War and Heroes and Standing in the Breadline

I went and saw The Heroes of Wicker Park yesterday, which was very fun. Surrounding the show for the early arrivals was a sort of arts festival with characters from the show playing instruments and games with a group of kids who I assume were area children. The show itself was largely spectacle, featuring men in beautiful papier-mache puppet heads wandering the park with a giant wooly mammoth. There was a loose story that centered around the two puppet-headed men being kicked out of the park by an umpire, who claimed the park for the baseball club. From that beginning, the processional of mammoth and puppet heads ambled the park into dances, games of chess, flying goose puppets, beat-poetic monologues about the history of the park, and so on and so forth. In the end, the ruling conflict of the show was solved with tremendous ease and very little effort on the part of the main characters, but that's fine. The point of the show wasn't narrative and conflict resolution. The point of the show was the spectacle and the use of the park to set their scene. This they did marvelously.

More than just the experience of watching the show, which was good in its own right, I got a lot of ideas for the serial show Tantalus is performing next summer (the show was my idea, the purpose being to create a mosaic show, one that an audience could see one performance of and get a complete show, but in seeing more than one performance they would see that each show is a piece in a larger structure of a play), many ideas in terms of aesthetic choices, ways of bringing audience in, etc. I've more or less decided to make it my mission to see as many outdoor theatre pieces as possible this summer for the purposes of gathering ideas.

After the show, my friend Jessica and I walked up to the Breadline Theater for a benefit party being held for "The Gunslinger (and a Baby)", which was written by my friend Kalena (the astonishingly talented playwright who is writing the script for Slide). Tantalus and Breadline have a bit of an off history together. When we performed Dreadful Penny..., we used the Breadine's studio space and had a multitude of problems in dealing with their artistic director, Paul Kampf (who was an old friend of my college's department chair), and we more or less swore vendetta against them for all time. After two years, though, it seems the vendetta has lapsed on both sides, and though I don't think I'll want to work with Paul any time soon, it was still good to see him and a few of his company members again.

Bonnie and I have been engaged in a randomness pissing match on Ogle My Blogspot. I was doing pretty well until I discovered an addictive Star Wars flash game and got distracted from my mission. She has since surpassed me and is taking over the Ogle My universe the way the Borg take over planets. Resistance is futile...

Performance Painting

Bonnie just added me as an administrator to OgleMy.Blogspot (which is not officially her blog, per se, so much as it is an online repository for randomness). So I'm adding that to the sidebar.

I'm also adding Ursula Rauh, who is the sister of one of my cast mates from Ragnarok. Ursula is a performance painter (which means exactly what the term implies: she paints as part of a performance; usually music, if I understand correctly), and a damned talented one, too. That is to say, I am fond of her work.

My disappointment over Midsummer Night's Dream was short-lived.
That's not entirely true, but it sounds nice.

I officially have a guerilla theatre project of my own devising going up this summer. I've always found a great deal of value in those moments when life turns a little surreal for a short time--because something out of the ordinary happens, or because I've passed by an extraordinarily beautiful scene, or what have you. Those moments are great. They lighten the day, break routine in half, send me elsewhere with my life. I love them. So Tantalus is taking Chicago as our set this summer with the purpose of creating those moments for other people.

We'll be performing around the city for most of the summer, as well as the Abbie Hoffman Festival and, hopefully, Around the Coyote.

What Fools These Mortals Be...

Well, I'm calling it. As nearly as I can figure, I wasn't cast in Midsummer Night. I won't say I'm not disappointed, because I am, but I still feel like I gave a good audition. It's just likely that someone else gave a better one. And the experience was good in its own right.

Still.

There's always murderous revenge to comfort me.

Spend. Spend! NOW!

I had my audition earlier today, and I think it went well. I walked into the space with the usual jitters and nerves, which kept up until it occurred to me that I was actually just standing in my frined Sheila's house, waiting to audition for a few people I knew. From that point on, it was just another performance for some friends.

We will see what comes of it.

