Baby Lovin’ With Christen Clifford

First it started with an essay. Then it continued with a solo show that has played Europe and a variety of downtown venues here in New York. Now, actor-writer Christen Clifford tackles the big time with the Off-Broadway premiere of her show, BabyLove, in which she colorfully ruminates on what she calls “the eroticism of motherhood.” The show opened late last month at 45 Bleecker and runs until the first week of June. It is being presented by Hourglass Group, the producers of The Beebo Brinker Chronicles and the forthcoming Frequency Hopping.

With the show successfully up and running (and her son temporarily napping), Christen dropped by the ol’ blog to talk about the show, the Off-Broadway move, and what else she’s been up to since the last time I interviewed her. BabyLove director Julie Kramer (None of the Above, Mother Load) throws in a handy assist from time to time, as well.

When last we spoke, you were getting ready to open BabyLove at the very first FRIGID Festival. How did that run go?

The FRIGID was great for me: I got to work the show for seven performances instead of just of just one or two here and there. The other work in the festival was wild and wonderful. And it’s important to have a truly fringe festival in New York.

What have you been up to since then?
 
Well my son started PreK, only half days, but that’s been a big change since last year. Since I’m a stay at home and working mother (I just work when he’s asleep mostly!) his schedule is what dictates my schedule. Ummm..I got my MFA, won some writing awards (MFA New School Nonfiction Prize and a 2007 NYFA fellowship, woo-hoo!) I was supposed to be working on a book- if my agent is reading this I AM, I AM!!!

How has the show changed since then - or has it?
 
Christen: The show changes with my circumstances.  When I first started doing the show, I was still really caught up in many of the issues, still very confused about sex and motherhood.  Now I feel like I’ve gone over a mountain and am on the other side of it, so it has a different feel to it.  It used to be even more emotionally raw, it’s still pretty raw, but it used to be REALLY raw.  Now I have to act to access some of those emotions, when they used to just be there.
 
So that’s kind of a big difference.  After over two years, I am finally looking at the show as an actor!
 
Julie: The show has changed so much over the years that we’ve worked on it, though it’s probably changed the least between the Frigid Festival and now.  We’ve had the opportunity to do it so much out of town and it’s interesting to me how some things are pretty much exactly the same from when we first did it in Slovenia and other parts we have continued to refine.  Actually we changed some things for Frigid and this time we’ve gone back to how we did it before.  Also we brought Julie Atlas Muz back, and she expanded some of the dances, which is exciting. 
 
Mostly though, I think what’s changed has been Christen.  When we started Felix was two and everything was so raw and uncertain and frightening.  Now, he’s four.  Her marriage is strong and Felix is this really great little person.  So while the show is still unflinchingly honest and emotionally bare, I think we’re both able to achieve more clarity on what it’s about.

BabyLove originally came to life as an essay for Nerve.com. What inspired you to write it, and then turn it into a solo show?
 
I was really confused sexually after having a baby.  I had identified myself sexually, and I felt like that part of my personality was gone, or not accessible.  Like I wanted to be a mother without losing myself, but I WAS fundamentally different.  But also unchanged in my basic desires and neurosis. 
 
So as a reader I turned to books, only to not find very much out there.  As a writer, studying with two great essayists at the time, Vivian Gornick and Phillip Lopate, I wrote from my own experience.  All of my solo work has developed out of a need to express something I didn’t find out in the world, some true bit of my experience that I hope has some universal truth in it.  It started from writing personal essays, on which I then collaborated with the fabulous director Julie Kramer to turn into performance texts.  Julie and I first met when I auditioned for her for a role in something for the American Living Room festival at HERE, a funny play about Elvis and a Russian woman and a pig:  I played the Russian. Julie has devoted a lot of time to my work and I am forever indebted to her.  I was very unhappy about feeling disconnected from my sexuality, and a lot of humor can come out of unhappiness.  Julie really uncovered the humor.
 
I am so grateful and lucky, this show has been supported by so many different companies- New Georges gave us discounted rehearsal space, so did the Interart Theatre.  The first time I did the show in New York was for the terraNOVA soloNova festival in 2006, and we did a lot of rewriting and rethinking during that run.  We’ve taken it on the road. And now this run at 45 Bleecker for Hourglass Group.

Previously, you’ve said that the show is about “the eroticism of motherhood,” and that motherhood changed your ideas about sexuality and your body. How so?
 
Sex and love and intimacy overlap in romantic relationships.  My relationship with my newborn was the most intimate I’d ever had, and it was shocking to me.
 
Sexuality is so commodified these days, and motherhood is so commodified, and now there is the media-ization of the “sexy mommy” as if we have to look like Angelina Jolie when we are pregnant and be a stick six weeks afterward we give birth.
 
This doesn’t recognize the true experiences of many first time mothers: that your body is changed, often injured; that you are often completely in love with your newborns at the same that your relationship with your partners may be floundering, that your hormones are fluctuating.  So I really feel it’s important to talk about motherhood and sexuality together without it being part of a media trend that just makes most women feel badly about themselves. 
 
Principally, I’m interested in exploring the in-between moments, the grey areas between love and sex and intimacy.  Where we are all trying to connect.  And solo performance and storytelling has been a vibrant way to explore this: I love the shared experience of the theatre, to find community with an audience that might be shocked by my admissions.  Though I use sexuality as a way in, the work is always ultimately about love.
 
