…feeling like choosing theatre was the stupidest thing you could have ever done:
“We’re one of the last handmade art forms. There’s no fast way to make plays. It takes just as long and is just as hard as it was a thousand years ago.”
–Steven Dietz
Month: November 2007
Where DO you get your ideas?
First, in February I’m producing “Dead of Winter: Three Ghost Stories for the Stage”—we have auditions for the men’s roles this weekend—and I’m currently rereading “Oregon Ghosts” (seems we have a lot of them), so ghosts have been much on my mind of late.
Second, I love dreams. Here you put in a tough day doing…whatever it is you do, lay down your head, welcome oblivion…and suddenly it’s psychedelic cabaret, the nightly David Lynch film. (Because, let’s be honest, David Lynch films are movies about dreams being movies.)
Third, last night I’m dreaming that my house has a little ghost problem. I’m talking about it to a sympathetic friend, and, while we’re talking, doors and cupboards are opening and closing by themselves. Only they’re doing so in just a way that, well, it could be the wind. My friend is trying to get me to take this seriously, while I’m like, well, the wind thing. Denial lives strong in dreams. The door to the room eases shut in that subtle wind way, and my friend points. The antique glass doorknob is slowly turning back and forth. I open the door. No one there.
Meanwhile, much else is going on in the dream: we just got two puppies…and a horse. And all my friends are saying, man, that spider on your porch. Have you seen that thing? You should use that in one of your plays. (My real friends seldom say things like that.) But have you see that spider on the—?
All right! I go out on the porch to check out this spider, and instead there are two little old ladies out there. Sitting side by side. Each has a tiny puppy on their lap, and they’re petting them in synchronous motion. Maltese puppies. And these two ladies have these Maltesesque bowl haircuts of silver and small, round, gnomelike faces. They’re smiling at me, and the puppies are staring at me, cocking their heads, and the two ladies seem to be enwrapped in a gold, summery light, utterly gorgeous until I notice that the ladies are also faintly criss-crossed with spider webs. And I slowly look up to see, above them, a common gold and black garden spider, your typical two-inch Argiope …but this one’s about the size of a dinner plate.
And then, gentle reader, the alarm clock wakes me.
The Things We Do
I did a strange thing this weekend.
As a preface, back around 2000, I wrote a play called “Altered States of America,” which was both a comic and serious look at America’s love/hate relationship with drugs, and, I suppose, with my own inclination for getting out this crowded, cluttered head once in awhile (a passion in my younger years that caused me a little trouble and provided a ton of pleassure).
I dedicated the play to Hunter S. Thompson, Warren Zevon, and Ken Kesey, and, within two years of its 2003 production, they were all dead. I sent a copy to Warren when he was literally on his deathbed. I sent copies to Thompson and to Kesey’s widow. I never expected replies, never sought them. I just did what I thought was right, to pay a debt for inspiration and for bad advice that often turned out well. It was a damned good show, great cast, some moments of beauty, others of (I think) sharp satire–at least some laughs. The production got decent reviews, but it was scheduled at the wrong time of year, the ticket prices were too high, and audiences were low. I’d go home each night after every show, sit on the back porch, and play “Wild Horses” over and over until I could go to sleep.
There’s been a lot of talk about Hunter lately. A couple books have come out, and factions are lining up between them, literary battles breaking out. In other words: he’s still riling people up. But I had these unsettled, deeply personal, and unresolved feelings regarding the guy; so, as I think a kind of exorcism, I made a movie.
It’s very simple, just some photos of Hunter off the net that warp and change in time to Pearl Jam’s “Man of the Hour.” It ends with “In Memoriam” then fades to black. It’s clunky and crudely done. I can’t do anything with it: I don’t own any of the rights to the photographs or the music. I wouldn’t want to do anything with it. It’s something for me. I made it, and I watched it, and I let loose a little bit of what had been floating in my head.
It was, in short, a personal endeavor, and this is as public as it will ever be.
S
Brick, Mortar, Memory
It must be winter: I’m listening to Leonard Cohen again.
Who was it who wrote something like: “…we are all boats beating forward, ceaselessly borne into the past?” James Joyce? No, Fitzgerald, from “Gatsby.” I can’t remember the quote exactly, but I can see that flotilla of rowboats on a flat green river, and I can feel my own boat wobble in the current.
