You can pretty much tempt me anywhere with the promise of free ice-cream, and that was a big reason for going to Milly & Tillie, now playing through August 7th at the Open Eye Figure Theatre. I mean, I risked being the creepy older guy at a kid’s show, but director Jason Ballweber (also Artistic Director of the always funny but generally more adult company Four Humors Theater) had put me at ease earlier. “It has been marketed as a “family friendly” show,” he wrote while inviting me to the show, “which it is but I think it is just fun all around. I equate it to an episode of Peewee’s Playhouse.”

Peewee’s Playhouse is a good comparison, as Liz Schachterle as Milly and Elise Langer as Tillie (last name of Silly, thank you very much) mix their PBS friendly themes (Imaginary bears! Making ice-cream! A picnic!) with the same manic energy, off the charts voices and rubber faces that Paul Rubens brought to his icon of childhood-in-adult-form. The two actresses, with Schachterle playing an endearing Amelia Bedelia-type and Langer a bit more Chaplin-esque off-the-wall are aided in their high-energy shenanigans by excellent sound design courtesy of Sean Healy and a terrific mix of lighting (by Michael Murnane) and shadow puppetry (courtesy of Schachterle) that turn the actual picnic scene into live-action cartoon.

As an adult, I laughed at loud not only at the physical humor but also to some of the references to famous clowns of the past, a silent bit with a rainstorm and and wind drew from Chaplin. The energy and excitement of the neighborhood kids, some of whom have not missed a performance was also infectious and amusing. One child, in a bit where Schachterle was miming fishing, screamed out “Baseball!” Baseball was the next mime. The kids were there for the ice-cream too, but they get the benefit of the joy of live performance. It’s a sight better then sitting inside and watching TV, whether you’re 5, 25 or 65.

The show is free, and runs in conjunction with the summer “Driveway Tour“, so check out the theatre in your neighborhood!

“They could smell death,” she said as she rolled her cigarette between her fingers. “They smelled death and everyone started tipping big.” She was talking about the regulars of a restaurant that closed, but despite the best efforts of the sunshine and summer breeze, the darkness of the end of times weigh heavy on the crowd on the rooftop patio of the Bedlam Theatre. The Bedlam is about to be evicted and downstairs in the relative cool of the brick bar, another patron sighed, “It feels like the end of a golden age.” It might be, mainly because the old aphorism is true; you don’t know how good you’ve got it ‘til it’s gone. Or in this case, on the way out.

By now you should know the details. The Star Tribune broke the story last week that the Bedlam Theatre, which has occupied a former nightclub space on the West Bank for four years now, was given notice by their landlords that they would have to leave the space by September 7th. Sheila Regan at the Twin Cities Daily Planet expanded that narrative with an excellent history of the Bedlam and what it has meant to the West Bank as a community. Even though the Bedlam is about to lose a physical space, it won’t be going down without a wash of ink and lots of peoples two cents, because opinions and voices are two of the only things that artistic-types have going for us these day. Lord knows it’s not the money or the stable future.

First Bedlam performance, “No Sugar Cookies For Herbert”

It wasn’t originally supposed to feel permanent. Four years ago, Bedlam and it’s merry band of theatre-making, authority-thumbing, romping gypsies and vagabonds were similarly evicted from a basement space and amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth, were steered into an empty building that had seen a string of failed businesses. I remember getting off the lightrail one cold day, maybe in November, and seeing people with hammers going to work on the outside of the run-down red brick building. “Whatcha doing?” “Putting in a theatre.” “Cool.” The concept seemed really simple, just take over a space and make a theatre! It hasn’t been simple at all, but it has been thrilling and rewarding to watch innovation at work. They’ve even made Shakespeare work for them.

Six months after that first encounter, I was auditioning for the first of three of the Bedlam’s 10 Minute Community Play Festivals in which I would participate. That From that first festival, I met the people with whom I would be a part of an indie-rock opera called Idigaragua. We went on to form a company called Lamb Lays with Lion and perform more works at Bedlam. I have done one-off performances there, designed for the space and written reviews of numerous shows that have been performed there. I loved a lot of it, hated some, but was rarely indifferent to what was happening in that space. I owe a lot to the Bedlam company. As it turned from just a theatre into one of the best bar & restaurant combos in town, I have had discussions, fights and feel-good sessions, been uproariously drunk and keenly sober there. Of any space in the Twin Cities, it is one where you can walk in and feel at home, whether you want to sit by yourself or get into it with a stranger. It has character, and it has community.