Maternal sexuality is actually an issue that involves us all, as children and women and men and parents. The director Julie Kramer always says it’s like the opposite of Phillip Roth romanticizing or fantasizing about his mother- now we get to see the mother’s point of view!

Let’s switch gears for a minute and talk about Hourglass Group. How’d you get hooked up with them?
 
I first met artistic director Elyse Singer at a party at our mutual friend Erica Gould’s in the early nineties. Erica had this huge Chinatown loft and always threw big parties that were lots of fun, and I met Elyse and I had seen her production of Love in the Void (alt.fan.c-love)  which was a one woman play in which Carolyn Baeumler did Courtney Love posting online just after Kurt Cobain died.  I was not a big Cobain fan but I fascinated by Courtney, and I LOVED that they had taken her posts and made them into a show.  It was so great.  And this was when the Internet was still fairly new, I remember I went to see it and I tried to get onto these message boards and couldn’t figure it out.
 
I did some readings and workshops with Hourglass.  When Felix was very young we did a two-week workshop of a very interesting play called 800 Words: the transmigration of Phillip K. Dick by Victoria Stewart and it felt so great being able to bring Felix to rehearsals with a babysitter.  Elyse had had her daughter a few months after I had my son, so there was an acknowledgement of motherhood.
 
And then in 2005 Elyse and I were taking about solo work and she had the idea for a Lab devoted to female writer /performers.  The Lab is the first of its kind, which is very cool and also just a super supportive group of creative and diverse women – together we avoid the vacuum of solo performance.
 
And Hourglass Group is all mothers now: in addition to Elyse, Nina Hellman and Carolyn Baeumler both gave birth in the last year.  And Carolyn was just in Beebo Brinker at 37 Arts, and Elyse is opening Frequency Hopping at 3LD, so I’m happy to be a part of this group of mothers making theatre.

How have you enjoyed prepping the show for Off-Broadway?
 
Christen: I loved it.  I was so happy to get back in a rehearsal room with Julie Kramer, who is just so smart and I love working with her.  We had some sessions with the amazing Julie Atlas Muz and re-did some choreography.  She asked me if I wanted to make it dirtier and I said, “YES!”  So we have even more fun with the dance sequences now.  And Elizabeth Rhodes came in to rework some sound.  Costume designer Melissa Schlachtmeyer met me at maternity stores to find the perfect pair of pants, and made me a new belly. I am so lucky to have such generous collaborators who have been helping me work and rework the show over the years; we’re all in this together.  And we brought in Graham Kindred to do our lights, and had a consultation with a great set designer, Lauren Helpern, and added a Mylar rain curtain.  I love shiny things!
 
Julie: It’s always great to be able to revisit something, to have that confidence that it works in front of all kinds of audiences, and just to be able to really hone in on those areas that we want to be perfect.  It’s the best kind of rehearsal situation really, because there are fewer variables in terms of how or whether something is going to work.  And it’s always the best to be able to move forward with a show and bring it to more and more people, especially when you really believe in what the show is about.

Part of the performance schedule includes “Mommy matinees.” What time of day is best for theatergoing mommies?
 
Well, Sunday afternoons are pretty easy to get out get out of the house, you leave the kid(s) with your partner or a friend.  It saves you from having to make a big deal of going to the theatre and getting a babysitter and coming home late and tired.  And the Wednesday matinees are early, at 1pm, so parents can get back to school for 3pm pick up, or see the show on their lunch hour. 

What are some of the challenges (and advantages) you face in balancing motherhood and performing?
 
Well, first of all, I don’t buy into the whole “opting in” and “opting out” of motherhood that makes headlines.  For me, it’s not a choice to work or not.  Personally, I don’t have the option of having a high-powered job and hiring a nanny.  I can’t not be a mother, I can’t not be a writer/performer – these are givens for me. I also just started teaching.  So it’s a challenge for me to make my way in the world and piece it together the only way I know how.
 
When I was getting my MFA I’d be up until 1am writing and still have to get up with my son.  So I stayed sleep deprived long after my son was sleeping through the night in order to do my own work.  It’s definitely a DIY business model.
 
That said, I think coming from downtown theatre makes me scrappy in a way that’s a good influence on being a mother – the whole beg, borrow, or steal mentality makes you flexible and I feel like we can always find fun wherever we are.
 
When Felix was little, he would just travel with me- well partly because I breastfed him for so long!  When Julie and I premiered the show in Ljubljana, the festival there put us all up in an apartment and even arranged childcare for me and paid for it! 
 
I like to bring him to tech rehearsals, he loves the lights and gels, he loves to come to the theatre and explore different spaces.  He loves it and I think it’s important to see me at work, since he can’t see the work.  BabyLove is for adults only; it even came with a warning label in Canada. My son is old enough to really know what theatre is now – I take him to children’s theatre – and he likes to give people the postcards for my show and tell them, “Here’s a postcard for my mommy’s show.  It’s not for children.  It’s only for grown ups.”  It’s so cute!

You’re expecting your second child later this year. Congratulations on that! Might we see BabyLove 2 sometime in the future?
 
Thank you. I’m excited and scared to bring another human being into the world.  I don’t see BabyLove 2 in the works; I’m not fond of sequels in general. But who knows: when the new baby comes everything will change again.
 
