Flux Theatre Ensemble

FLUXERS, OUT AND ABOUT

Lots to see and do while you wait for our next Have Another, or recover from it!

This week, check out my short play America, or God Shed His Grace On Thee at the U.S-ification of America Conference at Center Stage - I'm on the Thursday/Saturday 'Stripes' program. This event also features plays by Flux friends John Hurley and Nick Monroy, and a host of buds from Impetuous Theater Group. I'll be there tonight - see you there?

Opening next week is the long awaited Bird House, press photo above featuring Flux Members Christina Shipp and Cotton Wright (photo by Marcus Woolen). The play is written and directed by Flux friends Kate Marks and Heidi Handelsman respectively, and also features Flux friend Anthony Wills Jr. It's a can't miss!

Opening the week after is NeverCracked, a double bill of plays featuring Flux Member Candice Holdorf, presented by our friends at The Intentional Theatre Group at MITF. Check it!

And opening and closing next week is She Of The Voice, a Thinking Person's Theatre production at The Underground Zero Festival at ps122, featuring the work of Flux collaborators Becky Kelly (Rattlers, Pretty Theft) and Rebecca Marzalek-Kelly (Rue, Riding the Bull). That's right, two Becky Kellys working on the same project - look out. (also,

Any other Flux friends doing stuff we should know about? Post below! Read the full story

What is Poetic Larceny?

And how can I learn more about Flux's upcoming production of Pretty Theft?

KATE MARKS

Director, April 13th

Previous Flux stuff: As a director, Kate participated in the Imagination Compact and Flux's 3rd Annual Little Pond Retreat, as well as directing at many Flux Sundays. As a playwright, her play Bird House was featured at several Flux Sundays, and is gearing up for a KNF July production!

We asked the amazing artists of our upcoming staged reading series Poetic Larceny to answer some questions about stealing, beauty, and consequences. Read on for their answers!

Question #1: What is the worst thing you've ever stolen?
My big sister’s private teen-age secrets. (I read her diary and love letters.)

Question #2: What is the worst thing that's been stolen from you?
A feeling of safety

Question #3: What do you find pretty?
Loving Moms and Dads, light hitting the buildings and bright colors...

Question #4: What do you find beautiful?
Paco, water, the sky, kid’s imaginations, muscles and elephants

Question #5: If you could steal something beautiful without consequences, what would it be?
Christina Aguilera’s voice.

Bio: Check out Kate's website! Read the full story

ALL THE LITTLE BREAK THROUGHS
While much of the dialogue in the theatrosphere justly involves revolutionary change, it is often little incremental break throughs that give me the most pleasure. Flux Sunday regularly reveals such break throughs - the right actor, the right director, the right role - and some new unconsidered possibility opens up. The picture here is Brian Pracht from our 2007 retreat at Little Pond, working on his play The Misogynist. And at this last Flux Sunday, he gave a performance in Dog Show that revealed possibilities new to me - of Brian as a performer, of David Ian Lee as a writer, Jeremy Basescu as a director, and of that strange pride we sometimes have in our biggest mistakes.

CALLING CQ:
We began with Jeremy's new comedy, Calling CQ, about a President who is obsessed, perhaps justifiably, with an imminent Martian invasion. Highlights of this round table reading included Richard Watson's right wing reporter Storm and Jane Taylor's no nonsense paper editor Ruth.

BIRD HOUSE:
We then had the pleasure of returning to Kate Marks antic comedy Bird House. One thing we have learned about this wildly inventive play - if you think too much about it, the play sags; but if you just live absolutely in each individual moment, the audience will follow you down the strangest journeys. Returning to the play was reigning Bird House champion Nancy Franklin as Rita, with a comically committed performance by Felicia Hudson as the militant Myra. The best line reading of the day, however, belonged to Katherine Burger's "breakfast is so cruel and I never want to have it again".

DOG SHOW:
We continued through the second half of the second scene of Dog Show, where husband and wife team Candice and Frank are seducing, encouraging and/or destroying Frank's high school buddy, Edward. This scene featured the aforementioned Brian's reveal that he may have raped a girl in college; and the nuances of disgust, denial, power and pride ran beautifully through his subtle performance.

DEAR CHINA:
As a welcome appetizer to the upcoming Imagination Compact, Joe Mathers staged Rob Ackerman's riff on Quince, Dear China. This hilarious and tender portrayal of 3 techies building a window display for a hardware store is lit up by the characters' shared love of stories; and Ken Glickfeld found the touching human heart as Quince, a playwright who gets a little embarrassed by how much he loves writing plays.

