Archikulture Digest
Number 11: October, 2000
Win some, lose some. Plucky Performance Space Orlando threw in the towel putting an end to Orlando's so-far-from-Broadway-it-must-be-Jersey scene. Impact! Productions opens with some interesting Gen X theater. We just need to discuss that dang exclamation point.
Updated! Updated! Updated!
Rocky Horror Show
Written by Richard O'Brien
Directed by Aaron Babcock
Starring Stephen French, Joe DiDonna, David Mackey
Theater Downtown, Orlando
It's pretty hard to summarize Proust, but Rocky Horror is a snap - boy meets girl, boy builds monster, aliens invade the earth, then everyone has sex. Gay, straight, animal, elbow, you name it. We've all seen it 20 times, but each time is a new experience - you pick up another bit of dialog. But what of the nuance, the deconstructionist subtext - how does it form the story, influence the observer? That would be through sex, backed by the guilty feeling you're not having any at the moment, and the cast is ignoring you to deal with their own problems. At least that's how it seems, judging by the rude catcalls and slices of toast thrown with ninja precision at the actors. I'll give the cast this much - they took it like troopers.
This is a musical, complete with a five-piece band gently backing the cast as it pummels the hits. The beltingest vocals come from arch alien Riff Raff (French) who sings a good 10 dB better than the rest of the cast. DiDonna as Frank N Furter croons in a petulant, 'I want my nooky now' style, and the rest of the cast puts out, each in their own special way. We were all stuck by muscle boy Rocky (MacKay), who appears to have a pet armadillo in his thong. That's what my girlfriend thought it was, and she should know. Sitting high above the action beneath a cheap fluorescent shop light was the narrator (Dennis Enos), with his Jack Daniels intravenous rig. I'll bet he knew Frank and Riff and the rest really were a bunch of aliens the whole time, and covered up for the CIA. It was that sort of show.
And what can we learn from this little immorality play? Well, first and foremost, there are probably a few ways to get it on that haven't occurred to you. Really. And if you hang with aliens, they may well want to probe you. It's cultural, and we need a greater appreciation of alien cultures. But mostly, we learn that occasionally the audience can come up with a good ad lib, and we don't normally allow that in Orlando. But it happens here, and you should take advantage of the opportunity before the mayor catches on and makes it illegal.
Overtime
Written by A. R. Gurney
Directed by Paul Luby
Starring Kim Nelson, Jeffrey Wilson, Brian Fitzgibbon
Seminole Community College Fine Arts Theater
Exactly what is Shakespeare's appeal? Why, never a loose end. Everyone gets sex or money or both, bad guys get punished, a hermetic plot. So neat, so clean, so transient. As we wrap Merchant of Venice, Portia (Nelson) and Nerissa (Tiki Noreaga-Hagen) have their men, someone's ship arrives safely in port, and that schmutzig Judishe Shylock (Jeffrey Wilson) is put in his place. If life were only that simple.... until everyone has thoughts about boyfriends, ethnic grouping, and of course their sexual persuasion. Even guilt flares up, with Shylock invited over to have a little nightcap and make up from the guilt-riddled liberal inside Portia.
Are people behaving stereotypically? You bet. The Jews are avaricious, the blacks are interested in b-ball, the JAP is a whiner, and that pale Episcopalian is bland, but boy can he dance. And all of this is why we came tonight. By forcing the evil images lurking within us as far as one can get away with it today (no blackface and we still can't say the N word in community college), we experience an uncomfortable look at what we think of each other. Right or wrong, we always carry premade roles for those we meet in life. Not all are acurate, but there is just enough truth to make them handy when dealing with cabbies and televangelists.
A competent but not commanding staff presents Overtime on a jewel bright set, asking us to examine our mores in a sort of post-deconstructionist Sally Jesse what's-her-name way. There were moments of spit and fire from everyone, but not always at the same time. Shylock comes off best of all, with ample time and scope to defend himself for his faith and drug of choice (money). Poor Salerio (Fitzgibbons) comes off worst, accused of fighting against multicultural nationalism, all because he's secretly Serbo-Croatian, or whatever that country is this week. Such a poor end for such an excellent job of grovelling.