I’m actually looking at sex from the perspective of a daughter instead of a mother now.  My new solo is called (What I Know About) My Parents’ Sex Life and it explores elderly sexuality.  I’m looking at everything from my father’s Viagra prescription to my mother’s racy letters, from nursing homes to granny porn.  Daniel Fish will direct it, and it opens June 17th at P.S. 122 as part of terraNOVA’s soloNOVA festival and I got an equipment loan grant from Digital Performance Institute so we’ll be using video and I’m excited that it will be something I’m not used to.  So I have to get to work making a new show.  And it’s scary, because though it is still a solo with personal stories, I’m consciously moving away from the storytelling form that I’ve been working in for the past few years.  I’m excited to see what will happen.

Julie Shavers Bites the Silver Bullet

Actor-writer Julie Shavers has been described as an “indie theater all-star” by nytheatre.com, and her resume reflects that. Her plays have been seen at both the New York International Fringe Festival (Go Robot Go) and the American Globe Theatre (The Secret Life of Plants). On stage, she played the title role in The Flea Theater’s production of Margo Veil by Len Jenkin, and has appeared in Adam Bock’s Three Guys and a Brenda and Julia Lee Barclay’s Word to No One.

Her latest writing and acting endeavor, Silver Bullet Trailer, recently opened at The Ohio Theater to universally positive reviews (click here for an example). With the run finally winding down this weekend, Julie stopped by the ol’ blog to discuss the play, weird dreams she’s had during pregnancy, and what it’s liked to be married to the play’s director, among other things. Here’s what she had to say:

The press release for your show describes it as the story of “an expectant mother and her unborn child travel[ing] through a dreamscape of the American West meeting casualties of American ambition.” Could you expound upon that a little bit?

While Sari (the expectant mother) is trapped in nightmares her unborn child runs off into a desert dreamland of his own. This play is full of hard lucks, bar whores and imaginary things. I like to think of them as more archetypal than specifically American and I’m not sure how ambitious they ever were, but there are casualties.

Where did the idea for the play come from?

When I was pregnant with my son I had dreams that would curl your hair. What if his head fell off? Would I know how to fix that? I saw myself nursing my sister’s chihuahua. It was gnawing on me with it’s sharp little teeth.  My son was born ten days late. By the end I was convinced that he would never be born and that I would die fat. Or that he would consume me slowly and take over where I left off. I was a mess. 

I was also curious about the journey he was taking in utero. If he too had dreams. Or saw mine. I wondered if he was freaked out when I watched violent movies or went to rock shows because I’d feel him thrashing around. I was playing Cavale in Cowboy Mouth in my ninth month of pregnancy. I was wondering what Sam Shepard does to a fetus? I do think they hear things in there.

You are also acting in the show. Who do you play, and what made you decide to pull double duty as both writer and actor?

I play Sari. A pregnant ex-stripper. Because I couldn’t resist.

How does it influence the writing process for you when you know you’re going to be in the show?

I don’t usually write a show thinking that I’m going to be in it. Especially this one. I figured with a one year old in tow I’d never have time. I do tend to write southern female protagonists though. I guess that’s just the voice in my head. I blame my sisters.

I did find myself carving up the monologues once I realized it was going to be me. It’s nice to have the opportunity to live in the character, say the words and feel which ones work and which ones need to be changed.

Your husband, Dan O’Brien, is the director of the show. How do you two manage the balancing act of both living together and working together at the same time?

He sleeps in the bathtub. It works amazingly well. And I have absolutely no desire to direct my own work so I’m really grateful that he wants to do it. His ideas always surprise and delight me.

The show is being produced, in part, by The Present Company, a now legendary organization in the annals of New York indie theater history. How did you first get hooked up with them?

One of my first acting jobs in New York was with The Present Company. They were producing Julia Barclay’s Word to No One, which we performed in New York and in London. We spent nearly a year creating a piece of theatre unlike anything I’d ever done before. I was living in a flat in London with seven other actors. It was one of the best times I ever had. Since then I’ve produced one of my plays in the Fringe and become a part of The Pool, which is a sort of theatre artists collective sponsored by the Present Company. I did a most of my work on Silver Bullet Trailer in that group. Elena Holy has become a great friend and mentor. Thank God. We were pretty clueless when it came to producing so the advice has been invaluable.

How did you first get your start as both a writer and an actor?

The first play I wrote was an adaptation of It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. I was eight. Then I took a break until college where I started writing again. I was working with Blue Moves Modern Dance Company as a dancer/choreographer and we needed something to go between the dances so we could change costumes. I started writing monologues and ten minute plays to fill the space and it just grew from there.

I’ve been acting in plays since high school. I’m pretty sure I did the first one to get out of class. I started dancing very young though, and my parents are musicians so we were always singing somewhere. I guess it was a natural progression.

Do you have a preference between the two?

Depends on the day. I love and hate both.

Are there any particular artists who you think influence you? Or who, at least, inspire you artistically?

I don’t know. Every time I try to make a list like this it starts to feel like a MySpace profile and I want to kill myself. I am inspired by everything. Music, books, plays, movies, conversations I hear on the train.

I think I’m most inspired theatrically when I see something really wonderful. Like a couple of years ago I saw a play called Three Dark Tales by the British troupe Theatre O. I left that show so excited and hopeful. I also think Cynthia Hopkins’s stuff is great. Au Revoir Parapluie, which was recently at BAM, made me want to go get a fork lift and 800 yards of fabric and go to town.

What have you got going on next after this?

Well. I’m about 4 months pregnant so I’ll probably go ahead and get that out of there and then who knows.

The Best Movie Performances of All Time(?)

