Asphalt
Jungle Shorts II
A
walk along adventure…
Please note….the pictures
in this story are, I believe, from the first Friday show.
These
pictures (except for the City of
|
People
gathered, as they are wont to do, in the rotunda of our city hall. They all believed they were all part of the
audience. Never assume, a wonderful
man told me…you make an ass of u and me. Ha! They
wait. Unsure.
This process of street theatre really
exposes the people with control issues.
They like to be abreast of things.
They
aske: When does it start? Where do we stand? How will we know it’s starting? Where does it go from here? How many plays? How long will it take? Where will we end up? Me: Soon.
There. You’ll know. Where they lead you. Enough.
Until it’s over.
Somewhere nice.
Things happen
at once. They are supposed to. I am also the box office/house person. I’m taking tickets. Smiling nicely. Not really answering any of their
questions…which is better to do if you are smiling nicely. And all the while, I’m looking
around, then looking at my empty arm in a bit of a frazzle. Maybe as I am writing this, I’ll
remember to wear a watch tonight. (I
didn’t) I look around for
someone I know pretty well. Sometimes
it’s someone connected with the show…
I say.
“Something’s…well…something….I
have…oh, never mind. Could you
watch the box office (a table and chair couple of charts and a cash box)…but
don’t sell any tickets. I steal
two fives from the cash box and take off up the staircase in the City Hall
after two funky looking street people, Cosmo and Gigi. While I’m bribing them with two
fives, a ruckus starts in the line-up.
People wanting to butt-in, a perfect victim gonna save the world girl
offers the people whose lives are more important an opportunity to exercise
their unalienable right to be first.
This is BAD FEET written by NY playwright, Kathy Kramer and directed
by Matthew White. After showing Cosmo
and Gigi where to take the group of people (assuming whoever was supposed to do that did not show up), they
join the group, asking them to line up in groups of fives…no
threes…no, fives and threes.
They launch into the first scene of Cosmo and Gigi. GIGI Hey. Know what? COSMO No.
Don’t start on the god thing.
Don’t And in a
couple of lines, their relationship as existential lovers is established. Note: Cosmo and Gigi, written by Isabella
Russell-Ides of Thus begins
the show. “Are you
ready?” Gigi says. “Let’s go!” And the audience follows where they lead.
Although one night, I heard a woman say,
“Do you think it’s safe to go with them?” I smiled.
Cosmo & Gigi (right behind Cosmo
is Jenni Munday, our director from Out the front doors of the city hall,
to the fountain, which has been turned off for us.
A guy and a
stone bench and a chessboard. Cosmo
leaves the group to play a quick game.
BLITZ is this play, written by the actors (Bruce Wolff and Brendan
Schaefer – honed by director/playwright Gary Kirkham). Blitz is a play of word games, contrived to
throw Cosmo off his game.
BLITZ written and performed by Bruce
Wolfe & Brendan Schaefer
When the timer
goes off, interestingly, from Brendan’s pocket. The game is over, and the audience turns to
head to the next location.
On the upper balcony of the City Hall,
a couple is deep…really deep…into a kiss. I’m sure the audience doesn’t
know whether it’s part of the show or not…well, until the
fountains…all five of them, start up again…right in the middle of
the kiss. Hmmm.
Bruce Wolff
Katharine Mills Cosmo and Gigi
lead the audience, like a surreal bohemian parade, to A couple,
behind a painting - only their legs are visible…are doing God knows
what behind the painting…panting, breathing
hard….hard…it’s moving.
Meny
Beriro’s SHOCK. It’s a
short piece. The couple emerge from
behind the painting, in tact, wearing all their clothes…ah…it was
the art they were reacting to...
Tanya Williams
and Thomas Parent continue looking at the art, and quietly take seats with
the audience as Nicholas Cumming enters, auspiciously critiquing the pieces
with a keen eye and palpable body language.
He gasps at the pile of Styrofoam boxes – meant to be a
sculpture.
Enter Gloria
(Shelagh Ranalli), a little gruff, a little outspoken. She looks at the ‘sculpture and rolls
her eyes, sighing.” “My
daughter could have done that…and she’s five!” MY NAME IS ART
by Peter Snoad was probably the funniest piece in the show. After arguing the finer, and not so finer
points dealing with the value of art, which reaches a frenzied pitch with the
Architect trying to convince the plumber… “And the boxes, they have a uniform size and
shape—we’re reproducing the same stupidity over and over and over
again, intellectual pygmies that we are. And yet—and yet—if we
re-arrange the boxes in different configurations, we convince ourselves, we
create the grand self-perpetuating illusion, that we’re actually being
creative. Which is, of course, the devastating irony of the whole piece.” (Insert huge laughter from the audience here) Ah. It seems as if she finally gets it just as
Art walks in (Douglas Morton).
Art, written
across his chest. Art, not short for
Arthur… “No, just Art. My parents thought of me as a work of art.
