“I love this busted-ass bar.” — Wes, in The View Upstairs
THE VIEW UPSTAIRS, an off-Broadway triumph earlier this year, has made a welcome transfer to the Celebration Theatre in Hollywood for its West Coast premiere. Max Vernon’s musical—directed by Michael A. Shepperd—is set in a dive bar in New Orleans in 1973 (and 2017), and its Los Angeles home, appropriately enough, is in a neighborhood currently enduring the depredations of gentrification yet still haunted by ghosts from The Golden Age of Hustlers.
Wes (Matthew Hancock)—a young, would-be fashion entrepreneur, lately of Bushwick—rents a burnt-out shell of a space back home in the Big Easy. He’s quickly transported back in time to an earlier incarnation of the building—the Upstairs Lounge—where a crew of barflies, rent boys, a minister, a pianist, and a drag queen (plus Mom) trade barbs, seek shelter from heteronormative repression, and teach Wes a thing or two about realness.
Vernon’s songs are melodically rich and lyrically stirring. Two kinds of showstoppers anchor the middle of the show (which runs about 90 minutes, without an intermission): the quietly devastating “Waltz (Endless Night),” sung by Darren Bluestone (Patrick), and “Sex on Legs,” Aurora Whorealis’ raucous coming out number (sung by Rehyan Rivera). The show was choreographed by Cate Caplin, and Jake Anthony—who plays closeted pianist Buddy—is the musical director.
THE VIEW UPSTAIRS, through Sunday, November 12.
CELEBRATION THEATER, 6760 Lexington Avenue, Hollywood.
celebrationtheatre.com
See John Russell on Max Vernon, Out, February 24, 2017:
out.com/theater-dance/2017/2/24/composer-max-vernon-reclaiming-theaters-subversive-power-view-upstairs-soundtrack
See Max Vernon on The View Upstairs cast album, out now:
playbill.com/article/the-view-upstairs-max-vernon-breaks-down-the-newly-released-cast-album-track-by-track
From top:
Darren Bluestone (Patrick), Matthew Hancock (Wes), Pip Lilly (Willy), Pat Towne (Richard), Jake Anthony (Buddy), Benai Boyd (Henrietta), Rehyan Rivera (Freddy/Aurora Whorealis), and Chala Savino (Inez) in The View Upstairs.
Towne, Bluestone (on ground), Anthony, Boyd, and Joey Ruggiero (Dale).
The View Upstairs company.