I was at home throwing out some old magazines earlier this morning, and came across the April 2006 issue of Premiere magazine, which featured their list of “The 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.” Their top choice? None other than the man pictured above - Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.

Now, I love Peter O’Toole, and there’s no denying that his portrayal of Lawrence stands as one of the high watermarks of his extremely distinguished and memorable career.

But, the BEST movie performance EVER? Personally, I think not.

This sort of thing is, of course, highly subjective. No one can ever have the definitive word on it. Nevertheless, as a list whore from way back (looooooong before they ever became trendy and popular), I find these types of things endlessly fun to think about.

For instance, my list of The Best Movie Performances of All Time would start with these four from Marlon Brando, in this order:

• Last Tango in Paris
• On the Waterfront
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• The Godfather

Next up would be Orson Welles as the title character in Citizen Kane. After that, it becomes a virtual free-for-all. Here are some other favorites off the top of my head, in no order whatsoever:

• Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie
• James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life
• James Stewart in Rear Window
• Bette Davis in All About Eve
• Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire
• Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
• Christopher Reeve in Superman
• Harrison Ford in Star Wars
• Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future
• Robert De Niro in Midnight Run
• Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday
• Paul Newman in The Verdict
• Paul Newman in The Color of Money
• Peter Sellers in Being There
• Holly Hunter in Broadcast News
• Gene Hackman in Hoosiers
• Laurence Olivier in Hamlet
• James Dean in East of Eden
• Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs
• Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz
• F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus
• Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers
• Robert Shaw in Jaws

Highly idiosyncratic, as you can see.

What are some of your favorite all-time performances? I’d love to hear what the blogosphere has to say about this. Let ‘er rip, people!

Evolution of a Performance

Over the past few weeks, as I’ve worked on piecing together my performance for Babylon Babylon, I’ve gone through several changes regarding who exactly to base my character on, emotionally and tempermentally speaking. At first, I thought this fellow might be a good choice…

Then, as I went along, I thought maybe this guy might be a better choice…

Last week, after struggling with both ideas, I had some illuminating breakthroughs about my performance and thought that maybe this guy might be the way to go…

Finally, it occurred to me this week that in order for the whole thing to be successful, I would have to put this guy into the mix more than anyone else…

That’s the thing that still amazes and challenges me about acting - and the thing I still need to keep reminding myself of: no matter how much you try to transform yourself, you still have to put as much of yourself into your performance as you can in order to make the damn thing work. There’s ultimately no hiding who you are in acting.

 

Random Friday Babylonians

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. So I’ve decided to make this week’s Random Friday post top heavy with photos for a change. Like the one above - that’s me at Babylon Babylon rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, on the day we got our first script pages. Very exciting. Our official production photographer, Ken Stein, was on hand snapping away.

Here’s another one from our rehearsal on Wednesday night, courtesy of our lighting designer, the ubiquitous Ian W. Hill…

In the foreground, from left to right, are Fred Backus, Michele Carlo (sitting on the floor), assistant director Jessica McVea (standing with her back to the camera), and writer-director-grand poobah Jeff Lewonczyk. (The image here is slightly cropped. You can see the full image - which includes yours truly and fellow cast member Toya Lillard - on Ian’s blog.)

So, if a picture does indeed speak a thousand words, what do these two say to you?

While you ponder your answer, here’s this week’s Random Friday Top 10, courtesy of my trusty iTunes music library

• “Solitaire” - Suzanne Vega (Songs in Red and Grey)
• “Two Against Nature” - Steely Dan (Two Against Nature)
• “Athena” - The Who (It’s Hard)
• “Bad Sneakers” - Steely Dan (Citizen Steely Dan 1972-1980)
• “Harbor Lights” - Bruce Hornsby (Harbor Lights)
• “Up the Junction” - Squeeze (Squeeze: Greatest Hits)
• “The Towering Inferno (Main Title)” - John Williams (Great Composers: John Williams)
• “Pure and Easy” - The Who (Who’s Next)
• “The Phone Call” - The Pretenders (Pretenders)
• “Dripping Dream” - Sonic Youth (Sonic Nurse)

Happy Friday and have a great weekend. Spring is finally upon us, and it already feels like it. Enjoy the coming warmth and renewal. In the meantime, I leave you with one final rehearsal photo from Wednesday, also courtesy of Mr. Hill.

Babylon Babylon

 

So now that 3800 Elizabeth is over, I can focus solely on my next show, which I’ve been rehearsing for about a month now. The show in question is Babylon Babylon, and it’s the latest brainchild from Piper McKenzie Productions, the folks who brought us last summer’s outstanding production of Macbeth Without Words. Piper McKenzie co-artistic director Jeff Lewonczyk writes, directs, and co-stars in this 30-cast member extravaganza.

Well, he kind of writes it. He sort of mostly writes it. Um…we’ll get to that in a minute.

And yes: I did say 30 cast members - including some of indie theaters brightest all-stars…

• Fellow nytheatre.com scribes Gyda Arber, Fred Backus, Maggie Cino, and Robin Reed
• Piper McKenzie co-artistic director Hope Cartelli
• My 3800 Elizabeth co-star Iracel Rivero and director/co-writer Aaron Baker
• The artist formerly known as Carmen Mofungo - none other than Michele Carlo herself
• Brick Theater regulars Danny Bowes, Katie Brack, Marguerite French, Roger Nasser, Robert Pinnock, Adam Swiderski, and Rasha Zamamiri
• Kamran Khan and Elizabeth Hope Williams, co-stars of the FringeNYC 2007 hit musical, John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!
• Eric Bland, writer-director of last summer’s Pretentious Festival hit, The Children of Truffaut.

