A hero’s injustice ‘Ajax in Iraq,’ a play about sexual violence in the military, opens tonight in Santa Monica By Michael Aushenker A “friendly fire” sexual violence situation is the essence of Ellen McLaughlin’s topical “Ajax in Iraq,” in which a female soldier is violated by her commanding officer while fighting the Iraq War. “Ajax” refers to the Trojan War hero of Greek mythology, who suffers from battlefield posttraumatic stress disorder. The pairing connects contemporary issues with those that have existed in wars throughout history. “It covers war and civilization, and how much it has and has not changed,” said John FarmaneshBocca, the play’s director and choreographer of “Ajax in Iraq.” While tonight’s staging at the Miles Memorial Playhouse marks the Westside debut of “Ajax in Iraq,” this is not the first time McLaughlin’s play has been staged in Southern California. In the fall of 2012, a production was mounted at Cal State Long Beach, also by FarmaneshBocca. Farmanesh-Bocca trained at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts before serving as directing fellow at The Juilliard School’s Drama division from 2003 to 2005. He now serves as guest faculty at Tisch School’s Classical Studio. Farmanesh-Bocca credits Joanne Gordon, former artistic director at Cal State Long Beach Theatre Dept., for introducing him to the piece. “It was overwhelming at first,
but beautiful,” Farmanesh-Bocca said. Ajax” was originally performed at Harvard-American Repertory Theatre. Farmanesh-Bocca knew a few former students in that production and called them. “What they told me made me feel like I had the freedom to do the version of the play I wanted to do,” he said. In Long Beach the play was so well accepted, said FarmaneshBocca, “they decided to invite a lot of the veterans from neighboring VA hospital. It kind of brought the whole experience full-circle.” His play, in fact, melds two spheres: the Greek classical world and a modern-day story derived from actual interviews with Iraq veterans. And at least three high-profile recent news items regarding such superior/ subordinate abuse between military personnel — including the transgressions of General David Petraeus that led to his resignation as C.I.A. director and the case against Lt. Col. Jay Morse, the Army’s former top sexual assault prosecutor accused of groping a former colleague — have given McLaughlin’s material unintended topicality. “I was like, My God! Look what’s going on! It’s not diminishing, it’s growing!” Farmanesh-Bocca said. “Only 1/5th of abuses are reported, and how many of those are taken seriously?” Farmanesh-Bocca’s said his
“Ajax in Iraq” finds parallels between modern and ancient wounds of warfare
production “amps up the visual and athleticism to the level of almost a sporting event. They’re military, they’re warriors.” Because of the subject matter, Farmanesh-Bocca found it imperative to cast young men in the key military roles. So he carried over three young actors from his Cal State Long Beach production: Jonathan Wong, a Marine presently in active duty; Chelsea Brynd and Brandon Hitchcock. The play also stars Aaron Hendry, Emma Bell and
Courtney Munch. While there’s a risk that adding an acrobatic element to this serious piece may unintentionally trivialize the play’s sensitive topic, Farmanesh-Bocca considers his approach a way to push the story forward. “If you give the audience something they can’t take their eyes off of, they can’t look away. It creates something ineffable. We try to give it the appropriate gravity.” Ultimately, Farmanesh-Bocca relishes breaking in a relatively
unknown work on the West Coast. “I live for it,” he said. “There’s no reward to theater anymore except this. To do something that begins a conversation.” ª “Ajax in Iraq” opens at 8 p.m. Thursday and continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and at 5 p.m. Sundays through June 1 at Miles Memorial Playhouse, 1130 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica. Tickets are $25. Call (818) 6184772 or visit NotManApart.com. michael@argoanutnews.com
Jon Favreau cooks up a Westside story
Much of ‘Chef,’ opening Friday, takes place in Venice and Santa Monica By Michael Aushenker After hitting box-office heights with “Elf” and two “Iron Man” movies and big-budget lows with “Zathura” and “Cowboys & Aliens,” filmmaker-actor Jon Favreau returns to his indie-film roots with “Chef” — a microbudgeted feature in which the Westside figures prominently. “Chef,” which co-stars Bobby Cannavale, John Leguizamo, Dustin Hoffman, and Favreau’s “Iron Man 2” stars Robert
Downey, Jr. and Scarlet Johansson, chronicles Favreau as Carl Casper, complacent star chef at Hoffman’s Brentwood restaurant, who gets fired after engaging in a Twitter battle with a food blogger. Several twists later, Casper reconnects with his passion for cooking and with his young son by running a food truck. Set in L.A., Miami and New Orleans, “Chef” shows Casper renting a Venice apartment and bonding with son at Third
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Street Promenade. The Brig on Abbott Kinney Boulevard appears often in the background — including at Venice’s monthly First Fridays event, where Roy Choi’s Kogi truck, progenitor of L.A.’s gourmet food truck craze, appears. Although Choi, a producer on “Chef,” taught Favreau some food truck protocol, Favreau said he trained for his role with an instructor from Santa Monica’s Art Institute of California. During a Monday night
screening at L.A. Film School, Favreau described “Chef,” which opens in limited release tomorrow, as a return to the likes of his 2001 film “Made” and the iconic 1996 film “Swingers.” “For me creatively, it couldn’t be a more satisfying experience,” he said. Favreau, who financed the movie himself, lamented the current Hollywood atmosphere that eschews small- and middlebudgeted films for expensive spectacles.
Despite its small production values, “Chef” does rely on one special effect: conveying Twitter correspondence key to the storyline, as well as portraying Facebook, Vine and YouTube. Employing the trademark bird logo for these tweets, Favreau said there was “no clearance needed for Twitter. With new media, they are not trying to ª control the content.” michael@argonautnews.com