Trav S.D.'s Tent Show Tetragrammaton

The premier of Trav S.D.'s Tent Show Tetragrammaton is rapidly sneaking (or, really, trampling) upon us, and with its thrilling approach has come a distinct lack of sleep and lots of hard work here at The Cabinet's (now happily shared) Headquarters.

But it's all in the name of excitement and wonder, so who can complain? Not I! Ape men! Realistic fighting! Music of ALL KINDS! VooDoo! Hope Cartelli (who is 8 1/2 months pregnant, so WHO KNOWS what will occur!)! ALL of Piper McKenzie! Mummies! A Baby Grandma Witch! Fortune telling! And spaghetti! For a delightful teaser, see below.

And if this isn't a hard enough sell : yours truly is directing one of the pieces contained within!

But enough of this hyperbole. The man who has self-styled himself Trav S. D. has written a couple of lovely and illuminating blog posts about two of the short plays contained in the Tetragrammaton: The Strange Case of Grippo the Ape Man and The Universal Rundle which are well worth a read.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I read and write about fairy and folk tales an awful lot. I'm not a particularly huge fan of the ultra-literal. I heartily believe that aping the details of everyday life doesn't make something particularly more like life. In other words, just because something isn't real, doesn't mean it's not true. Trav's offerings all live in that place, the liminal spaces that exist somewhere in the boarderland of history and myth . Dripping with Americana, music and folk tradition.

I'm also so beyond thrilled to be involved in a show at LaMama. I feel that there are all these odd lineages in New York Theater, and mine feels so directly tied to the work and people that sprung out of the Caffe Cino back in the 60s. I've been working away in the realms of Downtown Theater for what feels like a lifetime, and to be doing something in the House that Ellen Stewart built is an honor and a thrill.

Information and tickets can be found here.

I'm back!

Sorry to have deserted you, my loyal readers, this past week. My life was taken over mostly by moving furniture, disposing of books, rehearsing, day job and sleeping. Through some miracle I managed to find the cable that connects my camera to my laptop, so I can bring you this:

This is what one of the less accessible corners of The Cabinet headquarters looks like. Needless to say, everyone is very happy.

But - enough about me!

A few weeks ago, the fine people at Piper McKenzie (who occasionally makes appearances on this blog in her Hope Cartelli and Jeff Lewonczyk disguises) produced and Exquisite Corpse-like evening of theater called Dainty Cadaver at The Brick in Williamsburg in which I was happy to be one of the participating playwrights. Below, find a distillation of Team B's offering, "January 29, 1993".

Dainty Cadaver!

Just a reminder, boys and girls, that I will be participating in an exciting theatrical experiment brought to you by the delightful folks at Piper McKenzie and The Brick Theater, Inc. It's a series of plays written Exquisite Corpse style. That is to say, each playwright only saw just what came before and proceeded as they saw fit, and then the next playwright in line only saw what they wrote. And so on. It's essentially a Surrealist party game.

I will be in Saturday's group ("B") which will be directed by the always fetching Miss Hope Cartelli.

Information an tickets can be found here.

Crow's Nest and... Added Bonus Video!

Don't misunderstand me. I love my little gentrified corner of Brooklyn. We have freaking awesome pastries, a giant park and a blog covering it all. We also have the freakiest weather this side of Dorothy's Kansas, but that's a blog post for another day. What we don't have much of are performance venues. I mean, if you have a band, there's Southpaw. But if you happen to be more of a performance/theater/ burlesque person, you're getting on the F Train and going to Manhattan, or getting in the infernal G and heading to Williamsburg. Yeah, I know. First world problems. But you (unless you happen to be Trav S.D.) weren't with me the night it took FOUR FUCKING TRAINS to get home from Williamsburg, which is just completely outrageous.