Bedlam’s fuzzy joyful memories

In fact, Bedlam has been central to creating a “community” on the West Bank. It sometimes feels like a neighborhood where students glide past hipsters ignoring the Somali immigrant population, all parties willfully oblivious to eachother. The Bedlam, especially through its work with the youth at the Brian Coyle Center, has made the space to change that and to bring these groups into dialogue. Bedlam has translated a fundamental tenet of theatre, that communication of personal narrative is a social force, and empowered communities and tribes in need of a voice. Fortunately this progress will not be lost, as the Mixed Blood Theatre just down the street (who own their building lock & stock) will be carrying on that community and youth based work. It only makes sense, as their stated mission is to be “dedicated to the spirit of Dr. King’s dream.”

Despite that continuation, it would be a great loss to the neighborhood, to theatre-folk, to artists, musicians and foodies, to passersby and to Minneapolis as a whole if these instigators and rabble-rousers go. Permanence may be antithetical to the revolutionary spirit, but Bedlam never let itself get bored in their space, and never bored us either. So let the mayor know that. Tell him that whether it’s through tax-breaks, real-estate incentives or good old fashioned politicking, Minneapolis needs the Bedlam’s innovative force. We should not let this go quietly, without a fight or at least a damn good party. Down in the bar, a board member was taking a distinctly different view then that of the end of days. “The moment they say so,” she grinned, “I’m ready to start a capital campaign.” She was ready to go, so let’s tip big, kick up our heels and move on to the next big change.

Spread the word! Save the Bedlam!

M2, as director Lisa Channer points out at the beginning of the play, is a fiction, but it is a historical fiction. Vladimir Mayakovsky (Vladimir Rovinsky, who also wrote and co-directed the play) was a Russian Bolshevik, born in 1893 who became a poet whilst doing hard time in Moscow’s Butyrki Prison. Filippo T. Marinetti (Stephen Pearce) was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1876 and was well-educated and worked in literary circles before publishing the “Manifeste de Futurisme” in Paris’ Le Figaro newspaper on February 20th, 1909. The two men only met once, in 1914, and there is no record of that meeting, so the scenario of M2, with Mayakovsky and Marinetti bouncing ideas off eachother, acting as provocateurs and fighting over a woman (Lilya Brik, played lithely and sensually by Julianna Drajko) is an imaginary conceit. These were two important artistic figures of the early 20th century though, and they were both caught up in the major political movements of their time, Bolshevism in Russia and Fascism in Italy, and so their stories are well worth exploring at a time when we more quietly and subtly are engaged in warfare and technological advancement.

What is most impressive about M2 is how Theatre Novi Most captures the kinetic and chaotic time period with full blooded, impeccably constructed performances. Rovinsky and Pearce form a spinning dynamo, pushing eachother louder, faster and more avant-garde in English, Russian and French, as poetry snippets and selections from Eisenstein flicker around them. They embody the deadly earnest faith in the machine future, that everything is better that is faster, stronger and more precise. They push their every masculine instinct to the fore- desire for newness, war, lust all comes up with a heaving sense of potential and seduction. With a cast rounded out by Billy Mullaney and Sasha Gibbs, two talented U of M undergrads and exceptional sound design by Daniel Dukich that heightens the explosiveness of every scene, M2’s ambitiously kinetic conceit may not always by conceptually clear, but it is compelling to see.

