Photo by Aaron Kopec
Alchemist Theatre explores an interpretation of the life of Andy Warhol in The King of Pop. The comedic drama explores Warhol from the dawn of The Factory through to the end of its prominence in a remarkably tight, little presentation that includes a stylish intermission.
Playwright Aaron Kopec seems to be playing the story of Warhol as a kind of an allegory of art vs. commerce. Actual historical figures take on the overall feel of stock characters playing out an echoing exploration into the meaning of art, fame and success as a struggle between the wealthy elite and the rest of culture at large.
Randall T. Anderson plays Warhol as a man playing the role of a vacuous artist in order to infiltrate the art world and bring it out to the masses. It’s sort of an Emperor’s New Clothes proposition that looks to shock those in power and challenge the standard accepted social order. Anderson is fun and fascinating in the role as sort of a ghost of a human being secretly smirking behind the specter of his own image. There are vague shadows of the future in his performance. The unassumingly haunting tones of his repeated assertion that everyone will be famous in the future. He really had no idea how right he was going to be. Or did he?
David Sapiro plays Bob Dylan. I’ve seen enough people do covers of Bob Dylan that it almost feels like the man himself couldn’t have possibly existed. I remember someone posing the idea that there never really was an Elvis—just a bunch of people impersonating an image. For those who are fanatically into Dylan, Sapiro’s not going to seem authentic, but he plays the role of the man quite well. Kopec’s script frames him as the establishment’s safe, officially-designated non-revolutionary cultural revolutionary. They make him famous so he can never affect the change that he desperately wants to make. They tell Dylan to go electric in 1965 and Dylan goes electric in 1965. He’s an unwilling puppet resigned to the fact that he’s incapable of breaking out of the role they’ve assigned him. Saprio strikes a casually hip pose in a role that doesn’t necessarily allow him much rooom for depth. This is, after all, a story about Warhol which is also a story about much bigger things that no one person can contain.
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It’s hard to express how easy it is to love Shannon Nettesheim in the role of Edie Sedgwick. She plays a woman reaching for a kind of success without actually knowing where it is she’s going or how she’s going to get there. She exudes effortlessly charming inner integrity in the role, which makes her unfortunate path in the arc of the plot that much more tragic and heartbreaking. While there’s little doubt that Nettesheim’s studied Sedgwick in film, the performance also has kind of a Audrey Hepburn feel about her that’s genuinely charming. Once again Alchemist draws together a truly unique and distinctly memorable theatrical experience.
Other memorable turns onstage include a suitably beautifully exotic Niko King as Nico, Mitch Weindorf as a tough and genuine Lou Reed and Grace DeWolff putting in a characteristically captivating performance as Valerie Solanas.
Alchemist Theatre’s The King of Pop runs through May 16 at the Alchemist’s space on 2569 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. in Bay View. For ticket reservations and more information, visit thealchemisttheatre.com.
