March Muse: Don't Bogart That Script

It’s been disturbingly like summer on the North Coast, though it’s actually only March. Meanwhile Dell’Arte is starting to prepare this summer’s Mad River Festival show, which is going to be...last summer’s Mad River Festival show. Only different. And the difference may be...you.

"Mary Jane: The Musical was the biggest grossing show in a single run we’ve ever done,” said Producing Artistic Director Michael Fields. “And some people still didn’t get to see it.”

 So that’s one impetus for reprising it this coming summer, as is an unusual circumstance for such a large cast. “Everybody who was in the show last year is available to come back,” Fields said. “Even our graduate students. It’s never happened before.”

 But there are a couple of other compelling reasons. First and foremost is the community’s deep interest in the topic, the Humboldt marijuana industry that was recently estimated as generating an astonishing one billion dollars for the county economy.

 The second reason is artistic. “Last summer we were just trying to get material on stage that allowed people to think about it,” Fields said. “Now we can develop it more, deepen it, especially the characters and relationships.”

 Dell’Arte’s artists can deepen the story, but they decided to seek help in broadening it. They’ve posted last year’s script online, and are asking anyone with an idea, a suggestion or even a song to email them. These contributions are posted at the end of the script, and taken into consideration as the revised show is being developed.

 The contributions received so far have included song lyrics and even music in Mp3 files and a CD. “We’re trying to make a bigger conversation with the community,” Fields said. “We really want people to write stuff down, so we can get a broader perspective.”

 For example, several contributions posted so far suggest portraying the trimmers. Someone noted that Mary Jane mentions her son, but he’s never seen. Why not more about him? Fields noted that when Joan Schirle (as Mary Jane) sang Joani Rose’s song “My Son” for the production’s visit to the Hempfest in Garberville in November, “people were weeping,” particularly in response to such lyrics as “He was by my side, the very first time I put a seed in the ground.” So this suggestion is likely to result in an addition to this summer’s version.

 Additions also mean there will be some subtractions. “We know we’re keeping the key songs,” Fields said, like Tim Randles’ “Why is Whiskey Legal and Pot is Not?” and Scott Menzies’ “The Industry.” And though there will be some topical updates to 2012, it will all still be set at the Emerald Ball. But what’s different will depend in part on what suggestions are received.

 “We’re also doing this show for three weeks instead of two,” Fields revealed. So to participate in creating this show, you can start at www.dellarte.com/maryjane, which will link you to the script and the suggestions posted so far. You can contribute directly by emailing info@dellarte.com.

 Coming Up:

Opening Thursday at 8: A performance by Rudi Galindo (Artistic Director of  Teatro Pachuco and Los Payasos favorite) and dancer-choreographer Lisa Da Boit called All Fall Down, described as a site specific event with no text, a love story about the Twin Towers interwoven with a legend of the man who takes care of the moon.  It's at Dell'Arte's Carlo Theatre, continuing through Saturday evening.  Tickets through Dell'Arte.

Beyond the weekend, there's a free reading by Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller of Independent Eye from their newly published memoir on Monday at 7 p.m. at the Arcata Playhouse.

Opening last weekend and continuing until March 26 is the tenth annual spring production at College of the Redwoods, a reprise of the first play in the series, Moliere’s comedy The Miser. It reunites the same creative team of Kjeld Lyth (director), Daniel Lawrence (scenic design) and Denise Ryles (hair & makeup.) It’s onstage at CR’s Forum Theater Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2. Tickets at CR Bookstore or at the door.

 Ferndale Repertory Theatre presents a limited run, North Coast premiere of the musical [title of show.] Yes, that’s the title of the show: it’s about two struggling young artists assembling a show for a musical theatre competition. Written by Jeff Bowen (music and lyrics) and Hunter Bell (book), it had a 100-performance Broadway run in 2008. The Ferndale production features Philip De Roulet, Craig Waldvogel, Elena Tessler, Jo Kuzelka and Laura Welch. It runs just two nights, but on successive weekends: this Friday (March 16), and next Friday (March 23) at 8 p.m. Rated PG-13. (800) 838-3006, www.ferndale-rep.org.