“Charge of the Lancers”, Umberto Boccioni 1882-1992

As the delirious actions of the first half of the play come crashing into the realities of the First World War and the Futurist beliefs, the ahistorical flurry of activity and imaginary construct is generally abandoned in favor of a more direct telling of Mayakovsky’s increasingly depressed life as a poet apparatchik in the new Bolshevik regime. In 1915 Marinetti published a book of poems titled “War Is The Only Hygiene Of The World”, and the program notes remark of the Futurists desire for warfare and “scorn for women” that, “Politically, it’s hard to reconcile them with our notions of art and poetry.” This is true, that decline of the avant-garde into functionary roles and acceptance of totalitarian regimes is a cautionary tale, told by Mayakosky, even if earlier he and Marinetti were a seductive vision. Both writers were dismissed by their leaders, with a particularly caustic quote from Lenin appearing on the screen calling Mayakovsky only fit for eccentrics, but the truly disturbing end is how complicit both men were in their own fate, and how the blinkered view of the future can easily be dominated.

M2 is an impressive piece of work from the new company, Theatre Novi Most, even if with all the action happening, it could be textually impenetrable at times. It sets up expectations for their next project, Old Story, a telling of the Gilgamesh myth at The Southern Theatre September 24-October 3. With many of the same performers as well as local luminaries like Barbara Berlovitz and Vanessa Voskuil on stage and a text by Kira Obolensky, if they can maintain the dynamism and focus of M2, Old Story should rock the ancient world.

Last performances Saturday 5/22/2010 at 8pm and Sunday 5/23/2010 at 2pm at Open Eye Figure Theater.

Here are some things you should know right off the bat. It’s a play about wrestling and wrestling is scripted entertainment and not sport, so wrestling and theatre go pretty well hand in hand. Gerardo Rodriguez, playing the wrestler Macedonio Guerra, known in the ring as Mace, is an engaging and personable narrator. His opening monologue about being 11 and watching wrestling while eating “generic flakes of corn with generic spoonfuls of sugar” in his underwear is a well constructed poignancy of bootstraps success. That sharply written backstory fuels his love of his job, even though he is the little guy going nowhere fast- he’s a good wrestler who puts up with all sorts of injustices and slights to stay in the community he loves. His mantra, whenever Everett K. Olson, owner of “The Wrestling” (Edwin Strout, in full blustering American businessman mode) goes off on some exploitative misguided tangent, is “I don’t mention it.” It’s a refrain that builds up to the final scenes and given the capitulation that occurs in the last scene, feels like it should be the theme for the show.

Ansa Akeya, playing the titular wrestler, is a built dude who looks good wearing gold lamé underpants and spends the show chewing up the scenery. Seriously, slavering and sweating and drooling all over the set, and he’s pretty funny. Billy Blaze, an actual wrestler who plays several minor characters including All-American heroes like “Billy Heartland” and “Ol’ Glory” is really sweet and genuine, especially as he’s a guy who has actually dealt with the feeling of community that binds Mace to his job. Rounding out the cast is Shalin Agarwal as Vigneshwar Paduar, known as VP, a Brooklynite whose family hails from India, multi-lingual lothario who gets talked into being a wrestler by Mace, who sees VP’s sales skills as his ticket to something bigger. Unfortunately, that something bigger is a full-blown orgy of stereotyping casting Macedonio and VP as anti-American arch-nemeses Che Chavez Castro (from my mouth and Mace’s, “Seriously?”) and the supposedly Middle Eastern fighter, The Fundamentalist.

Lots of cultural stereotyping gets flung around the stage, most of it played for comic effect and that’s one of the things that feels off. All the actors seem to be having a good time with their parts; the irony doesn’t carry. At one point Mace is trying to justify taking on the business of The Wrestling by playing off the stereotypes and he talks contemptuously about a line in the sand for Chad Deity to cross. It’s enough to make you wish that some of the contempt had been aimed at stereotyping itself, instead of feeling goofy. Chad Deity draws a line in the sand that Chad Deity does not cross.

It should shock more, but it doesn’t feel like a revelation. Watching Chad Deity I didn’t feel like I was being told anything new. Marketers manipulate history and play on nationalistic tendencies in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator and turn a profit? They sure do. People go along with that in order to be a part of that profit-turning? You bet. So where is, as the Chicago Tribune put it, the “visceral take-down of the way American marketers manipulate our jingoistic tendencies, a hilariously savvy exploration of racial and class-based stereotyping”? What I saw on stage was essentially an exploded caricature, which is not the same as a satire or a skewering. As Mace points out several times, the vaguely Middle Eastern arch-enemy has been done before, the Iron Sheik of 80s fame. Rohan Preston mentioned in his review that he was disappointed that there was no examination of the stereotype of the black violent athlete, and none of these things get really explored- the stereotypes are just thrown up against eachother at the insistence of Everett K Olson (a.k.a. EKO) and with the willing participation of VP and Mace.

