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| All photographs for this post by Silvie Garcia-Martin |
The Hollywood of myth
and legend, the one where Lana Turner is discovered as a sixteen year old at
the counter of Schwab’s Drugstore, the one where dreams really do come true, is
the Hollywood that exists only in our fevered dreams. The real deal is a down-on-her-luck bit
player who does a little porn on the side until her “big break” comes along,
only the moment never arrives. Instead,
she finds herself used up and spit out by a cruel town that knows how to
destroy the heart and soul of every one of its denizens. That’s life in the Hollywood of real time. The only truth about Hollywood is that it is
filled with ghosts that haunt its streets and bars and hotels, even the new old
hotspots like the Roosevelt.
One such haunted place
is the Pantages Theater. A friend gave
us some tickets to The Lion King, a
visually stunning yet somewhat empty staging of an animated movie from
Disney. The Walt Disney Company has
never been shy about co-opting its movies from a variety of questionable
sources. I grew up in the age of Uncle Remus and the pirates in the ride in Anaheim chasing maidens around and around
in an animatronic simulation of attempted rape, so nothing the company does surprises
me. The
Lion King has some allegedly solid references behind its story. Of course, much is made of its parallels to
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but I never
quite felt that when I viewed the film.
Supposedly, it is also based on some Old Testament tales, but I did not
see that either. To me, The Lion King is the kind of story so
true to the Disney tradition: a
coming-of-age tale featuring enough death and life to tug at the heartstrings
of the audience as well as a decent helping of fart jokes for the kids and double-entendre
humor for the grown-ups. The characters
are superficial and stock, and some are in place simply for the stereotypical
humor they provide, Pumbaa being the best example: a beefy warthog with a flatulence
problem. In Swahili, the word pumbaa means foolish and weak-minded. Enough said.
The best thing about
this production of the play is the visual richness of the staging. The characters wear a puppet-like apparatus
that gives them the shape and movement of the animals they portray. The sets are colorful and lit with
brilliance. The music has its decent
moments as well. On either side of the
stage sit two percussionists who provide much of the African beat for the
production.
More than the play, I
enjoyed my winter night in Hollywood in all its glam shabbiness. Traffic is a problem, and parking is like
wedging your vehicle into a sardine can, but right across the street from the
theater is the Hollywood Metro station, so it is possible to take the subway
from select parts of the city to get to the play. I drove and parked, and then walked the
streets of Hollywood for a while to soak up the ambiance. It was by far the best part of the
experience. Hollywood has journeyed
through a bit of a revitalization at different points in its history in an
effort to make the reality fit the mythology.
It is a sort of L.A. Times Square, although a bit underwhelming in
comparison. For sheer weirdness and
people watching, it is a nice place to hang out if you ignore the sometimes
frightening characters you encounter.
There have been a few high profile stabbings of visitors down by Grauman’s
Chinese Theater, now called the TCL Chinese Theater. When the Zimmerman verdict came in last
summer, there were gangs of youth wilding through the streets assaulting people
and damaging stores and businesses.
On the night of the
play, we managed to avoid any trouble, although there was a group of young
people walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard screaming at people for no
apparent reason. We went to Starbuck’s
at the corner of Hollywood and Vine and found the place packed to the
rafters. The sidewalks were thronged
with people, some obvious workers from the W Hotel and other restaurants up and
down the block. Others were tourists in
awe of the mythical city. We got our
Venti-to-go and walked a few blocks enjoying the crisp night air.
When the doors opened
at the theater, we made our way inside to the lustrous interior. The last show I’d seen there was a long time
ago, The Phantom of the Opera. I did not care for that show either; I came
away with a bad cold and the signature yellow Playbill. Not great
souvenirs. In our section that winter
matinee day were a number of people who seemed to be in the last throes of tuberculosis,
hence the bad cold that developed over the Christmas break into
bronchitis. So I was worried about
similar contagion breaking out this time.
Instead, we were seated with about 100 students from a Santa Barbara
middle school out on a trip to the big city.
They took enough cell phone pictures before the curtain rose to fill terabytes
of digital space. On the other side of
us sat a group of five women who immediately upon arrival, removed their shoes
and left them by their seats as they went back out to the lobby for drinks in
bare feet. Maybe this time it would not
be TB that would infect us, but foot fungus.
Nearly everyone had a cell phone in front of their face until the play
started. Many asked ushers to snap
pictures of them, eschewing the current trend for selfies. I guess it’s hard when you don’t have the
bathroom mirror to line up the shot. The
ushers were gracious and happily stepped in to act as photographers.
The Pantages is a
gorgeous theater with a long history.
The interior is ornate and beautiful, but it also has a chill to it, a sense
that ghosts might haunt the place. In
fact, one ghost who allegedly does make his presence known is Howard Hughes. His offices were on the second
floor of the theater when he owned RKO Pictures. Supposedly, his ghost makes his presence
known by slamming drawers in a desk and creating cold spots in a conference
room that used to be his office. Another
ghost of a woman who died during a performance haunts the mezzanine where we
were seated. Often during performances, people
can hear her singing. Her vocal
contributions peaked in the 1990s when microphones picked up her singing along
with the production. A famous story has
it that a theater worker leaving late after a performance found herself in
total darkness when the lights went out.
Someone touched her arm and led her out of the theater into the
light. When she turned around to thank
the person, no one was there. All I can
add to this legend is that throughout the theater, there is a feeling. It is a very
old place, and it would not surprise me if there were ghosts there. Of course, theaters are always creepy places
especially when empty, which is why a “ghost light” is often left burning on
stage when the theater is dark. The
story goes that without this light, all the ghosts of the characters would
flood the place. It’s a nice story.
The night out, a break
from the rush of Christmas shopping and holiday cheer, was a welcome relief. The play was not a highlight, but I enjoyed a
chance to see Hollywood again. People in
Los Angeles often don’t go to Hollywood unless they have some business there, desire
some specific entertainment, or live in the area. It is a place geared to tourists and ghosts,
both of whom wander the streets looking for the mythological movie town of
imagination. The reality is simply that
Hollywood is a town with a history, and its beauty is not classical, but
decayed. It represents the down-and-out
dreams of those who dare to hope for a moment in the spotlight, who believe,
most fervently, that everything will work out in the end. They will have their stardom, their moment in
the sun. Such is the mythology of
Hollywood. Hakuna matata.
