I have an idea for a play and I wonder if you'd like to work on it with me? Le Sanges de Paris. Basically, take Conrad's Heart of Darkness, swap out the jungle for the Paris underground, Marlowe for a French detective, and the natives with Paris street youths wielding vicious imported monkeys for weapons. It would be a puppet show in various stages- shadow puppets, marionettes, larger-than-life puppet suits, etc. Narrated in second person. Original music.
It may sound far-fetched but I once saw a production of Moby Dick in Chicago with the same basic setup. It was put on by Jeff Dorchen and Red Moon theater company. Let me know . . .
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I remember that play, it was amazing! One of the few that has stayed with me all these years (if not the only one!!) And your project performance with Carmen and Alex (wasn't it?) set around rhythm and language... Brilliant - I still tell people about it :o) Your idea sounds great.
It was actually Jon Hasman (no editorial comment included) and me (Alex). I just recently found an audio recording of that performance. A lot of it made me cringe, but there are parts of it that hold up pretty well.
Hi Alex! :) hmmm, I was really impressed with the choreography/timing... you must have done something right for it to have stuck with me all this time! glad to hear you still have a copy :o)what's that sci-fi film where in the opening credits some geometric figure (maybe a space ship but not important) disintegrates into little geometric fragments floating around in space and then reintegrates again?!?... that's what the structure reminded me of...
That disintegration/reintegration was the effect we had in mind (If I remember right). Alex, what the heck!? I've been trying to call you! By the way, I talked to Steven recently . . .
I just sent you an email, Noah. How the heck is Steven?
As for your play, I like it. You'll have to tell me where your ting for monkeys comes from. Is there a Kurtz-type character?
There is definitely a Kurtz. It would have to be the previous detective sent in to handle the street-gangs. The monkey thing came from looking for an article I had read about a monkey attack in West Africa. When I searched for that one article a bunch of other monkey attack articles came up. The more I read the more interested I became. It is really quite phenomenal. Then I subscribed to a monkey news-group: MonkeyWire. Anyway, the articles and attacks keep coming. I'm branching out into "Drunken Elephant" attacks and "Bird Flu". Also, do you remember Hart Seely's re-composition of Rumsfeld speeches as poems? Well, that was the final piece. It was all too easy and too beautiful. I'm particularly fond of "Minyak's Courtship." You have to remember that these are all true stories. I didn't make up any of it.
Steven is the same . . . good, I guess. He's thinking of doing a film project on his father. I think it would be fascinating: Swaggering, New York, Jewish dancer transforms into a Mongolian scholar. The Chinese bothers, mongolian sister, Chinese wife, Jewish wife, Mongolian wife. Fear, Sex, search for identity . . .
That's a great concept. Haven't read "Hart of Darkness", only read a nice essay about it and saw "Apocalypse Now" - yeah I know, I know. I guess I should pick it up soon.
But I can really Imagine the descent into the dark labyrinthine underground of Paris working with that story. It's even allredy got those galleries full of stacked skulls and bones.
I also have thing for Puppets. Made one myself for a project last year. But never saw any good plays where the were used. I'm a great fan of Chzech film maker Jan Svankmejer http://www.awn.com/heaven_and_hell/svank/svank1.htm
though, who uses poppets and stop motion animations to mix realities a lot.
Keep on posting.
A
Yes, Svankmejer's great. I've been working on an idea for a play, using a mix of live action, puppetry and stop animation inspired in part by Jan Svankmejer and a by workshop piece I did in London with a company that uses interactive multimedia so I'd like to play with screens . .. haven't really had time to develop it for a while, but a friend started building the puppets for it a couple of years ago . . . It is based on a dream I had, I guess a dark mixed up Alice in Wonderland / Wizard of Oz. Puppets good! Seen quite a bit recently, but pure puppet theatre, achingly beautiful and clever, by a Russian director - I will try and remember his name to post it - will need to hunt out the programme! A puppet world can be so magical, in a sense more real than the flesh . . .
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