Also troubling, is that the writing itself becomes looser and sketchier as the show progresses. Lines ranged from pandering (“The Fundamentalist hates Joe Mauer!”) to large social and international issues boiled down to tossed off lines (“BRIC! Brazil, Russia, India, China! Read Fareed Zakaria!”). When Mace finally confronts EKO and Deity over his building concerns, the scene is a well-choreographed wrestling scene, a physical burst, but the writing is a litany of “And I mention…” over and over again, which some traditional part of me wants to be more fully fleshed out in words. Mace has been telling us these things all along, now say them to EKO, already. The scene owes a lot to a film montage and voiceover, which is visually impressive but still felt hollow.

More troubling, is EKO’s response- that they should just sell that passion and love of the sport. So they do, and then Mace loses in the ring to Chad Deity to maintain the business franchise. All of which strikes me as a terribly disheartening capitulation- is Diaz saying that if you truly believe in something, you should continue to prostrate it in front of the existing powers? As VP watches on TV, the girl he is watching with asks why they are “cheering the bad guy,” referring to Deity, but this is too subtle a point to end on for a play that is about and has been such an overly bombastic spectacle.

It’s also hard not to think of Mickey Rourke and The Wrestler while watching Chad Deity. Rourke’s Randy “The Ram” is also a man with a love and respect for the work, for the community which makes people depend on each other and gives the audience the thrill of connection. Darren Aronofsky does something more visceral though with The Ram- whereas Mace tosses of the line that there will never be real conflict in American wrestling because “America can’t appear to be vulnerable”, The Ram shows a country already in decline, held together by that same desire for community that drives Mace but through The Ram, is brutally aware of it and his limitations. Diaz is trying to push the edges of our tolerance of stereotyping and what we’ll accept, but sitting in the audience at Mixed Blood, it didn’t feel like being all that different from being in the crowd at an arena, unquestioningly cheering on Hulk Hogan against the Iron Sheik.

Live Action Set's Noah Bremer. Photo by Eric Melzer.

Live Action Set Artistic Director Noah Bremer kicked off the show sitting in the mostly bare space of the Bedlam mainstage in comically ill-fitting suit petting a large cottonball sheep, nervously talking about waiting for a sign. He has been chosen “by the gods” to wait for a sign before the beginning of the “ritual” of the Happy Show. This talk is essentially a red herring to get to a full cast introduction and song-and-dance opening and send people out to the various locations of the sketches. In the intro, Bremer had quipped that they “had done the math” and that it was impossible to see every option that the show had to offer so that there is no way I can report on the full show. Since I had chosen a red juice token when purchasing my ticket, I got to go off to a room where Bremer and Noah Coon, a gregarious blond boy of about 10 or so told us an excitable story of being treasure hunters searching for the Key to Happiness at the behest of the City of Minneapolis, which was pretty much like asking a hyper child to recount the plots of the Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider movies with some Tom Swift thrown in for good measure. In another part of the theatre, there were cheers from the beer or wine token crowd and after the story, I played a game pretending to be a train. Did I mention that we were all wearing animal headdresses by this point? We were.

After the first round of sketches, we were brought back in to the mainstage for a meal from the excellent Bedlam kitchen, pulled pork or tempeh sandwiches, chips and pickles with a free drink from the bar with your token, which just about makes up the cost of the $15 ticket. At this point, I am glad I hooked back up with a friend who had received instructions as to what to do next, as I was feeling a little lost in the shuffle as the atmosphere was more of disorganized improvisation than chaotic revelry. The masks were late in being handed out, tech elements didn’t work as planned, there was stalling and some foot-shuffling and waiting, hopefully all of which are first show difficulties that can be fixed, but it all undercut the easy flow that is necessary for a show based around a promenade to work. Trying to get from set piece to set piece, all calculated to extract carefree happiness began to feel more like a task than a joy.

