Fight the power!
Leave it to the artists -even in these conservative parts!- to challenge the norms and push the boundaries of the good people of Santa Clarita.
Beginning this fall, the Santa Clarita Regional Theater & COC will present two wildly popular and successful musicals at the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center. The two musicals, Hair (COC) and Rent (SCRT), received critical praise when they debuted earlier this decade, and now they’re coming to Santa Clarita.
What’s the big deal you ask? Well, these aren’t your typical safe-for-the-SCV-theater company musicals, like Fiddler on the Roof or Grease. Nope, both Hair and Rent have really provocative songs in them, and I’m curious as to whether they will offend some in Santa Clarita.
If you’re easily offended, you ought to stop reading now. Otherwise, have a look at selected lyrics from both musicals
Hair:
Song Title: Sodomy
Sodomy
Fellatio
Cunnilingus
Pederasty
Father, why do these words sound so nasty?
Masturbation
Can be fun
Join the holy orgy
Kama Sutra
Everyone!
Obviously those lyrics are quite sexual in nature, but that’s the whole song. Quite brief, perhaps even forgettable in the larger scheme of things.
But Rent, which starts in March of next year, goes into much more than just “deviant” sexual themes; indeed, La Vie Boheme challenges that most cherished of SCV values: conformity!
La Vie Boheme
To days of inspiration
Playing hookey, making
Something out of nothing
The need to express-
To communicate,
To going against the grain,
Going insane, going mad
To loving tension, no pension
To more than one dimension,
To starving for attention,
Hating convention, hating pretension
Not to mention of course,
Hating dear old Mom and Dad
To riding your bike,
Midday past the three-piece suits
To fruits - to no absolutes-
To Absolute - to choice-
To the Village Voice-
To any passing fad
To being an “us” for once … instead of a “them”!!
La vie Boheme, La vie Boheme
To hand-crafted beers
Made in local breweries
To yoga, to yogurt, to rice and beans and cheese
To leather, to dildoes, to curry vindaloo
To huevos rancheros and Maya Angelou
Emotion, devotion, to causing a commotion
Creation, vacation
Mucho masturbation
Compassion, to fashion, to passion when it’s new
To Sontag
To Sondheim
To anything taboo
Ginsberg, Dylan Cunningham and Cage,
Lenny Bruce
Langston Hughes
To the stage
To Uta. To Buddha. Pablo Neruda, too.
Why Dorothy and Toto went over the rainbow
To blow off Auntie Em
La vie Boheme
Bisexuals, trisexuals, homo sapiens,
Carcinogens, hallucinogens, men,
Pee Wee Herman
German wine, turpetine, Gertrude Stein
Antoniotti, Bertolucci, Kurosawa
Carmina Burana
To apathy, to entropy, to empathy, ecstacy
Vaclav Havel - The Sex Pistols, 8BC
To no shame - never playing the Fame Game
To marijuana
To sodomy … it’s between God and me
To S & M
No doubt a certain segment of Santa Clarita, a large one even, will welcome such provocative and excellent musicals into these parts.
But I have to believe that in a place that voted 55-45 in favor of Proposition 8 (following large, coordinated, church-led demonstrations on the streets), there will be more than a few eyebrows raised/gasps/fainting spells/breathless Letters to the Editor that greet the talented SCRT players as they sing Rent and Hair.
I mean, come on, don’t you think? Yes, Santa Clarita has a few adult shops in town, and I’m sure many spark the owl now and again, I know there’s more than a few of TEH GAYS!!! around us and I bet some of our famous residents have handcuffs and leather whips in their bedrooms, but overall, we’re a pretty uptight bunch, are we not?
Some examples: It’s tough to find hard-edged, provocative films at our local movie theaters becuase they’re so crowded with G & PG movies. New entrepreneurial-fueled churches seem to pop up every other week in school gyms, retail spaces, and other areas, even during the recession. We have street preachers and Mormon missionaries with nothing to do because they can’t find any apostates/heretics. Mayor Dude, the righteous one, lumps in massage & tattoo parlors with medical marijuanna clincs (and would ban them all if he could). And our City, God bless ‘em, goes out of its way to continue and enhance the family-friendly nature of Santa Clarita with kid-friendly programs and concerts, all under a new “In God We Trust” banner in its Council Chambers.
Certainly the New Reagan Country is the last place you’d expect to see a musical with lines like “To going against the grain/Going insane, going mad/to loving tension, no pension/to more than one dimension/to starving for attention/Hating Convention, hating pretension/not to mention of course/hating dear Old mom and dad” or ”to fruits - to no absolutes/to absolute -to choice-/to the Village Voice/to any passing fad/to being an “us’ for once…instead of them!”
Phew! Just reading those lyrics reminds me of my own angsty teenage rebellion against my parents, of playing hooky at Hart High and dodging the cops (so we could experiment with alcohol), and of remembering high school chums (bandos we called them) who dressed oddly and couldn’t wait to get out of Santa Clarita.
Hair & Rent and Santa Clarita, like oil and water no?
There’s one other component to these two fabulous musicals you ought to consider. Rent is being put on by Santa Clarita Regional Theater, a fabulous group of individuals lead by Canyon Theater Guild Executive Director TimBen Boydston. Boydston, as readers of this blog know, was the controversial (some would say firebrand!) interim City Couniclmember who built a following by questioning the expansion of Henry Mayo Hospital. He has told me himiself and confirmed elsewhere that he’s thinking of running for City Council next year (the election is in April, Rent starts in March).
If these two musicals become controversial, could it affect Boydston’s chances in next year’s elections? Could said controversy, if it materializes, make him more popular and perhaps draw legions of rebellious youths to the polls in support of a fellow artiste (paging Tim Myers!)? Or could it torpedo his chances as scores of outraged Prop8 voters say no to the anti-conformity message of Rent and Hair?
Or am I overblowing the whole thing? Who knows, but I can’t wait to see these two shows!