Ulysses' Crewmen

Hey,

I'm on the road with Ulysses' Crewmen right now. This show is in a way an experiment applying some of the ideas i've been pursuing on this blog. Its unlikely I'll post here while that's going on, but will be posting there frequently. Check it out ulyssescrewmen.blogspot.com.

While on tour I'm reading a bunch of stuff, including Douglas Rushkoff's 'Life INC' and Schumpter, and some zines about insurrectionary anarchism and nihilist communism n shit. I'm also working on writing an essay that looks closely and thoroughly at Marxist theory and where i depart from it.

ULYSSES' CREWEN

This show has been a different process for me. We're rehearsing without a director, on three random afternoons a week, in our dining room. The cast is me and my room mate. The set and props are so minimal that it hardly feels like we're in the middle of production, except when we're rehearsing. It feels much more organic, a natural part of our lives, not something that we go elsewhere and meet with people that we don't regularly otherwise see to do.

But it is the middle of production. Local shows are booked. Press releases sent out. Tour booking is underway. Our test audience rehearsal (instead of a director, we're showing it to a handful of friends) will probably be in a couple weeks. Tonight i'm burning silk screens for the poster. Expect to see some beautiful brown and black and white images around the city starting next week (unless i fuck something up). This afternoon Jason Hames uploaded the preview video to YouTube. This is really, finally going to happen, and i am beyond excited about it.

Play in a Day 4 and Press in Milwaukee

Seeing as how most of the media outlets in Milwaukee (excepting Third Coast Digest) completely ignored our press releases for Play in a Day 4 (motherfuckers) I need to post this here:

WE ARE DOING A SHOW UNLIKE ANY OTHER SHOW DONE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD EVER THIS WEEKEND!!!

Play in a Day 4
Saturday 8pm Tenth Street Theatre (10th and Wisconsin, under the big red church) $10

The Onion, The Journal, and The Shepherd don't think it's worth you knowing about enough to EVEN LIST IT in their events listing (but the onion has space to do joke write ups about other shows). I kind of think that creating a full length play, with script, sets, cues, etc in only 24 hours is an acheivement worth staying up all nigth for and I hope you'll think it's worth seeing.

I don't mean to sound bitter, but COME FUCKING ON! What the fuck kind of impossible feat or giant spectacle do artists in Milwaukee have to attempt in order to get any goddamn attention from the fucking press in this town? This is just one example that's got me pissed off at the moment, and yeah, Play in a Day is surely not the most serious or artisanal theatre show in Milwaukee, but it's symptomatic of a major problem. Mary Louise at the Journal is serious about promoting local visual art, but there's not even a blog anywhere (let alone at the big paper) that covers performing arts anything like that (Damien Jaques' blog of 80% Broadway Headlines doesn't even come close). There are tons of theatre's in this town, why such shitty coverage?

Things you should do

I haven't had time to write on here for a while, but i wanna post about things that have happened since getting back from Tour.

1. i've been reading and re-reading The Call. Get your free copy at the CCC and fuck some shit up. seriously.

2. I've been rehearsing an insurgent version of King Lear's act 5 to be performed at Bedlam Theatre with some awesome companies from around the country. If you know me, you know how i HATE shakespeare, and my hatred (as well as others' boundless love) influenced our version. We wanna do this locally, but it's only 20 minutes long. If you like shakespeare and wanna go head to head with our fucked up play to make an evening of shakespeare interrogation in Milwaukee in June, LET ME KNOW!!!

3. fixing to play some experimental music! This weekend, at the Freaks Come Out and the Borg Ward (google it), next month with Realicide and Victory! later next month with some other stuff. Bass. Feedback. Drone. Acrobatics.

4. Booking touring theatre groups! Bedlam and trutheatertheater! Get details on insurgenttheatre.org

5. playing frisbeeeeee and kickball! Join us! Sunday mornings at riverside for frisbee (ultimate) tuesday evenings at peirce and meineke for kickball. comment for time and details. Victory summer!

6. rehearsing Ulysses' Crewmen. I am so happy about this.

Tour Report: The PHX Fringe

This tour was risky, we pushed ourselves further than we had before, trying to find our limits and learn our boundaries. It was our longest tour yet, 18 days on the road, going further distances with longer drives than ever before. It was the first long trip without Peter J Woods’ musical accompaniment. It was also our second swing at the Fringe Festival circuit (after Systems at Minnesota Fringe). It was also the last run of Paint the Town.

Some of these risks were more manageable than others, some of the expenses harder to recover. Some surprises, both good and bad, and definitely good lessons learned. Overall this tour was better than the summer run, but not as good as the winter tour. No shows sucked completely, but none were as great as NOLA on New Years or St Augustine.

Here's pictures!

PHX Fringe Tour

Here’s a city by city breakdown.

March 25th Urbana, IL. Urbana is a college town with an amazing Independent Media Center in the middle of it. Last time we were there it was winter break and we played for a small but super interested group of locals. This time, we unwittingly booked the show during the college’s spring break, so we played for a larger group of locals, including a fun conceptual music ensemble. These people were great, one woman who clearly has a problem with bio-determinism emphatically painted over the Mendel cross diagram on the set. We went to a great restaurant with super cheap late night food and talked about community organizing, political action and radical theory for a couple hours. Next time we come to Urbana, we’ll make sure school is in.

March 26th Birmingham, AL. When we got to Green Cup Books the garage door leading to the fenced off alley out back was open. It was a beautiful day expecting a rainstorm in the middle of the night. Seemed like the perfect opportunity to have our second ever alley performance of the show, so we did, and it kicked ass. Definitely one of the best shows of the tour, complete with trains in the background providing a soundtrack. We played for a good sized crowd with Yakuza Dance Mob, who are a completely insane noise / absurd / jazz group fronted by a 7 foot tall, 250 pound wildman who threw himself around the alley and the audience with completely reckless abandon, and then brought us home to a large communal house for polite conversation about Birmingham’s history (coal mines, race riots) and greek and roman mythology.

March 27th New Orleans, LA. We were super pumped to be coming back to New Orleans, site of our best show from last tour. Urbana and Birmingham had both grown in terms of audience and excitement since last tour, if New Orleans followed suit we’d be in heaven. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. I’d heard rumors that New Orleans can be fickle and unreliable, and now I’ve got personal experience backing it up. Things started out great, we got to our venue, Sidearm Gallery, a shotgun house with a courtyard beside it which had been roofed and converted into a Chinese laundry long ago, and then painted bright green and converted to a performance space more recently. Scott Heron, the proprietor answered the door in a frilly grey dress and welcomed us into his front room, a space furnished primarily with a slack-rope set up. Juggling pins and high heeled shoes littered the floor. He showed us around, introduced us to the sweetest pitbull I’ve ever met and recommended a café a few blocks away where we could get cheap food.

Then things started going down hill. We first went to pick up Krista, a friend of John’s whose been hitching her way around the country and would be our tech in the fringe in exchange for a ride back to Denver. On this trip we took a frustrating accidental detour onto a freeway that forced us to drive over a long toll bridge out of the city and back again in rush hour traffic. Eventually, we got food and got back to Sidearm, where we set up and waited for the bands and audience to arrive. One band didn’t show, and not much audience did either. We ended up performing for a couple of Krista and John’s friends, one guy who saw us on New Years, The Self Help Tapes, and a few really cool theatre people who heard about the show from Scott. It was a good show, solid, but definitely less than we had been hoping for.

After the show we went to a party at a bar a few blocks away featuring two European techno DJs and a 40 piece marching band. This was a good time, with dancing and a crowd of the uniquely New Orleans style of hipsters, who somehow seemed much less friendly than the ones we met back on New Years, but that’s probably based on our subjective position. Next morning, Scott made us a wonderful breakfast and sent us on our way.

March 28th, Houston, TX. After getting dead ends and silence from venues and contacts between NOLA and Austin, I resorted to cold-calling anarchist bookstores. Last time we played such a show (in Boston last August) we performed for one woman, so I wasn’t terribly hopeful about this show. But Sedition Books exceeded these low expectations. A small, but engaged group of people came out, donated generously, and enjoyed the show.

March 29th, Austin, TX. The Salvage Vangaurd Theatre is now on my top five list of theatre companies / venues in the world. In fact, it’s the only place other than Bedlam where I’ve been that makes me think the future of theatre won't be the utter collapse of the regional theatre system followed by punks and individual artists sifting through the rubble, but rather, a smooth and easy transition where companies and venues like these simply replace the obsolete institutions one at a time. This is a smart organization, diversified, hip, well put together and super approachable and friendly. I can’t wait to get back to Austin and spend more time at this place.