For me and my companions, a James Bond parody piece of playacting ensued, including little paper cutouts and sock puppets, and then I caught a red nose clown bit from Happy Show principal Diogo Lopes, amusing mostly because of the steady stream of Portuguese that heightened the absurdity. The ending with Bremer being judged by “the gods” is again, cute, and well choreographed and I won’t tell you what it is, but it is also set, for the most part, behind a large black screen hiding the actors for the most part. Stepping out into the lobby after the curtain call, reactions ranged from “I feel like all the unhappiness has been squeezed out of me,” to “Did it make you happy? Passably.” I left disappointed, not so happy, feeling like I had seen some gifted people spread out over an extended talent show or Punch-and-Judy pantomime. Should you go? Sure. It will make the actors happy.

End note: Bremer, Underbakke and Happy Show principal Brant Miller are leading a workshop on trateaux performance May 10 from 5-9pm. The cost is $25 before May 7, $30 after. These are some talented folks, so get something good out of it.

In the Director’s Notes for Frank Theatre’s Metamorphosis, Frank Artistic Director Wendy Knox writes that “…the process has been a giant potluck, and everyone has made fantastic contributions to the meal,” which has a air of “From each according to their ability…” wafting sweetly from it. It’s a good model for collaborative and innovative theatre. When Frank Theatre was unable to secure the rights to a recent and acclaimed London adaptation of Kafka’s famous tale about a man turned into a “monstrous vermin”, Frank forged ahead and made their own, which turned out to be a great thing, given the abundance of talent in the mix at the Open Eye Figure Theatre when I went on Monday. Acting both as the characters and chorus, the five actors unfold the action of Kafka’s chillingly strange tale in an enthralling fantasy pantomime, exaggerated fingers and postures and gestures creating a universe where real emotion and pathos still exists.

Credit first and foremost must go to John Catron as the stricken Gregor Samsa. He spends most of the 85 minute running time crouched or contorted to convey the physical change afflicting him, and with his fingertips resting on the ground and leading the way as he scuttles about and swings from the rafters of John Beuche’s innovative set, the transformation is complete without elaborate costume tricks. This frees Catron to unleash his most formidable tool, a deep, caring and earnest face which makes Gregor such a pitiable character. Gregor’s greatest fault is his unquestioning devotion to his family, his willingness to suffer under a demanding boss, breaking his back in an attempt to bring his family out of debt. As the opening litany of woes is unfolds, the correlation of causation is hard to avoid: work unquestioningly and you are bound to become a beast, even if it is because of the best of intentions.

The family, with recent City Pages Best of the Twin Cities Best Actor winner Patrick Bailey as Father, Frank veteran Maria Asp as Mother and Tessa Flynn as the little sister Grete, tries to take this transformation in stride, but the horror is imaginatively conveyed through slow motion, exaggerated facial expressions and gestures, all part a shared vernacular developed by the cast that makes the production so engaging. Instead of fake crying, the women run their fingers down their faces in a gesture that is as theatrically aware as it is telling about the fraught relationship between Grete and Mother. Both feel protective of Gregor, and their competing desires to be the one in charge of his care brings out a nasty competitive streak that in some way, enables their own independence. Father reveals himself to be more capable and devious than previously thought by Gregor and Bailey well combines the gruff old man with his newfound spark for survival.

Rounding out the cast is Christopher Kehoe, who plays a number of different characters, from the evil Chief Clerk sent from the office to check on Gregor, who comes across little like Jim Carrey’s deceptive Count Olaf from the Lemony Snicket movie to the insipid charwoman who takes a shine to Gregor and, with the aid of a two-headed puppet, the three lodgers the Samsas take on to make ends meet, with obviously disastrous results. Kehoe’s range on full display and he makes the most of his tall frame to dominate the tiny Open Eye space when needed. Frank Theatre always manages to pull great talent (Shows like Mother Courage, Pillowman and Vinegar Tom come especially to mind) and Metamorphosis is a thrilling and intimate piece of ensemble acting and collaborative production. In the end, as the remaining Samsa family shows in the end, getting out and making work, being productive and feeling useful is good for society, and good for the soul.