Our entire economy is built upon buying things. In some way, that’s what provides and fills the larder, yet when the current finally carries you away, those things become inert boxes and odd objects, stripped of memory and resonance, in drawers someone will one day have to empty.
The common bromide says live for the moment, even though we can live nowhere else. But memory (or nostalgia) and hope (or worry) distance us from the present.
Perhaps architects are happy. They do their work, and their imaginations become part of our mindscape. Doctors, for all the good they do, ultimately lose. Lawyers, soldiers, and police we frankly need only when things go awry. Teachers transmit ideas, which do last, then release them, like caged birds, to go where they will. And the clergy, whose whole business is predicated on the eternal, operate solely on faith, which is all any of us really have.
Sometimes I think the restaurateurs, distillers, and tobacconists give the most to our present, even as their wares draw it away.
And the artists? We have the promise of the architects, but the odds are long. In that way, we’re closer to the clergy. Our job is just to shape and color what we ought to already know. Amusing (I think) to remember the many times people have said to me, in one form or another: how I wish I could do what you do.
It is winter.
Inner Demons, Generous Angels
In addition to being a playwright and theatrical producer, I’m also a photographer. Reasonably serious–had a couple shows and some stuff published. Have my own darkroom and just recently made the shift to digital. (After a certain point, resistance really is futile.) Going digital has been very convenient as a theatre occasionally asks me to shoot PR photos for them or someone wants a portrait, and it’s a lot easier and cheaper to do a little sharpening and color correction, burn a CD, and be done with it.
Awhile back, I ran across an L.A. gallery’s call for submissions on the theme “Angels or Demons?” I didn’t have anything suitable for submission, but I thought: hell, what a fascinating theme. And a project took shape.
I’d been working on a lighting set up for portraits and thought I’d found the right combination to give me the look I wanted. What would happen if, knowing many actors, actresses, and other photophilic people, if I invited them to collaborate on the theme, shooting the pictures with a consistent lighting and backdrop scheme, with the variable being the look–costume, make-up, and attitude–the subjects brought to the project?
So far, I’ve shot five sessions, and the results have been simply wonderful. The images have all been remarkably individualistic, unique, and reflective of the subjects’ creativity. And the lighting is gorgeous. I have more shoots in the works, but we’re working on the ever-challenging matter of scheduling. With the holidays coming up and “Dead of Winter” going into production/rehearsals for next February, I figure I’ll be shooting well into next year. The ultimate goal will be a show, I suppose, ideally in a gallery, but right now it’s just fascinating to see what one can do with a simple backdrop, a couple of hot lights, and some creatively crazy collaborators.
Before sessions, I often sit on the porch and look through photographs to sort of “tune up” my eyes, the photographic equivalent of stretching before playing sports, but I find my attention wandering to: good Lord, what will my next subject bring to me and can I make a good photograph of it?
Happily, so far, the answers have been, respectively, “nothing I can predict” and “yes.” Making art dosn’t get much better than that.
(Note: if you live in Portland, have some Monday or Wednesday evenings free, and feel like getting in touch with your inner angel or demon, drop me a note. It addition to participating in a project that subjects seem to enjoy, sitters will receive a couple e-mail sized images, plus a CD and a couple finished prints.)
The Revolution in Turnaround
As a committed (re: otherwise unemployable) theatre artist, I can say with confidence the money’s in TV and film. People ask me why I don’t work in those mediums, and my standard line is that, yeah, you make the money, but you spend it all on shrink bills. Actually, in theatre, you have more control of your words, working live is fun and vibrant, there’s more latitude for weirdness, and your colleagues treat you with respect (sometimes embarrassingly so) rather than as the janitor.
Mostly though, Hollywood scares the shit out of me.
So I’m neither a member of the Writers Guild of America nor on strike. I’m a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, which is kind of like being a Democrat–not being a member of an organized group.*
I have friends in the film industry, and I’m worried about them: this strike looks to be a tough, protracted one. And I know shows like “Law and Order,” “CSI,” and “Gray’s Anatomy” keep a lot of playwrights afloat.