And if that weren’t enough we’ve also got video design by Jason Robert Bell, one of the masterminds behind the Caveman Robot empire, and fight direction from - who else?! - Vampire Cowboy Qui Nguyen.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks.

Now you may ask: what the hell is this show about? Well, I’ll tell you: it’s about the fall of the ancient city of Babylon, and it takes place on the day of the historic invasion by the Persians. You don’t know anything about that, you say? Never fear: you can read up on it here.

Rehearsals have been quite an adventure since we’ve been improvising most of the show thus far.

That’s right: I said improvising.

The first couple of weeks involved structured improvs centered upon a central location - Babylon’s Temple of Ishtar, which is the setting for our show - and everyone playing an assigned role. Jeff devised general backstories for each of the characters, then set us loose in the rehearsal room to interact and riff as we see fit. He’s been good about giving us free reign, but also guiding us in the directions he wants to explore (i.e. “Let’s see what happens if Character A interacts with Character B over there.”) and for the last couple of weeks he’s been writing script pages based on and inspired by the cast improvs. We’ve been incorporating those pages into rehearsals over the past week or so, and are going to have our very first rehearsal with an actual completed draft of the script tonight.

So, why work this way? Jeff told us he was inspired to do so by the loose, freewheeling work of film director Robert Altman, particularly his 1975 opus, Nashville. He was also inspired by an evocative passage in Herodotus’ The Histories about ritual prostitution in the Temple of Ishtar, and thus the idea for Babylon Babylon was born. The finished product promises to be, in the words of our trusty press release, “an unholy mix of Herodotus, Cecil B. DeMille, Kenneth Anger, Richard Schechner, the Bible, Charles Ludlam, Robert Altman, Busby Berkeley, and much more.” You can find out more in the production’s official blog, Babylblog Blogbylon.

Naturally, I’ll have more to report about the show as we move closer to the beginning of previews (April 11th) and our official opening (April 18th). In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a random shot from one of our rehearsals. Check it…

The Slacker Re-Emerges

 

Hi there. Remember me? I used to blog here? Yeah, me. Geez, it feels like forever since I last posted something. Maybe that’s just because so much has happened in the last week. The update starts right here and now.

First and foremost, however, I would just like to thank everyone who reads this thing. I check my blog stats every day and I see that you’re all checking in daily as well. I don’t know who most of you are, but I appreciate you stopping by. Please keep doing so, and I will do my best to post more often.

Now, on to the usual business…

For those of you who missed it, the final episode of 3800 Elizabeth went off without a hitch. Our guest stars, Alexis Black and Becky Byers, hit one out of the park. Special guest ringers Ben VandenBoom and Gyda Arber stole the show with a new live commercial. We played to a capacity crowd that included many familiar faces - including our core group of weekly regulars - and a lot of laughter. And, I must say, from my own standpoint I thought it may have been our best outing yet. Best to go out with a bang, I say.

There were obligatory celebratory drinks afterwards, where I experienced an unexpected outpouring of love regarding the show. One person after another kept telling me how much they’d enjoyed coming back week after week to watch the progression of the characters and their relationships with one another. I was happily astonished to see that everyone was downright sad to see the show end. One friend told me that he didn’t know what he was going to do on Sunday nights anymore. (To which I can only say: the cast will be happy to come over to your house and improv new episodes every week…for a price, that is.)

Seriously, though, thanks to everyone who came and saw the show, be it one episode or all of them. And thanks to everyone on my side of the stage who helped put it all together: my regular castmates, Iracel Rivero and Peter Handy; our fabulous guest stars - Ian W. Hill, Christiaan Koop, Hope Cartelli, Bryan Enk, Gyda Arber, Heath Kelts, Alexis Black, and Becky Byers; stage manager extraordinaire Berit Johnson; the good folks at The Battle Ranch, Abby Marcus and Qui Nguyen; and Art Wallace for contributing all of the hilarious video commercials. An all-around gratifying experience that I won’t soon forget.

Next order of business: this week’s Random Top 10, which comes a day late because I’m a slacker. Here is this week’s eclectic mix, courtesy of my iTunes library:

• “Main Theme (From Silverado)” - Bruce Broughton (The Wild West: The Essential Western Film Music Collection)
• “Gimme Back My Bullets” (Live) - Lynyrd Skynyrd (The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd)
• “Slit Skirts” - Pete Townshend (Anthology)
• “High Wire” - Men at Work (Contraband: The Best of Men at Work)
• “Regatta de Blanc” - The Police (Regatta de Blanc)
• “Confessions of a Broken Heart” - Lindsay Lohan (A Little More Personal)
• “These Days” - Jackson Browne (Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1)
• “Battleflag (Lo-Fidelity Allstars Remix)” - Pigeonhed (Pigeonhed’s Flash Bulb Emergency Overflow Cavalcade of Remixes)
• “Pure and Easy” - The Who (Who’s Next)
• “Right Here, Right Now” - Jesus Jones (Doubt)

And on that note, have a Happy Easter. More updates to follow shortly. Promise.