 This weekend Dell’Arte International’s first years present the results of their immersion in melodrama (in class at least) called Saved At Last From the Awful Flood of Life. Seven pieces seek to exemplify the struggle pitting loyalty, honor and justice against deceit, greed and intolerance—and the good guys win! There’s an opening night benefit for International Student Aid on Thursday at 8 p.m., with tickets at $25. Friday and Saturday shows are pay-what-you-can. (707) 668-5663 or www.dellarte.com.

 On Friday (March 16) the Arcata Playhouse starts its sixth annual Family Fun series with Japanese storyteller Kuniko Yamamoto in Magic Mask, Mime and Music of Japan at 7 p.m., with Saturday shows at 2 p.m. and 7. Future family-friendly shows in the series bring Faustwork Mask Theater in April and San Francisco’s Sweet Can Circus in May. Tickets can be purchased at Bubbles, Wildberries Marketplace and Redwood Yogurt in Arcata, or online through brownpapertickets.com. More information: (707) 826-1575, arcataplayhouse.org.

 For your long-range planning, North Coast Repertory Theatre opens Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing on March 29.

Independent Eye's "Hands Up!"

Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller don’t just work with puppets, they think about them. They say as much in their notes for their new Independent Eye show now on tour, Hands Up! which played two nights last week at Dell’Arte: “The show tonight is with puppets, and in a sense it’s about puppets.”

 Because puppets are dead objects that take on a life in performance and return to lifelessness afterwards, they suggest issues of mortality that become “more personal as you get older” (Independent Eye, based in Sebastopol, debuted in 1974.)

 Because puppets sometimes seem to take on a life of their own (and the puppet cannot hear the puppeteer), they suggest issues of control. This evening of nine unrelated pieces may also prompt related questions, such as the extent to which people are themselves puppets: reacting in predictable ways to repeated circumstances, neither of which they seem able to control. Who’s pulling your strings? Institutions? Lovers? Fate?

 The writing and performing by Fuller and Bishop is excellent as usual: original, inventive, layered, witty. Bishop’s puppets are exquisite, Fuller’s music is lively and haunting.

 Like the puppet plays they presented at the Arcata Playhouse about a year and a half ago, the humor in these tends towards the grim. In two pieces, confrontations (between a weed-obsessed gardener and a determined plant, and among dogs at a dish) turn to negotiations and at least temporary acceptance. But when the classic puppet Punch is required to be nice and not just beat up Judy, everybody else’s fears and aggressions get projected on him and violence ensues anyway.

 Other pieces are more wholly frightening, such as the door-to-door Messengers of Doom (though Merchants of Doom is more accurate) with the machine-gun patter of terrorist officials crossed with greed-speeded sub-prime mortgage salesmen, aimed at a woman whose plaintive refrain is “I don’t understand.”

 Then there’s the kid whose prom date is Kali, the Hindu goddess of time, change and death. This piece throws so many powerful punches so fast that it can’t be summarized, except to say that coming just before intermission, it may well increase sales at the bar.

 After the break, there’s the story of a dying man beset with guilt because he presided over the immolation of 1950s child star marionette Howdy Doody (bizarre, yes—but based on a true story) and a ghostly return to a crucial moment that nipped in the bud what might have been a life-changing relationship.

 In the last piece of the show the puppeteers emerge to speak for the audience, hoping that this is not another “downer,” but they still regard the happy ending of this apparently inane love story as sappy. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading him again lately, but this humor reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut’s. Every human life has value, says one of Independent Eye’s characters, and we should always pretend that’s true. That’s a Vonnegut-like formulation.

 Vonnegut (who late in his life said that if he were young and starting out now, he’d write for a small theatre company) often worked with the idea that people all too typically act like puppets or robots. But his view of life as bleak was mitigated by two things: the activity of art, and that among the sinners were some perfectly ordinary saints.