Conceptually, the show seems amazing. The three worlds of the play (the fairies, the lovers, and the rude mechanicals) are divided up among three different directors to create three distinct styles for each. I'm angling for the fairies, whose world is going to be voodoo style. Love it.

Ian and I are talking over instant messenger, and he directed me to the Tantalus Theatre Group store over at Cafe Press. Now for $16 dollars, you can support a good cause and get a spiffy hat out of it, too. Join up. Become our biomechanical billboards.

And it turns out The Adventures of Fetus Joe were never in danger. Sam just was being a rascal. The next day, Episode 13 showed up in my inbox, and today this challenge appeared:



You heard the man, start producing some cartoons. I know I will be.

And that's that. If anyone is in the vicinity of Wicker park tonight at 7, there's a show going up there. Even, I think, if it rains.

Fetus Joe No Mo'?

This e-mail from Sam appeared in my inbox a little while ago:

Dear loyal fans of Fetus Joe:

The creators of Fetus Joe have realized that the ongoing Adventures have reached an impasse. Due to creative differences amongst the staff writers, they have decided to impose a hiatus until the differences can be worked out. Please remain calm and patient until they see fit to continue the little scamp's Adventures in the near future. We appreciate your support and understanding.

Yours, The Creators of Fetus Joe

I suspect Sam's running a little short on ideas or something. But that's no excuse, and he needs to get the series back up and running. In the mean time, here is the complete series from beginning to--um--middle.

1. The Wolverine
2. The Muskrat
3. The Frog (in Vegas)
4. The Anxious Dog
5. The Sciatic Nerve
6. Stagolee
7. The Turtle
8. Molerat
9 The Shark vs. The Chicken
10. The Exploding Turkey
11. The Imploding Turkey
12. The Frog vs. The Shark

And that's that. It's brilliant and weird, but I'm behind Sam and Terry all the way for taking time to pause. I'll just have to look forward to something else for a while.

Happy Belated Birthday Joseph Beuys

My favorite artist that Cat and Girl have taught me about is Joesph Beuys, who, according to the sources I looked up, was once lost for dead in the Himalayas and saved and revived by sherpas wielding yak fat. Consequently, a great deal of his work utilized yak fat as a medium. Which makes me wonder if the works of Joseph Beuys actively reek in museums. Is the Joseph Beuys wing of the museum kept separated and hermetically sealed?

Anyway, happy belated birthday Joseph Beuys. I wish I had known it was yesterday. I'd have smeared myself in yak fat, just for you.

Ian pointed out to me that I still have one rule of auditioning to break: performing in an accent. Consequently, I will be performing Titania as an effeminate German.

"Zese are ze forgeries af jealousy. Ja!"

Breakin' the Law

On Sunday, I'm auditioning for Ground Up Theatre's summer production of Midsummer Night's Dream. The audition calls for a two-minute comic Shakespearean monologue. At first, I chose this as my monologue, because it's hilarious. I imagined myself very energetically propping up shoes and giving the directors a good bit of the clowny Ha Ha. But the more I started rehearsing it, the less funny it seemed. I kept thinking "If I was the director, I'd think this was silly, but lacking in any layers or depth." It has no story, this monologue. No real beginning or end (a great middle, though...a great middle).

So last night, my friend Dave pointed me to this monologue (Titania, middle of the page). It's a great monologue. It's not particularly comic, it's written for a woman, and it's from the play for which I'm auditioning (which is one of those things audition classes tell you is considered bad form). It breaks every rule of auditioning I can think of. And that is the reason I used to get roles: I never played it safe in auditions. I love it.

Besides, it's not like I'm fixing intelligence to make a more plausible case to go to war in Iraq. Which, according to the British, is more than George W. Bush can say. I really want to see him get out of this. Not that I doubt he will, mind you, but I like the thought of him squirming.

Back in the good old days of the Nixon administration, this is the sort of thing that used to get folks impeached. I miss those days.

Anyway, wish me broken legs. Wish them on the president, too, but for more literal reasons.