Hence the name.”
Now this is Art she can sink her teeth
into…so to speak.
A little difficult convincing the
architect.
On to the next
space. The audience turns the corner,
and on the fourth floor of a well lit stairway to a parking garage, a couple
are deep…oh, so deep into a kiss.
Damn…it’s the same guy that was kissing
earlier…different girl though. – the wacky one from the first
play…that was a play…wasn’t it?
Cosmo and Gigi
argue about disappointment and tea.
She almost leaves. People hold
their breath….she’s on her way up the hill, but like a magnet,
Cosmo’s presence pulls her back.
“Are you disappointed?”
She says, smiling…and nudging him. “Nah.” It was a lovely moment. We cross the street to beside what used
to be the Legion. Lovely old building
owned by the city. There is a huge
dumpster at the end of the lot.
Starting to get dark. The crowd
follow Cosmo and Gigi toward the dumpster.
The sound of people running….loud, out of breath around the
corner, back against the wall….manly scream as she rounds the corner
brandishing a….curling iron! (The city got their pants in a twist when
they heard this piece had been choreographed with a meat cleaver, hence the
curling iron.) DOUBLE EDGE
WORD is wonderful. Tanya Williams, who
teaches contact improve, dance, movement choreographed this piece as well as
acted in it with Kristopher Bowman (who is also the kisser – tough
job). This was directed by Jenni
Munday. The first two
minutes is an incredible fight scene, with the two of them fighting over the
curling iron, lots of grunting and manic laughter.
He ends up
with her over his shoulder, grabbing the wrist brandishing the iron, and
seeming to slam her into a rough brick wall, pinning the wrist to the
wall. Both of them, breathing hard,
out of breath…
HE: What? SHE: What? HE: What? SHE: What what? HE: Nevermind. And on it goes
- one minute and twenty seconds of really funny, ambiguous dialogue written
by Melissa Major of
Cosmo and Gigi watching Double Edged
Word. The crowd
mills. Cosmo and Gigi never really
look sure about what they are doing. GIGI Hah! That’s it then. COSMO What? GIGI I don’t know. For a minute I had it. Now. Nothing. Gigi throws a green plastic tiny doll she’d found
into the dumpster. It immediately
flies back out again. And then more
things come flying out… TOM Come on...crap... (he tosses out some garbage) ...crap... (more garbage flies out) ...and cr—ah, wait a minute. What
do we have here? Come to papa, my little beauty. CAN
CAN’T – by Michael Burgan.
I love the fact that Tom lies to his wife…saying he’s
going out for smokes, to actually go out and dumpster dive. It’s a sickness, and Tom’s wife
is intent on curing him. There is a
large house that’s been made into a bar…Whiskey Jacks, I
believe. The deck looks out over the
parking lot, and every night we collected quite an audience from the bar,
hooting and applauding at the end of the play, performed by Brendan Schaefer
and Shelagh Ranalli, directed by Kathleen Sheehy. The audience
follows Cosmo and Gigi. A block over
is a lovely green space. The audience
is lead around the corner and into a park like setting, where a table has
been set, a bit surreally, with a white cloth, a pitcher of water and one
glass. A lost couple wanders into the
space, on the heels of Cosmo and Gigi scene V. ADAM: I mean, I
figured it was safe to- ARIEL: Shut up. ADAM: -
to close my eyes for five minutes. ARIEL: Shut…up! ADAM: The sun was
behind you, for God’s sake. That was a big hint you were heading
east. ARIEL: Like you
never make a mistake. There are park
benches, and retaining walls for the audience to sit on. The couple argues over whether or not to drink
the water. It’s a beautiful play
by The audience
is lead away by Cosmo & Gigi.
Always in character.
Around the
next corner, the Cenotaph
The Cenotaph (here is where the photographer stopped
shooting as the light was gone, and he kindly, wouldn’t use a flash) A clean white
shirt on the walkway, and we are now watching ALLEN FUNT IS DEAD by Kathleen
Kramer – who incidentally came to the show last week…from New
York, and we were thrilled to have her there.
A conversation between two strangers about why the shirt is there, and
why it may not be a good idea to take it.
It was performed by Tracey Kenyon & Douglas Morton, directed by
David Antscherl. Looking up
from that piece…another kiss…this time, on the stairway to an
overpass…talk about an over pass.
He kisses her…and kisses her, and kisses her…and
then…then…he wife arrives.
After a bit of a scene…’she’ leaves and Kris ends up
kissing his ‘wife’. Just
fun shtick. Cosmo and Gigi
move the audience to the corner, and cross the street. Milling around a phone booth, some poor
woman just about to leave the phone and up comes the SENTINEL, by Andrew
Lakin. Consumed with the danger of
germs and ‘jobbies’ on the phone, she rants to a surprised woman,
and the audience, until she races off yelling at someone to “GET OFF THAT
BENCH!” Arlene Thomas was
wonderful in this piece directed by Kathleen Sheehy. The final
scene of Cosmo and Gigi is performed, with Gigi walking away after giving
Cosmo a precious mitten. She gently
calls over her shoulder…I know. (She is in one of the last plays) The audience
is then lead to the Delta Inn’s lounge.