TEXAS TOAST:
Andrew and Claire's marriage has been falling under increasing distress due to dislocation, childlessness, but above all, Andrew's indiscretion with a prostitute in Thailand. The secret of that indiscretion is gleefully revealed by Sally, the wife of Andrew's boss. Spurned as a friend by the high-minded Claire, Sally's revenge plunges their marriage into literal darkness. Kate's delicate direction and Kelly O'Donnell's gleeful Saly were among the highlights of this dark patch in this beautiful play.

Only one more Sunday before we break for Midsummer! Read the full story

SUBMARINE TEXT

One of the joys of writing on a regular basis for a regular group of actors is when you write for a specific voice and that voice nails the part exactly. That little thrill was mine when Rebecca McHugh read a part named, well, Becca, in my short play contribution to this Sunday's Flux.
And as her scene partner Zack Robidas noticed in our end of day feedback session, this was a Sunday of subtext (and as playwright Jeremy Basescu voiced, full of one of subtext's primary colors, guilt).

ONEIDA, OR THE PUBLIC SUBTEXT OF DESIRE
We first read two more scenes from Johnna Adams' Oneida, Servants of Motion. Set in a historically real utopian community in the 1850's, the play has beautifully rendered the struggle inherent in making private matters public business. This religious communal society shares everything, including marriage; and the strain of making that private act a shared ritual has woven throughout all the scenes we've seen thus far. This Sunday, the charismatic founder Noyes holds a communal criticism of his sexual favorite Tirzah, both because her romantic preference for Edward goes against the grain of the community's sexual sharing, and because he wants her private heart to love him most. A very private scene followed this, where Mary, still hurt from the death of her newborn child, buries a doll she burnt to punish a child. The subtext of desire, and desire's bastard child guilt, began in these scenes and continued throughout the day's work.

SIMPLE, OR ANYTHING BUT
We then read three scenes from Jaime Robert Carrillo's Simple, a play about the impossibility of connection for Perry, the play's protagonist. Told in a theatrically alienating way, this Sunday's scenes opened Perry up through a series of comically heartbreaking letters he writes to a sports coach, a political candidate, his father, and an ex-lover. An uneasy laughter broke the tension as this lonely man tried to find any kind of companionship.

BIRD HOUSE, OR YES AND
A refreshing break was taken from the guilt submarine of Sunday the 6th with Kate Marks' Bird House. Syl has left Louisy and the Bright Side to right wrongs on the Lop Side, where War Wolves abound and family pictures are blown by hot winds over barren lands. Syl wrestles with Myra, a child-like tyrant who claims to be the Sarge Ant of the Lop, as Louisy attempts to befriend Myra's caretaker Rita. A great note about this play came out of the feedback session - this is a play of 'yes, ands'; the improv term used to describe the practice of agreeing to whatever your scene partner says, no matter how outlandish. This 'yes,and' energy stirs the play into a whimsical frenzy, undercut throughout with moments of longing and darkness.

TEXAS TOAST, OR WHATEVER YOU SAY, DON'T SAY ANYTHING
The dueling marriages of Claire and Andrew (well meaning east coast liberals failing to have children) versus Sally and Bo (shamelessly vital spiritually christian socially darwin texans) deepens as Andrew relies more and more on the memory of Mai (an underage Thai prostitute his boss Bo gave him as a 'gift') to survive the loss of desire towards his wife; and Sally becomes ever more frustrated by her inability to win over Claire as a friend. Really lovely work from director Kate and her cast of David Ian lee as Andrew, Elise Link as Sally, Greg Waller as Bo, and the especially Amy Fitts as Claire. The tension of the unsaid is growing nearly unbearable...I hope it lasts.

CALLING CQ, OR NO MORE MISTER MEAN GUY
After the domestic war of A Wonderful Wife, Jeremy Basescu's new play Calling CQ seems to be the national comedy of the presidency. President Clifford Quotidien careens about his office, teasing the secret service and befuddling a reporter with tales of a Martian invasion. Whether CQ's zaniness is real, or a red herring for a real invasion, or both; we will have to tune in next week to discover. This and Bird House both offered refreshing doses of comedy to the otherwise dramatic day of work.