Which brings me to Wednesday night, and my first time at Zora Art Space on 4th Avenue. They sell coffee and wine and snacks, there's art on the wall, and a nice little performance space in the back. And best of all, there was Esther Crow, debuting her variety night, Crow's Nest. I'm just going with the idea that it's the first of many, as there really should be more. She hosted in the guise of her hilarious Mrs. Goldblatt (see left) who reminds me of the lady that used to run the multi-purpose room in my elementary school in West Egg. It was a particularly well curated night, and completely entertaining. Amongst the acts were Anna Copa Cabanna who played her xylophone and sang a cover of Enter Sandman and a song about Ludlow Street. I've been wanting to catch her act for a while, so I'm glad I finally got to see her, as she was great. Charming and sweet and ditsy wearing a tiger-striped one-strap leotard (or body-suit as we used to call them in elementary school in West Egg). I also got to see Roger Nasser's (of Crispie Treat fame) ten minute, one man A Streetcar Named Desire (finally. Roger's the best), some hilarious sock puppet improv from Afternoon Playland (really, really funny), burlesque performer Foxxx Trot (after whose act the only word that popped into my head was "forceps". Catch her act, and you'll understand why), and most wonderfully, the inimitable Trav S.D. (okay. I'm totally biased). My always charming companion told two surreal and brilliant stories with the indefinable charm of the Great and Wonderful Oz, if the GaWO hailed from Williamsburg via Rhode Island, instead of Omaha. I mean that in the most exceedingly complementary way possible. It was a completely enjoyable evening, and for once, I could simply walk home.

Esther Crow also fronts The Electric Mess whose newest video was posted today. It was directed by Piper McKenzie (who were in the Crow's Nest audience in their Hope Cartelli and Jeff Lewonczyk disguises). You will likely recognize some special guests.



(Photo Credit: Angela Wieland Photography)

Theater of the Arcade: Five Classic Video Games Adapted For the Stage

I am pretty solidly video game agnostic, at best.

Back when I was 9 or 10 years old we had a really primitive, text based adventure game on our computer that was linked to my Dad's office via one of those War Games-style modems (I've provided a link to a picture for all you kids who may not know what I'm talking about). It was really buggy though, and you always wound up hitting a point where you would be stuck in a tunnel or something. And we had an Atari when I was in middle school. This is pretty much the extent of my video game experience. Oh. Occasionally, if I'm sick or catastrophically depressed I'll play a hidden object game or something. Essentially, any sort of game that happens in real time makes me anxious and upset.

So, yeah. I'm hardly the target audience for Piper McKenzie's Theater of the Arcade: Five Classic Video Games Adapted For the Stage (unlike their monkey show, where I was the precise target audience). Luckily, however, one exception notwithstanding, all the video games adapted had their greatest popularity when I was, like, twelve, so I pretty much knew what they were talking about. Of even more interest, each of the five video game adaptations also serve as a parody of a modern theatrical style or playwright. A Beckettian Frogger, a Stanley Kowalski-like oaf, hurling barrels at his Italian neighbors, and, best of all, an unbelievably delightful Brechtian musical about a round, voracious capitalist plagued by ghosts. Jeff Lewonczyk (AKA Mr. Hope Cartelli) penned the pieces, Gyda Arber directed beautifully, and I'd like to particularly mention frequent Piper McKenzie collaborator Fred Backus for his truly inspired portrayal of PacMan.

Everyone should go as it is super entertaining, and buy your tickets in advance as the gaming community has seemingly jumped on this like a theater starved pack of wolves. The performance I attended was packed to the rafters (with strangers!).

I have to say though, I am now hoping to one day see a Busby Berkeley style Space Invaders. Maybe performed in a swimming pool.

Theater of the Arcade: Five Classic Video Games Adapted For the Stage is being presented as a part of The Brick's Game Play festival. Tickets can be bought here.

Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!

Who doesn't like monkeys? Bad people, that's who.

Here's another completely, utterly enthusiastic and totally biased theatrical endorsement: Piper McKenzie's Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury must be seen for many, many reasons. I have constructed a comprehensive list, so that there can be no excuses of any sort for missing one of the last few performances (ever, as far as I am aware) of one of the greatest pieces of monkey oriented theater I have seen.

