Saturday, January 24, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
In Case You Missed It Last Week: A Poets Theater Report from Brandon Brown
Ah, Poets Theater at Small Press Traffic. There’s really nothing like it, socially or otherwise, that happens in the Bay Area all year. The first clues and cues a sudden decrease in social availability on weeknights, given over to rehearsal, and before you know it it’s opening night in Timkin, the room afroth with strange (and beautiful, don’t worry) faces, more of them than usual, and a buzz that this commentator found a little overstimulating. What makes Poets Theater (Alli reminded me: no apostrophe) different from regular Theater? Ostensibly the plays (such as they are) are written by poets (but this isn’t hard and fast) and played by poets (though this is even less hard and fast). What seems to me to be the fundamental difference is that the adding of POETS to THEATER entails a redrawing of the rules of the spectacle. Fourth wall? Why yes, please, and I’m working on my fifth. And before the spectacle can even commence onstage, it’s buzzing outside the doors. Players are vacillating between the theater and the crowd, half in costume half out, sometimes wielding un- or semiwieldy props; small camps might be crouching on their haunches for one last, desperate rehearsal, or just as likely passing a flask in the dim hallway behind the stage (just kidding, no drinks in Timkin!). I suppose what I suggest by this is that the performance starts as soon as you break the seal that leads to the hall, and this was overscored by David Buuck’s amazing vaudeville introduction, sung to a recorded track on his IPOD, even as he wore Joy Division eyeliner and did his best Fred Astaire.
The program on Opening Night 2009 was pretty representative of Poets Theaters past. You had your world premieres written by contemporary extra-Bay Area poets with strong Bay Area ties (Stan Apps’ Elsa In Berlin, Bhanu Kapil’s Rabbit Butoh, Bunny Butoh), your local talent new to PT (Tetra Balestri’s Perverted Virtue), your veteran PT alumna (Wendy Kramer’s Trademark Girls), and the reprise of neglected Russian avant garde plays translated by Matvei Yankelevich (er…three short plays by Danii Kharms).
If there was any trope common to this very diverse program of plays, it might be the (very broad) one of desire thwarted by the interference of an other (the Spinozan definition of jealousy—a comment on poets writing poets theater?). But specifically for the plays Friday, the interfering other often took the form of a more or less arbitrary orneriness rather than a hubristic challenge or fatalistic intervention. Take Elsa in Elsa In Berlin, a role brilliantly delivered by Erika Staiti. Victor Shlovsky loves Elsa, and sends her the “genius” but overtly insulting “love letters” to prove it—the crisis in the play is not the one you might expect, according to Aristotelian categories, that Elsa fails to recognize the genius of Shlovksy, thereby spurning him for a lesser intelligence. Rather, Elsa recognizes Shlovsky’s genius perfectly—and this becomes the reason for her disavowal. Aristotle’s like WTF? Similar interferences are run by the steroid-dealing, mouse-befriending housewife in Perverted Virtue, the medical stenographer or perhaps the Pepsi machine in Rabbit Butoh, Gogol and Pushkin in Kharms—if such a blatant figure fails to appear in Trademark Girls, let that not imply that the desires of the trademark girls are fulfilled necessarily (though their story might be the most redemptive of the night, and thus served as an appropriate closer).
If the plays express frustrated desire, the activities at the intermission express frustration’s opposite. For there not only could one drink plentifully, for free, but Lindsey Boldt’s Human Jukebox provided song, my Dessert Storm provided dessert, raffles provided prizes, and I leave it other commenters to chime in on Lara Durback and Ariel Goldberg’s intermezzo performances as I was occupied sweetening cream and whipping it with air, thus creating a colloid roughly doubly the volume of the original cream, as air bubbles are captured in a network of fat droplets.
To close, I would like to start a partial list of the terrific outfits everyone was wearing and impart some miscellaneous highlights.
The outfit list is necessarily partial, as there were so many well-dressed strangers to me, and also I had like a thousand drinks and can’t possibly recall what, say…okay, to be honest I can’t remember what anyone was wearing except for Stephanie Young’s amazing boots and Alli Warren was wearing suspenders, Erika Staiti was in drag, Brent Cunningham was in a salmon blazer that I loaned him a year ago and need to recover, Brent, just so you know, Lara Durback was in drag, Stan Apps was wearing his “Bill Luoma” shirt, Bill Luoma was wearing his “Stan Apps” shirt, just kidding, he was wearing his candy color blazer, David Buuck was wearing eyeliner, Taylor Brady was wearing an Executive Director blazer and then became Lil Debbie, Rob Halpern was wearing clothes for a while.
