Freud by Dali

We are almost there!

Two more days of rehearsing and tech before our first preview in front of an audience.

Still a lot of technical things to figure out, but it all seems doable.

Dali spends a lot of stage time sketching Freud.

It's a little intimidating, as I'm not a very good drawer (and certainly not the artist that Dali was!) so I try to keep the sketchbook facing upstage as much as possible as I doodle away.

the pencils also have a tendency to disappear during all the farcical shenanigans, so I need to have some extras lying around on the desk, as back-ups!

Here are the actual Dali sketches of Freud, which I'm trying my best to duplicate.

At one point, Dali says Freud has a head "like a snail".  I can see that here, definitely!

Melt!

A day off today.

Then a ten out of twelve tomorrow. 

(A ten out of twelve, btw, is theatre talk for when you work 12 hours with a two-hour break during technical rehearsals  - "tech" -  at the theatre.  It's usually right before dress rehearsals/previews, when all the design elements - costumes, lights, sound, set and props - are added in, and it's typically very exhausting for everyone, but informative: you really get a sense of what this play world looks and feels like, and how it works.  I didn't want to assume that everyone reading this is involved in theatre and knows what I'm talking about...)

Hysteria is going to be an interesting/unusual tech.

I don't want to give too many of the plays' surprises away, but by the end of the piece, the naturalistic setting literally vanishes, and this hallucinatory, surreal, Dali-like world suddenly takes hold.

There's a stage direction in the script that literally reads:  "The walls melt."

So we need to figure out how to melt the walls of the set.

Tomorrow.

Lots of other crazy things occur as well, that go above and beyond a typical "this is your costume/prop/exit light" technical rehearsal.

It's also a farce. 

So we need to get the timing down perfectly.

If we get it all right, it's going to be so great!

It's a wonderful team of designers: John Malinowski, Gail Buckley, Janie Howland, Dewey Dellay.

We have our first preview performance this coming Thursday.

Gruesome, Sexy On-Stage Injuries

I've noticed that whenever an actor is injured during a performance of Spiderman: Turn off the Dark, ticket sales go thru the roof!

This was inevitable, of course.

Injuries are THRILLING!

And injured performers are SEXY! 

Just look at the vintage picture above of Steve Norman, lead singer of 80s super-group Spandau Ballet, nursing a busted knee after a tragic tumble onstage involving leg warmers, Jennifer Beal, and a random puddle of DEP.

I rest my case.

I know this much is true: he even makes his mullet look good.

This new development has been a LONG time coming.

At last theatre can offer something that reality TV cannot: uncut, non-edited, real-time dismemberment.

Finally, producers can cash in on a totally new theatrical form:

SNUFF THEATRE!!!

Buy a ticket:

Someone might actually DIE!

What could be more exciting than that?

And God knows: actors will do just about ANYTHING for a job.

So the threat of death or serious injury isn't really a deterrent for us.

You do NOT want to know what I would do for a job, for a role.

I need my health weeks, especially if I have a broken spinal cord.

We've all seen All About Eve.

That was a documentary, as far as I'm concerned.

I would kill someone just for a free breakfast buffet at Denny's.

In that spirit of reckless abandon that is SO zeitgeisty right now, we are already preparing death-defying stunts for our upcoming production of Hysteria.

At every performance of Hysteria, I guarantee you: someone will be seriously hurt.

At the very least, Stacy Fischer will hit me in the kneecap with a ball peen hammer at some point during the curtain call.

Richard Snee and I have also prepared an elaborate series of "Jack Ass"-esque stunts:

Skateboarding down the Central Square Theatre lobby stairs. 

Bungee jumping from the light booth (that's at least 15 feet, people!)

Robert Bonotto will self-inflict a paper cut to any part of his body.  You choose which one!

Johnny Knoxville, eat your heart out.

You bought a TICKET, dammit:

Seeing actors in excruciating pain is your RIGHT!

There will also be a special segment during intermission where I will eat anything for a dollar!

And I do mean anything...

So make sure to bring some interesting stuff!!

See you at the show!!!!!!



(Note: Statements and promises made in this post are NOT true and in NO way reflect the views of HamBone Management.)

Confluence

I just read Maureen Dowd today, as I couldn't get to it yesterday.

And she was writing about my favorite performer of all time: Patty Smith.