The show was great too, a mid-size enthusiastic audience, and some amazing noise bands including one remarkably self-indulgent guy dressed like a 70’s era Michael Jackson, who thinks that by hopping around and poking himself in the nuts with a stick he'll save his mom from cancer. His absolute commitment to this public display of grief and new age mysticism made for exquisitely uncomfortable viewing: you can’t take him seriously, but you get the impression laughing or walking out might like, kill his mom or something.
Spending the day in Austin was also a good time, we crashed with a friend who lives near campus so most of what we encountered was college-life, but it was mostly independently-owned-and-operated college life. Wish we’d been able to explore the city more, cuz it definitely gives off a vibe of being incredibly culturally diverse and exciting. We spent the afternoon in a park working out kinks and improving the second-to-last scene in the play and arguing about the hypocrisy of privileged kids like us getting food from Food Not Bombs.

March 31st Bisbee, AZ. This is one of those little counter-culture utopia cities. It’s precariously floating somewhere between the dangerous cliffs of hippy monoculture and bourgeois tourist destination, but navigating those waters well enough for us to enjoy our time there. We stayed with John’s sister and her adorable children and played at a new café establishment for a good sized crowd of locals.

This was one of my favorite audiences. We had a good house, probably the oldest and yet one of the most enthusiastic audiences we've had. The "lets get out of frankfurt, okay?" line got uproarious laughter, and some of the audience members talked about Big Reds that they've known (others, who looked big-reddish themselves were conspicuously silent). It was great performing with Eric Bang! and Gypsy Geoff and exchanging stories at the end of the night. Familiar Milwaukee faces were a welcome sight.

April 1st – 5th PHX Fringe. This was our second attempt at a Fringe Festival, and it turned out not much better than the first. I’m about to go on a little tangent about Fringe Fests for a second, some of what I say isn’t going to apply to PHX Fringe, and surely won’t apply to other festivals I haven’t experienced. So bear with me as I try to get my words around my thoughts on this subject.

The first thing I should say is that everyone we’ve ever met at either fringe festivals have been incredibly nice, well organized, professional and accommodating. These people are all clearly committed to making accessible and exciting theatre in their cities, and they should be applauded for their efforts. My complaints are not in anyway personal. It might just be that the fringe festival model can’t do what I think it oughta do, that the very idea of “fringe theatre” has been Adorno-style co-opted by mainstream capitalist culture.

Anyway, we’d swung and missed at the Minnesota Fringe Fest with “Systems” last summer. We came away with the conclusion that “Fringe Fest” is mostly a misnomer, as most of those shows were far from “Fringe”. With a few exceptions (Deviants, Boom) the shows that seemed to walk away with the most audience and the most money from Minnesota were also the most conventional. Meanwhile the most amazing experimental work in the fest (Depth of a Moment) were clearly even more frustrated than us with their lack of audience.

For us, Minnesota Fringe ended up being an opportunity to lose hundreds of dollars competing with hundreds of other shows who have a number of significant logistical advantages (local audience, crowd pleasing content, no day jobs) for an audience that was mostly uninterested in what we were trying to do. The festival made doing theatre feel like a zero sum game, like poker, where groups like us were dead money, feeding the pot for others to take home. I generally hate than analogy, cuz I think arts production is a lifts-all-boats sort of thing, not a zero-sum thing, but the festival made zero-sum feel (unfortunately) more accurate.

Of course, we don’t give up easily, and we like to blame ourselves when things don’t work out. We focused on how it didn’t help that Systems turned out much less funny than we’d thought it would when reading the script. We figured next time we’d put up a different show, applying lessons learned in Minneapolis, and maybe trying at a different festival would work out better. PHX Fringe seemed like a different festival, and it was, and Paint the Town is certainly a different show, but we still ran into some of the same problems, on a smaller scale.

There are three things I like about the PHX Fringe. First that it’s a juried festival. This means that works are selected based on being experimental, challenging or somehow different. One of the organizers explained this to me using the Edinburgh festival (the first and biggest fringe fest in the world) as an example, apparently that has the same problem MN has, lots of crowd pleasers and sketch comedy crowding out the truly “fringey” work. MN Fringe and Edinburgh are random lottery based, an idea that, on the surface is appealing, but in practice seems to not produce or benefit “fringe” work.

Second, Phoenix Fringe is newer and smaller. There were only 30 groups, and this was only their 2nd year in existence. We figured this would mean fewer cardsharps at the metaphorical poker table. Unfortunately, it seems it also means much less audience at the festival in general. We saw as many other shows as we could and only two had more than half their seats filled.

Third, PHX Fringe is cheaper both for audience and for artists, and a larger cut of ticket sales go to the artists. Everything added up to make us think we might be able to at least break even, or make something to recover some of the cost of traveling down here.

Long story short, we played for houses of less than ten every show, half of whom were other artists (ie not paying) and almost all of whom loved the show and promised to tell their friends. If generating word of mouth is the way to succeed at a Fringe Festival, we shoulda been golden. Our wonderful amazing venue manager took our promotion materials to his classes, and called everyone he could think of, we hit the streets during First Fridays, we seem to have impressed our small audiences, we were in many ways the most exceptional and unusual show in the festival (being a traveling DIY group, with a large set, a longer play, radical political themes, and an audience participation painting finale) and still, momentum never caught on, the houses never got bigger, and we ended up losing at least a couple hundred bucks.

Of course, we don’t do theatre for money, so this isn’t the end of the world, but we can’t afford to regularly lose as much as we did here. Economic sustainability is a requirement of our success, and if instead of the festival we’d done 5 more shows in the style of the rest of the tour we’d have made more, spread the driving out more evenly (or just not gone so far) and spent less. We probably still wouldn’t have made a profit, but we surely would’ve lost a lot less.

We also had trouble finding things to do in the city of Phoenix itself. I know it takes a while to get to know a place, to find the most interesting neighborhoods populated by the most interesting people, but, after 5 days of driving around Phoenix with a map of hotspots and galleries, we left with the impression that the city is mostly an endless strip mall with very little unique independent local culture or neighborhoods, or space for people to wander and loiter in public, this impression was reinforced by many of the people living there. It sure made Milwaukee, Riverwest, and Bayview look good.

We definitely had some good times in spite of these frustrations. We got to spend time with Tracy’s old friends and get to know them better. Saw some great interesting shows (Los Torresnos) We got to do the play in the same place a few nights in a row, which allowed us to work on it in ways we can’t when we’re preoccupied with traveling, loading in and out and meeting new people. Also, meeting and working with people like Steve and Matt is always a great experience. We’re willing to spend money on these types of experiences, but simply can’t afford to do so without eventually running out. We’re also more willing to lose money if it’s in the name of bringing theatre to non-theatre audiences, which doesn’t seem to happen at fringe shows as much as our other shows.

April 7th, Salt Lake City, UT. This was a strange show. After a long night drive through some beautiful mountains we got to another city even more bereft of my favorite the DIY culture than Phoenix. There’s something about driving on precarious cliffs, through narrow passes and across wide dark valleys by moonlight that’s exhilarating and romantic, but there’s also something about the lack of poverty, or even much working-class environment in SLC that makes this shiny well-organized Mormon idyll feel more than a little creepy and constraining.

Everyone in SLC was incredibly nice and accommodating, the whole city gives off a vibe of, “hey, there’s nothing to worry about, let’s be happy and c’mon, look at this big beautiful park! Or these wide clean streets with small buckets of bright orange flags on the corners to help children and pedestrians cross without being run over. Pet the bunnies and have some coffee!” The venue even accommodated their next door neighbors (a fancy restaurant) by promising not making any noise louder than soft “indoor” voices until 9 when the restaurant closed. Unfortunately, our show was scheduled to start at 6:30.

We managed to push the start time back a few hours and only had to do the first half of the show at low volume, which was completely strange and energy-sapping. Somehow the audience loved the show in spite of the lack of projection or realistic speaking volume levels. They bought a bunch of merch and encouraged us to come back soon.

April 8th Denver, CO. This was my personal favorite show of the tour. We played the Blast-o-mat, a punk rock garage in the warehouse district with a skate park out back. Dun Bin Had and 10-4 Elenor, a couple of great pop-punk bands played with us, for an audience of 40-50 of the counter-culture lifestyle types we’d been achingly missing since Bisbee. I realize this fashion-based assessment is going to make me sound superfiscial, but dreads and black denim seem to go well with insurgent theatre.

The Blast-O-Mat is great. It’s a legal-enough punk venue, run by a collective, hosting shows of all kinds: noise, metal, punk, folk, with a tiny indie record store and art gallery inside. They’re looking to host more events that expand beyond standard music and parties, and responded enthusiastically to an email from a perfect stranger asking about doing a theatre show there. They also had a warm meal waiting for us, and accommodated our every request and question. I woulda liked to spend more time here, but we left for Boulder shortly after the show ended so that we’d have a whole day with no driving.