Asian Sings The Blues
Featuring Fiely Matias
Music & Lyrics by Dennis T Giacino
Oops Guys - Theater Garage, Orlando
Scary season, and for the jaded Eastern European, accents and body parts just don't make it any more. Sure, a young black male makes you jump, but for real heebie-jeebies visit a Cabaret Show. You know the deal - a smarmy crooner and Piano Stylist (just give it a wash and a perm) and a tummy-tucked guest star you never saw before. But add a twist - a Chinese cabaret show, lead by that little guy with the big voice, Fiely Matias. Backing him are the not-ready-to-audition-for-June-Taylor Egg Drop Dancers and pianist Dennis Giacino. Half a camp review of the overwrought lounge act and half a silly attack on oriental culture, Matias keeps the audience giggling nervously between songs with bad jokes while Gong Boy does the sort of menial jobs Charlie Chan assigned to Number One Son. He even moons on command. With such soon-to-be-on K-Tel tunes as "Acceptable Porn" and "Ode to a Fag Hag", there was something to offend everyone. What allows him to pull it off is he really has a nice singing voice, so when he pops off an odd note, you can tell he meant it. It's such a fine line between genius and stupidity.
Well, what does he do besides sing? Aha, glasshopper, so happy to say. There's a bit of pseudo-sumo Kabuki theater. All Kabuki players look like they've just seen Hillary nude, and sound like they are repelling mosquitoes. I know this reveals some deep chord of the oriental psyche, but danged if I can explain it. Don't forget the mysterious oriental calisthenics. He's small, he's oriental, and he bends in rather unusual ways, sort of like Gumby-san. And there's a shameless plug for his new record. Heck, you never know - someone might want a memory. It's fun, it's not that clean, you get free popcorn and a fortune cookie, but it saves you having to sing your own songs like those cheapskate Karaoke bars do.
Vampire Lesbians of Sodom
Written by Charles Busch
Directed by Steve Gardiner
Starring Robert Black, Steve Gardiner, Jareb Dauplaise, Michelle Elam
Theater Garage Courtyard, Orlando
When the succubus is hungry, you'd best feed her. And make it a virgin, please. This morning's nummies didn't get enough nitrous and woke up a bit too early, forcing the succubus to confront her own inner feeling toward drinking virgins' blood, agonize a few seconds, and then dig in. Of course, since breakfast was undercooked, it bites the mouth that eats it and now we have a plot. I'm never real clear on this vampire blood exchange business, but we now have two immortals, forced to track and fight each other though eternal kitty bitch sessions. And where do they end up? Why in Hollyweird, of course, the uber vampire company town. And since no one dies, careers just go on hiatus, permitting the eternal dinner theater revivals, again and aging and again...
But what does this all mean? Vampirism is certainly a metaphor for oral sex at a minimum, and a sneaky homosexual relation without the burdens of explaining why you've never actually married and still live with your college roomie. But is it an accurate metaphor for the mass media creative process? Is the act of writing or producing simply the extraction of whatever vital forces you experienced in other venues, with the hope that you can distill the pure essence from other's actions and claim them for your own? Is this why the vampire schema remains popular despite having been done to death in Roger Corman's cutting room? Or is it that we want to see scantily-clad women pursued and consumed, and maybe they'll slip out of their costume just a bit? That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.
The Woman in Black
Adapted by Stephen Mallatratt
Directed by Michael Carleton
Starring Richard Width, Eric Hissom
UCF Shakespear festival
Practicing the law - so dreary, so dull, yet so important to someone. Property transfers, petty legal squabbles, clearing up estates, all the dog work for a young man in Victorian England. Yet when young Kipps (Hissom) escapes London's deadly yellow fog to wrap up an estate he gets the pee scared out of him at Eel Marsh House out in EBF (the Eastern British Fenland). Eccentric and reclusive Mrs. Drablow finally went to her reward, and Kipps must represent the firm at her funeral and then clear up some minor paperwork, which turns into a two-week journey to hell. As he travels from the metropole of London to the thorp of Croyden-on-where-did-you-say-exactly, the locals become more and more reclusive and freaked out when he says where he's headed and why. Mrs. Drablow resided at the end of a causeway that was under water at high tide, subject to instantaneous pea soup fogs, and the house does have a small infestation of restless spirits. Anyway, all this freaked him out so bad that 20 years later he still gets the willies, and he's hired an actor (Width) to produce this as a play for his friends and relatives, thus releasing his inner demons. Freudian or Jungian, I don't recall, but prior to tabloid TV this was how you cleared up these 'life issues.'
With only two actors and the occasional wraith (Kathleen Kaplan), Width and Hissom not only cover all the locals at Eel House, but swap for one another from time to time. A cluttery backstage area morphs into a musty estate and lonely fen land, and as we move from reality to terror the effects become increasingly violent and effective. Not only fog and ghosties attack the audience, but a few spits of icy cold rain dampened the hairdo of those in the cheaper seats. I'm never very impressed with the Count Floyd sort of scary stories, but this succeeded in freaking me out more than once.
