Life in the Faux-European Theatre

My current shows aren't so current. I've got three or four paper projects that won't be three-dimensional for months yet, and that's boring and frustrating. I just closed three hard shows a little over a month ago, with a fourth just before that, and I should be sitting back and just thinking about next year's projects. Be Mr. Ivory Tower for a bit before going back to being Mr. Hammer-And-Nails. But for some reason I'm really antsy and want to be on my feet and directing actors. Right now, that'd be walking before I can crawl.

So, I need to do some rewrites on A Little Piece of the Sun and then have the actual author of the play go over them and rewrite or adapt or approve my rewrites. I have to keep reading the text of Foreman's George Bataille's Bathrobe to find more of why I'm doing it and who the people are that are saying these lines. And I need to watch a whole bunch of 1940s Republic movie serials for more inspiration on Spacemen from Space. And maybe I need to stop the continual thoughts of Fassbinder's Blood on the Cat's Neck that keep coming up - I'm doing the OTHER three plays in August '09, so stop making me think I can do a fourth, oh you sneaky Fassbinder play!

I'm trying to figure out a "theme" or "festival" heading I can place my shows under. I've found that some places - well, Time Out New York specifically - won't list my shows separately when I do a group together in August, and they get listed in a way that I don't think sells them so well. So I want to get the jump on it and find the linkage I can exploit and promote myself, so it's not just the "Gemini CollisionWorks" Festival or worse, as it always gets referred to, the "Ian W. Hill" Festival. Yuck. What's the connecting theme of these plays? Lying? Deception? Anti-intellectualism? Maybe that's a good name, the "Anti-Intellectual Festival." Sounds like a bunch of plays you don't have to think at, but are actually dense plays about anti-intellectualism. "Dope-Fest?" "Stupid-O-Rama?" "The Cretin Hop?" "A Celebration of Bad Judgment?" "The Wrongheaded Festival?" "Idiots Abound?"

In any case, that then there's The Future. As for The Present, I've got two shows I was tangentially involved with going on or opening tonight:

photo by Ken Stein/Runs With Scissors Photography.

Above, Robert Honeywell as Lord Oxford (your host), Gyda Arber as Greta (representing the Northern European Peoples), Iracel Rivero as Lucia (representing the Southern European Peoples), Audrey Crabtree as Patty O'Pattycake (Western Europe/the UK) and Alyssa Simon as Nataliya (Eastern Europe/Asia) in

Lord Oxford brings you The Second American Revolution LIVE!.

Being an episode of a variety show taking place in a 2008 where George Washington was killed in the original Battle of Brooklyn, Sally Hemmings slit Thomas Jefferson's throat as he slept, and the British Crown still rules its New World colonies. On this night, the actors in the show revolt against the stereotyped "European" characters they are normally forced to play and join in a Second American Revolution against their British oppressors across the sea and the privileged peoples to the South (the freed Negro slaves, now Lords) and the West (the Native Americans). With musical numbers, clowning, politics, disturbing imagery, and potentially confusing or offensive metaphors!

written and composed by Robert Honeywell

directed by Moira Stone

I saw the final dress/tech of this the other night and it's a grand production. I'm sure I'll be back soon - Berit's off preparing for opening night of this now; she's board-opping and she built a few props and did other things. I shot the video coda and recorded a voice-over for them (the "Lord Oxford Show" announcer, in full Gary-Owens-Radio-School-For-Big-Voiced-Men mode, always fun to pull out).

Interested? Click the link in the title above for more info.

And still playing, in another borough:

photo by Aaron Epstein

Above, the Brothers and Sister Blood torment another poor soul in

The Blood Brothers present... The Master of Horror

stories by Stephen King, adapted for the stage by

James Comtois, Qui Nguyen, and Mac Rogers

directed by Patrick Shearer and Pete Boisvert

Now running smoothly, I'm told, and getting good notices (though my work - I did the light design - has gotten some mixed criticism, but it's mostly because of the limitations of the space and house plot I had to work with, so, whatever). A fun, creepy evening.

Interested? Click the link in the title above for more info.

In other electrical locales . . .

Ron Howard made a little pro-Obama movie with some old friends of his (one VERY old friend of his) - thanks be to Joshua James at his Daily Dojo for passing it on.

I also wanted to share it, despite feeling kinda odd about it. I wasn't sure how to describe this odd feeling, but David Pescovitz over at Boing Boing captured it: "It's funny, cute, sentimental, and incredibly awkward and horrifying all at once." Enjoy:

( The Return of Opie Cunningham )

Also from Funny or Die, a more immediate solution to Our Nation's troubles is suggested by Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones:

( The Best Course of Action )

Oh, and, uh, have you heard? Alan Greenspan appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and has decided he made a widdle mistakey . . .

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said.

Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

Mr. Waxman pressed the former Fed chair to clarify his words. “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,” Mr. Waxman said.

“Absolutely, precisely,” Mr. Greenspan replied. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

Oh. Oops.

The full article in the New York Times is HERE.

If you really want to know just how "exceptionally well" this free-market ideology has been going for the past 40 years, I recommend the incredibly depressing book The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein, which makes the whole subject easy-to-understand for people like me who find the whole world of invisible money difficult in the first place, and is a fine and horrifying look at the mindset that has led us into the current crisis.

The filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and his son Jonas made a kind of short-film/trailer/promo for the book that I appreciated (and maybe posted?) when it appeared over a year ago. Now that I've read the book, I appreciate it much more:

( THE SHOCK DOCTRINE by Cuarón, Cuarón, and Klein )

At times like this, sometimes I wish I had a device like this one, which can transform a boring apartment into a loud, sleazy, smoke-filled club with just the push of a BIG RED BUTTON. Really:

( EMERGENCY PARTY BUTTON )

For more cheer, I read the fine fine superfine Kim Morgan at her four(!) locales, Sunset Gun, Pretty Poison, Strange Impersonation, and Movies Filter.

I mention her today because she posted a brief appreciation of one of my favorite DAMNED LOUD 60s bands, The Sonics, earlier, which included a great video for the song "Psycho." So go visit her site over there at the link to the post above if you want to see some odd, crazed, 1960s TV go-go dancing.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I just got the brand-new Electric Six album, and Berit's running the show right now, so I can boogie like an idiot all by myself at home. And only the cats will know how stupid I look . . .