April 9th, Boulder, CO. John spent the day hanging out with old friends while Kate and I climbed a mountain. We’d been working on Ulysses’ Crewmen (doing a last-revision / first read / table work) whenever we had down time on tour. We finished this process on top of the mountain, infusing the project with the spiritual energy of the beauty and majesty of nature, or some such romantic bullshit.

The show was at Naropa University, a Buddhist College founded by Alan Ginsburg and a couple monks. John’s friend set it up, and wasn’t able to make it an official show in the performing space, so we played a class room, which was probably more appropriate and exciting. The first classroom we’ve performed in! We played for a dozen or so people who mostly knew each other along with a couple of great experimental music sets. This audience was one of those dead silent groups that make me nervous, no laughter, no reactions, makes me feel like we’re boring them or completely fucking up, but then when you steal a glance or talk to them after the show you find out they are (for the most part) silent because they’re completely absorbed in the show, contemplative, I guess like Buddhists’ oughta be.

After the show we hung out in Boulder (a fairly sad future vision of Bisbee after it’s crashed into the bourgeois tourist destination cliff) and talked about the play and art and ethical lifestyles with people for a couple hours.

April 11th, Chicago, IL. The last performance of Paint the Town came after an 18 hour drive and a short nap on a fold-out couch in Todd and Marrakesh’s apartment above Room’s Gallery. Due to unforeseen circumstances out of our control (our Chicago crash pad’s cell phone malfunction) we had to ask the Room’s people to give us more than they’d bargained for. Rooms is where I’ve seen some of the best theatre I’ve ever seen (Bunbury Me, 7 Jewish Children). I respect these people a ton, and I think we’re the first out-of-town group they’ve hosted, or at least after 18 days on the road we’re certainly the dirtiest and most out-of-it. Having to call them and ask if we could show up 8 hours early and sleep in their house somewhere sucked. But they were totally gracious, in spite of having had an event and a long night the night before and feeling under the weather.

The musicians showed up on time and set up quickly and everything was ready to go, except for audience. When we left Milwaukee almost a month earlier I’d predicted that New Orleans and Chicago would be our best shows. We’d had good shows in both cities in the past, good musicians were playing with us, we were playing great venues, on weekend evenings. Instead, they were both some of the lowest turn outs of the trip. I’m trying to figure out why. Both shows had some return audience, one or two people who’d seen it before coming back for more, so it’s not that we’re delusional about our previous shows in these cities. I think the problem is the day of the week. Big cities like Chicago and New Orleans have tons of stuff going on Friday and Saturday nights, things that a small out of town troupe with a weird show like ours can’t compete with. This conclusion is supported by previous experiences in other places. From now on, I’m going to avoid playing big cities on weekend nights unless we’re sharing a bill with very popular local acts.

At any rate, our Chicago performance was totally weird, we were out of it, uncomfortable, low energy, confused and disappointed. I felt worse after this show than any since at least August.


SUMMARY. All in all, we had no terrible shows, but also none as good as the best shows of our winter tour. Being on the road 18 days didn’t take a very serious toll on us, no strained relations, no fights, we did a lot of good work, continued to modify the play up until the very end (this is becoming my favorite thing about theatre, you’re never finished creating a piece). Financially, we more than covered the cost of gas and food, but between renting the van, repairs, two flat tires, and what we lost on the fringe fest we’re down over $800 which is totally unsustainable. Specific numbers can be found below.

The future of touring: Kate and I are starting work on Ulysses’ Crewmen and planning the next tour. The current plan is to be on the road for the entire month of September. To tour with Peter’s new one-man performance piece about suicide called “Pity”. To focus on the east coast and try to spend more than one day in some cities. We’ll also be taking our third strike-out swing at a fringe festival. This time in Philly, which is organized completely differently, it costs much less, but also provides much less. This is exciting because it gives performers more freedom, we’ll book our own venue, choose our own dates and prices, so the experience is likely to be closer to DIY touring than festivaling. If any kind of festival will work for us, this should be it.

ECONOMIC TRANSPARENCY:

Clearly we've got a ways to go before we make either touring or fringe festivaling economically successful or even sustainable. We've learned a lot of lessons and have some tricks up our sleeve for future efforts. Merch and donations provide significant earnings and can be expanded. Promotion can also be improved and expanded and should get easier over time. Ulysses' Crewmen is a much tighter smaller show that should travel far less expensively. It is also shorter, less challenging, more emotionally intense and, well, should end up being just plain better.

Here's the specific information about this tour:

Income: $703.5
Door $481
Donations $108.5
Merch $114

Expenses: -$1276.06
Gas and Oil -$560.98
Food -$94.51
Hardware -$25.75
Car Rental -$400
Car Repairs -$194.82

Balance sans Fringe Fest: -$572.56

Cost of Fringe Fest -$335
Expected earnings at fringe fest: maybe $75
Estimated Fringe Fest loss: -$260

Estimated Final Balance: -$832.56

Here's a comparison with previous efforts:

Systems at MN Fringe: loss $871.94
Paint August 2008 (14 days) loss $790.34
Paint October (4 days) loss $120.23
Paint Winter (8 days) gain$152.30
Paint Bedlam (3 days) gain $19.30
Paint at PHX Fringe: loss $832.56

Tour Report: Down South Tour

Insurgent Theatre! The triumphal return!!


General impression of last weeks tour: IT WORKS! Taking a full length, intense, esoteric reference ridden, unpolished, original work of theatre, with a mostly self-taught cast, a full set and a few totally unorthodox flourishes that can make a real mess of a venue on the road WORKS! The more we do this, the better we get at it, the more contacts and skills we build. Now we’ve just got to find day jobs flexible enough to allow us to do this more, until we get good enough at it that we can make it completely economically sustainable. See more pictures here.

I’m increasingly convinced that grants and foundations whose mission is to “promote, advocate and revitalize” the “dying art” of theatre aren’t ever going to understand or support us, even though over the last week we’ve performed for at least a couple hundred people across this country who’ve probably never chosen to see theatre in their adult lives. Young people. People who the theatre world DESPERATELY needs in their seats.

Oh well, the big theatres can have their dying art, we’re building something else, and at this rate, I think we might be able to get it running sustainably before that corpse the bourgeois theatre institutions coddle, embalm and display rots too much more.

I could write about many great and exciting anecdotes, good times and tour stories: tales of wonderful people, great musicians, swims in the ocean, Katrina damaged punk squats, New Years Eve dance parties, dumb entertainments invented on the long drives, satanic noise acts, naked people getting arrested, thrash jazz, grandmothers with dementia, long debates and revolutionary discussions. All kinds of fun stuff happened on this tour. This blog isn’t about that, though. It’s not a story, it’s a lesson! It’s about transparency, about exposing the methods of our magic and spreading the word on how punk rock theatre tours can be Done Yourself. Think of it as a miniature, ongoing “Our Band Could Be Your Life” for theatre geeks.

First, and most important is show booking. Having a good contact in the city who is excited to have you coming to town is the single most important thing about taking anything on the road. These contacts are the backbone of D I Y touring, they are amazing and wonderful people. The best way to have a good contact is to develop a relationship with them. The best shows we had were set up by contacts who had seen the show before, knew someone who had seen the show before, or even who just agreed with my side of some strange online debate about the definition of words like “noise” “revolution” and “punk rock”. Now, this isn’t always possible, especially when going new places, and even the best contacts are often incredibly busy people, who aren’t getting anything out of it other than the opportunity to share shows with their community and the promise of reciprocation should they or their friends ever come through Milwaukee with something. Good contacts are so wonderful and remarkable, that you can’t really expect people to do it, and you can’t really get upset when things don’t come together as well as everyone would like, or even if a show falls through all together. It’s frustrating, and sometimes bad contacts seem like they’re just plain flakey, but getting bent out of shape about it is pretty unjustifiable. Taking a show on the road like this is a risk, a series of risks, risks that only small, tight, no-budget, dirty, versatile, committed, theatre companies like ours can afford to take.

Fortunately, last week, all these risks paid off- sometimes amazingly, every night.

For each date I am going to summarize the relevant inputs and outputs (to the best of my memory) and share any tips and tricks we discovered. We spent money on gas, some food, tolls, and a few miscellaneous things. Attendance numbers are approximated and from memory. Peter probably kept better mental track and I expect him to correct me, he is the minister of numbers after all. Also, audiences vary over the course of a performance. It’s a pretty long play, with two intermissions, and music acts in between. We don’t believe in captive audiences and sometimes people had to leave. Sometimes they didn’t like the play and chose to leave.

So, attendance numbers listed are PEAK for the largest group watching at one time and CORE for the number who watched the whole show through. If this distinction isn’t made, it’s because the whole audience watched the whole show.

