LA Eastside Outings: Taking Over, Part Two

culver_cindy
photo by Cindylu

Welcome to Part Two of the Taking Over reviews. A couple of reviews are still making their way through the LA Eastside digital transport, so please revisit this post in the next few days. (New review from Pachuco 3000 below!)
Part one can be found here.

Cindylu:

I’ve lived just a few minutes away from Downtown Culver City since 2000 in Palms South Robertson*. Despite living here for 8+ years, I only recently started spending any significant time (and money) in the area. Previously, there was nothing to do after 5 pm and a dearth of any other sorts of entertainment.

That’s all slowly been changing. The Kirk Douglas Theater playbill featured an article about the “revitalization” (aka gentrification) of DCC in recent years. In a small area you can find several architecture firms, art galleries, a couple of theaters, and several restaurants. On Tuesdays, local growers set up a farmer’s market on a 1-block long Main Street. If you go during a weekend night, you’ll find the 5 or so blocks between the Trader Joe’s and Kirk Douglas Theater quite busy. Now, I regularly shop at Trader Joe’s, buy fruit and vegetables at the farmer’s market, watch movies at the Pacific Theater and eat at some of the restaurants. I’d never gone to a production at the Kirk Douglas until last week. And yes, I can see the inherent contradiction of watching a play on gentrification in my neighborhood due to the gentrification in the area.

Continue reading

LA Eastside Outings: Taking Over, Part One

to_488x240

A play about gentrification? Sounds like an outing for LA Eastsiders! We made our way across town to see if the play would live up to the hype. Did it? Read on…

First, a short summary of the play from the Kirk Douglas Theater website:

OBIE Award-winning solo artist Danny Hoch returns to Center Theatre Group with his riveting new work, Taking Over, a show that brings to vivid life the residents of his Brooklyn neighborhood.

In rapidly changing Williamsburg, the melting pot is boiling over with strained ethnic relations and economic tensions—and the threat of gentrification, which threatens to crush the city’s diversity. Hoch masterfully depicts this community in transition with compassionate and hilarious results.

Read more at the Danny Hoch website. Taking Over ends February 22, that’s Sunday! Oh, and don’t bother watching the opening night video clip on the Kirk Douglas website, lame.

Reviews below, more coming tomorrow…

Continue reading