Smith's memoirs, Just Kids, won a National Book Award recently.

I've seen Patty Smith perform twice.

Both times were amazing.

The second time I saw her was at the Paradise, and it was a total accident.

I was actually walking down Comm. Ave, fully intending to see the Nora Theatre's production of Sarah Kane's Crave at BPT.

And I walked past the Paradise, and there's a huge line, and I looked up, and it was for Patty Smith, and I didn't even know she was in town, and I couldn't believe it, and I suddenly knew that I needed to see that concert, even though the sign over my head clearly said it was SOLD OUT.

So I started at the beginning of the line of ticket holders waiting to get in, and walked sheepishly past, staring at them benignly until one guy said: "Hey, you need a ticket?"

And he gave me his extra ticket.  For free. 

It was meant to be.

So, I never got to see Crave, which bums me out, as I LOVE Sarah Kane (not sure if "love" is the right word...)

I would LOVE to see ANY of Kane's plays done here. (I think the Nora is the only professional theatre to tackle her in Boston - or even the region -  until the Gamm Theatre in Providence recently did Psychosis 4.48) 

And if anyone wanted to cast me in one, I would SO be all over that rapey, eye-sucking shit.

I read Cleansed recently and couldn't sleep for 2 days.

Anyway, back to Patty:

The Paradise is already the size of your Nana's attic, so you're going to be close to the performer no matter what. 

But I was somehow right in front of the stage.

And the moment Patty Smith came into the room, you could not take your EYES off of her.

She is the most mesmerizing, generous, magical performer I've ever seen. 

Dowd actually said that she "radiates magic", which is true.

I remember she did a cover of "Sea of Love". 

She also sang "Tomorrow" from the musical "Annie".

I love her quote: "Contradiction is often the clearest way to truth".

She shoots this energy and positivity out of every pore in her body. 

You can actually see it, like a Tesla coil.

And it's strange, because I rarely listen to her recorded music (it's just not the same).

But live, she is unbelievable. 

Rickie Lee Jones is a close second for me.

And I love Laura Nyro in the same way, thanks to Tommy, even though I never got a chance to see her live.

You can tell she is that kind of performer.

And yeah, I love Deborah Harry too.  But that is TOTALLY different and guilty.

But what was really strange is that Dowd quotes, of all people, Salvador Dali in describing Smith.

He apparently said she was a "Gothic crow".

And birds, particularly black ones, are what frighten the character Jessica so much in Hysteria.

"A chick who looks like a crow" is how Sam Shepard describes Cavale - the character based on and performed by Smith from his play Cowboy Mouth.

And Shepard is sometimes called the "American surrealist". 

Which goes back to Dali. 

Who was trying to "drag up the monstrous from the safety of our dreams" and "commit to the canvas".

Which goes back to Freud.

And of course, Smith was famously the roommate of Robert Mapplethorpe, who is ALSO on my mind lately, as his work is part of the Hide/Seek exhibit being vilified by Republicans.

And I wouldn't have seen Patty Smith perform if I hadn't been going to see a show at the Nora,

who is now producing Hysteria,

a play about dreams and Dali,

who called Patty Smith a gothic crow,

written about by Maureen Dowd,

who has intense, Dali-like eyes herself.

So theres' this weird, interconnected thingy going on right now...

Playing for Real

We've started rehearsals for Hysteria.

Really cool, complicated, funny, dark play.

It's "complex", as Freud would say.

It's a four person cast:
Stacey Fisher as Jessica
Robert Bonotto as Dr. Yahuda
Richard Snee as Freud
and myself as Salvador Dali.

Playing a character who is based on a real person is a little different from building a character from scratch: there's actual documentation, histories, books, videos, etc, at your disposal.

We just watched the YouTube video of Salvador on "What's my Line?" in rehearsal last night.

Hilarious.

It's part mimic and part invention. 

Trying to really capture both the person in the play and the person from history.

Meanwhile, Tommy has started rehearsing a one-person show in which he plays architect, thinker and geodesic dome fan, Buckminster Fuller.

So the house is a little crazy right now.

All this prompted me to take a quick, totally self-indulgent inventory of the "real" people I've played in the past:

Nathan Leopold (with his special buddy, Richard Loeb), thrill-killer super mensch from Never the Sinner: The Leopold and Loeb Story at the Lyric Stage.  John Logan, who wrote the recent Rothko smash Red, was the author.  This was a lot of creepy, sexy fun.  Bill Mootos, my good friend, played Loeb.

