Brando at Byronz
Theatre at the Bistro
VENUE - @bistrobyronz
In the 70s, Mike Kantrow opened a restaurant and named it after his son Byron. "Byron's" restaurant turned into Byronz, just to jazz it up a bit. It was a sandwich shop in the 80s. When Mike's kids revived the business in 2006, they reopened it on Government St. and called it Bistro Byronz. Creative Director Sam Kantrow and his sister (the CEO) Emelie Alton are the faces of the chain today. They run three locations for "Bistro Byronz" in Baton Rouge, as well as "Pizza Byronz" alongside the newest location at the Settlement at Willow Grove. The Government location, at Square 46, is considered the flagship. It was there that John Mese carried his one-man act as Christian Brando on Father's Day weekend. The idea of bistro theatre is a good one—a bit retro, perhaps, like dinner theatre, and in the present times, when we can stream on demand from the comfort of home, it would be a refreshing treat to experience more creative and personal touches like “bistro theatre.”
PLAY
The bistro is normally closed on Sundays, but on Sunday, June 19, the doors at 5412 Government St. were opened to a packed assembly of ticket buyers, eager to see Wild Son: The Testimony of Christian Brando, a one-act play starring John Mese and written/directed by Champ Clark. In the Playwright's Note, Clark explained his friendship with Christian and how Christian was eager to confide in him. "Christian was pleased because–despite his parentage and his time in the headlines–no one had ever asked him to tell his story. Over a period of months, Christian and I would get together at his small Hollywood apartment…hanging and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. I'd bring my tape recorder and ask him questions. Christian would answer. This play is based on those taped interviews." From its run in Los Angeles, the show came to Byronz of Baton Rouge, Mese's hometown, for just one night and is now headed for the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.
How to see the show at Fringe: Click Here
REVIEW - FIVE FULL STARS
The ambience alone was striking for its simplicity. It was bare bones theatre: a man on a stool, wearing a messily buttoned white shirt and black pants. Barefoot. John Mese (@mesejohn) is hunched over and we cannot tell if he's sleeping, or drunk, or what. The audience, an intimate gathering packed to capacity, awaits his first line with bated breath. He suddenly comes to and, after some disorientation, launches into the story. His story, as Christian Brando. No press, no fuss. Just a man and his voice. His truth. It's raw. It's heartbreaking. At times, it's even gut wrenching. Brando, the son of legendary actor Marlon Brando and "nephew" of Jack Nicholson, should have been a Hollywood prince. We see him on the stage, in the skin of John Mese, broken down to the rawest human. Forget the Academy Awards. Wipe the red carpet from your mind. This is no Oz. This is the scared, the lonely, the abused, the tortured life that lives behind the curtain. Mese gives an honestly brilliant and brutally raw performance. Armed with the words of Champ Clark, and a single prop (can of beer, which he jovially autographed for a member of the audience after the show) the actor successfully conveys the vulnerability that lurks just beneath the surface of an exterior forced from an early age into toughness. This show should definitely be seen. I hope it eventually goes on a streaming service. I don't know how much the average person (whoever that might be) knows about Christian Brando. All I know is, before I saw this play, I knew almost nothing. Even now, I guess, I still know next to almost nothing. It’s just that now I have a story to go with a name. Whether that story is absolutely true or not, it rings plausible. We get the story of someone unloved, or scarcely loved, who in spite of that, manages to love…his sister, his father—and, touchingly, as we learn toward the end of the show, two very much younger half-siblings who he meets for the first time at their father's memorial service. I think if you took the famous names out of it, you would be left with a story that anyone can relate to. He never fit in, a perennial misfit. He lost his temper. After prison, he wandered. He found something he liked to do, that he was good at—welding. He found peace in the wilderness, and his first instinct was to share it with those he loved and who ought to have loved him. Here is the product of unconsciousness everywhere, the embodiment of human insanity. Thank you, Champ Clark and John Mese, for producing this powerful show. Watch the trailer embedded below!
Can't wait to see Wild Son! Wish it was streaming. Can't travel to Scotland unfortunately. But this is an important work and I wish it had wider distribution. Maybe now that the pandemic has calmed down, it will. But it may flare up again, so please, Lisa Nishamura, put this important play on HBO. You won't regret it!
I was privileged to be front and center for the Baton Rouge performance, which moved me more than any theatrical experience ever has. John Mese is an amazing actor and person.