing you noticed when walking into Downtown Los Angeles’ renovated Million Dollar Theater for Friday night’s performance of NEW. was exactly that — you walked right in.

While two friendly-looking helpers handed out programs and a private security guard smiled, attendees coming through the art deco theater’s front door were not asked to present a ticket, show I.D. or have their bags searched. Instead, the event was free and guests were under no scrutiny for their intentions or age.

In today’s trustless world of rules and regulations, such simple freedom was a liberating preparation for things to come.

NEW. is an experimental rock opera written by playwright and actress Rachel Kolar, one half of “avant hard” theater company Post Fact Productions. Along with fellow New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts graduate Lauren Brown, Kolar blurs the lines between musical and visual art by putting it into a theatrical setting. The concept brings art out of the mainstream and forces audiences to question the intersections of self expression.

Unlike traditional rock operas where songs and scenes are explored by one musician or band — such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Green Day’s American Idiot — NEW. was envisioned as an evolving collaboration between Los Angeles’ Eastside’s most creative minds.

The play follows two fluorescent-draped debutantes who seek power and synthetic meaning in a trash-covered post-apocalyptic stagescape. In their quest for dominance over the plebeian “zonnies,” the girls murder the in-place dictator, attempt to inject fun and neon into the masses, blow up the world and navigate the post-everything, classical-element themed nothingness.

Originally performed as a dark comedy at a Silver Lake theater in 2008, NEW. kept its plot but transformed its purpose, aesthetics and soundtrack to create an entirely different experience.

In addition to replacing songs and onstage appearances from local experimental bands Hecuba and Rainbow Arabia with a dream team of equally-as-out-there Echo Park artists, Kolar and Brown also booked a 2,500-seat theater and convinced The Standard hotel and several city-endorsed Downtown Los Angeles revitalization programs to sponsor the event so it could be free.

The resulting performances, titled “Free Art For The People,” were promoted through a corresponding online petition that explained Post Fact’s vision of providing jobs for artists while ensuring free public art and also laid out plans for conducting similar no-cost-to-the-people cultural celebrations in cities across the country.

Though Post Fact’s attempt at organizing a free collaborative play might seem like an idealistic dream on paper, Kolar and Brown succeeded in incorporating emerging local artists in every facet of the production.

The show begins with performance artist Oliwa emerging from a seat in the audience, climbing onstage, tearing off his straggly clothes and dancing to dissonant tribal sounds he composed wearing skintight gold lamé pants.

In the next scene, we are then introduced to Lauren and Rachel — played by Brown and Kolar — the neon green- and pink-adorned socialites who spend their time scowling at the trash-covered world below.

Multimedia artist and composer Anna Oxygen appears as the bleak world’s authoritarian leader, singing her original songs “This Is An Exercise” and “Dictator Jam,” both of which feature heavy breathing and a military-reminiscent bass.

Adorably uplifting freak-folk musician Amanda Jo Williams teamed up with singer-songwriter Featherbeard to perform a duet of sorts as the king and queen of the ocean. Wearing a lobster outfit made of lace and orange-red plush, Williams’ Joanna Newsom-on-helium vocals floated over her signature children’s-guitar strumming while merman-clad Featherbeard’s “Happenis Heer” drifted around like the scene’s three fish-costumed dancers.

Other onstage appearances included musician-filmmaker Ariana Delawari in a rare dance performance as the personification of air and the L.A. Ladies Choir, who in the final moments of the play glided down the aisles in vintage off-white wedding gowns while holding a single sustained note.

The multitude of talent behind NEW. is enough to carry the rock opera into the conceptual record books, but the visually stimulating result warrants even more praise.

With snarky, satirical dialogue and not-so-subtle escalating tension between the two lead characters, the constantly posturing Lauren and Rachel have an alluring dynamic reminiscent of members of the Mean Girls clique, The Plastics.

Adding to that is their elaborately textured costumes — crafted by fashion designer Miss KK — and neon beehive wigs which evoked Victorian-era nobility and created the focal point of the play’s high-contrast color dichotomy.

And though they had no speaking lines, NEW.’s three atmospheric dancers were crucial in setting up each scene. Using movement and costume add-ons, they trudged, danced and swirled around each new character, creating realistic ambience for the various land, sea and air environments.

While the city continues its various efforts to revitalize Downtown as a cultural hub, Post Fact Productions is taking an active role to ensure Los Angeles’ unique artistic voice is heard.

And by rallying the efforts of Eastside’s free-thinking underground around an accessible yet thought-provoking script, Kolar and Brown were able to garner the support to complete their cultural experiment and make the revamped NEW. cost-free to the masses.