Poor Angels
Written and directed by Brain Bradley and Peter Hurtgen Jr.
Starring Drew DeCaro, Joe Swanburg, Todd Schuck, James T Honey
Discount Comedy Outlet
Serial killers and performance artists - on the surface so different, yet deep down consider the similarity... One goes around the countryside destroying dreams, leaving behind confused and disappointed family members. The other just kills a bunch of people he doesn't know really well. That pretty well describes Dwight Stanley Rutts (Honey), who kills people with no discernible pattern. That's his pattern - no pattern. Guided by his inner clown (Schuck), he's just an artist perfecting his craft and developing a brand identity. Lunkhead cops Lazarondo and Bischoff (Bradley and Hurtgen) chase him when not writing sound bites for their film script. Their script is so lame that they get rejection letters from production companies that haven't even seen the script. It should be a summer sleeper. Their prime suspect is the pinhead son ( Ian Covell) of one of the victims, and he too has a personal invisible friend - Cuchulainn, Hound of Ulster (Drew DeCaro). Cuchuliann was summoned from the Irish Valhalla to help Pat in his quest - take the bus to Newark. There they attack New Jersey. They lose. Pat seeks his brother, karaoke meister in the Newark airport lounge, who now finds trouble with the mob. Seems he has $270,000 in counterfeit bills and the dumb cash machine won't accept deposits over $5000 a day. What he needs is a better financial planner.
Are there bad cop in a donut shop jokes? You bet. A corpse or two in the bathtub? Hasta be. Simulated gunfire and strobe lights? Count on it. Horny fat chick jokes? Full frontal nudity? An anti-gravity manifesto? Two out of three aren't bad. With the biggest cast and most coherent script to date, "Poor Angels" is DCO's most ambitious stage production to date. Each of these folks can get a laugh by standing on stage and not saying a word. While this undoubtedly made high school miserable, now they've got low paying jobs that put this skill to excellent employ. You feel good AND laugh when Platinum Jimmy (Swanburg) gets his head smashed into a piano. You're secretly pleased to see chubby JJ (Anita Pritchard) tied up in a closet as the Rutts explains he's doesn't do rape - its not in his manifesto. And best of all, we all can get behind Cuchulainn's assessment of New Jersey - there really isn't a nice part, no matter what they tell you. Poor Angels - good comedy.
Caffeine
Episode One - The Phantom Premise
Impacte! Productions
Written by Todd Kimbro
Two cultural icons arose from 20th century America - Jazz Music and the Sitcom. Jazz needs a smoky, dark club fired by caffeine and nicotine. A sitcom needs, well, ongoing comedic characters who might hang out in a place fired by caffeine and nicotine. Like this coffee bar and open mic club known as Caffeine Crash. CC's staff easily fulfills these simple needs. Stash (Michael Marinacco) runs this place, hiring and firing and sleeping with the wait staff at will. Angst-ridden barkeep and screenwriter Holden (Ed Campbell) works on a script that everyone else thinks is brilliant. Soon to be ex-waitress Greer (Christine Morales) has a second job cranking out crank in her basement, and sisters Tuni (Kimber Taylor) and Jasmine (Meghan Drewett) worry about who has bigger boobies and what sort of career they might have hopping tables. When foul-mouthed patron Beth Marshall (known only as Woman, a curious lapse of creativity) craters after a cup of Joe, Stash gets threatening phone call and concludes she was poisoned, with him as the intended victim. Of course, it's Friday night, their busiest time, and a crop of cops would be a bad idea. They prop her up with some dental floss and a pair of Lolita sunglasses while two brilliant Goths (Will Maier and Sheila Macintosh) rattle off some Nuevo beat poetry. Are they real? Are they latex? Well, it's poetry, and after half a dozen triple espressos and a pack of clove cigs, it sort of starts to make sense.
With a strong cast, sharp and well-timed humor, and strong writing, Caffeine promises to be an entertaining run over the next 7 months. Each month a new "episode" will stage, with the climax aimed at next spring's Fringe Festival. A strong running cast and plenty of opportunities for local walk-ons might well make Caffeine the experimental crucible for any number of local wackos who need to chip away at their 15 minutes. Impresario Devon (Kimbro) swishes out of his office cum box office periodically to grab another drink and try to ignore whatever crisis Stash surfaces. He's the owner, not the manager, and has better things to do. Like write more episodes.
