The Basement
LA Weekly Review
by Wendy Gilmartin
July 10, 2003

"You know who really fucked us? The Beatles," says old-timer jazz saxophonist Sammy Fletcher (Sam Ayers) when a young whippersnapper pianist, Jake Singleton (K.W. Miller), blows into this L.A. jazz scene with big ideas about "modernizing" music and "making a four-piece band sound like 12." Sammy's sentiment is echoed throughout Shari Doran and K.W. Miller's thoughtful one-act about passion for one's art and changing times. Played out in a 1969 musicians'-union rehearsal space and lounge (which they not-so-endearingly refer to as "the basement"), vignettelike scenes connect with musical interludes in a rhythmically loose narrative that slowly develops each of its characters - the womanizing bassist, Stu (Michael Gregory); the discriminated-against and Vietnam-damaged black drummer, Billy Kellum (Rashawn Underdue); lover of life and sultry singer, Billie Vance (Shari Doran). In this small world - where those who take nonunion gigs are seen as traitors and a wa-wa guitar-pedal effect is giggled at and brushed off as kidsspeak - these dinosaurs sense their way of life (big bands, honest playing, union gigs) is coming quickly to an end and that technology and hippies are moving in. "Billie Holiday puked in that john," says Sammy to the young pianist, epitomizing the play's brand of romanticism. The dialogue is snappy, and with his quick pacing and full use of the theater's intimate space, director Gregory Serrao Bach constructs a seemingly impromptu jazzlike structure that helps sustain the mood. Theater Shed, 10806 Ventura Blvd., No. 6, Studio City; Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; thru Aug 10. (818) 785-4053.