- Video Recorded May 2010

Sometimes new art springs forth from unexpected places. I called Johnny Hamil one day to see if Marco’s V7 would be willing to play at the Nectar Notes mini-fest this summer. Once that discussion was over, he told me about a play he was going to perform in. He said he was the bassist in the band playing its score, so I figured it would make a good piece for Nectar Notes. Mike and I showed up on the First Friday of May, and Tyson Schroeder’s paintings were displayed in The Living Room where the play was taking place. To purchase tickets, we walked through the surreal danse macabre, surrounded by vague, demented and worn faces, nostalgic for reality. We walked this stretch of room in seconds, but over our shoulders loomed the weary eyes of several life times. Creepy. But when we approached the ticket booth, we were greeted by a colorful and cheerful hostess, one of the producers of the show. She was in a red dress, and there were a few men gliding around in suspenders and hats, coming in and out of an implied employees only door presumably to check attendence. Unexpectedly, since the play was very obviously independent, the programs were professionally shiny and thick, and the price was a respectably firm $15. 

Up the stairs we went and were ushered in by 30s’ costumed security. At the top there were two more men in hats, and also costumed and bartending for donations (score) was one of the Cosmic Tadys; the Matt one to be precise. Mike and I were a half hour early, so we were able to get our drinks (two gin and sprites for me before the thing started up) and nab a front table. Johnny Hamil, Jeff Freling (guitarist and composer of the music for the play), Jeffery Rukaman, and Kent Burnham made up the Band that played really chilled out jazz/funk/utterly-cool music for the early birds, and all the rest of the music subsequently. 

When the play started, we were introduced to the show by a smarmy asshole named The Preacher, played by Cody Wyoming, dressed in a smart white jacket and black slacks with slicked-back hair. The stage was a V with a perfect 90 degree angle. A door lead backstage at the bottom of one side. There were chairs set up on one side, and at the end of the other side was the band’s area. The Preacher delivered his sermon at the center of the V, and immediately turned the audience into part of the act by speaking to us as if we were at a swanky speakeasy about to watch a play. . . which we were already doing. He then introduced Miss Holly Red, played by Shay Estes in a RED dress, who introduced the rest of the play with a song. These two characters punctuate the acts throughout, providing a break for the audience’s minds after all the knots they get tied up in by the main “plot.”

The meat of this play is based around a hitman named Leon Nesrac, played by the originating mind,Tyson Schroeder, who shoots his . . . girlfriend? Her name is Karen Heritage, played by Katie Gilchrist, and she dies shortly after delivering her first line. Soon Leon’s alter egos show up. Manchester Gravy, played by co-writer Christian Hankel, is his psychotic and well-dressed hitman side. Zooey Goodwill, played by Erin McGrane, is his innocence and childish side in a big poofy skirt and sandworm patterned stockings. The cast of characters is topped off by (another alter ego of Leon’s?) none other than everyone’s favorite cameo, the disembodied voice of God, played by Walter Coppage.

I haven’t had this much fun at a play in a long time. I actually saw it twice because there is a lot of dialogue to miss when you’re crawling around pointing your iPhone at the actors like a moron. From what I could gather, the play is about the nature of narration and storytelling in general, and the difficulties of expressing the human motives behind committing horrible acts. The pacing was great, the blocking was believable and did well to keep a one room setting interesting, and the props were few and economical without the stage looking sparse and dull. The two puppet shows were an amusing feature of Zooey’s character, if a bit gratuitous, that also helped break the monotony of the set. There was a redundant sequence that got on my nerves where the cast synchronized putting flashlights under their chins and repeated the lyrics to one of Miss Molly Red’s songs. The fine ladies did a terrific job in their roles, each playing giddy juvenile excitement and prickly ennui convincingly. The male leads (the two writers, nudge nudge) tended to ham it up a bit, but the overall direction and feel of the play tended to cover it up enough so they weren’t too bothersome. The disjointed and cryptic nature of the overall structure was disorienting and bordered on incoherent, but of course the music behind the play was the goo that stuck everything together. 

Published Wednesday, 9th June 2010 - Written by Jeff Benjamin