Income we kept tighter track of. It’s broke down between DOOR, DONATION and MERCH. The DOOR money is stuff collected by the venue or the booking contact, admission was often “suggested donation” but sometimes the venues charged rental or fees and admission (always less than $10) was sometimes more strictly enforced. I hope we didn’t turn anyone away. DONATION is additional money that audience members gave us by hand, usually after the show was over. MERCH is scripts, essays, and T-shirts sold.

Okay, here it is:

TOTALS:
Gas: $305.30
Food: $150.40
Tolls: $12
Misc: $10
Total Expense: $477.70

Door: $457
Donation: $122
Merch: $51
Total: $630

Balance: +$153.3

Sunday Dec 28th - Independent Media Center, Urbana, IL. 8pm.
Audience: 8-12 Door: $18 Merch $5 Drive: 4 hours
This is an example of needing to be versatile. We had a show booked in Carbondale for this date, and it fell through, we scrambled to re-schedule, thinking that any show would be better than nothing, if for no reason other than to break up the drive to Atlanta. We got a hold of Mark at the Urbana IMC (thanks to the Nonsense Company) and set this up on very short notice, right before the holidays. Then Mark got the flu. But, he still brought a good handful of very engaged people who hung around to talk about the play and political action, and theatre, for a good long time afterward. I have no idea how long because my sense of time goes out the window once the show starts.

Mark put us up, and we’re making plans to hit Urbana again, with more notice, when all the students (it’s a college town) aren’t out on winter break. We left for Atlanta at about 6 in the morning.


Monday Dec 29th - The Eye Drum, Atlanta, GA. with: Offerings and 09A.
Audience: 20-25 peak / 10-15 core Door: $26 Donation: $40 Merch: $0 Drive: 9.5 hours
Monday nights are always the worst nights on tours, if you can get something set up, you're lucky, if anyone comes out to see a show, you're even luckier. We got plenty lucky in Atlanta. The Eyedrum is an amazing space. It’s like the Borg Ward on steroids. Big gallery, huge PA, 501c3 status, projects with funding, lots of volunteers, all really cool people. We played with good musicians: distorted sad bastard music and satanic power electronics. An excited energetic audience of mainly noise folks came out. There were some nice (and some kinda shoddy) comics-inspired paintings in the gallery. I wonder what this show woulda been like later in the week.

We were invited by a young man in the audience to crash at a foreclosed condo/townhouse belonging to a former art gallery owner who was selling all his possessions and playing internet poker when we left in the morning.

Tuesday Dec 30th - Cafe 11, St Ausgustine, FL. With a TON of bands.
Audience: 75 peak / 20 core. Door: $80 Donation: $9 Merch: $10 Drive: 6 hours
When looking for venues for the tour on a noise message board, this guy Travis, who participated in the abovementioned internet debates, said he’d try to make it out to a show in Atlanta or Birmingham. I asked him where he’d be coming from, cuz maybe we could bring the show to him. He said St Augustine, Florida. St Augustine is further east than we’d plan on going, but if this guy was thinking about traveling 6 hours to see our show, we wagered he’d be pretty enthusiastic about us coming to him instead, and he was. He set up a great show: a great venue, (beachfront café) something like 8 very eclectic acts (some of whom were a bit ‘providence’ for my taste, but others totally kicked ass!). I guess there’s this weird curfew on the island Café 11 is located on, and one of the bands had an epically long sound check, so for a little while we were worried that everything wouldn’t fit in, and much of the audience was from Jacksonville so attendance dropped off as the night wore on. But we made it through and everything ended well. We started the third act of the play before the band preceding it had cleared their gear off the stage, and slammed through in record time, then asked the audience to help us strike the set. That’s audience participation!

We left St Augustine directly after the show to drive through the night to New Orleans. I wish we coulda spent more time with the Floridians, but the night driving turned out to be a very good idea. We got to New Orleans with enough time to nap on couches in the venue and be well rested for the performance.

Wednesday Dec 31th – Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Art Center, New Orleans, LA. With Self Help Tapes, Evolve, and Illusion Fields.
Audience: 80 peak / 65 core. Door: $107 Donation: $10 Merch: $1 Drive: 9 hours
This was a personal highlight for me, so please forgive a little gushing here. Our amazing Nola contact was Simon Severe. She had seen us perform Paint at the Borg Ward when Realicide, the hardcore noise punk band she was traveling with played with our homecoming show after the summer tour. Being a radical who has spent at least the last few years living in conditions not completely dissimilar to the characters in our play, Simon loved the show and invited us to come down to her home town. She works a regular job, volunteers at the Nola infoshop and anarchist library, and runs a books for prisoners program. She doesn’t normally set up shows, but for us, she found the time, and did an amazing job.

First, she hooked us up with a perfect venue. Zeitgeist hosts events at the intersection of art and activism almost nightly. They helped Simon promote, discussed tech and theatre theory with me and even read the script before we got down there. Second, Simon set up some great bands, inspiring hip hop, complex ambient/experimental, and a beautiful jazz / spoken word / film group. These elements together brought out a large enthusiastic crowd, who mostly stayed through the entire show. We were worried that we’d be competing with lots of New Years activities, but apparently the citizens of New Orleans are willing to sacrifice some party time for experimental political theatre.

This was perhaps the best performance we have ever done. No slip ups and tons of good energy to feed off of. We took New Years Day off, and wrapped the show up early enough that we were still able to go out and have some New Years fun ourselves. Saw a huge bonfire, went to a party for the Nola chapter of the Black Label Bike Collective at a small, dirty, hedonistic club with just the right space-to-dancer ratio. We danced for an hour or so with half-dressed and cross-dressed revelers, many of whom kept coming up an telling us that we’re amazing and they really love what we do. At first it took us a few seconds to realize that they had been at the show and weren’t just complimenting our dance moves. Then the sleazy hip hop got a bit dull so Kate and I went to the van and busted out the Lucky and Pozzo gear and performed for the drunks outside the club who were (perhaps fortunately) mostly too poor or too intoxicated to request many actions.

That night and the next we slept at Simon’s place, a huge punk space called Nowe Miastro with all the amenities: brownwater sink, dumpstered pizza, D I Y utilities, and rooftop access. After a relaxing New Years day of hanging out in New Orleans and doing laundry at John’s relatives’ house and another night at Nowe Miastro, we hit the road for Birmingham.

Friday Jan 2nd – Green Cup Books, Birmingham AL.
Audience: 20. Door: $60 Donation: $63 Merch: $20 Drive: 5 hours
This was definitely our worst performance of the tour. We should’ve run through the show on our day off, or at least in the car, cuz we fucked up and felt flat as hell. Also, we realized halfway through the first narration that we left a pillow and blanket used as props (and as bedding) back in Nola. Peter ran down to the car and got some of our sleeping gear to use as a substitute. Everything was thrown off and goofy after that, but the audience was really into it anyway and hung out to chat afterward. Green Cup is another amazing space, an anarchist bookstore with a performance space for punk bands and poetry readings up above. Mike, the proprietor of the store is a playwright and theatre person with few opportunities to do or even see anything but big musicals in Birmingham, so he was excited to see us come through. We talked about all kinds of great stuff. We’ll definitely be keeping in touch and hitting this place again.

But, we had the longest drive of the tour ahead of us, and we decided to repeat the success of the St Augustine to New Orleans night drive. Left Birmingham just after midnight, I think.

Saturday Jan 3rd – Robindale Concert House, Toledo, OH. With Dr Rhomboid Goatcabin
Audience: 45 peak / 40 core. Door/Donation: $115 Merch: $15 Drive: 10.5 hours
So, there’s this crazy guy named Gabe in Toledo, OH. He’s a musician, works at a record store, has a silk screen press in his house, and hosts noise artists and other performers in the middle of his nice clean dining room, right next to the mantelpiece. He lets filthy travelers, who’ve been sleeping god knows where and might not have showered for a week crash at his house. In real beds! He provides snacks at the show, and is just plain all around awesome. He saved us from a complete loss of our Nashville show and set this great show up just a few days before we left Milwaukee. He’s coming here in a couple weeks, performing with a group called KBD (I think) at the Borg Ward on the 17th. GO THERE AND SUPPORT HIM! I’ll be performing up in Minneapolis, so I’ll miss it, but it promises to be a good show, it’s Nummy’s birthday.

Performing Paint the Town in this place was weird. The set was a really tight fit, but it worked out and the crowd was GREAT, lots of young intellectuals who stayed up discussing themes of the play with me until almost 4 in the morning. A really great time, almost makes me feel, y’know, important. Also, we played with I think, my favorite musical act of the tour: Dr Rhomboid Goatcabin. Really innovative use of noise equipment, nice dynamics, and a crackpot kitchen sink spiritualist aesthetic that verged on the much hated ‘providence’ look, but escapes it. The reason I hate the providence aesthetic is because these people are half-assing something that if they did it right, I would LOVE. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what I mean by “do it right” the line between success and failure is very hard to discern or articulate due to the clouds of ambiguity and irony employed. The Butterfly Kiss Effect up at MN Fringe succeeded. Eagle Ager succeeds. Buoyant Sea failed. Baltimore mostly succeeds. Providence fails utterly. Some of the Darling Hall and Green Gallery stuff succeeds, but some of it fails. Alejandro Jodorowski blows em all out of the water.