But I can’t help wondering what the strike means for theatre, particularly if it lasts into next year. People will certainly spend the winter catching up on DVDs they’ve meant to watch, but, at a certain point, could their hungry minds be turned to…the stage?
It won’t affect the programming of full-season theatres, which plan a year or two ahead, but it might affect rough-and-tumble indie theatres, whose ticket prices are closer to first-run movies. Could this be a golden opportunity for new, adventurous theatre companies doing new, adventurous plays, building a whole new audience from dedicated moviegoers who never realized theatre could be so dynamic and well done? Could it, in short, mark the beginning of a bold new age, a theatrical renaissance for new works and writers? A time we will all look back upon with gleaming eyes and churning hearts? Could it? Just maybe?
Nah.
*A cheap and easy joke, stolen from Will Rogers; I’m actually very fond of the Guild; they’ve been very good to me and do wonderful things. Still applies to the Democrats, however.
Memory or Memory of Dreams?
Early eyelid movies. A red canna, glowing against green foilage. Blue skies with contrails. Red speckled apples rotting amid red leaves. Brown and gold carpet. Painting of Jesus in a gilded frame. Funeral procession on black & white TV, over and over and over. And over. Like the whole world has died. Held by the hand, down to see dad at the Spokane Chronicle (“the Chron”), running the crazy linotype machine nonstop, edition after edition, and the smell of hot lead, indescribable but unforgettable. Out the windows, flashing lights of movie houses.
Then the Beatles, Ed Sullivan looking perplexed. Parents looking perplexed. “Downtown” playing everywhere, and everywhere city lights, Christmas lights, tiki lounge with torches burning out front. Rainy Olympia, Washington, in a rented VW bug, the windows continually fogging. Steady procession of foggy neon bar signs. Staying in mildewed motel rooms with black dial telephones, tracer bulbs outside the windows, light show on the curtains and darkened walls. Good-bye Ru-by Tues-day. And the rain, the rain. My uncle, big, red-faced and laughing, hole in his shoe, water squishing in his sock as he crossed the room to open another beer. Who could hang a name on you?
A duplex on the Olympic Peninsula, could see the snowy Olympic peaks from the back porch, peeking over a fence, and in the field beyond, ringneck pheasants strutting, suddenly flushed, a bird explosion. One night a violent thunderstorm, violet skies ripped, and tall, bearded man, a neighbor, trembling in our living room; he’d been struck by lightning and had the thumb-thick scar down his chest to prove it. Rough workman’s hands shaking. Then in Port Angeles, stairs, an endless flight of stairs up a hillside, until, out of breath, you reach the top, and below the dark roofs, the wharf with commercial fishing boats, the Stait of Juan de Fuca beyond, dull blue, white ferries leaving wakes on their way to Canada, and the wind blows, hair blowing around, the wind blows, and on the wind you can hear “…and everyone knows it’s windy.”
S
Eagles Attack America: Film at 11:00
Falling into the category beyond prima facie absurd, right-wingers have drawn themselves all the way up on two legs and have pronounced the new Eagles album “Long Road Out of Eden” as an attack on America:
Which should have anyone who loves rock’n’roll flat on their backs, laughing hysterically–no, no, let me catch my breath–going, “Well, yeah, they’re The Eagles!” They hate you so much they put out a double-album! And from most reviews, they still sound like The Eagles, which means they’ll likely be carpet-bombing an FM “classic rock” station near you very shortly.
But no, these folks are objecting to The Eagles writing melodic, moody, country-tinged tunes about global warming as some kind of a Clockwork Orange rape of American sensibilities. So much for peaceful, easy feelings. Don Henley doesn’t dig you, America. He hates your SUVs, your way of life. He’s against freedom, and he thinks all the troops are baby-killing psychopaths. He wants you, take a deep breath, to feel guilty.
Yeah, dude. Uh-huh. When all indications are that The Eagles are still idling on the corner of Winslow, Arizona, watching the tequila sunrise, and trying to finally check the hell out of the Hotel California. Ah well…one of these nights. I knew Glenn Frey has a little bit of that weird jihad flame in his eyes….
But…Joe Walsh? Plays a mean slide, but, as we all know, he can’t find the door and they took away his license so now he can’t drive and he spends his day bowling and picking up dog doo (hope that it’s hard, woof-woof).