1. As stated above: Only bad people don't like monkeys.
2. It is subtitled, "A Darwinian Martial-Arts Fairy Tale In Which Monkeys and Monsters Beat the Crap Out of Each Other." If this doesn't sound appealing to you, you are likely reading the wrong blog.
3. Hope Cartelli. Some of you reading this haven't had the pleasure of making her acquaintance, which is unfortunate, as Hope is awesome. She co-conceived the piece with her husband, Mr. Cartelli (also known as Jeff Lewonczyk, also known as the director of this show). She also plays the Monkey's antagonist, the Vital Spirit.
4. I've read more fairy tales than anyone you know. Trust me. I tend to get really irate at poorly done, know nothing interpretations of fairy tales based on vague ideas sparked by Disney and reading Bettelheim in some psych class in undergrad. I thought the fairy tale elements were great and true and completely satisfying.
5. There is lots of monkey sex. If there are any creepy, uptight puritans reading this: do not fear! One could also interpret the action as coming down firmly on the side of a Darwinian argument for monogamy. The advancement in monkey-kind is made when the indiscriminate monkey orgy stops being so appealing to our Craven Monkey, as he has face to face sex for the first time with his Lady Monkey. The monkey sex is also completely hilarious.
6. There is a squid. Again, if this alone does not make you want to see this show, you are likely reading the wrong blog.
7. Qui Nguyen (of Vampire Cowboy fame) and Adam Swiderski's fight choreography is fabulous.
8. Jessi Gotta is in it. She plays Lady Monkey.
9. The costumes. To die.
10. Jeff Lewonczyk's narration. It's dry, factual, British, and just like watching Wild Kingdom if you had taken a large amount of peyote.
11. Monkeys! It's all about monkeys!
12. Just go. I hear the final performances are selling out quick.

Boo!

The past few decades have not been good for people who specialize in the short form of anything, but maybe, just maybe the pendulum is swinging in the other direction again.

Hollywood is specializing in three hour long B Movies, novels are volumes long, and I think all of it is collapsing under the unbearable weight of expense and bloat. I love short stories, and if my opinion is worth anything, I really believe that the best young American writers seem to be short story specialists. Kelly Link is untouchable with her razor sharp voice and her boundless imagination, and Karen Russell is not far behind, having written my favorite story of recent years: St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves. Link's fantastic zine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet is never ever dull, and is, story for story, way stronger than The New Yorker. The yearly anthology edited by Ellen Datlow (who I met this year at a reading and almost died of shyness and excitement) and Link is always really, really worth reading. All we need now is for Alice Munro to win her long deserved Nobel.

Okay. I need to fess up. Alice Monroe aside, most of the above write what is called fantasy, or speculative fiction, or horror. If left completely to my own devices, this is where my taste runs. Happily, my taste seems to have gone mainstream, so there is lots and lots of it. Also, most of the authors listed above are women. I don't know if means anything, as the world of speculative fiction short story writing has always been more egalitarian than some (probably because there was always so little money at stake). All this brings me back to The List I started blogging about last summer. To recap: there have been remarkably few female film directors who have had careers of any significance.

Last night I attended a screening of an anthology of short horror films directed by women, Bride of Sinister Six, curated by Bryan Enk. I love anthologies. I play my ipod on shuffle. I crave variety. Halloween is the best. The more splatter the better. I had a really great time. To make a full disclosure, I know many of the people involved. I'm not here to be a critic. I'm just really glad Bryan remedied a really unfortunate situation (the two previous Sinister Six anthologies included only male directors).

I loved Sally McKleinfeld's film (The Box) which dealt with sisters and a horrific, flipper-like tongue. I also really liked Gyda Arber's creepy roommate story (Watching), with a lovely performance by Jessi Gotta (who played Winnie in the second incarnation of Antarctica). I enjoyed all six films, but I really wanted to talk about "The Poison Kiss", Hope Cartelli's offering (still, above). It is sublime, it is beautiful, it is complete. A black & white, silent, German expressionist pastiche, with a terrific lead performance by Iracel Rivero (who looks like she was cast via time machine). Hope has been collaborating with her husband, Jeff Lewonczyk, on the silent, staged, Bizarre Science Fantasy series for the past few years, and the experience shows. The story telling is clear, fluid and concise. This is Hope's first film but you would never guess that from seeing this short. More please?