Productions

P R O D U C T I O N S

THEATRE

"Scathing satire of American family values . . .

"Sinner's stylish production is

suffused with rage,

which is communicated with an assured sense of
visual panache."

(BackStage West)

JOHN SINNER - Producing Artistic Director

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SAMPLE OF FESTIVAL ON-LINE REVIEWS:

"Excellent production values, clever allusions to other works, with an uncompromisingly grim mood."

(Review of +3163841**** 12 September )

"it was fantastic"

(Review of +3162472**** 11 September)

"Blown away, in a good way"

(Review of +3168139**** 10 September )

"echt te vet voor woorden! Blown away!"

(Review of +3164632**** 10 September)

"Blown away, amazing!!"

(Review of +3162825**** 10 September)

"The Devil Has A Sister

(A Sororicidal Tale)"

European premiere: Amsterdam 09/09/09

CLICK HERE FOR

SHORT VIDEO -HIGHLIGHTS FROM "DEVIL" SHOWS

AMSTERDAM

"Blood Is My Legacy!"

- U.S. premiere

Los Angeles

(Art/Works

Performance

Space)

EXCERPTS FROM PRESS RELEASE:

"RENOWN SAMUEL BECKETT
ACTOR ALAN MANDELL
TO MAKE SPECIAL SCREEN PERFORMANCE IN THE DEVIL HAS A SISTER

Alan Mandell’s on-screen performance in John Sinner’s The Devil Has A Sister is Mr. Mandell’s third collaboration with Los Angeles surrealist theatre writer/director John Sinner.

Alan Mandell toured France and Germany with original productions directed by Samuel Beckett of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Endgame.

Mandell was Consulting Director at Los Angeles Actors’ Theatre where he directed and acted in Beckett’s Company.

Mandell performed Endgame at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, and in London and Italy.

Alan also is known for his roles in works of Shakespeare, and others, as well as productions on and off Broadway, throughout California, and in Europe. His film roles include Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Endgame (in which he re-created Beckett's direction and also played the role of Nagg) and Shortbus.

He also was General Manager at Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center and co-founded the San Quentin Drama Workshop. He is the recipient of LA Weekly’s first Lifetime Achievement Award."

"2 By Sinner"

- U.S. premiere:
New York City 08/08/08

"What Remains of a Whore"

-- U.S. premiere: Los Angeles

"Los Angeles visionary theatre company Theatre Revelation and its founding auteur John Sinner have created their latest surreal theatrical extravaganza, The Devil Has A Sister.

Devil plunges the audience into the fantastical world of sisters Vera, Vivian & Veronique and their attempts to break through the patriarchal grip of their father, twin male suitors and society – what Sinner describes as “a fairy tale of sex, violence and ‘family values’.”

Devil is writer-director Sinner’s hallucinatory cocktail mix of Shakespeare’s King Lear, 60’s British gothic horror movies, 40’s screwball comedy, Chekhov’s Three Sisters, a dash of music-hall numbers – and fearless performances from Theatre Revelation's acting troupe (including on-screen the legendary Beckett actor Alan Mandell). The recipe for this mix -- the dark, poetic, at times madcap, at times haunting, in-your-face imagery, soundscape, writing and direction are pure Theatre Revelation."

2 by Sinner: " Unburthen (To My Soul's Delight!) & If Water Were Present

It Would Be Called Drowning

reviewed by Pete Boisvert

NYTHEATRE.COM

Aug 12, 2008

Good surrealism is hard to pull off. It's all too easy for it to come across as too abstract, too self-conscious, or just plain too weird. It's exciting, then, to catch the polished and well-crafted 2 By Sinner, which achieves a near perfect balance, avoiding these pitfalls.

The title of the evening refers to John Sinner, a surrealist painter and theatre artist from Los Angeles. Sinner pulls triple duty in the evening, writing, directing, and sharing acting duties with Betsy Moore in two short plays.

Unburthen (To My Soul's Delight!) begins the evening with Sinner entering as Brother Hardy in a top hat, uniform jacket, and petticoat, casting flower petals before his own path, pulling a white rope that trails behind him offstage. At the end of his rope is a giant of a woman, standing ten feet tall on a rolling pedestal. Moore's Sister Peg sports a fantastic blonde wig, towering high above her head and a psychotic grin.

Throughout Unburthen, Sinner and Moore riff off the story of Adam and Eve as two grotesque siblings in kabuki face makeup and outlandish costumes. The play has a loopy, wild feel to it, bouncing around a central theme of paranoia and isolationism through shifts in style and tone. Moore uses surreal makeup (designed by Aviva Perea) expertly to her advantage. Her flexible face contorts, shifting the bright red lips into a snarl, a scream, a smile that could eat the world.

If Water Were Present It Would Be Called Drowning is ostensibly another two-character play, but Sinner largely sits this one out. Moore delivers a monologue as the bored domestic housewife Lolly, frozen in growth and ambition while yearning for release from her domestic prison. It's well-worn material, but Moore's performance brings a natural emotional grace that makes the character completely believable.

Sinner plays Lolly's distracted husband, sitting off to one side of the family dinner table, sleeping in a bowler hat behind his evening paper. Lolly regales the audience with fantasies of escape while maniacally setting and clearing the dinner settings and scaling the table. She confesses to taking secret trips to a seedy motel room, a chance to escape the identity dictated to her by her domestic station.

Moore delivers stellar performances in both plays. As Sinner plays the supporting role on stage (particularly in If Water Were Present) the evening rests firmly on Moore's shoulders. With magnetic appeal, she draws the audience in to her off-kilter, slightly insane ramblings. Both Moore and Sinner tear into the material with a savage enthusiasm.

If you're in the mood for tightly executed surrealism, it would be well worth your time to check out 2 By Sinner. It's certainly a strange evening of theatre, but Moore and Sinner carry the audience through with great skill.

Presented by Theatre Revelation

Keirin Brown

Alan Mandell

Betsy Moore

Jordana Berliner

“I feel strangely a sense of peace – not peace, but an end to restlessness, a finality, as though I were sleeping in a grave.”

-Anne Lindbergh

“This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine”

- Shakespeare (The Tempest)

“- Yet mad am I not – and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences these events have terrified – have tortured – have destroyed me”

- Edgar Allan Poe

“Lo no mori, e non rimasi vivo”

(I did not die, yet nothing of life remained”

Dante

“Whoever invented the notion of hell did not understand the nature of pain. Pain depends upon time passing. There can be no such thing as eternal pain because the body will become indifferent to anything permanent. Pain cannot be constant, even in the afterlife.”

Joanna Scott

“Theater artists must rage as if they’re burning at the stake, signaling through the flames”

Antonin Artaudk here to add text.