 To be honest, I admired this show more than I enjoyed it. Perhaps that says more about me. But as I started writing this I opened Victoria Nelson’s book, The Secret Life of Puppets, and the first words my eyes fell upon were these: “The grotesque, however, makes up only half—the dark half—of the complete religious experience...[and] ‘instills fear of life rather than fear of death.’ What it noticeably lacks is the experience of bliss, grace, divine joy.”

 These puppets were not entirely grotesque and neither were the stories. And even when the stories seemed simple they weren’t superficial. But I did feel a certain balance was missing, or maybe halfhearted. And the operative word is “feel.”

 Perhaps ironically, another issue of control was suggested in the Friday night performance when the computer-controlled light and sound malfunctioned, and the show ground to a halt. Who were exposed as the puppets then? But Bishop and Fuller reacted with both wit and vulnerability, leading to some of the bigger laughs of the night, as well as to the bonding that the audience so clearly wanted.

Puppets in Hell: Independent Eye's Rash Acts

The Independent Eye’s Mythic Kitchen troupe, based in Sebastopol, returned to the North Coast last weekend for two shows at the Arcata Playhouse. With this version of their Rash Acts, they were trying something new, more or less. They’ve used puppets before—co-founder Elizabeth Fuller, who brought her show Dream House to the Playhouse a couple of summers ago, said that people still remember their puppet version of Macbeth from 1979.

 But after 35 years of eclectic experimentation, Fuller and partner Conrad Bishop decided to focus on integrating puppets in their new work from now on. As a step in that direction, they combined actors and various kinds and sizes of puppets to revisit five stories they’ve done in the past as non-puppet theatre.

 Puppetry is an ancient and cross-cultural element in theatre, and was present at the creation of commedia dell’arte. The world-weary puppet introducing Rash Acts mentions the memory of familiar American puppets gone by, like Howdy Doody and Kermit the Frog. His bitter patter clues us in to the expectations we may be dealing with as the evening progresses. Because the un-cute and non-madcap message of the evening might be that it’s not easy being mortal. Hey, kids—what time is it? It’s Howdy Apocalypse time!

 The current economic tailspin plus the usual angst-producing suspects (war, Big Macs, strip malls, cancer) are front and center in the first piece, “Alice in Wonder.” It’s a riff on Lewis Carroll, with a sci-fi feel (Borg voices, Forbidden Planet sound effects)--- although the White Rabbit is an airport security scanner out of the Marx Brothers (or reality), the caterpillar has given up smoking, and the Queen is male (because being Queen is a man’s job.)

 Alice is a childhood doll rediscovered by her grown-up owner as she packs up to leave her foreclosed house, and is tossing out “crap I’ve had for years, like hope and expectations… This is not one of those mythic underworld journeys. This is just going to hell.”

 Alice is eventually consigned to the Goodwill. The woman’s one remaining hope is to plant some seeds (farming and growing stuff as the only good thing left seems common to several of the stories) but she can’t, she’s moving. Not a cheery story, but with a homemade feeling of a child playing dolls in her room.

 “Reach Out and Touch” concerns a recent widower bedeviled by telemarketers at mealtime, “Freeway” is a Firesign Theatre/Doctor Who fantasy of a couple that gets on the freeway and forty years later finally finds the Big Rest Stop. This one had some interesting, dance-like interactions between the two puppets and the human couple animating them.

 “Big Mama’s Baby” is an unsubtle but cleverly detailed allegory of white civilization as a spoiled child wrecking the planet, until the volcanic Big Mama Earth snuffs him. He wasn’t all bad, though—he left behind the Ode to Joy.

 “The Shadow Queen,” which features some very nice shadow theatre work, provided at least the choice of something hopeful: art as a kind of resurrection, offered as an alternative ending. But relentless mortality and screwed up people trashing the planet were common themes, as startling lines zinged by among those that sounded more conventionally cynical.