To Hell In a Hand Basket
Directed by Steve Gardner
Performance Space Orlando
Hand basket - hand truck - it all depends on where you grew up. I learnt hand basket, but hand truck seems so much more final. Another quartet of short, semi-related plays graced the dark confines of PSO, Orlando's darkest black box theater. In "Intergalactic Problem Solver," God (as a youth) is just sort of messing around, showing off to the goddess (Michele Scarfo) next door. Poof! Out comes darkness - a sort of Byronic field, suitable only for Higgs Bosons. Pop! Out comes light - a collection of massless but pervasive particles that keep you from kicking your toes against a foot stool in the dark. Bang! Oh look, it's a cute little earth - all green and blue, just like goddess's mom. Bim bam - some animals and even a few little people - how cute. Too bad He (Steve French) didn't stop down at the planning and zoning board to pick up a permit and READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Darn kids these days. Maybe the Problem Solver can work this one into his schedule. If he can't, someone will get crucified....
It's another Saturday night, and "Jesus Is Drunk Again" finds our Dear Lord down at the old watering hole wrapping up another tough week. There are a few good times ahead - softball with the Lord of Darkness (Steve Gardner), hanging with roomie Hitler (they'll let anyone in) and .. oh oh, Dads back, and now He's out of the closet. Seems He and Moses aren't just on the same team -one's pitching and the other catches. AND Mary (Brenda Emerson) creeps around looking for 2000 years in back child support. That's the After Life.
And speaking of after life, "The Mob" takes a close look at the cruel world of enforcing the rules in the after life. Someone wants to whack the J man (Luke Corcoran), and Judas (Ward Ferguson) might just help for the right price. Life's tough on the mean streets of heaven, and even after the deal goes down, that two-toned wing-tipped two-timer's remorse can't just be fixed by mailing back those 30 silver dollars. Maybe it's time to take the easy way out, but if you're already dead, can you really commit suicide?
With a hyperactive Satan, a frenetic and over-excitable God, and a cast generally wired for sound, these shorts zip by way too fast. It's not exactly Sunday School, but a sacrilegious time was had by all.
Suckers: Your Guide On How To Fit In With Nonconformists
Written by Todd Kimbro
Directed by Michael Marinaccio
Starring Brook Hanemann, Will Maier, Sheila McIntosh, Don Fowler
Impact! Productions
It's the crack of 9 (pm, that is) and time to drag our butts out of bed, pull on a clean Cure tee-shirt, slap on a little black lip gloss, and hit the street. Violet (Hanemann) is the sort of girl with abysmal taste in men that we see oh so often in these little shows. Now she's broke and must suffer the greatest indignity of all - employment. Open Mic night doesn't pay much, but at least she can hang with her Goth friends - wannabe homo Louis (Maier) and Siberian husky Smegva (McIntosh). After a bit of beat poetry, its off to club Flambˇ to catch some upbeat Robert Smith tunes. Too bad Violet forgot her money and can't get past the bouncer Byrne (Fowler). With nothing better to do, she reveals her deepest thoughts to the bouncer and a homeless guy (Blake Gardner). What deep gossip do we discover? Smegva's actually from Scranton and used to wear leg warmers and scrunchies AND Byrne and Violet have the hots for each other. They just can't bring themselves to admit it. Deep down, Violet really wants to be normal, and all this rebel without portfolio stuff is just an act. How sad.
Despite a strong cast and a script full of humor, the entire play falls a bit flat, coming across as a series of gags pasted on top of a little pop psychology. Byrne gives the evening's deepest emotional display revealing his affection for the whiny and self-obsessed Violet. Comedically, the strongest performances come from the beat poetry of Lois and Smegva. I know, it's serious, soul revealing stuff, but it makes me giggle. The supporting actors Trey Stafford (the X-ed up raver) and Gardner were side-splittingly funny, whether acting on stage or just playing the part of the mechanicals- moving set pieces and actors on and off stage. On the weak side, there were some musical numbers that just never clicked, and one even had the cast lip synching with its prerecorded self. Overall, we have a pleasant but thin story of disaffected youth dealing with the reality that mommy's renting out their room, and not giving them a cut of the action.
Being in Love with Alice
Written by Mike Carter
Dir. Winnie Wenglewick
Starring Steve Gardner, Ward Ferguson, and Jenna Hadju
Performance Space Orlando
Don't you hate crappy sex? It's so.. well.. crappy. Of course, it's still better than No Sex, and that's what Our Hero's (Ferguson) getting. Somehow he's found a cute roommate Alice (Hadju), who has no interest in him. She just brings home these sleazy fellows with nice hands and not much else to recommend them. A Spirit Guide and Theatrical Device (Gardner) pops out of the fridge and takes Our Hero on a path of deeply spiritual self-actualization. In other words, nooky lessons. Since Alice's bedroom door is mysteriously blocked, their work is cut out for them. How did O.H. discover this amazing architectural feature? One word - used panties. OK.
