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The Audacity of an Artist

I am sorry to say that Cool As Hell is defunct. But you can still catch Michael Wayne Rice at
www.YouReallyShouldBeFollowingMe.com

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Podcast #187

[C.As.H]:
The very first thing I have all guest do on the cool as hell theatre podcast is, I give them 30 seconds to describe what the show is about. The show you are directing for Theatreworks is called Radio Golf by August Wilson. 30 seconds. Go.

[Harry Elam]:
The play is about Harmond Wilks who is running to be the first black mayor of Pittsburg. However something happens along the way when an old man who means something to his past enters into his office and changes everything.

[C.As.H]:
You are a “expert” on the works of august Wilson. Coming from that perspective and having done a lot of research on his plays and what his plays mean to the black audience and the world, what do you think has been the most misunderstood aspect of August Wilson’s work?

[Harry Elam]:
What’s misunderstood is the idea that somehow he has written the whole black experience in these 10 plays. And what we understand is that there more to the black experience so there room for other playwrights there rooms for other artists to speak to the black experience or that he covered in these ten plays. If he lived who knows what more he would have said about the black experience. I think one of the things that is interesting about this play is that this is a play that deals with issue of race and class in ways that none of the other works do. S it’s interesting how he speaks to the black middle class and their relationship to the black masses in Radio Golf…[more in audio]

[C.As.H]:
There is a point of conflict for the ambitious character, Harmond Wilks, as he goes and tries to become the first black mayor and he comes to a point where he faces Aunt ester. And Aunt Ester has significance across multiple August Wilson plays. Can you talk about her a little bit?

[Harry Elam]:
August Wilson said that Aunt Ester is the most important character in his plays. That she is the mother. The way he put it was, all the rest of the characters re her children. And if you think of the word Aunt Ester and say it again, it sounds like ancestor. And she is a great ancestor. She was born when the first slave’s ships came over in 1619. So she’s as old as the African American presence in the United States. So one of the main things in Wilson’s drama is that you’ve gotta connect to that past, to that history, to that ancestor…[more in the audio]

[C.As.H]:
Speaking of past history and capitalism today, does August Wilson have anything specific to say about urban gentrification in this play?

[Harry Elam]:
Oh absolutely. Absolutely. He has a number to things to say in this play that the talks about. They are going to redo “the hill”, the black community of the hill. And what are they putting up there? They say they need their first supermarket and the supermarket they are putting up is a Wholefoods, a Starbucks and a Barnes and Nobles. In terms of affordability it is not potentially where people are going to shop. Right? So he’s not serving the community in that way or he’s putting up apartments where people may not be able to afford to live, the people of the community. So he’s speaking to gentrification and what it does and he also brings up some of the history of Pittsburgh…[more in the audio]

[C.As.H]:
Dr. Elam, you are a highly educated man who is a publish author. You have held multiple distinguished posts, as the audience heard in the introduction. Is there such a thing as educational gentrification as pertains to black people?

[Harry Elam]:
I think that’s a great question. I laugh because I hadn’t heard the phrase before. But what you do hear from kids in Oakland, for example, to say that somehow if you talk a certain way, you talk white, or somehow if you study, you act white. Now when did education become associated with race? When did talking correct English in some ways or English get racialized? Those things in some ways are not in a sense, and shouldn’t be about whiteness. And when you think back to our history and that’s one of the things that I think Wilson tries to deal with…[more in the audio]

[C.As.H]:
Taking a little different route. Having studied August Wilson, researched August Wilson the way that you have and right now producing this play that is very timely to the presidential elections coming up, if you were to advise Barack Obama, based on all the knowledge you have acquired in all this, what would you say to him?

[Harry Elam]:
Wow. That too is a great question. One of the things that I love about Obama is that he doesn’t, in a sense, deny his history, deny the fact that he is black and connected to that. So what Wilson would say and I think he says it in this play, is that you have to be able to serve the community. So he’s gotta find a way to serve the black community…[more in the audio]

PLUS MORE UNIQUE CONTENT in the audio.

SHOW NOTES
Theatreworks: The Website

Playing Oct 3rd - Nov 1st
Radio Golf: Buy Tickets

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Podcast #186

Ragged Wing Ensemble Presents: The History of the Devil, playing Oct 3rd – Nov 1st
Clive Barker: Playwright

A rough sketch of the interview (not transcribed word for word)

[Synopsis]: The devil is being put on trial for his alleged crimes against humanity. If he is found innocent he gets to go up to heaven and be with his father, if he is found guilty, he has to stay in hell.

What is Clive Barker trying to say about Christianity?
[Keith]: Clive barker has some issues with Christianity. I think there are a lot of themes that come up and toys with many different perspectives about what his Christianity is and what it has done to society and how its evolved and how its demented the soul of people.