“The idea of representation is a theatrical one: The Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear figures whose role it is to represent the whole larger whole from which they emanate.”
-Edward Said, Orientalism, 1978

Tina Chilip (Suzuki), Randy Reyes (Song Liling) and Andrew Long (Rene Gallimard). Photo by Michal Daniel

The stage is black. Not the matte, scuffed black of a worn stage, but a lacquered, seductive black, a deeply reflective dark sheen that mirrors back the actors warped figures as they move across the lid of this treasure box. Fixating on the stage of the Guthrie’s Wurtele Thrust may seem like a surface concern, but M. Butterfly, which opened Friday, is a play very much about surface concerns and their hidden desires. David Henry Hwang’s crackling, incisive and often burstingly funny script is directed with confident, sharp strokes by Peter Rothstein, who leads his excellent cast through this tale of deception and desire that cuts across and cuts down cultural stereotypes.

The facts are these: In 1986 the French government arrested a French diplomat and his Chinese mistress on charges of espionage, which would not be too shocking except for the fact that despite carrying on the affair for 20 years, the Frenchman had no idea that his lover was actually a man. The Frenchman maintained that he had no idea as to the gender of his lover and put the fact that he had never seen him naked down to a cultural “modesty”. Inspired by this ludicrous and strange news item, M. Butterfly spins the story of Rene Gallimard, (played with a meaty sense of Everyman naïveté and self-satisfaction by Andrew Long) and his lover, Chinese opera singer Song Liling (Randy Reyes with his hands fluttering and voice unfixable as he plays all sides) as they conduct their remarkable affair. Overlaid with the contemporary deception (the play is set from China in the 1960s, where Hwang heightens the stakes by having Gallimard advise on the invasion of Vietnam to 70s and 80s France) Hwang uses elements from Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera Madama Butterfly as a foil to subvert the stereotyping of the dominant, masculine West overpowering a submissive, feminine East. Madama Butterfly has an American sailor marrying Japanese woman, who, when abandoned by the American cad, remains submissively faithful until the point of killing herself, a dedication to the fantasy of happiness that is central to the circumstances of M. Butterfly.

Eric Sharp (piano player) and Randy Reyes (Song Liling). Photo by Michal Daniel

Puccini and the details of Gallimard’s disgrace are introduced early in the play- the show opens with a second, raised stage inset at the back of the playing space with elegantly choreographed scenes from Madama Butterfly as Gallimard speaks from his jail cell, a simple raised platform in the center of the thrust. The staging is spare but decisive, rooms float like islands across the stage and up from the trap door, heightening a sense of isolation between characters trying to find a connection. The narrative structure is simple and none of the characters dispute the facts at hand, so the central tension is how long we as an audience can sustain our disbelief that Gallimard does not know. How can he not? In this sense there is a double bind of suspension of disbelief that the audience finds itself in and the two leads must navigate, and they play off each other exceptionally. Long, as Gallimard, makes the audience forget that he knows the truth about Song as he rises from meek mid-level functionary to acclaim as a lothario while Reyes as Song inhabits a multiplicity of stereotypical roles as that appear submissive while in fact controlling the action. That fractured sense is heightened by Rothstein’s canny use of multiple characters in Song’s robes, as well as Reyes own performance- his voice flutters in register, he slides across the stage and his fingers twitch as he whispers and pushes at Long’s desire to see and be seen as a man in control of himself and his surroundings.

This tragicomic twisting of the main characters is buoyed by an excellent supporting cast, many of whom play double roles. Lee Mark Nelson as Gallimard’s friend Marc is a whooping riot of prototypical manly bawdiness, and his over-the-top lasciviousness underscores how repressed Gallimard’s own desires are. Tina Chilip has some of the of the funniest lines, as Suzuki, the friend from Madama Butterfly who steps out of the serene action to loudly declare that “He’s a bum!” and then also as Comrade Chin, Song’s apparatchik handler. Chin’s wheedling suspicion, slow comprehension of Song’s need to keep up the deception and eventual tormentor in the throes of the Cultural Revolution are a hilarious and hackle-raising story on the corruption of power in and of itself, and Chilip plays it to the hilt. Classical at its core, the tragedy of M. Butterfly lies in not being able to recognize the source of desire and prejudice, and in the extraordinary lengths taken to preserve the fantasy of happiness. The production at the Guthrie enmeshes those tensions together like a finger-trap, and the only way to escape, as Song admonishes Gallimard, is to expand your mind.

