Deb Lacusta at Vedanta

In Deb Lacusta's multimedia exhibition "loving Brando being," the artist's obsession with the actor Marlon Brando manifests itself in several video works that merge fantasy and reality in humorous, unexpected ways. The Los Angeles-based Lacusta, who also works in television and theater, enlisted two actors to play the role of Brando--Dan Castellaneta and Hank Azaria, who do character voices for "The Simpsons."

Azaria assumes the identity of the "fat, philosophical Brando," and Castellaneta the Godfather in Being Brando (2003), a short, lively ad-lib piece in which the actors banter about the peculiar character of Brando's voice and the art of impersonation. In a circuitous moment Azaria asks Castellaneta: "How did you as me create Don Corleone?"

Shown alongside is the video Billing Brando (2003), a running list of opening credits to Brando's some 40 films.

The centerpiece of the show was Starring Marlon Brando (2003), an homage and love story featuring Castellaneta as an older Brando and Lacusta as herself. This 77-minute video follows Lacusta and the object of her affection, who remains off camera except for one short scene in which the actor writes lines from On the Waterfront on Lacusta's face and hands. Facts from Brando's life meld with pure fiction in a series of dialogues and encounters with a host of characters--a urologist, a disaffected psychiatrist, an over-enthusiastic fan and chauffeur, an aged understudy and two young boys completely oblivious to his star status and films. The piece coheres, however, around the two lead characters' relationship, both professional and personal, which buds into a fleeting romance by the end of the film. Yet Brando, who we hear is "surprisingly agile" in bed, denies it: "Why do you insist on this fantasy?"

Musings on Brando's contributions to the field of acting intertwine with lots of silly fat jokes, cleverly acted from scripted material and comedic improvisation. The work becomes more interesting, however, in certain more serious scenes that use real-life events--the war on terror, Brando's rejection of the Oscar in 1973 for his role in The Godfather---as vehicles for a meditation on the nature of truth. Brando on politicians: "They are all actors, they are all liars," and on the Hollywood machine: "I break the illusion." Although Brando is the muse here, celebrity worship is effectively subsumed by the craft of acting itself ("all acting is lying"), and by the gap between artifice and actuality.

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