Review/Ticket Giveaway: Roger Guenveur Smith's 'Juan and John'

Earlier this year, we wrote about Echo Park resident Roger Guenveur Smith's  when it was at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City.

About many things, the show is anchored by Smith's childhood memories of a fight between Dodger catcher John Roseboro and Giant pitcher Juan Marichal at Giants Stadium in San Francisco.

JUAN AND JOHN NOW AT LATC

Now, Smith has re-mounted the show--with collaborator Marc Anthony Thompson--and brought it to the Eastside at the Los Angeles Theater Center through Nov. 13.

Click here for ticket information.

Juan and John opened at LATC Thursday night.

Former Echo Park resident Joshua Triliegi shared the review below with us, which ran first on his website BUREAU of Arts and Culture Los Angeles.

Read an excerpt below.

WIN TICKETS TO ATTEND A PERFORMANCE

We also have several pairs tickets to a Friday, Oct. 28 performance of Juan and John.

If you want to go, please tells us "Why is Echo Park is a great place for baseball and/or theater" in the comments section below.

We'll let you know if you are a winner.

READ THE REVIEW HERE

by Joshua Triliegi

"In the Summer of 1965, a fight between two men on a baseball
field symbolized a planet in turmoil. A world grappling with war,
racism and divisive cultures. The Watts Riots, the invasion of
the Dominican Republic, and the brawl at Candlestick Park as well
as biographical points in Roger Guenveur Smith's life collide to
create a quilt of ideas in this one-person theater work currently
playing at LATC.

"The sounds of baseball crowds and the Beach Boys are the
backdrop for this scenario and memory plays a key roll in
all of this.  Mr. Smith confesses early on, "I have a war
inside my head /Yo tengo un guerra en mi cabesa." So
does society, andlife is the cost. We learn about Baseball,
as well as Mr. Smith' s mixed race childhood, the summer
of '65 and the way in which black and brown politics has
hurt both African Americans, Latin Americans and sports
in general--how a war, a riot, mixed race and competitive
sports boil into a young man's mind to create a fever dream
that evolves into a sort of Jeckyl & Hide experience that
starts and ends with him burning a baseball card while the
radio DJs repeat the mantra, " Burn Baby Burn."

"Roger flashes forward and back between his own experience as
a spectator and his personification of both John Roseboro,
the African American Catcher for the L.A. Dodgers and Juan Marichal the Dominican-born San Francisco Giants' Pitcher. So you have young Roger, the baseball fan whom knows nothing of Malcolm X and very little of Martin Luther King, and the adult Roger who is going through a separation of his own which is estranging to his daughter Luna.

"You have John played with accents and body language and Juan, also played via accent and rhythmic interpretation. Roger shifts from each time and place at will, allowing us little time to catch up, he's pitching fast and hard here. "Hey batter, batter, batter, hey batter, swing!" Employing images of grade school photos, postcards from his parents real-life Motel, baseball imagery as well as war photographs of the period sets the tone of this whirlwind experience and resolution of the initial event which took some 20 or so years to finally resolve. Setting the backdrop for this skirmish, Roger shares his own family's journey, commenting on the neighborhood of Baldwin Hills where many of the streets begin with the prefix: Don. "My mom lives on the corner of Don Cornelious and Don King."  Roger has you laughing even when the streets are on fire.

The Los Angeles Theater Center is at 514 S. Spring St. L.A. CA 90013 (between Fifth and Sixth streets)

For show dates/times and ticket information go to www.latc.org.