Anyway, we slept in real beds at Gabe’s for a couple hours in the afternoon before the show, and for a couple hours afterward. Then drove home to Milwaukee. We left a second pillow and blanket pair (the last of our sleep gear, cuz Peter and John forgot to bring anything from Milwaukee in the first place) behind. Fortunately, we could get replacements from home before the Stonefly show.

Sunday Jan 4th – Stonefly Brewing Company, Milwaukee, WI. With Fahri and White Wrench Conservatory
Audience: 130 peak / 80 core. Door: $51 Donation: $0 Merch: $0 Drive: 5.5 hours
After a harrowing summer of abysmal audience attendance in our hometown, the fact that we have to pay Stonefly to have a soundman and door guy, and that we’d be out of town and couldn’t very well promote ourselves had me honestly quite skeptical about this show. But Milwaukee really came through for us, in spades! It made me significantly less bitter about living here. I’m very unsure about the high numbers listed above, too distracted to get a good look at the crowd, but Stonefly was quite full. After only a few minutes of shouting over some conversation and background noise (it’s a bar, people are used to performers having a lot of amplification) we had this large group of people watching silently and attentively. It felt strange performing for familiar faces, and John and I both feel like we were pretty flat. No big mistakes, but just not feeling it right energy-wise. But Kate looked great. Her performance in the last few scenes at this show was, I think, her best.

The bands kicked ass, the staff kicked ass, the audience kicked ass. Maybe we’ve just been performing in the wrong places in Milwaukee. Our Borg Ward show in August was also a decent turn out, but I’ve mostly attributed that to Realicide, who has quite a following. It’s really too bad we can’t get more of these people to go to the Alchemist, or more theatre people to come out to these non-traditional venues. I didn’t get a sense that many theatre people were coming to any shows we’ve put on anywhere in the country, though. Seems a large majority of the theatre world won't dare leave the hall of mirrors they live and work in. Oh well, looks like we don’t need em anyway.

In two weeks we perform at Bedlam, who are a great example of theatre artists who don't sequester themselves in the theatre world. This will be our first show returning to an out of town venue we've already performed in, with our reputation preceeding us. Also, we're playing with Lamb Lays with Lion, who saw one of our rehearsals. With these contacts, i'm figuring we don't need anyone to wish us luck up there, but, do it anyway!

Review - Six Characters

I just want to quickly state that the UWM labworks production of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author is definitely worth seeing.

These students might not have the training or the polish that UWM mainstage productions have, but some of them have more rawness and passion than i'm used to seeing out of UWM actors. Especially noteworthy are Tommy Stevens, Callie Eberdt and Max Hultquist, but singling them out is a bit unfair, because others' roles were much smaller or intended to be less passionate. These students have committed more deeply to their characters and to this challenging play than most of what comes out of UWMs programs, and it pays off, making this a truly effecting and successful adaptation of Pirandello.

Ben Wilson's inclusion of Milwaukee-specific lines in the script also rung true to frustrations with the arts in milwaukee. It gives me hope that at least some students going through UWM's program won't be so easily carved into banal clones for shakespeare and broadway. It's really too bad that the staging of this over 100 year old indictment of bad theatre is still relevant today, and that UWM's choice to produce it stinks of hypocrisy.

I Love This

Ten Things Theaters Need to Do Right Now to Save Themselves

Read it! Read it NOW! it's short and funny and TRUE!

here's my reactions to each of them.

1. Enough with the goddamned Shakespeare already. Yes! Please! Thank you for making this number one. Get his fucking corpse off of us!

2. Tell us something we don't know. Every play in your season should be a premiere—a world premiere, an American premiere, or at least a regional premiere. Every play in every Insurgent Theatre season has always been a world premiere and always will be.

3. Produce dirty, fast, and often. This is a little trickier. There's a limit to how much of this you can do. We found it last summer, and it's damn near killed us.

4. Get them young. This seems self evident.

5.Offer child care. This is ingenoius advice for the companies that have parents in their audiences. We don't have that problem so much.

6. Fight for real estate. When you lose that fight, perform illegally.

7. Build bars. i wish i wish i wish they weren't right about this, but the fact of the matter is, if americans (especially milwaukeeans) aren't able to get trashed, they aren't interested. I especially like the last line: Tax, zoning, and liquor laws in your way? Change them or ignore them. Do what it takes.

8. Boors' night out. This is another great idea, and one that we could actually use. For some parts of Paint the Town, every night should be Boors' night out.

9. Expect poverty. Sad but true. But, if we do these things, then poverty will be a temporary condition. Theatre can become sustainable art form providing economic stability for artists again, but we've got to tear it down and rebuild it to make that happen.

10. Drop out of graduate school. Not just grad school. Drop out of any and all theatre programs. They've got nothing to offer but debt and the opportunity to work for zombies. Get together and learn to act the way all the people your professors and classes romanticize, by experimenting in a tight-knit self-guided workshops, and by producing shows.

Review - 3 UWM shows.

We've been up to UWM to see three plays last month and didn't have time to write reviews of them in here.

First, Ring Round the Moon. This was an old school farce sort of thing, on the mainstage at UWM but it contained enough class conflict innuendo and good acting to keep me interested.

Second, Capricios. Kurt Hartwig taught a class in which they generated a full length play from scratch over the course of the semester. Everything was student led other than Kurt's suggestion of using Franscisco de Goya's Caprichios as inspiration. The final product had some interesting scenes, a nice structure, too much dependance on pop-culture references, and a lot of actors who looked very nervous to be on stage.

Third, The Dumb Waiter. This is the best thing i've seen at UWM since equus, one of the best productions i've seen in milwaukee. The small cast and crew from the player's guild clearly took the project seriously (unlike other player's guild projects i've heard of) and did the work necessary to pull off a very good production of a great Pinter play. Highlights: the sound design. Low point: the fact that it ran for only like, three days at the begining of the week. none of the people i reccommended the show to were able to attend.

Review- Cryptogram

Another review that i have to self-publish.

A Little Too Cryptic.

Windfall Theatre's production of Cryptogram, a challenging David Mamet play, succeeds in creating a compelling evening of theatre despite failing the play's intentions. I think. I'm not sure. I'm really not sure of much about this one, but I am giddy with the mystery.

See, Cryptogram is a puzzle. It's an experiment in bizarre exposition and storytelling in a specific and mostly opaque symbolic language. Everything in the play, from the seemingly random objects an insomniac child brings downstairs, to the old picture that his adult friend puzzles over repeatedly, to an old WWII pilot’s knife, is treated with symbolic importance. Eventually, it all comes together to tell a tale of betrayal and child abuse. Or maybe it's more of a tale of neglect, or maybe the kid is just suicidal. I'm not quite sure about how the betrayal works exactly either. It’s confusing.

Watching this play, one has a feeling that, like a puzzle, there is a specific solution, which should become crystal clear by the end of the final scene. This makes it a dangerous play. Audiences are easily lost and the slightest nuance can send the play in a wrong direction, and at the end of the night, I felt like I was looking at a completed puzzle that still seemed to be missing something.

The staging and acting was good enough that even though I didn't quite "get" the play, I very much enjoyed watching it. The three person cast crafted very nice three dimensional characters that interacted with chemistry and skill. Larry Birkett was wonderfully awkward and likeable until he deftly transitioned the character into a surprising yet believable antagonist. Young Avi Borouchoff’s performance showed some great instincts and real talent. Carol Zippel’s character was disarmingly rich and deep.

In other ways, the show didn’t quite make it. The blocking was frequently really awkward. The pacing was sometimes too slow for Mamet’s trademark frantic overlapping dialog, which robbed key moments of their intensity. Hopefully, as the run goes on they can tighten these things up. Also, maybe director Shawn Gulyas was feeding us red herrings, or his own interpretation, but some of the interactions and symbols were played wrong when compared with what I could find out about other productions. With a play that’s already as difficult to follow as this one, such things lead to excessive muddling and an entertained but unfulfilled audience.

Cryptogram continues at Village Church Arts, through Oct 13th.

A debate: is Shakespheare Deadly?

During our action at the Tomato Romp a television camera recorded me talking to it about how shakesphere is deadly and obsolete and worthy of tomato-ing.

two days later, my friends and I had a little debate over email about the veracity of that statement. Now, i share it with you, oh internet.

