Saturday, September 02, 2006
Crashing but not burning!
I crashed a puppet festival. It’s an old story – I went to a performance at Radicackalacky – a Festival of Puppetry and Radical Performance – Puppetry Convergence – and I was watching what was on stage and I started thinking – “Ok, this has nothing to do with traditional stereotypical puppetry, I can do this.” I also thought, (Beware Hubris-karma, knock on wood), that I have a more developed, stronger text in my piece, The Chekhov Class.
The M.C. at Thursday’s performance, Morgan, has a natural gift for spontaneous give and take with the audience, and he mentions, in his patter between acts, that they’ve added some acts. After the show I make my bewildered companions wait in the lobby (two, lovely cheerful women, (the hermit having stood us up, natch)); and I hunt down Morgan backstage and ask him if they have space or another act at Friday’s show.
I don’t think I will ever be able to find words to explain how difficult it is for me to do things like that. I don’t talk to people very much, unless I have something to say; I’m lousy at introducing myself to people who it would be useful to know; I’m the product of some sort of micro-culture that thought it was wrong and rude to talk about one’s own achievements or aspirations. (I’m from a world where you don’t mention you are writing a screenplay until after someone talks to you that they enjoyed the movie – as opposed to the people who tell you they’re writing a screenplay and they have yet to have a single concrete thought and a word written. And from the world when people tell you they liked your work, you look at the ground and mumble thanks.) God, I know it’s stupid! That’s the way it is. So, change, yes? Yes.
ANYWAY, having asked for this chance, Morgan asks me a few sensible questions – “Tell me about your show?” – and then says “I’m inclined to say ‘yes’.” I then realize that I’ve asked to do something on a day when I’ve got things booked all day, and the forecast is for tropical storm/hurricane rain, and parking near the theatre sucks. So sucks. I pack the car in the rain, get through 10 meetings, manage to park less than a half mile from the theatre, and it’s only misting when I load in.
The back of the theatre is dark, they are running behind, folks are eating cold ethnic food, artfully tattered clothing and a certain amount of b.o. seem to be de rigueur, but there’s a list of the acts posted, and there, second to last is “The mask guy.” Morgan whizzes past and I grab him, and he says “Oh yeah, you’re on the list.” He points out the guy who will be on before me and disappears. A very nice assistant stage manager and lighting designer ask me what I need for my show.
I watch the first half of the acts from the audience. There’s a brilliant piece by two guys (RPM Puppet Conspiracy) called “How many Environmentalists does it take to change a light bulb?” There are no puppets; there is a forest of cardboard trees that are removed, one by one, from the tableau, revealing or being replaced by cardboard cutouts of each answer. At the first question, a tree is removed, revealing the light bulb in the forest. Then “One to write a letter to the light bulb,” “Four to circulate on-line petitions,” “Two, to do a puppet show about the light bulb,” and so on. The ending, depressing as almost all truth about the environment is, evokes The Monkey Wrench Gang. Although I’m not sure that folks in the audience under thirty have read that.
I oscillate between confidence and apprehension, but find, when I’m setting up in a frantic twenty-five seconds filled with Morgan’s vamping, mostly on the theme of his not knowing anything about my show, that I’m okay, I’m at home on the stage there, I can even riff back and forth with Morgan.
In as much as I can tell by myself, the show goes well. I don’t get a lot of laughs, but I don’t get rustling and moving either. At the end there is substantial applause – i.e. more than polite, more than I was expecting. I bow twice, and then we’re rushing to change acts. I go around the front to watch the last act. Afterwards several people tell me how much they liked either the show or the masks. They must mean it; they don’t know me; why else would they say so?
I have questions (reservations, really) in my mind about how my show fits thematically with shows addressing, however successfully, issues about social injustice and environmental degradation. Ah, I’ve just trapped myself into trying to capsulate what my show is about: maybe it’s about the intersection of our analytical and instinctive responses to art. But the aesthetic is the same – minimal props and painted cardboard – as is the approximate length.
