The Pageant : 56th Season Opens With Mix of Old Tableaux, Newcomers--Including Surfer--in the Spotlight

The Pageant of the Masters opened Friday at Laguna Beach’s Irvine Bowl. Fifty-six years old this summer and running daily through Aug. 28, the series of living pictures represents some of the world’s most famous artworks.

As always, the tableaux vivant incorporate live, volunteer models and elaborate costumes, makeup, backdrops and lighting in a two-hour Cook’s Tour through virtually every artistic medium. Re-creations of jeweled sculptures, delicate porcelain miniatures and exotic Japanese lacquer works share the bill with contemporary bronzes and acrylics, each set off by live thematic music and a detailed introduction by narrator Thurl Ravenscroft (best known as the voice of Kellogg’s cereal’s “Tony the Tiger”).

Several old standbys are back (including Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”), while newcomers include “The Ultimate Challenge,” a larger-than-life replica of Edmund Shumpert’s bronze statue of a surfer taking on the perfect wave (the original stands along the Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach). This pageant entry is notable not only for its accuracy and scale, but for the sheer athletic prowess of its model who seems to balance on his wave at a perfect 45-degree angle from the stage without upsetting a lock of his spray-painted hair.

Other pieces this year include the show’s opener, “St. George and the Dragon,” which replicates a 16th-Century jeweled sculpture by German artist H. Schleich; “Early Post Covers,” a series of four whimsical Saturday Evening Post illustrations by Norman Rockwell, and “A Pastoral Fantasy,” five rosy-hued Meissen porcelain miniatures.

The pageant runs concurrently with the Festival of the Arts on the adjacent grounds. Festival features include a junior art exhibit, art workshops and puppet shows for kids, and a large display by local artists and craftsmen of paintings, photography, sculpture, handicrafts and more.

The festival is open daily from 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.; the pageant starts nightly at 8:30 (and parking is at a premium, so you would be well advised to arrive early). The Irvine Bowl is at 650 Laguna Canyon Road in Laguna Beach. Pageant tickets, which are good for admission to the festival, range in price from from $9 to $35. Admittance to the festival only is $2 ($1 for the elderly, and children under 12 are admitted free with an adult). The bowl is an outdoor amphitheater, so pageant-viewers might be wise to bring blankets and binoculars, which can be rented on the festival grounds.

For tickets and information, call (714) 494-1145.