Living My Life

 

You may have noticed my absence on here the last couple of weeks. Sorry for the disappearing act. A convergence of recent events have kept me occupied. Here’s the abridged version:

• First and foremost, I was sick. Food poisoning, stomach virus, Montezuma’s Revenge - I don’t know what it was, but it kept me down for at least a week. Yuck.
• The usual spate of 3800 Elizabeth rehearsals and performances. We’ve done two more episodes since I last checked in: the rerun of Episode 1, with the wonderful Hope Cartelli filling in for the absent Iracel; and Episode 4, featuring super-duper guest stars Gyda Arber and Bryan Enk.
• A blistering couple of weeks at the day job. Slammed with so many last-minute must-get-done-right-away projects by the higher-ups I couldn’t even consider logging on and tossing up a quick post or two (especially not after my boss had a closed-door sit-down with me about excessive time spent on the internet - damn!).
• An unusually busy social calendar. Just last week alone, The Companion and I had dinner with an old friend, went to the movies (Juno, which I liked and thought was very sweet), saw a “concert” (Henry Rollins at Warsaw - awesome!), and attended an opening (Adding Machine at the Minetta Lane, which I did not like at all - can anyone explain the appeal of this one to me?)
• I started rehearsals for yet another show, and this one promises to be unlike anything I’ve ever done before - and perhaps anything you’ve ever seen before. More details to follow soon, but for now you can find out a little something about it here. The show also has its very own blog on WordPress, which you can read right here.

In other words: I’ve just been living my life. It’s all good, for the most part, and I’m really happy about where I’m at these days, both personally and professionally.

I’d also like to weigh in with a belated welcome to the newest member of the blogosphere, none other than Mr. Entertainment himself, Trav S.D. No doubt his will be a pithy and welcome addition to Theater Blog Nation.

Chris Harcum Goes Badass

When it comes to solo performance these days, actor-writer Chris Harcum is about as experienced as they come. In the past several years, he has written and performed ten original solo shows including the FringeNYC 2006 hit, Some Kind of Pink Breakfast, and 2007’s Anhedonia Road, which was presented by Metropolitan Playhouse as part of their Twainathon festival.

Chris debuts his newest solo work, American Badass (or 12 Characters in Search of a National Identity), at this year’s FRIGID Festival. The show runs downtown at The Kraine Theater until March 9th. Chris stopped by the ol’ blog to tell us more about it, as well as to talk about how he builds his pieces and his ongoing creative partnership with director Bricken Sparacino. Check it out:

You describe your newest solo piece, American Badass, as different from your previous ones, in that it’s more political than what you usually do. Can you elaborate on that?

My work has tended to be more centered on human stuff. There has been a focus on spirituality and I used magic realism a lot in the how the story was told. Since 9/11 I have been using my work as a way to become a better person or a more developed person. Frequently, I find I fail, fail, fail at it and it is that struggle that makes the contours of the work. My work has tended towards revealing the parts of us that we try to avoid thinking about or that we must cover up to get through most of our days. I found it very daunting because I was putting myself out there.

Sometimes my work is autobiographical but more frequently it’s universal. I always work to make my pieces equally be about what the person watching may have experienced. I never want the audience to feel punished, preached at, or sorry for me. I also tend to go to dark and scary places but we always come out the other side like going to a professional haunted house.

This piece is largely political or at least looking at where we are as a nation. The full title is American Badass (or 12 Characters in Search of a National Identity). I think the “Never Forget” signs we’ve tattooed in our brains say more about how we’re going to kick everyone’s ass until we either run so far out of money we become some other country’s bitch or we bully the crap out of everyone so they know we still hold the distinction of biggest global bully. In general, I think Americans are fine with that until it affects their bank account.

Because we are in such a weird and scary time I wanted to create a piece that looks at how that action film morality affects us personally and publicly. I only have an hour max in the Frigid Festival so I could only cover so much ground but there’s a lot. The big thing is that I think we need to be aware of our loss of civil liberties and the bastard birth of Blackwater from Momma Neo-Conservative and Poppa Capitalism. I have an old-school Republican in the play. He doesn’t say it but he’s the guy who identifies most with Ron Paul. That is very different than what we have going on with the outsourced government stuff. If Blackwater is not reigned in soon we could be in big trouble.

With this piece, I think I will be pushing different people’s buttons at different times. There may be a few people who learn a few things and there might be some who think it’s a bit elementary. My friend, Lisa Barnes, who is super-talented actress calls what I do “wake up” theatre. I kept that in the back of my mind as I created this one. I was brought up believing America was one thing but now it is something different to me. This piece is about that difference.

American Badass also differs from your previous work in that it’s a multi-character piece. Why’d you go with that format over your usual one (i.e. playing yourself)?

This is kind of a tough question in that I don’t have a usual one. Fans of my work will know that each piece is very different from the last. Most of my work has been character-based work and largely like watching one person do an entire play. Sometimes I will play myself or a version of myself as part of it but most of my work is character-based. My director, Bricken Sparacino, always points out when I write a character who is being totally nasty to Chris Harcum because it is kind of funny. My last few pieces have been structured like a multiple character play. The trick is to not come off like the guy auditioning with Taxi Driver in Waiting for Guffman. This format is similar to classic Bogosian where one character does five minutes and then goes away. I did that in Gotham Standards but in other stuff I’ve done, characters return or change. This is that kind of Bogosian character work with some multimedia things in between to keep the audience entertained while I do a quick change.

