ARTS NOTES

This concert isn’t endless, just 639 years

Once when asked how he thought his music would fare after his death, John Cage replied that he had written so much that it would be a lot of trouble to get rid of it all. But the composer, who died in 1992, could hardly have anticipated that one work, “Organ2/ASLSP,” would go on forever in a small town in Germany.

Well, maybe not forever, but just about. On Feb. 28 at 11 p.m., the first musical pitch will sound in a performance of the 1987 work on an organ in Halberstadt’s St. Burchardi church. The town’s mayor and other dignitaries will be on hand. But they won’t likely stay to the end, which will be in the year 2640.

“ASLSP” is a rough abbreviation for “as slow as possible.” A typical performance lasts about 20 minutes, if you do not choose to be unreasonably literal. The piece in Halberstadt actually began on Sept. 5, 2001, Cage’s 89th birthday, when the organ motor and bellows were switched on, but the first note was silent -- an 18-month rest. Other notes will follow in coming years. The time span of 639 years was arrived at because that was the age of the organ in 2001.

Germans take art seriously and can be rude to latecomers; for this performance, however, they promise to make an exception.

-- Mark Swed

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‘Kegger’ finds itself a little too topical

“Four guys rent the ultimate party house next to Cape Canaveral, and prepare for an endless summer of babes, booze and rocket launches

So read a press release for the play “Kegger,” which opened Jan. 30 at the Complex in Hollywood.

Uh-oh. Less than two days after the opening, the Columbia shuttle disintegrated.

That evening’s performance of “Kegger” was canceled. Not only did the play sound unfortunately frivolous, given the circumstances, but in one plot twist, one of the party animals hears that the shuttle in question will actually be a giant billboard and claims he’s going to sabotage the launch as a protest against the commercialization of space.

The show resumed the following week. “The only similarity is that we talk about shuttles and rockets being launched,” said playwright and co-producer Alexander Hrabe, but the plot’s would-be saboteur never comes close to actually doing damage. No spacecraft is destroyed in the story.

Hrabe said he initially saw his script as a play about “a transition from boyhood to manhood,” but that it acquired additional meaning in the wake of the Columbia catastrophe. “It was more about how people deal with an atmosphere where disaster is prevalent.”

The production had been scheduled through March 2, but it closed prematurely last weekend. Hrabe said this had nothing to do with the Columbia -- one of the actors got a much more lucrative gig as a stand-up comic. But Hrabe said he believes the production will “reconvene” at some point.

-- Don Shirley

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A spoof that did not amuse

The improv group Liquid Radio Players was presenting its version of a ‘40s-style radio show earlier this month at L.A.’s Acme Theatre, when one of the show’s sound effects artists donned a Chinese jacket and a Fu Manchu mustache. The narrator identified the white foley artist as “our fabulous guest star” -- the actor who played Charlie Chan’s “No. 2 son” in the Chan movies.

Boos arose from the audience. Most of them were from six members of Cold Tofu, an Asian American improv group, and their guests.

The narrator continued that “here in 1942, Asians are so very different and funny and scary and weird.”

“I thought he was European,” said the radio show’s announcer.

“He is, but we pay him $135 a week to be Asian,” replied the narrator. “Some people believe there will be a world where Asians will actually be allowed to play Asians.”

“That’s impossible!” said the announcer. “This is 1942. No minorities are allowed to be in films.”

After the show, said Cold Tofu artistic director Helen Ota, “a few of us approached the actors to let them know that what the actor in costume did was very offensive and viewed as a racist act. Most seemed to understand. Unfortunately, a couple of the actors didn’t seem to be too affected by what we said, saying that their show plays on the sexism and racism of that era. When we told them that portrayal is on the same level as an actor today doing blackface, it seemed to affect them a little more.”

In a statement to The Times, Liquid Radio replied that “the show lampoons all of the 1940s, including social taboos and racial stereotypes.” However, “we immediately apologized for offending them, and offered to use more discretion in the future” -- as well as an offer for the two groups to perform together, which Cold Tofu may do, Ota said.

Liquid Radio includes a wide range of performers, said the Liquid Radio statement, including “American Indian, Hispanic, Asian American, gay, African American, Jewish and a blond.”

-- Don Shirley