Lovely and civilized, especially when we’ve just taken the
audience through some of the more seedier areas of downtown. Cosmo is at the door, collecting lanyards,
and encouraging the audience to order a drink, or use the washroom….but
not at the same time. This is the
intermission, although it’s more like three quarters way through. CHARLENE MEETS
LUKE IN A REALLY NICE BAR by Christopher Lockheardt shouldn’t be
performed in a bar…but it was.
They were, however, sitting in the bar in their lounge clothes, her in
curlers…him slippers reading the paper.
Whenever we get into the bar, guests of the hotel are there, thinking
to have a quiet drink, so there’s always some interesting
reactions. They sit there, reading the
paper, her fussing with her nails through about five minutes of the
intermission, and then she looks at him, frustrated. WOMAN (After staring at him for a long
thoughtful moment) We’re strangers. MAN (Turns the page of his paper.) Yeah, yeah, yeah. WOMAN No. Pretend. MAN What? WOMAN Pretend! We’re strangers. We don’t know each other. MAN We don’t? WOMAN No. This piece got
so many laughs as the two of them make believe right into the realization that
they don’t know each other at all.
She imagines she is a rare jewel appraiser who has Brad Pitt in the
palm of her hand, and he is a Nascar Racer…. MAN Yeah, I mean, what can I do? Not only am I rich, but I’m
good looking and funny! How can they resist? I try to push them off, because
racing is a dangerous game, and I swore when I chose this life that I’d
do it alone so I wouldn’t break a good woman’s heart with my
tragic, fiery death. WOMAN How many women are there? MAN I like to think of it as one woman with a thousand faces. Roger Sumner
and Tracey Kenyon performed this piece. After it
ended, the waitress (Arlene Thomas), who has been a re-occurring character
throughout - playing the neurotic woman in Bad Feet, and the neurotic
obsessive compulsive woman in The Sentinel, approaches the table brusquely,
pours water, and leaves. Ah, the guy
sitting alone with the bowtie is supposed to look weird. His date, Laurie, comes back from the
washroom…shoeless. He’s
horrified to realize she has taken her shoes off under the table and now is
missing one shoe. This guy could give
Felix Unger a run for his money. FOR
WANT OF A SHOE was written by Kristine McGovern. The waitress and Paul might be a match made
in hell, and for Paul and Lauren, the shoe is the breaker. LAURIE Oh? So is this the deal-breaker, Paul? Is this it? Will it
spell the end of our beautiful and burgeoning relationship if I go under this
table to retrieve my shoe? PAUL Laurie, if you go under that table with all those, those germs
and where other people’s smelly, dirty feet have been… I just
don’t think I could ever touch you again. LAURIE Really! I would be so contaminated, so unclean, that you could
never touch me again. Imagine. Me, an untouchable. Nonetheless, I want that
shoe. (With that, LAURIE disappears
under the table.) WAITRESS I could never do that in a million years. PAUL Good for you. That’s to your credit. I would say
Laurie leaves in a huff, but as none is available, she limps awkwardly out…never
did find the other shoe, and returns, plunking the shoe on the table –
a parting gift. Of course the waitress
and Paul are going to hook up… PAUL Wait! Don’t go yet. (WAITRESS
stops.) It’s so strange, but … I feel like I know you now.
Like we’ve shared some, some terrible experience and survived and now I
know you. Does that make any sense? At all? WAITRESS Yes, I know what you mean. I feel like I know you, too. (SHE and PAUL gaze at each other.) This piece was performed by Thomas Parent, Katharine Mills and
Arlene Thomas. And so we come
to the end. I stand and announce this
to the audience, and the unsuspecting victims in the bar. I stop.
Glance out the window overlooking the indoor pool. Sigh.
Shake my head and walk toward the window. There are California shutters on the
windows, so the audience has to stand up to see what I’m looking
at. On the far side of the pool is
Laurie…the shoe girl, kissing…you guessed, Kris. I knock hard on the window, and am
dismissed with a wave. I knock again…and
wave them in to take a bow with the rest of the cast and crew. One night….smile…I talked and
talked and talked, make them kiss for what must have seemed like hours. People swimming in the pool were a little
shocked…hiding children’s eyes.
Very funny. Didn’t
actually get any complaints though. This is the
bar after the plays. |
To all the Playwrights, Actors,
Directors, Stage Managers, City of Kitchener, Jump Logistics, Delta Inn,
Verdexus
and most especially the audience, without
whom, there would be no show……………thank you. ~Paddy
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