 The puppets and costumes are striking. Personally, I have trouble relating to puppets when the puppeteer is visible. I guess most people focus on the puppet anyway, but I keep looking at the person—I gravitate towards facial expression and where the voice is coming from. It’s like a movie with subtitles: I wind up reading more than watching.

 But when I could focus on the puppets, I still found that, except for a couple of moments, they tended to mute emotional connection rather than strengthen it. Maybe a certain alienation effect is intended, or inevitable. Even when they aren’t obviously grotesque, there’s always been a certain creepy quality about puppets. In any case, given the content, it was a disquieting evening. Ruefully funny, too, though not exactly Kermit and Howdy time.

 Coming Up: Next weekend is a busy one at the Arcata Playhouse, with physical comedy in The Cody Rivers Show on Thursday (Feb. 26), Cal Pritner from New York doing Mark Twain on Friday, and a cabaret fundraiser for Coastal Grove Charter School students on Saturday…Sanctuary Stage does The Vagina Monologues on Thursday and Friday at 7:30pm at Aunty Mo’s Lounge in Eureka, benefiting local organizations. It includes two monologues never performed in Humboldt before.

 Opening on Thursday and playing two weekends in the Gist Hall Theatre is the winner of the tri-annual New Plays Season national competition at HSU, Jagun Fly by John Oluwole ADEkoje, an HSU playwriting graduate who is establishing a promising career in Boston. It’s that Humboldt rarity: a play about Africa and America written by an African American, with an African American cast.

This North Coast Weekend

Rash Acts at the Arcata Playhouse: 6 actors, 42 puppets, five "live theatrical animations" (i.e. plays maybe)written and directed by Sebastopol theatre artists Conrad Bishop & Elizabeth Fuller, this Friday and Saturday (Feb. 20, 21) at 8 pm.

A limited run at North Coast Rep of Cubby's Dream, written by, directed by and starring: Dave Silverbrand! And his Not Bad Under the Circumstances Players! Sounds like fun and it's a benefit for Silverbrand's Cleats for Kids that sends baseball equipment to poor children in the Dominican Republic. It's on Friday and Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 2pm.

As It Happened at Dell'Arte by its MFA students is three plays--loosely describable as adaptations of works in another medium-- by three groups, starting tonight (Feb. 19) and running through Sunday at 8pm.

Jeff DeMark and The UKEsperience Band are back at the Muddy Cup in Arcata on Saturday (Feb 21) beginning at 8:30 with a short Ukes set, then Jeff does some new material and reprises some stories, too. Then the Ukes are back for "their eclectic 'island boogie' songs in addition to sterling versions of Beatles tunes." There's really nobody like Jeff anywhere, every show is a new experience, even for his devoted fans who never miss him. This is the second collaboration with the Ukes; the first was a perfect blend. All this and music, too!

Elizabeth Fuller's Dream Houses

Dream Houses

Update: Elizabeth Fuller responds in the Comments at the end of this post.

In a recent interview, playwright Tom Stoppard reinterated a view on reviewing that he's held since his first interviews in the early 70s: that the job of reviewers is to express the effect the play had on them the night they saw it. (As a young writer, Stoppard was a theatre reviewer, a contemporary of Kenneth Tynan. This is an old English tradition. H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw first met after a play by Henry James they were each reviewing for different newspapers.)

It's a point of view I take seriously, and basically agree with, although with various amendments. (Okay, you can count up the "view"s now.) For example, the night I saw Dream House at the Arcata Playhouse, I had a kind of allergy attack, which distracted me, and colored my experience of the play. But it would be irresponsible to let it color it too much in writing about the play. And although I was interested in meeting Elizabeth Fuller and hearing the experience of other playgoers at the reception afterwards, I had to go straight home. What if I'd stayed? That would not have changed my experience of the performance, but might well have suggested different ways to approach it in writing.