People ask, “What’s your show like?” I start to answer but it takes much longer than the usual elevator ride speech. It’s part Bogosian, Gray, Dario Fo, Bill Irwin, Mike Myers, Monty Python, Van Halen, Mamet, Pirandello, Chekhov, and Garrison Keillor. It’s not improv, clown, mime, narrative, stand-up, or non-linear performance art. “Chris Harcum” only appears in this one in a slide show and a short documentary film made by Evan Stulberger. I do have a couple of characters talking to me, although you wouldn’t necessarily know it.

How do you go about writing and constructing your pieces?

This is my 10th and it changes but some things are consistent. I’ll get a title and theme long before I set pen to paper. Usually, I do things in scribbles and bursts in longhand before getting on the computer. Sometimes there’s some improvisation thrown in but usually I write it the way I write plays. It takes longer to get it going than I normally expect. I don’t have a problem with judging myself when I write, thank God. Once I catch the wave, I can ride it pretty far. The longer I’ve written the pickier I’ve become about which wave to ride though. I’ve also become better at editing things and taking out the boring, the cringe-inducing, and (this is the hardest) good stuff that doesn’t fit in with everything else in the piece. There is usually a time when the cast argues with the playwright. Since they are all me, it’s not too fun. Working on a new piece is wacky. I develop it, write it, workshop it, rehearse it, rewrite it, re-rehearse it, get it through tech, and in front of people in the same or even less time than many use for doing a straight play. Also, there’s all the marketing, producing, and coordinating that actually take up close to 65% of your time when you are doing one of these. That’s the most difficult part of this. I’m not naturally a business man but I’ve been improving over time. It’s tough to say, “Hey come see this show I made that features just me.” Unless you have nice breasts and sex or something about a celebrity in the title. I wish I were kidding. I think people are generally lazy about seeking out new or different things. We are now used to having food and entertainment delivered to us at home, at our desks, on the device we carry on the subway (I expect Apple to create something with a feeding tube soon.) I work in an area somewhere between high art and low art and there’s less people swimming around in that pool than one would expect. I am coming to a place also where the marketing and producing doesn’t infect the writing or performing.

Is there a difference, preparation and rehearsal-wise, between American Badass and your previous works?

I had a horrible case of writer’s block getting this one started. I had my antennae up for the longest time so I had a lot of material building up but something was in the way. Of course, that’s always your own personal resistance. I finally went to using an exercise I give my solo performance students and gave my inner critic a voice. Unfortunately, lots of people give you friendly and unfriendly advice when you are writing a piece. Sometimes it’s good not to tell anyone what you are doing to keep it pure for that reason. So I came up with a character who represents the people I’ve had in my audience who look miserable while I perform and let him tell me how I should write my show and what’s wrong with what I do. This became my opening piece. I also like to give the audience cues on what will happen in the evening. No one ever sits on the front row by choice at a solo performance, except people who have a bad case of “I want to be up there but I’m too scared so I’ll just try to ruin this however I can.” Most are afraid they will somehow be singled out. I don’t usually do that. If I do, I turn the joke on myself. Once “Hipster” started telling me things I could write everything else rather easily.

Everyone’s busier. Bricken went out of the country to perform twice. I took a trip to London and am shooting a movie for Jason Cusato called Two Toms. Bricken will be back from Dublin the day we open with her suitcase, as long as the plane arrives on time. We did get some great work done in a short amount of time. I also could do 10-15% less in one hour. This was structured with the multimedia breaks to give me a chance to change costumes and to trick the audience into thinking they are not hearing me but they are because I did all the voices. I get a chance to breathe a couple of deep breaths and take a good sip of water so I’m not burnt like a tater at the finish line.

Why did you choose the FRIGID Festival as the place to debut this show? 

I killed myself doing FringeNYC in ‘06. I did a revamped version of Anhedonia Road at Metropolitan Playhouse in January of ‘07 and Alex Roe asked me to return my piece about Dr. Ores in Alphabet City. Other than that, I wanted to not do solo work. Too many people were saying things that said they only saw me as a solo performer. Ultimately, Harold Pinter’s career is my model. I’ve been writing a lot of short plays and performing with others. Finally, I gave in and started buying auditions for casting directors at a couple of places. They call them classes and a couple of them, like Maribeth Fox, actually do teach them like classes and they are useful. Others are just taking your money and spreading a sickness. To call what they do a class is to call rape flirting.

I wasn’t very happy about this and getting very caught up in the minutiae of what they coming up with to justify the cost of the experience and dying a little bit inside each time. My girlfriend suggested I submit to Frigid to finally make this piece. So I did it at 2am one night and promptly put it out of my mind. It’s a lottery festival so, lo and behold, my number was pulled from a hat and here I am. This is part of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals and I like their vibe. I decided not to use this as a platform to get industry to see the show and focused on making a good piece.

This is your fourth collaboration with director Bricken Sparacino. How did you two meet, and what do you like about working with her?

We’re both members of New Jersey Rep. Co. and they do a festival of short plays called Theatre Brut each year. Bricken was the director of the piece I did and we hit it off. I asked her to direct me in my next solo Mahamudra. I always liked that title because it sounds like a Led Zeppelin album to me. She’s a great director for actors. She gives me space to operate and solid guidance. We don’t agree 100% but that’s good. I tried giving in more quickly to her notes about cuts and changes. She doesn’t force a vision or agenda on my work but helps me to reveal what I am trying to say the best it can be said. I actually had to fire a director once for putting too much on me and throwing me way off course. She needed to write and perform her own piece. I think it’s tough to ask somebody to get between the cast and the playwright when they are the same person. I also now know when she thinks something’s off in rehearsal while I’m running something. The energy changes so I try to fix it. In that way, the actor/director telepathy is getting stronger. I’ve worked with a few other directors. A couple have been helpful and good to work with but most really are there to let the world know they’ve been there. I think that’s great for certain pieces, especially revivals or published works, but for this it’s trouble. Bricken knows when I’m being hard on myself and lets me work it out. I can trust her and relax.