On obsolescence. 32 messages

Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 6:09 PM
TIM CHRAPKO:
Great example of how obsolete Shakespeare is not.

http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=218-- Peace,-=Tim

Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 10:50 PM
TRACY DOYLE:
ummm... correction.FUCKING BRILLIANT example of how obsolete Shakespeare is not.says Tim.

Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 1:15 PM
REX WINSOME:
Dude. this shit proves MY point. Hutch, the blue whale guy... hiscriticism and re-write idea is superior to shakespheare's original.also i like the way he talks more.i only heard half of it so far, but, it's not shakespheare that'sdoing these guys good, it's THEATRE.

they'd be as good or better offdoing a different play. In fact, doing a play they wrote themselveswould be best.it's actually coincidentally very much like the chapter of the Brechtbook i'm in the middle of reading right now, about how he'd do playswith and for the proletariat and the kind of criticism and feedbackthey'd give him. When i was reading it i thought, man, Brecht, justlike a communist, romanticising the proles again, but then, thisstory, it's the exact same kind of thing.

i stand by my position, that Shakespheare's continued popularity ismostly a social structure, not a sign of real quality or continuedrelevance. that is not to say that no one likes shakespheare, but thatmost people are only pretending to like him out of social obligation.which is the peter brook definition of deadly theatre, a concept thati find very very relevant and useful.

Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 11:53 PM
TIM CHRAPKO
Wow.
I mean, c'mon, you're trying to tell me that if someone gains some understanding by reading/seeing/hearing something that someone wrote/performed/said that the understanding is in no way beholden to that original work or its creator? Actually, that's a rhetorical question. The "?" is there because of my incredulity. Shakespeare endures for many reasons. When I was first introduced to his work, his genius was said to be found in his profound understanding and expression of the human condition. In fact, I propose that the human condition is to be emotional and intellectual and to struggle with these often diametrically opposed qualities in oneself trying to find peace.

You have this knee-jerk suspicion when it comes to emotion and treat it as if it were something external, projected onto/into you by society or somesuch. I'm not sure what the deal is really and you know well that we have very different personalities in this respect. But, anyway, his characters and their situations are extraordinarily real and lucid. Their struggles make sense and people the world over recognize this and identify with Shakespeare's work. Furthermore, he expresses his profundities with amazing literary skill and beauty. I don't believe that it is possible to logically argue that poetry is obsolete or of no value and Shakespeare composed his works with as much grace and dexterity as any poet ever has or probably ever will. His work is recognized as masterful even in cultures that are artistically distinct compared to the West. i.e. Japan, China, etc.

Shakespeare is to literature what Mozart or Bach or Beethoven were to classical music which also endures and will continue to endure. Is Beethoven obsolete? Yet, surely there are plenty of people who claim to like his music who are doing so out of "social obligation." Hey, Beet and Shake have got to be good. People have written books about them! Shallow or ill-considered appreciation does not devalue the work.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but how likely do you think it would be for those inmates to be able to come up with their own play that expressed even a modicum of what they were able to find in Hamlet? It's not just the ability to understand or to have had experiences which contain important lessons or inspire deep insight. The inmates obviously had those things. But, so often do we miss what is right in front of us until it is pointed out or explained or put into a different context. Then, then lessons can be learned or insight found. And, it doesn't have to be in line with the personal thoughts of the author (which in Shakespeare's case nobody knows what those were anyway). If someone takes away a something that wasn't intentionally written into the piece, that piece is not a total failure. It may be a smashing success in this other sense.

"it's not shakespheare that's doing these guys good" That's patently false. They were reading Shakespeare. They learned things that benefited them from it. This was good. Shakespeare did them good ipso facto.

"it's THEATRE" Uh, yeah, Shakespeare wrote plays.

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 11:34 AM
REX WINSOME
so the central logical fallacy of your rant lies at the end.

When i said "it's not shakespheare that's doing these guys good it'sTHEATRE" you missed my whole point, which is that they would have had these positive experiences doing ANY theatre, not just shakespheare.The importance you place on shakespheare actually belongs to theatre. I can tell you stories about prisoners producing Samuel Beckett, whichis quite the fucking opposite of emotional and poetic and presents avastly different interpretation of the human condition.

The only reason these prisoners are doing shakespheare instead ofsomething more modern and relevant and self-created (like the kind ofplay hutch described) is because this woman likes shakespheare andbecause the insititution approves of shakespheare and allows her to doit. Therefore shakespheare is applied to the situation because of it'ssocial status, not because of it's inherent qualities.

i take issue with the claim that the prisoners can't write plays.There's another episode of this american life with girls in juvie whowrote and produced a musical and acheived amazing community amongsteach other and communicated directly with their parents through theproduction in ways that these guys couldn't. The guy who talks abouthow he delivered his lines about regret and dissappointment to hiswife said "i don't know if she understood what i was saying, but i was saying it for her".

There's ALSO an episode of this america life about a woman in aretirement home who is having a life changing, reborn sort ofexperience at the end of her life in this institution because she iswriting and producing a short film. I bet, if these prisoners wereallowed and trusted, given support and opportunity, they'd be able towrite and produce a play that did a lot more for them. But... thenthey might be a little too empowered and things might get out of handMarat/Sade style (to bring it back to Peter Brooks) which is whythey're doing safe, abstract, cathartic, and ultimately (in realworld, not emo terms) irrelevant shakespheare.

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 12:14 PM
REX WINSOME
Oh, and on your second paragraph:
1. my deal with emotional art: in today's world art is a commodity, sowhen art is emotional the emotion becomes a comodity. When we seebourgeois theatre we're paying someone to stand in front of us andemote so that we can feel something and acheive some kind ofcatharsis. It's great fun when it's happening, so is visiting a whore,i imagine, but afterwards, when I'm looking at it intellectually, i feel kinda indecent.
2. all the examples of shakespheare's widespread recognition arefurther evidence of my point, that his popularity is a product of himbeing "approved" by certain art establishments. part of this approvalis based on pretention. Because shakespheare is old and is written indense language, typically overproduced and expensive (not ALWAYS, mindyou, but typically) it works wonderfully as a status symbol. likingshakespheare is proof of sophistication, an upper-class status formany people, again, not all, some people genuinely like it. I don't.If i said i did, i'd be trying to pass myself off as more culturedthan i am.


JASON HAMES
you feel indecent for allowing someone's emoting to provide catharsis? does this suggest you only desire to feel anything based on direct participation?

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 1:06 PM
REX WINSOME
yes. cuz, well, i guess emotional responses are important to me. tooimportant to share with a stranger for money.

also, to frame this more positively, cuz i realize that my defensiveposture makes me awful negative and bitter. my favorite responses toart are when it makes me think, i have a realization, an aha! moment.That's a direct positive emotional response to the peice of art, notto the characters presented in the peice of art.

My way (and Brecht's) is based on using the mind, critically analyzingthe content and drawing a conclusion. It's open to variousinterpretations by various audience members. Catharsis (aristotle,shakespheare) is about numbing the mind in favor of an emotionalresponse, it's a closed system, the art tells you to feel X and thusthink X. Brecht's method inspires change, Shakespheare's supports thestatus quo (even if he slips in bits of subversion, the form isauthoritarian)

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 1:16 PM
JASON HAMES
so the chatharsis brought on by, say a shakespeare play, is meant to be experienced the same way by everyone? a stencil? because even in my limited experience, that doesn't happen. so what if i felt catharsis at a Brecht play, despite any efforts for me not too? where does that fall? what if the shakespeare was free? then i didn't pay for the catharsis. how does that change it?

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 1:25 PM
TIM CHRAPKO
Shakespeare's work has stuck around for almost 500 years. It didn't survive the first couple hundred by the patronage of soi disant sophisticates. Also, nowhere did I say that Shakespeare's work did/does what no other work can/has. Theatre as a sort-of rehabilitative venture or vehicle for catharsis or communicator is a given. Whether you take the Brecht approach or someone else's. You missed my point in acknowledging the good of theatre which was given in conjunction with the good that Shakespeare's theatre did.

"Catharsis (aristotle, shakespheare) is about numbing the mind in favor of an emotional response, it's a closed system, the art tells you to feel X and thus think X." If that were the case then the prisoners wouldn't have had contrary thoughts/feelings regarding Hamlet. The killer whale guy saw what was on the surface, what he was told to feel, and came up with something else that was deeper and more relevant to him. You can't say that the author didn't intend for that to happen or provide for it. It was there to be found intentionally or not. In fact, saying that so-and-so is numbing the mind and trying to make you feel exclusively is pure opinion. Like I said, nobody today knows what Shakespeare's motivation or actual intent was. Hell, people argue about whether or not he was really a single person writing all the things that have his name on them. Catharsis is not anti-intellectual. We need to understand our emotions.

