Splendor: a 99¢ Only Stores Wonderama

On Saturday, NOVEMBER 29, 2003, Evidence Room presented the world premiere of SPLENDOR, A 99¢ ONLY STORES WONDERAMA by music-theater auteur Ken Roht. The production featured 30 of Los Angeles' most fascinating performers and was designed by the same team that brought you last years wildly successful 99¢ Only extravaganza.

SPLENDOR was co-sponsored by the 99¢ Only Stores and is a whimsical, surrealist journey through a wonderland designed entirely from products sold at the 99¢ Only Stores. Threaded through song and dance production numbers celebrating the 99¢ Only Stores is the simple story of a Golden Boy who is abducted from the Frenchies, an enigmatic tribe of warrior-clowns, by the misunderstood misfits, the Crusties.

Roht explains, "This one is for the kids and for the adults who respond to surrealist theater and European circus. We're using lots of great music and some of the most popular numbers from last year and adding a bit of a story. The fact that several people shaved their heads for this show raised the bar. And with last years show as a warm-up, we had all kinds of new ideas to play with."

John Ballinger again created the original music and served as musical director; and Keith Mitchell is back to create the set design and specialty props. The cast included O-Lan Jones, Mark Bringleson, Sissy Boyd, Melody Butiu and 14 year old Disney singing sensation Chris Ibenhard. Also, Evidence Room members Kirk Wilson, Colleen Kane, Don Oscar Smith and Beth Mack were featured.

Ken Roht is a prolific producer/creator of surreal song and dance shows. Most recently, he was commissioned by L.A. Future Projects to create a theatre-for-young-audiences piece; directed and choreographed a snake dance extravaganza at Frank Lloyd Wright Jr's Sowden House; and his show at the Evidence Room, HE POUNCES, was LA Weekly's Pick of the Week. In Septemeber he received ASK's $45,000 TIME grant, given to six members of the national theater community. He has created dance for Long Beach Opera, Disney, Cal Arts, the Taper and many L.A. theaters and educational institutions; and has received numerous other grants and commissions including ones from Rockefeller, C.A.D., Flintridge, Dance Theatre Workshop, ASK (three times), L.A. Future Projects, Eagle Rock Arts Center and Buena Park Civic Theatre.

John Ballinger, composer and musical director, was recently the musical director/arranger for Ken Roht's HE POUNCES at the Evidence Room. He was recently on the road with Rufus Wainwright and Tracy Bonham. John created the music for the ER's IMPERIALISTS AT THE CLUB CAVE CANEM and THE 99¢ ONLY STORES WORLD OF BARGAIN ENTERTAINMENT DANCE EXTRAVAGANZA. Elsewhere, he created the dance tracks for SONGS OF JOY AND DESTITUTION, the Chuck Mee piece at the Open Fist Theatre.

Splendor... was loved by
audiences and critics alike!

LA TIMES CRITICS' CHOICE
December 5, 2003

Not bad for under a buck

How to describe Ken Roht's new dance/design extravaganza, "Splendor: A 99 Cents Only Stores Wonderama"? Well, if Busby Berkeley had dropped acid while watching "The Powerpuff Girls" ... or if Howard Crabtree and Pina Bausch staged a discount retail trade show ... or if Cirque du Soleil and the Smurfs staged an avant-garde "Nutcracker" at a strip mall ...

You get the idea. There's a lot packed into "Splendor's" 55 minutes: several aisles worth of plastic and paper products on the set (by Keith Mitchell) and costumes (by Ann Closs-Farley, Anthony Garcia and Barbara Lempel); a nonstop soundtrack of bouncy, tinkly tunes by composer-arranger John Ballinger, riffing on everything from Tchaikovsky to kiddie rap; and a pleasingly motley cast of 28 zipping, mugging and pirouetting about with otherworldly vim.

A sign in the lobby informs the arriving audience that "all music was created on a Radio Shack Concertmate 9000 keyboard." This is no mere aside: Apart from some skivvies and wigs, everything in sight, and apparently in earshot, has been culled from the shelves of 99 Cents Only Stores (a production co-sponsor).

At heart, the show is a celebration of such consumer ephemera; what takes us by surprise is the un-ironic joy, and often stunning beauty, of the tribute. It's probably safe to say that patio lanterns, scented candles, table cloths, silk flowers, beach balls, Squeegee mops, trash bags and fluorescent tubes have never been employed with such love and inspiration.