Given that only our earnest Hero can see the balding jiminy cricket of Mr. Theatrical Device, it's not that big a stretch to find an imaginary girlfriend. Dates are inductive - if you can't get one, you'll never get a second. If you can get that first one, you're much more appealing, and if you luck into a messy break up, you're ever so much more so. How do you break up with a non-existent girl friend? We recommend forgetting her dry cleaning. Subtle, yet direct. You're in like Flint.
PSO scarfed this show a week before its London Premier, giving the Orlando area just one more bragging right. "Alice" is the sweet story of a young man overcoming the shyness so many of us felt (and still feel) toward directly asking for sex. Rejection lurks around every corner, and sometimes imaginary friends are the best ones. At least the sex is safe, and if there's a guy lurking in the icebox behind the stale Chinese food who can cheer you on, so much the better. Someone once said, "We have met the enemy, and he's wanker just like us." Leave a necktie on the door knob if you need to.
A Doll's House
Written by Henrik Ibsen
Dir. Mark Edward Smith
Starring Laura Harn, Matthew Imregi, Alicia McMillan, Mark March
Theater Downtown
Just because you're Swedish doesn't make you unhappy. But, if you are Swedish and you are unhappy, you'd feel right at home with the Helmer's. Flighty yet spendthrift Nora (Harn) has a deep dark Victorian secret. Straightlaced Torvald (Imregi) is only slightly funnier than a pine plank. Nora's girlhood friend Kristine (McMillan) looks like Big Nurse on a bad day, and office toady Krogstad (March) would rather be on a different carbon-based planet. Let us now proceed. Nora needs cash to pay her extortioner Krogstad and Torvald wants to unload Krogstad for speaking to him at work, and Kristine dumped Krogstad for a guy with money and personality. Poor Krogstad, saddled with a name like a gargoyle. Say it to yourself, out loud (Krooooogggg shtaaaad. Eeesh.). Kristine married some loser for his money, but he croaked before his options came in, and now she has to take in washing. You don't know misery till you have to scrub skid marks out of a Lutheran's underwear in January. Just to cheer things up, old family friend Dr. Rank (Joe L. Smith) caught some incurable disease which made him sweet on Nora, but now he must go die alone in the snow. Torvald talks nice about helping skylark Nora until she actually needs help, then he dumps her like a bad plate of lutefisk. Oops, a plot point just arrived and the Big Secret is safe, making everything lovey dovy again. This is the last straw for Nora. She's off to Reno for a divorce and a crummy job working Keno, but at least she's rid of that sack of toast crumbs Torvald. Swedes are all about status, don't you know.
In this Ur-feminist work from a previous fin de siecle, the woman's work falls squarely on the shoulders of Nora. Harn is more than up to the task as she slides from bubble-headed cutie to a wronged woman in the vice grip of Swedish law and a creepy blackmailer. Imregi plays the stiffer-than-a-frozen-cod husband until he explodes in a rage of damaged pride and starched undies. Kristine and Krogstad (brrrrr... still hate that name) end up as lovers, but not the sort that actually enjoy being around each other, nevermind holding hands. Only Dr. Rank seems to enjoy himself, and then only after a couple of cases of bubbly and a Perky Dan.
On a spare yet prim stage, the life of the Helmers flows in and out of the drawing room through four nearly identical doors. As the life collapses through the ice into the cold dark waters of Swedish winter, the doors open, revealing the wreckage of their life. First the door to Torvald's study opens, as he despairs indebtedness and frivolity. The maid's door opens to the sordid details of Nora's poor judgment. Now Nora's door opens, and love flees and she won't have the decency to keep pretending. Lastly, the door to that cold outside opens, and Nora flees with that most important of all Torvald's chattels - respectability. Light fades and both Torvald and the audience enter a cold life without Nora. We went for coffee. We don't know what Torvald did.
Carl F Gauze is a wealthy but reclusive student of the arts, semi-retired from a stellar career as an insurance calendar salesman. His real fortune derives from his great grandfather, Herman S. Gauze, who invented the sterile surgical dressing in Zurich shortly before the First World War. Because of Switzerland's neutrality and the obvious humanitarian uses of this bandage during the tragedy, he amassed a vast fortune selling the dressing to both sides. He's recently been looking at bikes, and can't decide between a Harley Fat Boy or a Vespa. Decisions, decisions...
