- By ARLENE WINNICK
You had me at ‘Clue’ meets “Chinatown”! “Underneath the Freeways of Los Angeles” is a live-streamed interactive murder mystery experience inspired by real historical events. The best part – the audience helps solve the murder…and every performance is different. In “Underneath,” commissioned by The Echo Theater Company and written by Matthew Paul Olmos, it is 1960 and two bodies have been discovered in the lake at Hollenbeck Park right below the newly-built section of the Golden State Freeway. Now the interactive fun begins as the audience reviews clues, speaks directly to the reporter covering the story, questions witnesses and interviews the five ‘persons of interest’ in order to solve the crime. Who did it? Suspects include artist Dee Dee Echevarria; local resident Mrs. Kay Shimo; protest organizer Lucretia Jacobs; drifter Efren; and Highways administrator James Rouser. Director by Michael Alvarez, “Underneath” stars Amy Harmon as the investigative TV reporter. Is this a straight of case of murder or are the elements of race, power, displacement and community the true motive?
Historical note: when the new East LA Freeway interchange was built, a civil engineering marvel at the time, it famously displaced over 15,000 Angelenos in Boyle Heights despite heated protests from local residents.
16 virtual performances via Zoom April 2 – 26. Click here.
