In the surreal virtual universe of Mel Shapiro's "Homer in Cyberspace," the gods of ancient Greece have been deposed, "shrink-wrapped and imprisoned" by a new race of digital/electronic deities known as the iGods.

 

Struggling to return home to his loyal wife Penelope, the wily war hero Odysseus ("O" for short) has been condemned to wander aimlessly for years, his punishment for blinding the one-eyed bully Sy, the iGod son of Belle and Bernie Klops.

 

Obviously, the epic poet of ancient Greece has been put through a few changes on his way to UCLA's Macgowan Hall Little Theater, where radically modernized simulacra of Odysseus, Penelope and Telemachus will make their singing and dancing debuts.

 

"Homer in Cyberspace" will be presented at 8 p.m. on May 29, 30 and 31 and on June 4, 5, 6 and 7, with additional 2 p.m. performances on May 31 and June 7. Ticket and parking information can be obtained by calling UCLA's Central Ticket Office at (310) 825-2101 or visiting www.tickets.ucla.edu.

 

Funded in part by a grant from the UCLA Arts Initiative, "Homer," the UCLA Theater Department's 2008 Ray Bolger Musical Theater Production, is the second innovative collaboration between the department of theater and UCLA's Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance (REMAP) and follows the success of the sold-out 2006 hit "The Blogger's Project."

 

The production features 90 minutes of new music by professor Roger Bourland, prolific theater and film composer and chair of the department of music at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

 

"I've been thinking about doing a musical based on 'The Odyssey' for years," says Shapiro, who wrote "Homer" with Daniel Kelleher. "And then when I was watching all the amazing visuals we achieved with the computer-generated environments in 'The Blogger's Project,' I realized there would never be a better time to try it."

 

Shapiro, a UCLA theater professor, is also a Tony Award-winning veteran of the Broadway stage who collaborated with playwright John Guare and Sammy Davis Jr. before joining the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in 1990.

 

"The Blogger's Project," also written and directed by Shapiro, was produced as an innovative collaboration between the theater department and REMAP, combining digital media with content derived, in part, from blogs written by soldiers fighting in Iraq. These were combined with historical and literary material, including a section based on Homer's "Iliad."

 

Both shows employ the sort of "gaming engine" used to create the intuitive interactive environments of today's most popular entertainment products to generate a fluid world of media for a live event. The futuristic technology is the result of a collaboration among a group of students and alumni from UCLA's computer science, animation, cinematography, theater and architecture programs, led by REMAP executive director Jeff Burke.

 

"In 'Blogger's Project' the segments we created were basically back-projected, which created some striking effects but was somewhat limited in its relationship with the actors and scenery," Burke says. "In 'Homer,' we're striving for something even more immersive, filming the actors to create video and graphic sequences that can be projected directly onto the décor, so that the performers are surrounded and even covered by this new world."

 

"Hades will look and sound like a video game," Shapiro says, "with lots of shooting and people dropping dead and popping up again. The whole video game thing gives the show a style that I never would have thought of otherwise. People ask me what period the play is set in and I say, 'It's somewhere between 2500 B.C. and 3000 A.D.' It's a cartoon-like hyperworld."

 

Composer Bourland has been struck especially by "the sheer variety of different kinds of material Mel [Shapiro] is creating. We have crazy comedy, sexy sequences, intellectual stuff and dumb stuff, and emotional passages about love and fidelity that will have people crying by the end of it."

 

Bourland strove to evoke both the ancient and the futuristic in his music, he says, combining electronic sounds with stringed instruments, from the banjo to the bouzouki, a nod toward the common image of Homer as a blind bard singing his epic verses while strumming a lyre.

 

The music will be created entirely on computer by Bourland, who is adapting the score to rhythms that emerge during the rehearsal process.

 

"I'll get a call that says, 'We need another two bars here and a longer pause here,' and I'll revise the score accordingly and send the new music back to them as an e-mail attachment," he explains.

 

Bourland and Burke strongly endorse Shapiro's view that what makes "The Odyssey" a perfect vehicle for a stylized adaptation like "Homer in Cyberspace" is the universality of its themes.

 

"When I was writing it, and especially when I was writing the lyrics, I came to understand that 'The Odyssey' is very much about a father and son and a husband and wife who are separated, and how they feel about that," Shapiro says. "It ends up being about aging and accepting who you are."

 

The Ray Bolger Musical Theater Program, established by a gift from the Gwen and Ray Bolger trusts and named for the beloved performer best known for his role as the rubber-limbed Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz," trains a few carefully selected students each year in acting, singing and dance for the musical theater. The program also provides historical knowledge and critical perspective, hands-on training with professional artists, and a range of performing experiences, from workshops to the annual Ray Bolger Musical Theater Production.

 

The UCLA Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance (REMAP) was created in 2004 by the School of Theater, Film and Television and the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and is co-directed by television and digital media professor Fabian Wagmister and electrical engineering professor William Kaiser. REMAP's executive director is Jeff Burke, and its advisory council is chaired by Bruce Vaughn, chief creative officer of Walt Disney Imagineering.

 

The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television offers its students a unique blend of scholarship and practical training, bringing together the highest levels of professionalism with the social mission of a public university. Its landmark integration of theater, film, television and digital media and its outstanding faculty and facilities nurture creative innovation, personal vision and social responsibility. Alumni include such notables as Allison Anders, Charles Burnett, Francis Ford Coppola, Tim Robbins, Moctesuma Esparza, Todd Holland, Susan Egan, Gregory Nava, Alexander Payne, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Tim Robbins, Judy Kaye, Brad Silberling, Tom Schumacher and Audrey Wells.