How has Christianity demented the soul of people?
[Keith]: As far as Clive barkers perspective, it has become this white and Christian oriented power struggle between different religions and hierarchal power play between different aspects of society.

Author states this is not a dream play, not a mid-evil mystery play, parading semi-symbolic figure for a moral purpose, it is a history. What does that mean to you when you heard that and how does that translate on the stage?
[Jeffrey]: in order for the characters playing the chords as well as the audience to make up its minds, is the devil innocent or guilty, they have to see the scenes, where does he come from. So we get to see the people he has interacted with, and the essential moments that really define who he is as far as we are concerned. And we get to make up our own mind. It is not about parade this figure, this incarnation on stage. It’s lets examine this objectively and see if we can’t make up our own minds.

Make up your own minds about?
[Jeffrey]: About whether he has wreaked havoc on earth whether he has been an innocent bystander.

Christians all over the world will be up in arms with you saying maybe the devil has been a bystander with some of the evils that has gone on in this world.

[Jeffrey]: Well this play calls into question whether man is making his own evil or whether he has been provoked, and if so to what level

Are you ready for the fundamentalist to come knocking on your door ready to tear you down and shut you down?
[Jeffrey]: I’d love that!

In your own idea of what religion is, define for me, from your perspective, THE DEVIL.
[Keith]: is the dark side of any ones soul, the ying yang, we have good and we have evil, we have positive and we have negative, we need both things to exist and to come to terms with being a real true person you need to comes to term with your god and your devil
[Jeffrey]: Personally I don’t think of devil as anything evil in the world. To me I’m not even sure I believe in god, per se, but there is definitely an energy in the universe and it allows us to make our own choices, so if I have an errant judgmental thought, sometimes I think “that was devilish of me”. But I don’t spend time fearing the ramifications of this thing that might be out there.

What has been the most challenging part of directing this play?
[Jeffrey]: Well my history is working with objectives and tactics and focusing a lot on the acting side of things, and this is my first show for directing for Ragged Wing so there an entire physical component that is new to me, fortunately the rest of the company has enough experience that where I am lacking we all work together to make it happen.

Can you expound on this physical part you are lacking in?
[Jeffrey]: Ragged wings history is performing physically adventurous types of shows. SO even in this show we have flying, falling, abstract movement and that’s been a real challenge and exciting thing for me.

What has been the most challenging part of acing the part of the devil this play?
[Keith]: A combination of the physical requirements of this character. I do a 6 foot drop, flying on a rope, physical slapping, fights, there’s a lot of physical challenges, but also realigning and figuring out the course the character is taken not only over the arc of the court room but in all the different vignettes of the HISTORY of this character and how he has evolved from the first fall that we see when he was completely innocent to the very final moment when he is released, on way or the other, that you see the evolution of how this character has changed and how he’s been hurt, betrayed and how he has sought revenge.

God and the Devil in the boxing ring, who would kick whose ass?
[Keith]: Its kind of a no decision, I think they would both annihilate each other and we would all go zipping out into the universe.

That’s a safe answer. That is a middle of the road answer
[Keith]: OK I’ll give you an answer: Lucifer, knockout

Jeffrey as we end this interview, I am going to present this question, but in order for you to answer this, you must do this first. We are here at Central Stage in Richmond, and I need all humility sucked out of this building. There is no humility allowed. And as the humility is sucked out, the vacuum creates an inflow of ego. Why should people come see your show, The History of the Devil, running Oct 3rd – Nov 1st?

This show is so complex as a piece of theatre it give you everything. You have physicalization, you have exciting movement, you have exciting visuals, the acting is top notch, and it’s a new space, people haven’t performed here before. Plenty of parking too. So as an audience member your gonna love the parking.

SHOW NOTES
Ragged Wing EnsembleThe Website

Playing Oct 3rd - Nov 1st
The History of the Devil: Buy Tickets

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Podcast #185

ONE YOUNG GIRL, IN A SMALL TOWN, WHERE EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE, AND SHADINESS LURKS AROUND MANY CORNERS. CAN YOU GUESS WHAT HAPPENS TO HER IN THAT CIRCUMSTANCE? AND WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU INJECT THE IDEA OF URBAN LEGENDS INTO THE MIX?

The play is called “The K of D”, aka, The Kiss of Death

One young girl embodies the entire population of her small town to spin the story of the summer that inexplicably changed her life. This quirky and touching play offers the unexpected perspective of a child on the big questions of life and death.

I don’t know about you, but I have never lived in a small town. I have only heard about them on the Maury Povich show, or the Montel Williams show. And every time a small town story was on one of those shows, the least you could say about them was they were interesting as hell.