Werner Heisenberg, brilliant scientist, Nils Bohr's best pal  and "uncertainty principle" wonder boy, from Copenhagen.  This was one of the most difficult plays I've ever been in, hand's down: it's an incredible amount of text, and it's all psychics, spoken by the people who CAME UP with the theories.  It was also my ART debut.  And I was sharing the stage with Will and Karen, two of my favorite actors of all time.   At one point, Heisenberg's son was in the audience.

So, no pressure. 

I actually developed a rash, in my mouth, during the rehearsal process - purely thru stress. 

I had to keep reminding myself that I didn't need to understand all of the scientific principles: I just needed to ACT like I understood them.

Albert Einstein, from Picasso at the Lapin Agile.  The only play I ever did at the Merrimack, back in 2000 (the play is set in 1899, the dawn of the previous century, so there were a lot of productions back in 1999).  Really great cast: Ken Baltin, Bob Walsh, and Andrea Walker (who also played Loeb's girlfriend in Never the Sinner).  Tommy played this part in a early production of the play at the ART, with Bill Camp as Picasso.

David Sedaris, The Santaland Diaries (the play version of his real-life memoirs as an elf named Crumpet in Macy's - which he reportedly can't stand, even though it's one of the most-produced plays in the country).  This is the only play I've done three times.  It's SO much fun!  I couldn't stop laughing when I first read it.  But I purposely avoided listening to Sedaris tell the story himself (it's a NPR staple).  I still have never heard him do it.

Rush Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh in Night School: this was a tough one, as I can't stand Rush Limbaugh.  But I think the distance gave me some perspective.  
I watched a video of his bile for research, and listened to his radio show. 
Yuck.
But I think it made a difference.
The play really tried to humanize Limbaugh, which (to me anyway) was a daunting task.
This was a one-person show at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, back in 1997 I think, and I played 30 other characters along with Rush (including, if I remember correctly, Cokie Roberts).  It's all about Rush taking Spanish lessons at the New School in order to attract Latino listeners, and falling in love with a feminist in his class.

Hound of the Baskervilles

I saw "Hound of the Baskervilles" the other night, which is the play Tommy directed at the Central Square Theatre this summer. It's running for another two weeks and all I can say is:

Go See It.

(If you can, that is: I'm hearing it's selling out quickly, so get your seats sooner rather than later.)

It's Hilarious.

Now, I know, I'm biased.

I'm totally sleeping with the director, and all my friends are in the cast.

But it is such fun!

And I'm an Aries, and we're just no good at lying. So you can really believe me here.

First of all, Remo Airaldi is playing Sherlock Holmes (and a menagerie of other characters) and I could watch Remo read the phone book, he's so funny. And he's just a born clown. And hugely talented.

And Trent Mills is playing Lord Baskerville. Trent is a student at BoCo, which means he'll probably be on Broadway next year, so it's your chance to catch him now before all that happens. I got to work with him on "Midsummer", where he was just a perfect Flute/Thisbe - he's just such an adept physical comedian, and he has a face like bowl of Jell-O.

Then there's Bill Mootos. Now, Bill is one of my oldest (and I mean OLDEST) dearest friends, but I usually throw-up or fall asleep when he's on stage. Or just pass out in my own filth. But he is SO freaking funny as Dr. Watson. It's like watching a really dim appliance bulb try to turn itself on again and again.

The play is this total goof on the famous Sherlock Holmes mystery, so don't expect a faithful re-telling. It's total "Irma Vep"- run-around-velco-ripping-off-stage camp.

And it all looks great (I loved the little proscenium stage that moves about the room!)

And Tommy is just a really great director. The choreography alone is so complicated/hard to pull off/organize here, and he just did a great job. The world is just so specific and right.

Here's the Central Square Theatre website, if this sounds interesting to you:

http://centralsquaretheater.org/season/10-11/hound.html

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Tommy is directing a three person "Hound of the Baskervilles" for Central Square Theatre, which is opening in a few weeks and should be quite fun. It's a wonderful cast: Bill Mootos, Trent Mills and Remo Airaldi, all of whom are very funny and transformative.

Here's the official web-site with all the info below, if you think you might like to check it out!

www.centralsquaretheater.org