Start of Something or Two

So, this year to come in theatre is still confused and uncertain.

I am preparing my script for Hamlet for The Brick's Pretentious Festival in June (with, I hope, an extension of at least a few performances in July, as it's a lot of work to put into just six or so performances). By the end of the week, I want to have the script done so I can email every actor I know and want to work with again to ask if they're interested, give the cast breakdown, see who they want to read for, and then send them the script so they can see what I'm planning on doing with the Shakespeare play.   The only people set in the cast as yet are me (Hamlet) and Bryan Enk (Polonius/Fortinbras).

However, August is also mine to do with as I please (kinda) at The Brick, and I'm still up in the air about what what it is exactly that I please. I want to do only an original work (or works) of mine, but there's also a certain amount of interest in bringing back my production of Marc Spitz's The Hobo Got Too High, which would be quite fun, and pretty easy to do.

As for the original work to bring back that month, the plan has been to bring back That's What We're Here For (an american pageant), which only got six shows last June, and which I'd like to work on more and get into a proper, tight shape. I'm worried about getting back the entire cast, though, and if I couldn't get back at least two-thirds of them, it wouldn't be worth it to me. Also, I'm worried about how to sell the show, and don't want to wind up working hard on a show I care about so much if I can't get the houses.

I've also been thinking about bringing back NECROPOLIS 1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed, which was pretty popular to begin with, I'd like to do it again (as, I think, would most of the cast, many of whom have expressed their feelings to me that they could do a much better job with their parts now), I can sell it and get the houses, and it wouldn't cost much as we have most of it ready from the 2005 run, we could make some profit, and everyone could get a cut.

(I mentioned to one of the actors in World Gone Wrong not long ago that I made about $100 in profit on the show.  She asked why she hadn't got a cut.  I noted that an even cut among the 22 people working on the show would have wound up at less than $5 each, and that seemed silly to me to hand out, almost insulting.  She said hey, that's two subway rides - so I guess I should have done that anyway.  I will in future, when I have a show that makes money again.)

There are other "original" shows I'd like to bring back (in quotes because they are original works of mine, but for the most part are collage texts of other sources), including Even the Jungle (slight return) (by me and David LM Mcintyre), NECROPOLIS 0: Kiss Me, Succubus (after Jess Franco and Radley Metzger), NECROPOLIS 3: At the Mountains of Slumberland (after Winsor McCay and H.P. Lovecraft), as well as the other two mentioned above.  In a perfect world, I could somehow do all five of these in one month in rep without killing myself, get the back catalogue "out of the way" and hopefully seen by a few more people, as they deserve, and then move on to new stuff.

Also, I'd like to put up a full-original work at some point -- a non-collaged play.  I've had some ideas in the past month, but they've been floating around my head with no shape yet.  I had just a title - Spell - and some imagery notes.  The other night, walking home in the cold moonlight from the grocery, something hit, and something opened in my head like a door letting in light, and I had the first inklings of something concrete.

I probably won't post much, if anything, else of this as it comes, but I thought the beginning point might be interesting.  Just the start, notes and fragments.

Maybe I'll have this ready to go for August . . .


*****

SPELL

(fragments to be figured out and ordered later)

(light bulb scene)

ANN

Say we had a light bulb here . . .

Light bulb on stand shoots up out of the center of the table. ANN points her finger at it like a gun, “pulls the trigger,” and it clicks on.

ANN

. . . and it’s on. I can’t just look at that and deal with it as just a light bulb

(detailed light bulb explanation to come)

Not just light bulbs. Something that complex. Tables. This table. Who built it, where, what hands, what conditions. How did he or she feel? Did they have a cold? Who did they give that cold to, later that day after they made their piece of this thing?

I’m in a diner, I go to put the sugar in my coffee from one of those sugar pourers, you know, the, the diner . . ?

(Demonstrating the “diner kind” of sugar dispenser with a pouring gesture. BILL nods.)

And who made that, that there in my hand? Not just that, that there’s a factory somewhere of people, lots of people, making these. And a place in that factory, maybe a factory of its own somewhere where they just make those little metal flaps at the top of the lid that the sugar comes through. Just that little piece of metal, and how many people did it take to make that, and who are they, and what are their lives around making these little pieces of metal. I picture them. I follow them home. I watch their TV shows . . . dinner . . . evening with the kids . . . maybe friends over . . .

It’s paralyzing. Not being able to just ignore it. Accept it. If that’s . . . You get what I mean?

BILL

Does that make things difficult?

ANN

(bitter irony)

Well, it makes it difficult to acquire money. If you know what I mean. Earn my keep.

BILL

What do you want to keep?

*****

ANN

(looking off)

I hear voices . . .

BILL

Tell me about these voices.

ANN

No, I mean—

BILL

Don’t be afraid.

ANN

I’m not afraid, I just—

BILL

Stay a spell.

ANN

Stay what spell?

Spell occurs. Three witches. Silhouetted through back scrim wall.

WITCH 1

Stay.

WITCH 2

Sit.

WITCH 3

Remain.

*****
(floor becomes ceiling – fabric – on pulleys)

(noir detective)

(ANN gender switch, back and forth, unsure – ANDY, maybe?)

Sit a spell.

Spell this.

Spell it for me?

Are you good at spelling?
*****

ANN

I thought I was an artist. I was always told I was an artist, so, hey, I’m an artist, right? Then I got to thinking I was just a craftsman. Woman. Craftswoman? Person? Crafter. Crafty? Then I decided I was somewhere in between, and what kind of place is that to be? After all.

*****

(politeness/manners/chivalry part of monologue)

(being in the grey, between black and white, problems, advantages, disadvantages)

(things have moved on)

(technology. shifts.)

(bread and circuses)

(business scene with lots of machine sounds, images of money, bills, large. projected?)

(noir figures. violence. multiple beatings.)
*****

Well, anything can happen in this place.

Do you mind?

Mind?

Mind.

Me mind?

You mind.

I mind everything and nothing. All at the same time.

*****

(everything slides)

(drug, voices, insanity, dealing with it discussion)
*****

Did you ever want to be normal?

Jesus, hell, no!

(beat)

Well, no, maybe that’s not true. For a moment, time to time, very brief. Only when I was in discomfort and wanted comfort. Thought “normal” would have given it to me. Ease. An easement, of a kind.

*****

Say this was—

(as a repeated opening to various scenes/thoughts)

(ANN and ANDY alternate imagining the lives of people in businesses/houses seen from a train – “Colonel F.G. Ward Pumping Station,” “Mr. Fox Tire Company,” “Sal’s Collision and Son,” “Action Box and Container;” a factory with cracked windows painted with green enamel; plains of burned-out, busted, and just plain left for dead vehicles; a back sunporch on a river, filled with stuff, over the windows and the screen door; two International Klein Blue doors stuck in the side of an old, shabby tin warehouse; a faded smiley face with “Always Happy To Serve You!” in italic on the yellowed sign of a building, no other signage visible.)
*****

Hmmmn.  It's a start.  I have some more ideas.  All dancing around.  Some kind of hook.  All there, just can't find the words yet . . .