You take these broad slashes at folks who claim to enjoy his work because it's the hip thing to do if you wanna look classy, and there's a lot of that I agree; but I'm sure that most of that group would have a genuine and defensible appreciation for Shakespeare if they looked at the work in earnest rather than use it as a way to bolster their image.

Yanno, I hate most of the music on the radio. That is to say, pop music. But it's not just because lots of people say they like it. Or because it's pop music. But because the recording industry actually has and seeks formulas with which to crank out "hits". That's bullshit. If something is crap it can be made popular, yes. But, if something is really great, what? What's supposed to happen? Does it have to remain underground to be worthy of high regard? Genuinely good work should be damn popular too. The fact that something can be used for shallow ends doesn't make it irrelevant or bad.

Hames has the other end of the argument. I'm following that.

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 1:36 PM
REX WINSOME
"so the chatharsis brought on by, say a shakespeare play, is meant to be experienced the same way by everyone? a stencil?"

according to aristotle, yes. If it didn't work for you then somehtingabout the production failed, or you're too intelligent/sophisticatedfor it to work on you.

"experience, that doesn't happen. so what if i felt catharsis at a Brecht play, despite any efforts for me not too? where does that fall?"

Again, it falls on the work failing to acheive it's goal relative toyou. which Brecht often (perhaps even more often than not) did. His methods were experimental.

"the shakespeare was free? then i didn't pay for the catharsis. how does that change it?"

that removes the commodity aspect of it, but not the mind control aspect, i guess.


JASON HAMES
im not convinced. people aren't going to a play with a clean slate, waiting for "catharsis type A". the catharsis comes from how they interpret what they see, and how the oddities, personalities and other individual quirks shape and morph the interpretaion, and therefore the catharsis. this leaves, mathematically, a huge number of varient responses to a play, all forms of catharsis, but each unique if only slightly.

the only reason people have stayed to talk to you after your shows is becasue they felt a level of catharsis, an understanding that either reflects as negative or positive to them. catharsis is not something that is completely removeable from interaction. this conversation has the very strong possibility of bringing someone a moment of catharsis. everything, to me, does, becasue of our different wirings and ways of understading what is going on around us.

i think you try too hard to remove emotion from your analytical process. you are not Mr. Spock, even if you try to be.

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 2:22 PM
REX WINSOME
"You missed my point in acknowledging the good of theatre which was given in conjunction with the good that Shakespeare's theatre did."

Please clarify: Are you saying that it's the fact that these prisoners did shakespheare in particular that made it so effective? If so, idisagree. If not, this story doesn't prove anything about shakespheare, only about theatre.

"If that were the case then the prisoners wouldn't have had contrary thoughts/feelings regarding Hamlet."

the prisoners were the actors, not the audience. catharsis is supposedto work on the audience.

"In fact, saying that so-and-so is numbing the mind and trying to make you feel exclusively is pure opinion. Like I said, nobody today knows what Shakespeare's motivation or actual intent was."

Shakespheare worked within the vein of aristotilian drama, and aristotle laid out pretty clear how it's supposed to be.

"whether or not he was really a single person writing all the things that have his name on them. Catharsis is not anti-intellectual. We need to understand our emotions."

catharsis does not provide understanding of emotions, actually, i think we've all been kinda misusing the term "catharsis" in place of something more like "indentification" or "empahty" but the thing we're talking about does not provide understanding of emotions. in aristotilian drama the emotions are not displayed for criticism and understanding, but for sharing the feeling with the audience. that tingly thing really good (method type) acting makes you feel. Brechtian acting puts emotions on display where you can understand them instead of getting caught up in them.

"I agree; but I'm sure that most of that group would have a genuine and defensible appreciation for Shakespeare if they looked at the work in earnest rather than use it as a way to bolster their image."

i'm sure if i continue to bend to peer pressure and go see more andmore shakespheare (like i will tomorrow night) and better shakespheare at the pressure of all the people who constantly insist it is "thebest" theatre, or see new adaptations and approaches to shakespheare eventually i'll see something i like in it (julia taymor's titus, for example). but that just supports my position, our society INSISTS that shakespheare be given this scrutiny and chance upon chance, while Ionesco, for example (or even hamletmaschine, the interpretation of hamlet, called "dreaded" in this very radio program), is just nutty avant-gaurde shit and Brecht is just propaganda, to be disregarded out of hand.

Or, to make it simpler: compare Shakespheare to Marlowe. Dudes rippede achother off like crazy and other playwrights too (they all did, copyright is a relatively new invention) if our society glommed onto one of those other names the way it does "Shakespheare" then we'd all have grown up surrounded by Marlowe texts and adaptations instead ofshakespheare and the names would probably be reversed.

Shakespheare is a brand. a social institution and when i try and strip that away and weigh it on it's merits, trying to give it equal chance as any other play, it comes up sorely lacking in my opinion, and i suspect it would be the same for the majority of people who are perpetuating the institution. maybe even you.

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 2:25 PM
REX WINSOME
i like to think that people hang out after my plays cuz they got ideas, or had questions.

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 2:32 PM
TIM CHRAPKO
damnit, why do you keep writing Shakespheare? Am I missing something here? Is it an allusion to his sphere of influence or something? Maybe an old way of spelling it? I'm particularly confused because there's a lot of hits w/ that spelling when I google it. What don't I know?

Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 2:42 PM
JASON HAMES
ca·thar·sis
–noun, plural -ses
1. the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.
2. Medicine/Medical. purgation.
3. Psychiatry.
a. psychotherapy that encourages or permits the discharge of pent-up, socially unacceptable affects.
b. discharge of pent-up emotions so as to result in the alleviation of symptoms or the permanent relief of the condition.

the questions or ideas they have came from the catharsis your play brought them. it created a connection for them, that allowed further exploration that became questions or ideas. it starts with the catharsis, or they would be completely indifferent. the "purging" is, in other words, a recognition of an emotion that the play brought on, and the sudden sensation of feeling the emotion, despite not directly experiencing the event, and only witnessing a re-creation.

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 9:35 AM
REX WINSOME
I think i disagree with that conceptualization of my audience's reactions. I haven't worked it out completely (and certainly hadn't when i wrote George and Claire) in fact, now that i think about it, if i had been more aware of the kinds of things i'm studying now i might have acheived a more intentional result with that play, because the play wasn't only about rape, it was largely about the class dynamic and whatnot and that really didn't come accross for most people. Not that i'd strip it completely of emotions, or hit people over the head with the politics, but i might be able to play with people more effectively.

Cuz i'm not 100% behind brecht and the alienation effect, i think that catharsis or identification can be useful to lead the audience into a trap and then expose the trap to them thus forcing them to think critically about the trap i'd just led them into (which is kinda what i did with George and Claire, but i didn't understand the mechanisms at my disposal like i do now)

but that whole thing is very aside from shakespheare, and something that i am studying a lot and will eventually put together a full report (seriously, as though i was in school) about it (as well as a session of the Workshop- which we're sorely missing your presence at, mr hames- about Brechtian acting)

i spell shakespere wrong, cuz i don't care what the proper spelling is (in this context).

Last night, mulling over this, i realized that i- a non-fan of shakespheare- have seen more shakespeare than any other single playwright, way more than a lot of playwrights that i like a lot. The only one that comes close is Beckett, and i had to travel to chicago three times to see as much of that as i wanted. if that isn't evidence of shakesphere's over-exposure in our society, i don't know what is. When i say that Shakespheare is obsolete i mean that there is no use in producing him anymore, this is what Peter Brook thought back in 1970, when he coined the term "deadly theatre" and took up the challenge, found a way to make stale-ass shakeshere fresh (taking radical revisionist approaches to his least popular plays) but now that revisionism is played out as well, hollywood did it (Leo's Romeo and Juliet) professional theatre companies do it more than they do straight shakes anymore (indeed i am seeing my first straight up period shakesphere performance tonight) amateur groups do it (the kids who did merchant of venice as a 80's high school clique, or Titus as a slasher movie) even the fucking Boulevard has done Midsummer nights dream set int he wild west. To borrow Kate's metaphor, this hanky has been used a few to many times. The only use i can find in shakesphere is throwing tomatoes at it.

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 11:25 AM
JASON HAMES
I absolutely agree that Shakespeare is over-produced and that this distracts from new or different theater. I also agree that some people only attend Shakespeare for the social status of it (we have many subscribers at the Skylight who do the same thing, only with operas). I have enjoyed reading his plays, but they take me some time, as the language is confusing for a dolt like myself. I have seen little staged Shakespeare. I don't think his work is obsolete, just the attitude towards it. He is a strong and lasting spot in theater that is fine to be measured with, but it certainly shouldn't overshadow all other theater the way it does.
My belief and understanding of catharsis and analyzing is that I believe the desire to even analyze what you have seen is rooted in, first, catharsis, and the rest flows from there.