On another note, let me put in a plug for Live Action Set’s The Happy Show, which opens this weekend at the Bedlam Theatre. After the opening night of M. Butterfly, I made my way over to an art opening at 1419 and was just in time to catch a brief excerpt from the show, a 5-person, 8-minute retelling of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. With a cast that included Four Humors member Brant Miller, Isabel Nelson and Live Action Set’s own Noah Bremer, I didn’t stop laughing for the solid 8 minutes, and apparently the cast, upon leaving, have a cherubic blissed-out look on their faces. So go on, get Happy this weekend. I recommend it.

The Happy Show- Photo by Eric Melzer

Photo by Betsy Munro

This sort of falls under the “Shameless Self Promotion” category, because a) Domino Davis, the frontman and driving force of Dearling Physique is a friend and collaborator and b) because I constructed some fluorescent light sculptures for the stage show tonight, but there is good reason to go and catch this show- lights, smoke and some of the most engaging performance art that the Twin Cities is home to now. With The Currency EP dropping, it’s a whole other world for Dom and Dearling, as he put it in this City Pages feature: “Imagine you’re very sleepy behind the wheel and see a deer on the side of the road, but when you look again you see nothing there. That’ll be the experience. The entire stage will be an illusion if we can pull it off how we want to. It’ll all be very confusing.” Bring on the confusion and the sights. Tickets to the show at the Varsity tonight are $10 at the door (with an awesome lineup of The Alpha Centauri, Xavier Marquis and No Bird Sing) and if you went to Voltage, or were a part of that show, get in for $6.

Dearling Physique art by Jesse Draxler

“We are each incomplete. We are drawn towards the other in search of completeness. We sense the potential closing of a circle. And this sensation, this potential, lies at the very heart of what draws us to theatre.”

-Anne Bogart, from the essay “Eroticism” in A Director Prepares.

Bogart’s words are at the heart of “The Awakening“, both the 1889 novella by Kate Chopin that was banned for immorality when it was published and also the new play based on that text. I am in the cast for the play, a co-production of the Savage Umbrella company and 3AM Productions and the cast of actors has been workshopping this production since September. It is that process of meshing our incompletion, the company of actors playing, fighting, hammering out the formal narrative aspects and the beautiful flights of impression that mark the text that has been the biggest joy in creating this play. The text is all about distance and love, how people work together and apart from each other- things that have mattered since humans began forming connections and our results on stage, I think, will surprise. Like the original text itself, which ostensibly ended Chopin’s literary career, and like so much in life, on stage we find a clash of conventions and the struggle to decide and find our own way out. It’s weird and heartfelt and it has been my pleasure to work this talented cast (who all sing better than me, but we’ll make it work) and so you should come out and see it.

We open Friday, April 2nd at the award winning (City Pages “Artist of the Year” 2008) Gremlin Theatre in St. Paul and run for three weekends, so there is plenty of chance to see the show. Tickets can be reserved by calling 612.339.0207 or via email at 3amproductions.tickets@gmail.com. If you need more convincing, Quinton Skinner spoke with out fearless leader, director Laura Leffler-McCabe as part of the new City Pages “Dressing Room” blog, and it’s great to see him back in action and that new endeavor (with Kate Iverson of l’etoile) taking off. Matt Peiken of 3 Minute Egg also stopped by for a rehearsal to capture some of the process and speak with Leffler-McCabe and our incomparable music director Candy Bilyk, so there’s a little romantic teaser for you.

Hunched over in the exit row of the tiny plane (I had to use the bathroom standing like a closed parentheses) heading down to Austin, Fort Wilson Riot’s “A Wordlessly Whispered Melody” shuffled onto my iPod. A sudden swell of nostalgia and I spun the dial back to play the Idigaragua album in full. Perfect traveling music. Two and a half years ago, when the Twin Cities theater and music scene was still relatively unknown to me, I was a part of the stage production that accompanied that rock-opera’s premiere, and I count it as one of the singular best and most formative experiences of my life. It was one of those things that was ridiculously hard work to pull off, that became more pleasurable the harder it became, was a rough an d beautiful synthesis of music with movement and art. The people I made that show with, I love them all still.

