"Water is a vivid metaphor in Los Angeles. We live in a desert beside an ocean, an existence of simultaneous want and plenitude.
Another, lesser-known water source inspires The Ballad of Bimini Baths, a trio of plays by local playwright Tom Jacobson. Bimini was a popular swimming and spa complex at the site of hot springs one block east of Vermont Avenue between 1st and 2nd streets, operated from 1903 to 1951.
Jacobson makes this the nexus of a wide-ranging tale that pulls together events in L A history, some of which occurred at the baths, others not. His theme is sins in need of being washed away--racism as well as other moral failings.
The intriguing result is being staged by three small theaters, all running different plays ranging from 55 minutes to 11/2 hours.
The final play is an inspiring tale of people working together to try to redeem the past and re-chart the future. The first two, though, take on disturbing topics that can be difficult to watch and aren't easily resolved in brief, short-story-like formats...
Jacobson's fascination with mercurial/chameleonic human nature--seen in such plays as TAINTED BLOOD, OUROBOROS and THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY WAY--takes daring forms in these first two Bimini plays.
The introductory piece, PLUNGE, introduces [Everett C] Maxwell [a historical figure: the first art curator at what was initially known as the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art] on a night of triumph in his curatorial career in 1916. ...he is brainy, inquisitive and flirtatious as he encounters a priest in a quiet corner at a garden party. Sensing a shared attraction, Maxwell suggests they retire to a private spa room at Bimini, but after he's eagerly swapped his tuxedo for bathing togs, a chill sets in as the priest hints at a dark event.
Here is another historical figure, Father E V Reynolds, who disappeared after the 1908 drowning of a 15-year-old boy at the baths. Reynolds was suspected of having propositioned the youth. ...his calm, ministerial demeanor turns cold and slippery. ...a taut sense of mystery...
Reynolds' identity eventually comes into doubt, and reality keeps shifting. As dark memories replay, the actors slip into character as the young victims. After witnessing what's perpetrated on the boys, the audience feels in need of cleansing--but that relief is withheld."
Daryl H Miller, Los Angeles Times
"Long-buried secrets of power, passion, and perversion propel PLUNGE, the first installment of Tom Jacobson's concurrently running Bimini Baths Trilogy, as provocative a World Premiere play as you're likely to experience any time soon."
StageSceneLA
"Jacobson has created an intricate puzzle of a play, a matryoshka doll where one truth lays nested within another, only to find another nested within that."
Stage Raw