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 12:03 PM
TIM CHRAPKO
Alright, so here's my point-for-point on obsolescence:
1. no longer in general use; fallen into disuse: an obsolete expression. Obviously that's not the case. Yeah, I agree his work has been overproduced. And, I'm seeing more the truth of the problem with production of Shakespeare overshadowing or getting in the way of newer stuff. I only see that because of my recent involvement with the theatre scene. Casual theatre goers may never see it because people need their pop stars and easy to digest nuggets of supposed knowledge that tell them so-and-so is the best of the best. Then they can talk about so-and-so and look all atrsy shmartsy.
2. of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date: an obsolete battleship. Well, not yet. The key words there being discarded or outmoded. It wouldn't be right to flat out discard any genius from any field. Maybe Shakespeare should be outmoded, but it's not yet or we wouldn't be having this discussion.
3. (of a linguistic form) no longer in use, esp., out of use for at least the past century. Compare archaic. Again, not the case yet. It's archaic but still in use.
4. effaced by wearing down or away. What's an antonym for effaced? Cuz Shake's been made that, whatever that is . . .

So there we are. Shakespeare is not obsolete. When you say that it is, I also hear "Shakespeare is not pertinent." and I say that that is not the case as well based on all of the examples that I've cited previously. His work still can and does have power to teach, to clarify, to change a person or put things in perspective for them, in a word, to benefit people. I suspect that will always be true.

I now am of the opinion that Shakespeare should be made obsolete by a revolutionary form of theatre, some new epoch. Never forgotten, but learned from and given the nod here and there in acknowledgment of the brilliance that once shone. I'll always enjoy reading his work and his poetry, the sonnets etc. will always be beautiful and relevant. Shakespearian theatre though . . . I do want to see genuine productions of it because I haven't before, but I would be more excited to be attending a performance of something never before attempted. I agree with Hames that it's the attitude towards Shake. that is a problem.

I've got just a little more to say but I have to go to work.

P.S. One of the janitors at UWM recognized me from the tomato romp and stopped me to chat a bit. That was cool. He said he didn't throw tomatoes because he was too respectful. My question should have been, "Too respectful of Shakespeare or us actors?" If it was the former I'd have to shake a weary head. The latter would just mean he was a nice guy.

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 1:04 PM
REX WINSOME
"1.no longer in general use; fallen into disuse: an obsolete expression. Obviously that's not the case."

take out the "general use" part of the definition and it is the case. I got little use for it. I made the original claim, so we use my (perhaps inaccurate) definition, or i get to modify the claim (which i would modify it to: "should be obsolete by now already, christ").

As far as pertinent goes, i'd say shakespheare is LESS pertinent than a LOT of other shit that is totally overshadowed by shakespheare, which annoys the fuck out of me. it seems (from your last paragraph) we agree on this.

have we found a common ground? how delightful!

i was thinking, another reason shakespheare is such an institution is the economics of play production. rights to the scripts are free and it's recognizable and thus garaunteed to get some people in the seats. this makes me suspect we'll not be free of shakespheare until we are free of capitalism (or at least intellectual property rights, which is interesting, because without plagarism shakespheare wouldn't exist)

on the other issue:

hames, your understanding and beleif doesn't seem to leave room for non-catharsis, which makes the word "catharsis" kinda meaningless or usesless.

thank you both for participating in this discussion. i really enjoy it, it provokes much thought and provides clarity to my understandings of these things. I'd like to post it to my blog (cuz that's kinda where i archeive these things for future reference, and there's a slight possibility that someone might read it sometime and provide a new insight) any objection?

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 1:39 PM
TIM CHRAPKO
I was thinking as I walked today that it's interesting that the supposed paramount of theatre is almost 500 years old. but no other art form has been so thoroughly mired in the past. Has one? Sculpture maybe? Eh, prolly not that either.

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 1:45 PM
JASON HAMES
theater all but ceased to exist in the dark ages, suppressed by the church. ironically, it was the start if liturgical theater that slowly brought all forms of theater back into being.

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 1:52 PM
REX WINSOME
I didn't know that, i thought there were still morality plays and folk theatre n shit, just none of it was good enough to remember.

but, yes, a few months ago when i was reading about deadly theatre in Peter Brook, i saw one of the EUR reports on the bus and it was all derisive towards britney spears and someone else and i realized, EVERYONE only aknowledges these pop stars in this sort of way. No one genuinely likes them. They are as deadly as shakesphere, even deadlier. The fact that our medium (theatre) is more dominated by Shakesphere than pop stars means an upstart group has a great opportunity to make a real impact. the medium is ripe for it. but, now i saying that, i feel like lenin justifiying the soviet revolution in pre-capitalist russia, which is not a good feeling.

but it's more complicated than that! really! i'm not trying to skip over history and opening the door for a genocidal maniac to take over, i swear it. (keep matty r in the box, don't let them see him!) It's okay, really!

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 1:55 PM
JASON HAMES
the morality plays sprang from the Liturgical "plays". folk theater did exist, but like you said, it was not documented, and basically illegal. They would travel from town to town, and go where Church rule may not have been as strictly observed.

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 2:06 PM
TIM CHRAPKO
Oh that's hilarious. So a troupe could show up in town, but they don't know if they'll be locked in an iron maiden or forgotten in an oubliette if they perform so they've gotta test the waters first.

A few of them saunter up to a guy in the street and start casually telling him a story. Well, one guy starts and slowly the others begin to, again casually, toss out a few lines for different characters. 'Til the local is like:
"Wait a second, wait just a darn second! . . . Are you tellin' me a play?"
Troup member: "I dunno. What uh . . . what might you say if we were?"
Local: (winking repeatedly while speaking loudly) Why I'd say 'tis 'gainst church rules! I'd go straight to me lord and turn you rabble rousers in, I would!"
Troup member: "Praise God that we're not then!" (whispered) You're place tonight, midnight?Local: (quick nod) Right! Good then. Off with you, I've turnips to plant!
Hasty departure by all.

Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 2:21 PM
REX WINSOME
ha ha excellent. we should do that as street theatre!

Acting

As of this date in the theatre workshop we have worked with a little Grotowski, some Meisner and some stanislavsky (from here on refered to as "method") acting styles. Also, i've been reading a lot of Brecht and thinking about his acting preferences (we'll get to brecht eventually) All of this has me fairly flummoxed about what i think about acting and what acting school i prefer.

I am now going to try and sort some of this out so i can at least begin judging things accurately.

My understanding of Grotowski is that acting is a reductive process, that you strip yourself down and bare your core being to the audience in order to be genuine and convincing. We haven't actually worked with this very much, but for some reason i like the idea, especially in contrast to the tool box of voices, inflections, walks, affects sort of approach. So i dig this in theory, on instinct, but don't have experience with it in reality at all.

Meisner seems to be all about having genuine reactions. This idea seems very effective. That if you can get out of your head then what you do on stage will be much more beleiveable. We've done some exercizes, repetition, mostly, which is the most basic meisner thing and i can see it working there, but it's a long long way from there to the stage (when you kinda need your head to know the lines and character)

Method is all about bringing your actual emotiona life onto the stage, really feeling the emotions your character is having. This gets very confusing for me and we had a big circular argument about it when we dealt with it. it went something like this:
"how can i have a real emotional response to an object that i don't have any emotional connection to?"
"you bring your emotional response from it's original context into the context you need it for the stage. "
"so- that's pretending"
"that's acting! acting is pretending. "
"then it's not a real emotional response"
"yes it is, look at, when you saw me do that, it was real"
"but you just said it was pretending"

finally we agreed that there's real and then there's really real or originally real, but i still doubt that the "real" emotional response CAN be really real, and i don't know that i'd WANT it to be if i were doing it. On the other hand some of what people did was amazingly realistic and beleiveable. So, yeah, it's kinda one of those words failing us sort of things.

this seems to be a higher risk and more unlikely to succeed method than the meisner method.

thing is, they both aim for something that i don't know if i want. Cuz when brecht talks about how he wants the audience to interact with his plays, i get exciting and totally agree. I want an audience that THINKS about what's happening and has an emotional response to their thoughts, not to the actions on stage.

I don't know if brecht's alienation method is the way to acheive that. I don't fully understand and haven't seen brechts method in action. some of his ideas about the structure of a play, about projection and breaking the forth wall and making the sound and light aparatus visible seem like they'll work, but (according to what i've read) the acting style didn't really work and i wonder if it HAS to work for Brecht's critical audience thing to happen. i think maybe that's mainly in the writing.

I haven't got to the sections of his theoretical writings where he deals with acting in depth or describes experiments and i've never really officially seen it on stage (i have seen things that i think, wait, is that... is that brechtian acting? or does that guy just kinda suck?) but UWM is doing Caucasian Chalk Circle this semester, so i i think in the next few months i'll get a chance to play with all of that.