{"id":245607,"date":"2012-12-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/profound-yoshimi-emotionally-moving\/"},"modified":"2012-12-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T08:00:00","slug":"profound-yoshimi-emotionally-moving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/profound-yoshimi-emotionally-moving\/","title":{"rendered":"Profound \u2018Yoshimi\u2019 emotionally moving"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYoshimi Battles the Pink Robots\u201d <\/em><\/strong>
\nWHERE: La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Dr. (La Jolla)<\/strong>
\nWHEN: Tues. \u2013 Wed. 7:30 p.m., Thurs. \u2013 Sat. 8 p.m., Sat. & Sun. 2 p.m., and Sun. 7 p.m. through Dec. 16<\/strong>
\nINFO: 858-550-1010<\/strong>
\nWEB: lajollaplayhouse.org<\/strong><\/p>\n

At times both exhaustive and subtle, La Jolla Playhouse brings The Flaming Lips to the stage in powerful world premiere<\/strong><\/p>\n

Por Charlene Baldridge | Cr\u00edtico de Teatro SDUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Sunday, Nov. 18, a headline at Smithsonian.com read: \u201cA Wandering \u2018Homeless\u2019 Planet Is Spotted in Deep Space.\u201d It is an orb approximately 100 light years away \u201cthat appears to be a planet not associated with any star.\u201d<\/p>\n

Could it be the place our heroine goes to battle pink robots?<\/p>\n

\"Profound
LaMae Capares as \u2018Karate Girl\u2019 with robots (Photo by Kevin Berne)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You remember The Flaming Lips album \u201cYoshimi Battles the Pink Robots\u201d; here Pink Robots are cancerous blood cells bent upon overcoming healthy cells in the young artist Yoshimi\u2019s circulatory system.<\/p>\n

This writer admits two things: having researched The Flaming Lips for a feature article, I admire The Lips\u2019 music and lyrics and their ethos, which tells life like it is. Second, I am experienced with cancer warriors and their battles. I could not avoid being profoundly moved by the world-premiere musical \u201cYoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,\u201d <\/em>written by former La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Des McAnuff and Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, with music and lyrics by The Flaming Lips.<\/p>\n

The singing of Kimiko Glenn as Yoshimi, Paul Nolan as Ben and Nik Walker as Booker, along with the solid presence of Tom Hewitt as Dr. Petersen, the pathos of Pearl Sun as Yoshimi\u2019s mother, and the ingenious Robots \u2013 one of them benign (no pun intended) \u2013 conspired to bring this onlooker to her emotional knees from the top of the show. The show began when the young artist Yoshimi \u2013 torn between the two men who love her \u2013 is diagnosed with a form of leukemia that is usually fatal.<\/p>\n

Yoshimi endures cellular and antibody therapies, improving miraculously. The relentless assault of the Pink Robots becomes too heavy, even for a superman like Booker to bear, so he forsakes his love mid-battle. Ben, who has been restrained from hanging out at the hospital, returns, goes home with Yoshimi and sings the lines \u201cYou be the earth. I\u2019ll be Your Moon,\u201d in the song \u201cSatellite of You.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker is tall and handsome and has a wonderful vocal range. Glenn is superb in every way, expressing Yoshimi\u2019s range of vulnerability and warrior-like qualities. After seeing and hearing Nolan as Jesus (a role almost impossible to sing) in McAnuff\u2019s \u201cJesus Christ Superstar,\u201d it is a pleasure to hear his true voice. He is also a convincing actor and dancer; choreographer is Bradley Rapier, whose movement vocabulary for the Robots is both frightening and endearing. One wishes Hewitt had more to do, but he helps underpin small ensembles.<\/p>\n

Aided by lighting designer Michael Walton and sound designer Steve Canyon Kennedy, puppeteer Basil Twist\u2019s Pink Robots, Robert Brill\u2019s scenic design, Paul Tazewell\u2019s costumes, and Sean Nieuwenhuis\u2019 video and projection design conspire to assure that Yoshimi inhabits a truly spectacular, three-dimensional universe the likes of which are seldom seen, with flying even.<\/p>\n

The immense Robot 3000-21 is so appealing one longs to take him home. So is the busy little vacuum bot, which sings, as do all the Robots, lighting up in the mouth area to indicate where the sound and sentiment is coming from. Would that the humans could do the same.<\/p>\n

It is easy to forget that the 26 Lips songs and the sounds issue from human lips. The show seems removed by many light years from human emotions, and yet, it moves the emotions.<\/p>\n

By the end of act one, the metaphors \u2013 robots, the warrior and the battle \u2013 have been exhausted far beyond their limits, like a too-long poetic conceit. Then, surprisingly, act two picks up with the evolution (or mutation) of Robot 3000-21 and his love, expressed only by a giant hand on a robotic heart. It was something entirely missed by my companion, proving that it is possible at times, even for immensity, to be too subtle.<\/p>\n

Reality is addressed in the final song, \u201cDo You Realize?\u201d in which The Lips pose and answer the most difficult and profound question.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYoshimi Battles the Pink Robots\u201d WHERE: La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Dr. (La Jolla) WHEN: Tues. \u2013 Wed. 7:30 p.m., Thurs. \u2013 Sat. 8 p.m., Sat. & Sun. 2 p.m., and Sun. 7 p.m. through Dec. 16 INFO: 858-550-1010 WEB: lajollaplayhouse.org At times both exhaustive and subtle, La Jolla Playhouse brings The Flaming […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":245608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Profound \u2018Yoshimi\u2019 emotionally moving","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}