Earlier in the day I told someone what I was doing and said to them: “I’m not going to get better by staying home and not doing the show.” So, courage to you all. And me.
The M.C. at Thursday’s performance, Morgan, has a natural gift for spontaneous give and take with the audience, and he mentions, in his patter between acts, that they’ve added some acts. After the show I make my bewildered companions wait in the lobby (two, lovely cheerful women, (the hermit having stood us up, natch)); and I hunt down Morgan backstage and ask him if they have space or another act at Friday’s show.
I don’t think I will ever be able to find words to explain how difficult it is for me to do things like that. I don’t talk to people very much, unless I have something to say; I’m lousy at introducing myself to people who it would be useful to know; I’m the product of some sort of micro-culture that thought it was wrong and rude to talk about one’s own achievements or aspirations. (I’m from a world where you don’t mention you are writing a screenplay until after someone talks to you that they enjoyed the movie – as opposed to the people who tell you they’re writing a screenplay and they have yet to have a single concrete thought and a word written. And from the world when people tell you they liked your work, you look at the ground and mumble thanks.) God, I know it’s stupid! That’s the way it is. So, change, yes? Yes.
ANYWAY, having asked for this chance, Morgan asks me a few sensible questions – “Tell me about your show?” – and then says “I’m inclined to say ‘yes’.” I then realize that I’ve asked to do something on a day when I’ve got things booked all day, and the forecast is for tropical storm/hurricane rain, and parking near the theatre sucks. So sucks. I pack the car in the rain, get through 10 meetings, manage to park less than a half mile from the theatre, and it’s only misting when I load in.
The back of the theatre is dark, they are running behind, folks are eating cold ethnic food, artfully tattered clothing and a certain amount of b.o. seem to be de rigueur, but there’s a list of the acts posted, and there, second to last is “The mask guy.” Morgan whizzes past and I grab him, and he says “Oh yeah, you’re on the list.” He points out the guy who will be on before me and disappears. A very nice assistant stage manager and lighting designer ask me what I need for my show.
I watch the first half of the acts from the audience. There’s a brilliant piece by two guys (RPM Puppet Conspiracy) called “How many Environmentalists does it take to change a light bulb?” There are no puppets; there is a forest of cardboard trees that are removed, one by one, from the tableau, revealing or being replaced by cardboard cutouts of each answer. At the first question, a tree is removed, revealing the light bulb in the forest. Then “One to write a letter to the light bulb,” “Four to circulate on-line petitions,” “Two, to do a puppet show about the light bulb,” and so on. The ending, depressing as almost all truth about the environment is, evokes The Monkey Wrench Gang. Although I’m not sure that folks in the audience under thirty have read that.
I oscillate between confidence and apprehension, but find, when I’m setting up in a frantic twenty-five seconds filled with Morgan’s vamping, mostly on the theme of his not knowing anything about my show, that I’m okay, I’m at home on the stage there, I can even riff back and forth with Morgan.
In as much as I can tell by myself, the show goes well. I don’t get a lot of laughs, but I don’t get rustling and moving either. At the end there is substantial applause – i.e. more than polite, more than I was expecting. I bow twice, and then we’re rushing to change acts. I go around the front to watch the last act. Afterwards several people tell me how much they liked either the show or the masks. They must mean it; they don’t know me; why else would they say so?
I have questions (reservations, really) in my mind about how my show fits thematically with shows addressing, however successfully, issues about social injustice and environmental degradation. Ah, I’ve just trapped myself into trying to capsulate what my show is about: maybe it’s about the intersection of our analytical and instinctive responses to art. But the aesthetic is the same – minimal props and painted cardboard – as is the approximate length.
Earlier in the day I told someone what I was doing and said to them: “I’m not going to get better by staying home and not doing the show.” So, courage to you all. And me.