Joe Walsh can’t buckle his pants, much less affix a suicide bomber’s belt.
So–and really, I never thought I would ever, ever say this–but, fellow desperados, go buy the new Eagles album. You don’t have to play it. Just buy the bastard. Besides, the cover art’s pretty. Make it a movement. And while you’re at it, let’s bring back Quaaludes, Panama Red, and decent blow that hasn’t been stepped on with baby laxative. Talking about loving our true way of life.
But please. No flare pants.
My God. What if the Bay City Rollers have become Muslim extremists? Now I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight.
Sympathy for the rare Picasso Shark
So the reading of “Turquoise and Obsidian” went well last night. The turnout was pretty good for a Sunday when all the clocks had been scrambled, and the audience was very responsive. Cast was superb, and I’ll send them a thank-you when I can pull together a conscious thought.
Where the play stands at this point? Pretty well, I think. I expect I’ll get some decent notes, probably have to tweak a few things, but, when it comes to be big global changes, well, I doubt it. There’s a certain point where you have to go: that’s as good as it’s going to get. Move the hell on!
Writers are kind of like sharks: if we don’t keep moving, we die. Or at least we do a decent impression of a dead person who still drinks and smokes and burns holes in ratty recliners.
Though he was kind of reprehensible in the way he treated others, especially women, I’ve always admired Picasso in that he was never afraid to try to new things. So many artists achieve a certain success and freeze, terrified to slip outside of their hits. But, firmly established post-World War II, Picasso, arguably the most famous painter in the world, pulled up his roots and moved his whole family to the south of France so he could study pottery with noted artisans in this one town. So he did pottery, and it was brilliant and still distinctively Picasso. When he got old, he amused himself by repainting famous paintings by other, older masters, seeing them through his style and poking fun at both the canon and himself.
I don’t know if he died with a brush in hand, but there are worse ways to cash out.
Steve
Herradura Blanco, por favor….
You know you’ve had enough tequila when, during the Day of the Dead, whilst staggering down a narrow, cobbled Cuernavaca lane at night, you stop to look at an ofrenda in a shop window, and head of a skeletal mannequin turns to stare back at you.
The next thing, you’re back in bed at the Hotel Bajo el Volcan, once the apartment complex where Malcolm Lowry wrote “Under the Volcano,” and the bed begins turning like a rudderless skiff. No point in sleeping, standing being much less vertiginous; so you go out on the balcony and light a pipe, reflecting that Malcolm Lowry smoked a pipe and probably stood smoking away the spins on this very balcony that overlooks the barranca, the canyon that surrounds Cuernavaca and into which the Consul, the protagonist of “Under the Volcano,” falls at the novel’s climax. And it strikes you that as much as you love “Under the Volcano” and admire Lowry’s writing, you vowed never to be like him. Yet here you are, smoking a pipe, struggling for balance, and leaning over the barranca.
That was me about nine years ago today, and on Sunday, my play “Turquoise and Obsidian”–the project that put me on that balcony–will have a free reading at Miracle Theatre/Milagro Teatro in Portland.
I’m very much looking forward to it, very much anticipating the play’s arrival in a form where I can begin shopping it around to theatres. And yet….
It’s cold in Portland today, really feels like the beginning of winter. But in my heart, it’s 82 degrees. Among the broad trees shading Cuernavaca’s zocalo, black butterflies with a five-inch wingspan silently drift, their wings splashed with irridescent green. I can’t get over the butterflies. I used to collect them as a kid, and occasionally, I’d send off for foreign species from a mail-order catalog. They’re dead, of course, and you have to treat them so their wings lie flat. I had one of these black and green ones in the collection, probably even knew the Latin name for it once (some kind of swallowtail, I think). Here it is now, nameless and alive. Drifting through warm, clear air, with a volcano in the distance.
And the tequila is very memorable as well, also clear, with the liquor’s characteristic smoke and burn, but also wtih a silkiness akin to cognac. The Mexicans keep the good stuff for themselves.
No matter what happens with “Turquoise and Obsidian,” whether or not it goes on to full production, and despite all the years I’ve worked on it, it’s already given me more than I can ever give it.
Steve Patterson's Splatterverse 