Up From Below

PRELUDE: I've been trying to explore different ways of creating multimedia/cross-genre theatrical performances. This is the work I've done so far on a play entitled Up From Below, in which a heterosexual female falls in love with a lesbian she mistakes for a man. The goal of the plot was to blur the lines of identity and sexual orientation.

Act One

Scene One

[Lights come up on Chris

Her head in a bathroom sink

Splashing water in her face]

CHRIS

Is she worth it? Of course, of course she’s worth it.

[Dries face. Looks up just as

Girl walks in]

LEAH

Chris?

CHRIS

Oh shit

LEAH

What are you doing in the girl’s bathroom?

CHRIS

Well, um [beat] you remember that party where we met?

Scene Two

[Music Plays: Plays: Giselle- Short Dick Man]

[Continues Scene 1

CHRIS and LUCY are sitting at a party

Watching]

GISELLE

(Sings) Don’t want no short dick man.

(CHRIS and LUCY stare at each other)

CHRIS

Remind me why we wanted to come to this party?

LUCY

Because our normal Saturday activities involve us sitting in our dorm room alone.

CHRIS

Oh yea.

VOICE from OFFSTAGE

OMG Jimmy Fallon is the new Chris Rock.

CHRIS

I want to go back to our dorm.

LUCY

Just give it some time. Our entire class is here, there must be someone with an IQ over their alcohol blood level here.

CHRIS

[Audible sigh]

LUCY

I’m gonna go get us some drinks. Try a smile; you’re gonna scare away all the ladies.

CHRIS

Pah, yea. Right. It’s a lesbian paradise.

[Exit LUCY

Stage left]

[Yells after her] Hey if you see Ellen DeGeneres give her my number!

[Enter LEAH

Stage right]

LEAH

I love Ellen.

[CHRIS turns surprised]

Though I’m not sure if I love Ellen as much as I love Lucy. [Laughs]

CHRIS

It’s definitely a tight race.  

LEAH

[gestures toward the chair next to CHRIS] Do you need a partner?

CHRIS

Do I. Wait… what?

LEAH

On your bench, may I sit with you?

CHRIS

Of course, of course.

LEAH

I’m Leah

CHRIS

Chris.

LEAH

I’ve never seen you before.

CHRIS

I just transferred in from Michigan at the beginning of the year.

LEAH

Why’d you come here?

CHRIS

Well my last school didn’t support homo [beat] erectus, yea their classes were very creation oriented and as an aspiring anthropologist one has to be open to the theory of evolution and other cultural creation myths to really function in the discipline.

LEAH

That’s terrible. Y’know, our parents force us to go to these religious private schools and they don’t even considered that maybe we’re not Christian.

CHRIS

Yea, like Christian is just something that you’re born as, like your sex or something.

LEAH

[laughs] Congratulation on the new baby, the balloon reads, “It’s a Lutheran!”

[They laugh]

You know I’m a big fan of homo erectus.

CHRIS

Really!? Oh I mean, yea, they’re pretty amazing specimen.

LEAH

Yea, and the whole “God” theory lacks any firm evidence.

CHRIS

It’s not that it lacks evidence, the problem is the human factor in the evidence itself. The Bible is written by humans, therefore it can only be as reliable as any other historical evidence we might find.

LEAH

Exactly. Why should we believe something just because someone else tells us to?  

[Enter Lucy]

LUCY

Hey guys.

CHRIS

Hey Luce, have you met Leah?

LUCY

I’ve seen her around.

LEAH

I’m sorry, am I preoccupying your date?

CHRIS

Date? No.

LUCY

Oh, no sweetie. Chris and I are just friends.

LEAH

Oh, sorry, I just assumed. [beat] Well I should get going. 

LUCY

You don’t have to get up.

LEAH

Oh no, sit down. Really, I should find my friend. She’ll kill me if she thinks I ditched her.  

[Starts to go and turns]

 If you still need someone to show you around, there’s a Natural History Museum downtown. We could make a day of it.

CHRIS

Yea, sounds great.

LEAH

You should bring him around more often, Lucy. It’s nice to have an actual conversation at one of these parties.

LUCY

Oh yea, for sure.

[LEAH EXITS]

LUCY

[Watching her leave] What was that?

CHRIS

She just came over and sat down.

LUCY

I leave for two minutes to find drinks and Leah Weber, the girl you’ve been crushing all over since you got here just sits down next to you and invites you to go sightseeing?

CHRIS

I didn’t say the situation was believable.

LUCY

Not unless you’re leaving out the beginning at which you barter your soul to the devil. And did she say bring “him” around more often.

CHRIS

Yea, she might have thought I was a guy.

LUCY

And you didn’t correct her.

CHRIS

I wasn’t sure at first.

LUCY

And you wouldn’t want her to lose interest.

CHRIS

I panicked.

LUCY

[Beat] Fuck it, you’re a dude.

CHRIS

I can’t just be a dude.

LUCY

For a date with Leah Weber I would be a Scottish terrier, if that’s what she was into. I’m tired of people like us never getting the girl.   

CHRIS

There’s just a few things I do have and one big thing I don’t have.

Now I got a Reason, Now I got a Reason to be Waiting...