Miscellaneous highlights: Sasha Berkman Tupac Spahr is a born Poets Theater participant, and also his outfit was spectacular. Massive rabbit head on Lara Durback’s neck during Bunny Butoh and then in people’s hands and arms for photo taking. Fake blood. Stas Feldman emerging from a bed in Elsa in Berlin. Oh, and at the end we all threw our shoes at David Buuck.
The program on Opening Night 2009 was pretty representative of Poets Theaters past. You had your world premieres written by contemporary extra-Bay Area poets with strong Bay Area ties (Stan Apps’ Elsa In Berlin, Bhanu Kapil’s Rabbit Butoh, Bunny Butoh), your local talent new to PT (Tetra Balestri’s Perverted Virtue), your veteran PT alumna (Wendy Kramer’s Trademark Girls), and the reprise of neglected Russian avant garde plays translated by Matvei Yankelevich (er…three short plays by Danii Kharms).
If there was any trope common to this very diverse program of plays, it might be the (very broad) one of desire thwarted by the interference of an other (the Spinozan definition of jealousy—a comment on poets writing poets theater?). But specifically for the plays Friday, the interfering other often took the form of a more or less arbitrary orneriness rather than a hubristic challenge or fatalistic intervention. Take Elsa in Elsa In Berlin, a role brilliantly delivered by Erika Staiti. Victor Shlovsky loves Elsa, and sends her the “genius” but overtly insulting “love letters” to prove it—the crisis in the play is not the one you might expect, according to Aristotelian categories, that Elsa fails to recognize the genius of Shlovksy, thereby spurning him for a lesser intelligence. Rather, Elsa recognizes Shlovsky’s genius perfectly—and this becomes the reason for her disavowal. Aristotle’s like WTF? Similar interferences are run by the steroid-dealing, mouse-befriending housewife in Perverted Virtue, the medical stenographer or perhaps the Pepsi machine in Rabbit Butoh, Gogol and Pushkin in Kharms—if such a blatant figure fails to appear in Trademark Girls, let that not imply that the desires of the trademark girls are fulfilled necessarily (though their story might be the most redemptive of the night, and thus served as an appropriate closer).
If the plays express frustrated desire, the activities at the intermission express frustration’s opposite. For there not only could one drink plentifully, for free, but Lindsey Boldt’s Human Jukebox provided song, my Dessert Storm provided dessert, raffles provided prizes, and I leave it other commenters to chime in on Lara Durback and Ariel Goldberg’s intermezzo performances as I was occupied sweetening cream and whipping it with air, thus creating a colloid roughly doubly the volume of the original cream, as air bubbles are captured in a network of fat droplets.
To close, I would like to start a partial list of the terrific outfits everyone was wearing and impart some miscellaneous highlights.
The outfit list is necessarily partial, as there were so many well-dressed strangers to me, and also I had like a thousand drinks and can’t possibly recall what, say…okay, to be honest I can’t remember what anyone was wearing except for Stephanie Young’s amazing boots and Alli Warren was wearing suspenders, Erika Staiti was in drag, Brent Cunningham was in a salmon blazer that I loaned him a year ago and need to recover, Brent, just so you know, Lara Durback was in drag, Stan Apps was wearing his “Bill Luoma” shirt, Bill Luoma was wearing his “Stan Apps” shirt, just kidding, he was wearing his candy color blazer, David Buuck was wearing eyeliner, Taylor Brady was wearing an Executive Director blazer and then became Lil Debbie, Rob Halpern was wearing clothes for a while.
Miscellaneous highlights: Sasha Berkman Tupac Spahr is a born Poets Theater participant, and also his outfit was spectacular. Massive rabbit head on Lara Durback’s neck during Bunny Butoh and then in people’s hands and arms for photo taking. Fake blood. Stas Feldman emerging from a bed in Elsa in Berlin. Oh, and at the end we all threw our shoes at David Buuck.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Poet's Theater, Part the 2nd: This Friday Jan 23rd!
Please join us for night two of Small Press Traffic's annual Poets Theater Fest & fundraiser - this Friday Jan 23rd, at 730pm.
featuring:
Flow — Winged Crocodile
by Leslie Scalapino
Only the Money is Real
by Raymond Pettibon
directed by Kevin Killian
A Mummer's Play
by Vanessa Place
directed by Yedda Morrison
The News from Zimbabwe: a re-enactment
conducted by David Buuck
and come again the following Friday 1/30 for video & intermedia works by Linh Dinh, Ariana Reines, Heriberto Yépez, Konrad Steiner, Henry Hills, Paolo Javier & Dennis Somera, Dillon Westbrook, Karla Milosevich, Cassie Riger & Amanda Davidson, Bill Luoma, Claudia Rankine, & more!
and look to this blog soon for a Poet's Theater Night One Reading Report by Brandon Brown!