It seemed only fitting, that the dangerous travels and travails of the American journalist be the soundtrack for my first push down to South By Southwest. Here seems like a perfect place to lose oneself, to encounter gypsies and pirates and singing, dancing cacti, or their modern counterparts. I think PR and marketing people must be the carnival barkers with their Dancing Geek of Ciegozia. You have to go into this willing to accept those dangers, the perils of booze being flung at you, the weight of people pushing their band’s free swag, late nights, long lines and auditory assaults from all angles. Take it in, write it down and smash the glass of the rules you follow.

There is, however, a bureaucracy and hierarchy to the South By Southwest Music Festival, something a little akin to bribing your way through a Soviet regime. Who you know and how fast you get there are keys to getting the most out of your visit to Austin, like knowing which shopkeeper in Tito’s Sarajevo has a shipment of sugar coming in. However, unlike some dour Politburo meeting during the Cold War, all the apparatchiks of SXSW are well-coifed neon hipsters or leather-clad grungy rockers. No one is going to mistake our skinny jeans for Mao suits, and the purpose of meeting is the pleasure principle, and once formalities have taken place, you can get around to partying hard. ‘Round here, we’re trying to tear down the Berlin Wall of humdrum living.

Upon entering the Austin Convention Center, the air buzzes with attendees and functionaries running around with wireless devices, gathering credentials and standing in lines. The highest credentialed level is the Badge (which Staciaann has) an imprinted security-coded device that grants different levels of access to the various functions and conference panels, easy circumvention of lines and an all around munificent blessing. The wristband (which I have) is tagged on, unremovable for showering and general human functions offers access to basic services like venues, of course for a price. It is also totally possible to see plenty of great music for free, often on the condition that you RSVP to the open invitations beforehand.

The Constellations at the Fader Fort

At South By Southwest, the RSVP is the everyman’s secret weapon. On Tuesday night, before the festival even kicked off in earnest, an RSVP to the Levi’s Fader Fort (this is no place to start quibbling about corporate sponsorship of music) opened the doors for free popcorn, mechanical bull rides and Southern Comfort-Red Bulls and a performance by Canadian band Metric. Which is pretty amazing, because anyone who has seen or heard Metric should have, in the words of another journo on the trip, an “indie-rock boner” for lead singer Emily Haines. Hell, if you are capable, you should probably just have a regular boner for Emily Haines. And to push up for free to the very front so that when she spins her head and prances…

Hang on, a Japanese glam punk all-girl band in black vinyl and kimonos just walked past. I may be distracted like this throughout.

So, when Emily Haines prances and bounces around the stage for “Help I’m alive” and “Gimme Sympathy” her sweat lands on you like holy water. When the finale of “Stadium Love” rolls around and you’ve only been in Texas for four hours and seen a band you would have paid $25 at First Avenue to see and the weather, though cold, has the promise of sunshine and warmth, good god, I’m alive and my heart keeps beating like a hammer.

Metric

Metric

As the night progresses, because we feel unconstrained by schedules or coverage expectations (I hope, dear reader, to remain similarly unencumbered throughout the festival) we wander through the streets, eating BestWurst hotdogs, which put to shame Minneapolis and it’s abhorrent lack of decent street fare, stop in to some parties, watch people wander around. One of those people happens to be Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, who is in town doing music interviews for a show in IFC, so I get my picture taken with him. One of the people in our hotel room says that she swears she saw him on our floor later that night, so if Craig Finn is staying on our floor, there might be some very awkward hanging around the elevators later in the week. But the night goes on. We run into the Ice Cream Man, who gives us free swag and with free pineapple basil ice cream, we walk through the streets to a place called the Beauty Bar and music streams out of different venues every ten feet; this is what freedom looks and sounds like.

My phone just reminded me I am supposed to be at work in 15 minutes. Nope, I already am. At work riding the bull, leaping in the water.

Carl Rides The Bull from CakeIn15 on Vimeo.