Downey's Paul Tully directs west coast premiere of New York hit

Downey’s Paul Tully is an actor, writer, director, and filmmaker. He is a cofounder and the artistic director of the Urban Theatre Movement (UTM) which has just completed a production of the West Coast Premiere of “Guinea Pig Solo” by Brett C Leonard as a visiting production at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles.

In 2012 the Downey Arts Coalition (DAC) and UTM presented “Urban Acts,” a highly successful series of intimate staged readings of new plays including plays directed by Tully and myself in Downey. It was the first contemporary theatre in Downey in decades.

Twenty years ago Joseph Papp’s famed New York Public Theatre and the bold LAByrinth Theatre (Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz, artistic directors) presented the highly successful coproduction of the original “Guinea Pig Solo.”

The UTM performance I attended included a talkback with the cast, directors, and three members of the original cast including veteran actor John Ortiz for whom Leonard created the lead role of Jose Solo. Ortiz can most recently be seen in the new original Netflix series “Madness” (2024).

Ortiz emphasized that the LAB like UTM didn’t do the play for fame or money. They did it for the opportunity for the artists involved to get better at their art and craft by connecting with audiences.

UTM producers Judd Azoulay and Norma Flores, like others in Los Angeles intimate theatre, are most often judging how much money they will lose rather than how much money they will make. Shoutout to Downey’s Avenue Press for assistance with the programs.

Inspired by news stories of veterans abusing women in their life, the lack of mental health, and other support for returning war veterans, Leonard developed the play in Playwright’s Intensive Workshops with the LAB adapting Buchner’s unfinished masterpiece “Woyzeck” (1836) to post 9/11 New York 2003.

“Woyzeck” explores themes of social injustice, human suffering, and the effects of war on the individual. It has had a major influence on Expressionism and Modern Theatre.

Camacho and Tully’s direction gives us a fine ensemble performance and staging with honest acting inhabiting Leonard’s passionate yet carefully crafted characters and imaginative dialogue. This is a play that stays with you after the lights go out.

UTM’s Jose Solo (Andres Valez in a compelling physically demanding performance) is an isolated and enraged Puerto Rican Iraqi war veteran stressed out with PTSD, daily assaulted by flashbacks, nightmares, and images, who is trying to save some money to win back his estranged wife Vivian (Jackie Quinones gives us the pivotal poignant moment when she tells Solo she still loves him) and his young son Junior (Emmanuel Saavedra gives us the most powerful image) who has stopped speaking and sits silently bouncing a blue ball against the walls of Geronimo Guzman’s remarkable multi level expressionistic set. Sound and image.

Jacob Nguyen’s lighting design bombards with perhaps 50 quick cut scenes that overlap capturing not only Jose’s frantic world, but those around him. Jose is constantly running a treadmill and in one of the most powerful images Jose is struggling underwater. These images stick.

Struggling and alone, Jose is shuffling between two jobs, as a barber and selling hot dogs from a cart. (Thanks to Downey’s Pride Barbershop) for the chair. He is fired from his food cart gig for leaving it unattended while he goes to the toilet, and gets a ticket from a racist cop (Oscar Avila proves there is no such thing as small roles).

Jose is befriended by Charlie, a gregarious New York cop (a sympathetic Paul Tully in perhaps his finest performance) who becomes his confidant. Call me anytime. “It’s a Louis Armstrong world” he insists, but in reality, he has no soul, which is how he survives. He saves Jose and abandons him.

Jose’s only other source of support is his friend Gary (Miguel Angel Garcia provides us much needed comic relief) who’s only solution is, “You gotta learn not to think so much!”

We see Vivian, who has a restraining order on Jose, is also stranded and unable to get on. Her friend Nicki (Natasha Elias is wonderful as her upbeat friend) offering more comic relief and urges her to go out, and have fun.

In order to earn more money, Jose volunteers for clinical experiments with his VA doctor, Dr. Kramer (Daniel V Graulau makes him sound so sincere) who floods him with the glory of military duty, and pushes him to the limits in his sleep deprivation trials.

Adrift, Vivian falls for an abusive cop John (veteran actor Jaime Zevellos is charming at first but becomes just another abuser of women).

Zevellos performed in DAC’s 2013 Actor’s Equity staged reading of Daniel Houston Davila’s play set in Norwalk in 1974, “La Vida Lucky”, that I directed at Downey’s Stay Gallery.

John takes Vivian to the Zoo where Junior falls under the spell of the Zoo Guide (Chelsea J Smith is hauntingly statuesque) who peppers us with stark monologues of the behaviors of animals and humans under stress.

Vivian and John go to a nightclub and dance in a beautiful three-minute scene set to music by Chet Baker flooded with red light. Gary has dragged Jose to the same nightclub and he sees them dancing. This is a trigger point.

New York experiences a major blackout. A highly disturbed Jose violates the restraining order and visits Vivian. Appearing sincere he offers her money he has saved to win her back. She refuses at first. She can’t deal with him. She has divorce papers on the table. But this is the moment she tells him she still loves him. He asks to see Junior who is sleeping. When he comes back, he signs the divorce papers and like Büchner’s soldier Wyozek kills his wife.

In the final tableau of Vivian’s dead body, Jose calls Charlie and says he needs his help, Junior enters and we are left with the image and sound of Junior bouncing the blue ball off the wall.

The play captures the themes of alienation, man’s inhumanity to man, and urges the audience to reflect on the broader implications of the tragic fate not just of the soldier and his wife, but all of those connected to his world, and to all of us moving through our own.