Small Press Traffic's Poets Theater 09, night 2
Friday Jan 23, 7pm.$10-20 donation
- refreshments will be served
featuring:
Flow — Winged Crocodile
by Leslie Scalapino
Only the Money is Real
by Raymond Pettibon
directed by Kevin Killian
A Mummer's Play
by Vanessa Place
directed by Yedda Morrison
The News from Zimbabwe: a re-enactment
conducted by David Buuck
and come again the following Friday 1/30 for video & intermedia works by Linh Dinh, Ariana Reines, Heriberto Yépez, Konrad Steiner, Henry Hills, Paolo Javier & Dennis Somera, Dillon Westbrook, Karla Milosevich, Cassie Riger & Amanda Davidson, Bill Luoma, Claudia Rankine, & more!
and look to this blog soon for a Poet's Theater Night One Reading Report by Brandon Brown!
Small Press Traffic's Poets Theater 09, night 2
Friday Jan 23, 7pm.$10-20 donation
- refreshments will be served
Sunday, January 11, 2009
This Friday 1/16: POETS THEATER FEST, NIGHT ONE!
Please join us for a full night of theater, performance, and other delights, at the first night of our annual Poets Theater Fest fundraiser. Featuring:
WORLD PREMIERES OF:
"Elsa in Berlin" by Stan Apps (directed by David Brazil)
"Perverted Virtue" by Tetra Balestri (directed by Milenko Skoknic)
"Rabbit Butoh, Bunny Butoh" by Bhanu Kapil (directed by Erin Morrill)
"Trademark Girls" by Wendy Kramer (directed by the author)
plus:
* three short plays by Daniil Kharms, trans. Matvei Yankelevich (directed by Brent Cunningham)
* intermission performances by Lindsey Boldt, Ariel Goldberg, Brandon Brown, Lara Durbeck, & others
* as well as a huge raffle, with artworks, signed broadsides and more, from a variety of poets, artists, and presses.
* wine & refreshments will be served.
And: come back on the 23rd for longer plays by Leslie Scalapino, Raymond Pettibon, Vanessa Place & more, & again on the 30th for inter-media & video works by Linh Dinh, Heriberto Yépez, Konrad Steiner, Henry Hills, Paolo Javier & Dennis Somera, Ariana Reines, Dillon Westbrook, Karla Milosevich, Cassie Riger & Amanda Davidson, Bill Luoma, Claudia Rankine, & more!
see you then & there!
Show starts promptly at 730pm. $10
Timken Hall, California College of the Arts
1111 8th St., San Francisco
sptraffic.org
WORLD PREMIERES OF:
"Elsa in Berlin" by Stan Apps (directed by David Brazil)
"Perverted Virtue" by Tetra Balestri (directed by Milenko Skoknic)
"Rabbit Butoh, Bunny Butoh" by Bhanu Kapil (directed by Erin Morrill)
"Trademark Girls" by Wendy Kramer (directed by the author)
plus:
* three short plays by Daniil Kharms, trans. Matvei Yankelevich (directed by Brent Cunningham)
* intermission performances by Lindsey Boldt, Ariel Goldberg, Brandon Brown, Lara Durbeck, & others
* as well as a huge raffle, with artworks, signed broadsides and more, from a variety of poets, artists, and presses.
* wine & refreshments will be served.
And: come back on the 23rd for longer plays by Leslie Scalapino, Raymond Pettibon, Vanessa Place & more, & again on the 30th for inter-media & video works by Linh Dinh, Heriberto Yépez, Konrad Steiner, Henry Hills, Paolo Javier & Dennis Somera, Ariana Reines, Dillon Westbrook, Karla Milosevich, Cassie Riger & Amanda Davidson, Bill Luoma, Claudia Rankine, & more!
see you then & there!
Show starts promptly at 730pm. $10
Timken Hall, California College of the Arts
1111 8th St., San Francisco
sptraffic.org
Photos from SPT's offsite MLA reading
from top: Bill Luoma, Steve Farmer, Xochiquetzal Candelaria, Scott Ignuito, Rob Halpern, Oscar Bermeo, Alli Warren, Erika Staiti, Stacy Doris, Chet Weiner, Alan Bernheimer & Brandon Brown. Thanks for coming out to the Hotel Utah for a great event. & check out some video at Oscar Bermeo's blog (thanks Oscar!)
Photos from Bev Dahlen Tribute
above: Bev with outgoing ED Dana Teen Lomax. below: Dana with Kathleen Fraser.Keep an eye on this space, as we will have presenters' statements, as well as a link to the audio recording of the talks and Bev's reading over at PENNSOUND soon!
Ron Silliman on Bev (12/08)
Bruce Boone on Bev (12/08)
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