The Berlin Wall!
I gotta go over the wall, I don't stand this bit at all.

Call it a weak connection if you will but one of Konrad's pieces had the Berlin Wall in it, and whenever someone mentions the Berlin Wall I instantly think Sex Pistol's, Holiday in the Sun. I believe the Sex Pistols, as should any true punk/anarchists/ect, would love the Neo-Benshi Talkies that Konrad Steiner has founded. It is a picture perfect blend of theft, chaos, and community.  

The movement is also rife with choices: from subtitles, to dubbing, to making new trailers. I'm very interested in it for it's "graffiti aspects." When you put graffiti on a building, you bring it back into the public space. When you dub over a Hollywood film, you also, by making it your own, bring it back into the public space. The public is all too often blocked out of the institutions that control their lives. The Sex Pistols took back space through their music, writing honest lyrics about real issues and using, lets say "unique" musical techniques. The neo-benshi will use their own art, dubbing over films, creating new messages, creating common ground.

Also similar to "punk rock," there is a truth in the originality and honesty that is compelling. Whether it is truly for pleasure or to evoke some kind of question or method. I believe this has a lot to do with the non-profit sense of the art. Konrad Steiner isn't out to "make bank" from any of his re-engineered projects, he isn't looking to become an industry. When you become an industry you have to, in some ways, buy into that unfeeling, assembly line mentality. You're in it to make money and that means manipulating and deceiving- selling what sells. 

I had a recent talk with my father about art in which he told me his views on art and writing were to make something that sells. You can't write until your fingers fall off and it doesn't mean shit if no one wants to read what you have written. That might be true to a point but I (personally) cannot manipulate art to sell. There's just something that feels dirty in it. Dodie Bellamy speaks about finding an audience for your art and I believe that every art has an audience (or no one would buy those damn Jackson Pollock pieces) Without being "mainstream" or exploiting innocence Neo Benshi Talkies finds an audience, an art that could be for anybody. That's part of their charm. They can make you laugh, think, cry, all with the feeling of a million dollar Hollywood film.

You too could be Jackson Pollock

Life is Random and Unfair...

Life is Pandemonium!

I remember my high school drama teacher very vividly. She knew a lot about performance and therefore had very strong, sarcastic and usually hilarious opinions about such matters. I remember her proclaiming angrily to the class, after seeing a performance of Spring Awakening, "YOU DO NOT HIRE CHILDREN TO PLAY CHILDREN, you hire adults that look like children." I remember thinking defensively, how harsh. Then realizing, I am a harsh bitch when it comes to performances, especially vocal performances [And let's not lie, I'm sure you are too reader.] So even though watching the live performance of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is way more funny then just listening to the track, I've posted the track because all the youtube versions I found seemed sub-par.This is a piece that demands greatness.

On a similar note, I have trouble accepting the "copies"/ several performances of Duchman. I have trouble believing that all interpretations/performances of the play are "right," as opposed to having one agreed upon "right." (For example: in the fictional cinematic battle between "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factor" I would like to believe that Gene Wilder and Mel Stuart win, hands down) Many elements of the Cherry Lane Theatre version of Dutchman seemed frivolous. The random, "emotion evoking" music, camera angles and horror light are reminiscent of the soap operas I hear the older women talking about in my local hair salon. Using these theatrical elements in a play like the Dutchman felt like a farce for me and turning such writing into a farce borders on dangerous when you have a blond white woman running around screaming "nigger" and killing black men; personifying the criticisms coming out of Harlem that labeled the show as "white-hating." By the end Clay's anger seems to come out of no where and he starts talking with an accent like Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York. (When is cinematic gold in Gangs of New York... not so much here.)

(Alright it might be a touch of exaggeration, but after 40 minutes, this is seriously what I heard.)

Even the article surrounding the Dutchman through me. It reports, "Dutchman is an emotionally charged and highly symbolic version of the Adam and Eve story. The emotionally taut, intellectual verbal fencing between Clay (the black Adam) and Lula (a white Eve) spirals irrevocably to the symbolic act of violence that will apparently repeat itself over and over again." I find this a little far fetched. The only similarity I can find that could seem like a metaphor for the story of the fall is their constant reference to eating apples "eat an apple with me," "I am the woman that eats apples," ect. I am open to the fact that I could be completely wrong, that everything I've written in this blog up till this point is complete bullshit but it always appears that when people feel the need to write criticism/reviews they decide what they will write about before having anything to back it up. For example, one would say "I want to write a feminist criticism about the Dutchman" then they would drawn on factors like Clay's aggression in his ending monologue and the facts that Lula's wearing a slinky dress and go on a 15 page rant about Baraka's intention to illustrate the feminist position in modern times. In the interpretation of Dutchman as Adam and Eve Lula would be both Eve and the Serpent, Adam being both her lover and her prey. Eve would kill Adam and the animals of Eden would dispose of the body. Also Adam and Eve would be of different racial backgrounds. Which is not possible with Eve being made from the rib of Adam and all that jazz. I believe the difference of race is a much more prominent factor in the play then the connection of apples. Maybe I'm missing the deep symbolism or "the point" but it sounds like a stretch...