As with his work on "Pinafore!" and "The Shaggs," Roht's choreography is sinuous and funny, and his ensemble rises energetically to the occasion. Don't look for a through line here — a silly sci-fi subplot about two factions battling over an angelic "golden boy" (Chris Ibenhard) coexists unclearly with the infomercial shtick of a slick spokesman (Don Oscar Smith) and nonsensical odes to shopping by a warbling quintet of "99-cent divas" and four 1950s housewives.

Indeed, the show's jarring juxtapositions and overall twittering, manic giddiness may give some audiences the theatrical equivalent of an ice-cream headache. But as a family-friendly holiday confection, this ravishing, ridiculous vision of sugarplums dances lightly, and glitteringly, in our heads.

— Rob Kendt
Special to The Times

Backstage West

Splendor: A 99-Cent Only Stores Wonderama
December 03, 2003

When Swan Lake premiered in 1877, it lasted 33 performances. Satie's Parade was nearly booed off the stage in 1917--and patrons who didn't walk out hurled things at the musicians. Charles Ludlam and Charles Busch spent the first years of their careers watching theatres evacuate whenever their outrageous/courageous works debuted. For L.A.'s own resident auteur Ken Roht, opening a new show is met with a different response: His cast heaves things at the audience before anyone has a chance to retaliate. Watching this expanded second-annual holiday all-singing, all-dancing visual carnival--featuring a unique cast of 30 wearing costumes and carrying props created exclusively with items from 99-Cent Only stores--is akin to experiencing a living hallucination. Luckily the chimeras crowding Roht's delightfully demented mind are interpreted by some of the most talented counterculture artisans in L.A. and vicinity, a dream assemblage ready to try anything their mentor asks them to do. This is because Roht creates without concern for any pre-established rules, this year incorporating a narrative history of the 99-Cent Only Stores' achievements with a wonderfully bizarre Flash Gordon-like storyline concerning the androgynous Golden Boy, whose worship provokes battles between the Frenchies and the Crusties fought with oven mitts and plastic dip trays. Notable amid the uniformly gifted cast, Kirk Wilson offers an effete, snarling Ming the Merciless, tooling around in a tinseled golf cart, and Don Oscar Smith is Q, a huckster who recites a recurring barrage of details chronicling the chain store's phenomenal success, augmented by a few ultra-cool Blues Brothers moves. Ann Closs-Farley wins hearts as a fiery Latin showgirl, tossing an unending supply of hard candy to the crowd, as does Beth Mack as a 99-Cent Only junkie resorting to a 12-step group in her moment of consumer crisis. Fourteen-year-old Chris Ibenhard makes an auspicious L.A. stage debut as the endearing Golden Boy, hitting the rafters with a final bluesy solo that belies both his age and his stature. Featuring original music by John Ballinger, inventive scenic design by Keith Mitchell featuring Sun detergent boxes as its anchor, and unbelievably fanciful costumes by Closs-Farley, Barbara Lempel, and Anthony Garcia that are themselves works of folk art, Splendor is like a Cirque du Soleil spectacular on a $500 budget. Does all this suggest that one day Roht could be up there alongside Tchaikovsky, Satie, and the others? You bet. As were those other groundbreaking geniuses, Roht is a poetic madman--and Angelenos get to take this annual one-of-a-kind Fellini-meets Dr. Seuss holiday journey right along with him.

— Travis Michael Holder

LA Weekly: Pick of the Week

Splendor: A 99-Cent Only Stores Wonderama
December 04, 2003

Dynamic, bizarre, playful and charming all describe the alternative universe of Ken Roht’s theatrical dance spectacle. What the event lacks in traditional structure it makes up for with its childlike whimsy. Though it’s just over an hour in length, every moment introduces an imaginative stretch. The plot is a loose illustration of a common tale: Two warring factions — the Frenchies and the Crusties — vie for the prize of the Golden Boy (played with memorable singing by Chris Ibenhard), only to find peace through understanding. The colorful, kitschy garb is artfully constructed from the garish paraphernalia of a typical 99¢ Only Store by costumers Ann Closs-Farley, Anthony Garcia and Barbara Lempel — nicely complemented by Keith Mitchell’s sets and props, and by John Ballinger’s music. The story’s indistinguishable time frame, blending essences of the very ancient and the very modern, also contributes to the surreal yet sweet tone of this holiday presentation. Roht’s dance choreography, though professionally tight, never loses the performance’s delightful spirit of abandon, and Roht’s use of gibberish lyrics further infuses the production with an unbridled quality. All performers are flashy, overstated and outstanding.

— Jude Bradley

LA TIMES CRITIC'S CHOICE!

Splendor... CD Cover