Stoppard was also talking about the typical newspaper reviewing situation, in which you're writing a review right after the show for the next day's paper. I usually have a few days before my weekly deadline, and with a play like this one, time is useful in letting impressions settle and some idea of the pattern of the play emerge. But I find that even several days is not enough to do more than make tentative conclusions. So one does fall back on immediate impressions--but ones that have lasted a few days, and become the most prominent.

Yet the journalist in me wants to be more "accurate" than that. The review is above all a piece of writing in a newspaper, meant to be read for all the reasons other stories are read--because it's informative and entertaining in itself. But communicating to an audience that is at least partly composed of people who can see the play themselves is not the same thing as talking about your own impressions as if yours were the accurate ones, or even representative. All of this is partly why I insist I'm writing a theatre column, and not theatre reviews.

Now it's been nearly a week since I saw Dream House, and another way to organize my impressions has emerged. That is, I absorbed this "through-line" of the play but other impressions were more dominant: this through-line is the self as a collection of voices talking to the central "me," and their ultimate effect is to produce and impose shame.

Carl Jung and doubtless other psychologists and philosophers believed that each of us is many people. Probably James Hillman would say that's why early civilizations had so many gods. The voices in our heads also include important outside influences: everything from parents and partners to "society."

The conceit of the play is that it's come time for the "me" to create a home. Which we always want to be our "perfect" home: the dream house. But what is perfect? Not the self. But how we arrange our imperfections becomes our creativity, and our self. Accepting, honoring and celebrating that becomes the conclusion.

From the beginning, the play is also structured as literally a dream. The house is the self, perhaps with some reference to the "earth household" of the world, and also to the play itself--because that's what the stage is, in performance: a dream house.

The voices are represented as sisters, a very theatrical device that allows Elizabeth Fuller to create characters with separate voices and physicalities. The "me"--the one the other voices are talking to-- in the beginning is "Bozo," a nickname but also the "me" characterized as a clown. As stage business, I frankly found this annoying, but conceptually it sort of works. The clown's comedy is about awkwardness, though the pratfalls can be thrillingly graceful and daring. The central character is very awkward, anxious and uncertain. That, as well as other elements of her personality, invites shaming.

The idea of shame is brought home near the end, very powerfully, when she strips naked and presents a rapid-fire series of angry and contemptuous comments about her body, as if coming from all the other voices in her head. It's the least gratuitious nude scene I've ever seen. It was intriguing to me that throughout the play she used wigs and clothing to never allow herself to appear conventionally attractive. Then she was naked, with sagging belly (and being of roughly her age, this really made me wince.) But immediately afterwards, she put on a shift which left only her attractive legs naked, and took off the wig that revealed blond hair and, in sum, a quite attractive woman. At the time I found this another dislocation, and a puzzling one. But it does seem to follow the arc of the play. With self-acceptance, beauty.

That what screws us up in life is being "shamed," or made ashamed of who we are and what we do, is not exactly a new idea. Intellectually, I suppose I felt a bit cheated about that. But this is a play, not an idea. It's a performance, and that's its emotional power.

I suspect most of the audience responded primarily to the "sisters"--the portrayals of the Developer, the Plumber, the Dreamer, the Inspector, the Gambler, the Slut. Those were very skillfully done, and they are the meat and potatoes of the show. When I wrote my comments for my column, I was still bothered by what I felt were lost opportunities to make the various levels of "house" more vivid, and I was still feeling negative responses to some other structural elements and stage business. But without seeing it again, I can only be very tentative about that. Who knows, it could have been allergies.

I hope we will see Elizabeth Fuller back here again. Chances are we will. With her husband and theatrical partner Conrad Bishop, she operates out of Sebastopol as The Independent Eye. Her credits are amazing-- some 3,000 performances, 32 seasons of 73 shows, including 52 new plays. Together they've written some 60 produced plays. From Milwaukee to Chicago to Philadelphia to CA, with prestiguous visits to the Meccas of Louisville and New York, such commitment to theatre is awe-inspiring.