I want to give a couple other shout-outs. Carolyn Raship did a bang-up job with the graphics and producing. Debby Schwartz wrote and recorded a sweet song called “Arise” about “the sins of the father” as well as some amazing work on the voice-overs I recorded at her home studio. She also made this creepy Pink Floyd-esque soundscape for one passage where I play a guy in a black cell in Iraq. Daniel McKleinfeld put all of it together with his masterful animation. Chris Foster helped out a lot with the costumes and Maryvel Bergen made art with the rep lighting plot at the Kraine Theater. You can see a couple of the clips on my youtube channel. (http://www.youtube.com/user/virgodog)

What first drew you to doing solo work, and what keeps you coming back to it?

I saw Danny Hoch do several characters in 10 minutes when I was a freshman at North Carolina School of the Arts. We both got kicked out of there. I also saw Angus McLachlan who wrote Dead Eye Boy and Junebug perform an unproduced screenplay as a solo in Winston-Salem, NC. That’s when it clicked for me that I wanted to make something like that. It’s a bit like being a serial monogamist. You have a deep relationship and then you move on. I don’t like doing things the easy way.

You don’t just do solo work, however - you also do “regular acting,” as it were. What are the rewards of doing that versus your solo work?

Comraderie, bigger email/MySpace/Facebook list, and more laughs in the dressing room. I’m not always running around muttering an hour of text to myself without coming up for air. Someone else says lines to me. I am trying to only do projects that are rewarding for me as an artist and I know will bring joy.

Have you got any upcoming stuff in the works?

Yes. I am going to be writing a full length play based on an autobiography of an infamous persona that is yet to be published. I’m filming Two Toms and am talking with Alex Beech about working up something in the fall. This is also the time when I do a lot of teaching artist work in the Bronx and in Queens so I am helping turn out a lot of little actor/playwrights.

3800 Elizabeth Goes From Boneless to the Knickerbockers

Okay, I just read the funniest thing on ESPN.com: Shaquille O’Neal’s comments regarding his role with his new team, the Phoenix Suns:

“I’m more like a senior adviser so I don’t like to come in here and try to take over,” O’Neal said. … “Just like your basic karate movie where the young guys come to the old guys with beards who have them do weird stuff to get to the other side. That’s who I am, the old guy with a long beard.”

Teammate Steve Nash’s response to that statement comes in a close second. You can read the rest of this hilarious article here.

In other news, it’s been a quiet week here at the ol’ blog. The Companion and I have both been a little bit under the weather (numerous folks at both our workplaces are sick) and we’re persevering as only we know how: she’s rehearsing a staged reading that goes up later this week; I’ve been convalescing at home with Season 5 of The Shield, courtesy of Netflix. The weekend also brought with it repeat viewings of two old favorites, Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose and Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, neither of which The Companion had seen before. Good times.

Otherwise, it’s just been non-stop 3800 Elizabeth around here. Last Sunday saw the debut of Episode 3, “Sonja the Boneless,” which brought our biggest crowd yet. Lots of friendly faces and repeat visitors. Also a trio of regular civilians (i.e. not theater people or friends of ours) who showed up because they saw our listing in the Village Voice. We were even visited by an honest-to-God reporter from New York Press who’s writing a little something about us for an upcoming issue. (Don’t worry: I’ll be sure to let you know when it runs. In the meantime, you can enjoy this little write-up we recently got in The Brooklyn Paper.)

As happy as I was to see so many people in the audience - it’s great to see that we’re actually building an audience, and in record time - last week’s performance was a little lacking in the energy department, I must admit. ‘Twas wan. Boneless, as it were. We let it slip away from us a little bit due to a panoply of factors, all of which we identified and are confident we won’t repeat. I mean, everyone’s entitled to an off night every now and then, right?

Meanwhile, it’s full steam ahead, as usual. This week we’re brushing up for the rerun of Episode 1, “Knickerbockers” (for those of you who missed it because you were watching The Super Bowl instead), featuring special guest stars Hope Cartelli (filling in for Iracel, who’s on vacation this week) and Ian W. Hill (reprising his turn as Bob Slebodnick, the H.R. guy for the Knicks). We had a read-through with Hope on this past weekend, and she was typically outstanding. Peter and I remembered our lines pretty well, so this ought to be a real fun time.

In the meantime, I’m hoping to get a leg up on the following week’s episode, “The Man on the Silver Mountain.” This one showcases Peter’s character, AJ, so I thankfully don’t have as much script to memorize as usual. Ideally, I’d like to have Episode 4 under my belt by Sunday so I can be a week ahead of schedule. Fingers crossed. Let us pray.

Footnote: Ian subbed in as our stage manager on Sunday, and did a splendid job (check out his blog for the recap of the live commercial he and Gyda Arber did for us). He even took the time to photographically record the proceedings for posterity. I’ll leave you with one of the images he preserved in time for us - namely the entire 3800 Elizabeth crew in tech rehearsal action!