Spirits and Spirituality on Stage

The Lifespan of a Fact. The Topanga Actors Company (TAC) opens the 2023 fall season of three plays with a staged reading of the Broadway hit, The Lifespan of a Fact. A quirky, thoroughly absorbing drama based on John D'Agata and Jim Fingal's best-selling book, it features Jessica Hendra, Harry Hart-Browne and Zeke Reed, and takes place at Malibu Library, September 16 & 17 and Topanga Library, September 23 & 24, at 2 p.m. It’s free, with open seating and free parking. Discover the rest of the season here: https://www.topangaactorscompany.weebly.com.     MindTravel. Also, please check out MindTravel, an immersive experience that creates music meditations, live-to-headphones improvisational concerts, and many other unique events that will take you both into and out of your head. Although the SILENT piano live-to-headphones on Santa Monica Beach that I’m going to will be over by the time you read this, events take place frequently, locally and globally, are reasonably priced and really worth your time. For details, visit https://www.mindtravel.com Elephant Shavings. Topangans may relate to “Elephant Shavings,� the new play written and directed by Odyssey Theatre Ensemble’s artistic director Ron Sossi. Described as “a lazy person’s guide to enlightenment� it is site specific: Sossi sets it in a theatre company at the end of a season, on a set designed for a Sam Shepard tribute. Sossi himself has helmed this theatre company for 54 years, has been a spiritual seeker throughout that time, and has produced Shepard plays and tributes at the theatre. So yes, it is semi-autobiographical.   Before the lights come up, a narrator relates the story of the once-singular “Great Spirit,� that divides itself into all others. Sometimes forgetting it's “Only-ness,� the spirit sends teachers and guides to remind it how to reunite into only-ness.   We open on five exhausted company members, gathered onstage following their final performance, taunting, teasing and arguing about the nature of reality, and questioning what “authenticity� means in the context of theatre and life.    Director Peter (Jack Geren) bows to experimental theatre artist Jerzy Grotowski, insisting that there’s always “something beneath,� while actor Erin (Cameron Meyer) argues only that which is scientifically measurable by the senses is real or authentic. Sam (Jeff LeBeau), who’s experienced deep things on LSD, and Erin spar, calling each other awful names, then hugging it out, while stage manager Jill (Giovanna Quinto) observes from the side.    Lizzy (Diana Cignoni), who’s kept quiet, challenges the idea of free will: “We have the ability to go after what we want, but what is it that makes us want what we want?� she asks. Is everything random or predestined?   Lizzy’s the focus: she’s at a crossroads, she’s 50 and had a recent miscarriage, her boyfriend’s out of the country, and her guru of 30 years has died. Interspersed with the live action, there are audio recordings of Roy and videos of Buddhist, Hindu and other spiritual teachers explaining various philosophies.    Jill suggests the theatre, closed for the summer, could serve as “Plato’s cave� for Lizzy as she retreats to consider what’s next.   Then a sixth character, of indeterminate realm, enters the picture. Pearl (Denise Blasor) embodies one of those reminder-guides created by the Great Spirit to help Lizzy recover her “only-ness.� Dancing like a dervish, demanding Lizzy pay attention, feeding her food for the soul, she becomes the “pearl of wisdom� to help Lizzy find her path. It’s intellectual but also spiritual, and sometimes says more in moments of silence, such as when we watch Lizzy’s facial expressions, in rapid lighting changes, experience her “awakening.�   Sossi takes talky, heady material and tries to actualize it dramatically on stage. “Elephant Shavings� (the “garbage� parts that fall off while carving wood to reveal the elephant within) runs through October 1 at The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. in West LA. www.OdysseyTheatre.com