Characters seemed to abound in small towns. People you would never see “in the city”, all seemed to have moved to the country and started an “inbreeding” program there. You know, Uncle Cletus was in love with his sister Naomi and Jack had a secret crush on his mom.

I may be stating the extreme, but when you honestly reflect on your perception of small town drama, what does it entail? What happens when every one knows every one? What happens when nobody locks their doors at night, for fear of offending someone? What happens when kids have no outlet for their adolescent hormones raging thru them?
It all sounds interesting to me.

Add in to the mix, the idea of urban legends and you have a concoction that that is bound to be perplexing, engaging, unbelievable and enticing. But what is an urban legend? As described by the actress who will be playing 17 characters, an urban legend is a story that is told in many different ways. It has many different opinions on what happened and how it happened and what didn’t happen. An urban legend has a leery quality that makes it interesting.

This would not be an interesting interview if I did not ask the participants about an urban legend that they have either heard or experienced. So I asked. And for those of you reading this in the SF Bay Area, you get a great story about a cop, the Golden Gate Park, and traffic tickets that may or may not exist.

I guess I should add that Urban Legends can be scary as hell.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE PLAY HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS “MUSCULAR”, HAVING “BOLD IMAGINATION” AND HAVING “EMOTIONAL VITALITY”. AND WE HAVE TWO CRAFTSMEN; OOPPS I MEAN CRAFTSWOMEN BRINGING YOU THIS PRODUCTION.

By that I mean they have impressive backgrounds and promising futures.

How can you resist a production that has been described in such a way? The playwright Laura Schellhardt went out of her way to make the language of this play accessible and true to life. As a matter of fact, she went thru an unusual editing process.

In order to make the language spot on, Laura enlisted the help of teenagers. You see, many, but not all of he characters are teens, and since the playwright has grown past her teens, she enlisted their help to help her nail the language of the younger crowd.

Laura was wise enough to recognize her weaknesses and genius enough to know how to inject her own voice to give the script vitality, depth, and poeticism. I gotta give her credit for that.

By the way, Laura heads the playwright program at Northwestern University in Chicago and an ex student of Pulitzer prize winning playwright, Paula Vogel.

These are the craftswomen putting on the play

The director is Rebecca Novick. She has been a fixture within the San Francisco theatrical scene for over 10 years. Many of you may know that she was the founding artistic director of Crowded Fire Theatre: a company that focused on new, experimental works. For 10 years she ran the company producing 23 plays and directing 15. She is an award winning director and works all over as a freelance director today, having left Crowded Fire Theatre.

I must say that Rebecca is highly qualified to handle text of this nature. She is not necessarily known for directing one person shows. She has two feet solidly planted in the experimental ensemble pieces world. But because of that I am certain that she will bring something a little different to this production. And no matter how you think about it, one person playing 17 roles is an ensemble piece.

The actress in this show also has nothing but praise for the director. I know that many of you will be saying “of course she has praise for the director. Why would she not praise the director, in an interview, with the director sitting right there”? And that is a valid point.

BUT… WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MEET SOMEONE AND YOU GET THIS VIBE, THIS VIBE THAT MAKES YOU SIT UP, PAY ATTENTION, AND GET READY FOR A JOY RIDE?

The actress is Maya Lawson. The minute I met her, I was put at ease. There was a positive aura that emanated from her. That aura resonated with honesty, a certain purity, a certain genuine-ness. She was very warm and very inviting. She was and is alluring, a fact that I could not escape moment I met her.

And Rebecca, the director, had nothing but praise for the actress. And I know what your saying “of course she has praise for the actress. She picked her right?”.

Well you have a point, Rebecca did pick Maya. But when I asked Rebecca why she picked Maya, Rebecca gave some very motivating explanations for her choice. I must say that hearing Rebecca expound on her reason for choosing Maya certainly helped me decide that this was a production that I need to see.

And Maya has plenty of experience. She is a Bay Area native who went to the School for the arts. And after that, she went to Cornish, in Seattle, and received a B.F.A in acting. She is also a member of Equity. And having been a member of equity myself, I take that as a badge of honor.

For those of you disenfranchised with the equity label, get over it. I am tired of hearing non-equity actors bash equity actors with things like “just because they are equity doesn’t mean they have more talent than me. Most of the equity actors suck anyway.”

I can’ wait for the day a non-equity actor turns equity and I can say “remember when you said most equity actors suck? Do you fall in that category now?”

Anyway, I digress.

Go check out The K of D: An Urban Legend, playing at The Magic Theatre Sept 20th - Oct 19th.

SHOW NOTES
Magic Theatre: The Website

Playing Sept 20th, - Oct 19th
The K of D: An Urban Legend: Buy Tickets

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