SIX BEERS IN, OR SUBLINGS
My aforementioned contribution Six Beers In foreshadowed the sibling rivalry of our November production of 8 Little Antichrists by casting Zack Robidas and Rebecca McHugh as brother and sister. With Isaiah directing and acting, this dream team was a little gift to myself, as the three of them navigated the uncertain waters between a brother and sister many years estranged. Subtle subtext siblings, sigh. This short set in a bar was written for Blue Box's Sticky series - we'll see if they decide to pick it up!

DOG SHOW, OR SUBTEXT OF A CERTAIN PITCH
Though we can't hear pitches that dogs can, we sure can hear them barking; and though Frank can't follow the strange sudden connection between his wife Candice and old high school bud Edward, he doesn't miss the barking. When Candice and Edward talk at a level to high or subtle for the bullish Frank, he responds by staking his turf in less elegant prose. While we only made it half way through this scene from David Ian Lee's new play, great work by new friend Anna Kull and Brian Pracht gave the scene an irresistable sexual (and subtextual) tension.

So there it was...a Sunday with a little guilt, a lot of subtext, and a few shots of pure silliness. There's probably a church joke there somewhere, but I'll leave it to others to make. Read the full story

ON BIRDS AND BUNNIES
Our Flux workshop on Sunday the 23rd, aka 'Easter', was a blissfully smaller turnout of 14 people - about 12 less than our recent average - and I welcomed the intimate crowd.

ONEIDA, OR ISAIAH GOES SLEDDING
We continued through Johnna Adams' wonderful play about the utopian community in mid-1800's New York, Oneida, or Servants of Motion. Kate Marks directed three short scenes - in the first, founder Noyes and his favorite lover Tirzah discuss the unusual communal marriage structure even as Noyes tries to exempt her from it and claim her all for himself. In the second, Mary, she of last week's stillborn child, teaches her students the value of punctuality by burning a late girl's doll. In the third, the middle-aged Harriet teaches teen-age Pip the thrill and difficulty of sex with male continence, likening it to sledding. In all three scenes, the surprise of human need breaks through the unusual social structures, dropping hints of how this community may fall apart. Very strong performances were given by all: Ken Glickfeld and Katie Hartke in the first; Candice Holdorf and Kelly O'Donnell in the second, and Isaiah Tanenbaum and Kelly again in the third.

BIRD HOUSE, OR HEIDI'S PLAYHOUSE
Heidi Handelsman directed the latest scene in Kate's Bird House to delightful affect, with a comically tyrannical Myra-on-stilts by Charlotte Graham; a spirited Syl by Johnna; and a manically depressed and besieged Louisy by Heather Cohn. This was the closest we've come to bottling the elusive genii of Kate's play, and it was a basket full of perfect Peeps.

EGEUS, OR GUS GOES VERSING
My contribution to our upcoming Imagination Compact (more info soon) was our last play of the day, and was directed with great patience by Jeremy Basescu. I was literally writing as they were rehearsing, and I gave him two new pages every twenty minutes until this short play was done. It features Egeus and Demetrius from Midsummer, captured by Amazons after fighting alongside Theseus; and as they reminisce about what they left behind, a bond develops between them that puts the first scene of the play in an unusual light. After the fun I had writing in verse for Gideon's (now renamed) Blueprint project, I was very happy to return to all the little pleasure blank verse can give. David Douglas Smith and Brian Pracht did a great job steering the little ship of intention on this sea of words.

Sunday, bunny Sunday. Read the full story

ALONE AND TOGETHER
One of our most exciting and well-executed Flux's that I can remember, our work together on the 16th seemed to coalesce around themes of aloneness and togetherness. Those themes were especially lovely and unsettling in Johnna Adams' play Oneida, Servants of Motion, about the Perfectionist communist christian utopian community that thrived for 33 years in upstate New York in the mid 1800's (picture to the left). The Oneidans share everything, including and most famously there marriage - all the women of the community were married to all of the men - and in this "complex marriage" (as they called it) women were encouraged to have multiple partners and the men required to practice male continence. The incredible closeness of this community lead (for some) to an equally strong alienation; and those themes echoed through the rest of our work.

SIMPLE: WHAT ALONE SOUNDS LIKE
In Jaime Robert Carrillo's play Simple, that alienation was at its strongest. Director Kate Mark and a cast of Joe Mathers, Gretchen Poulos and Jake Alexander found theatrically evocative ways to stage Jaime's themes of disconnection: one actor would turn upstage and say the lines as another actor silently acted saying them. Simple, but effectively disturbing, and Joe as the Clerk and Gretchen as Gigi and the Waitress found the humor surrounding Jake's portrayal of Perry as an open walking wound. We'd read these scenes at a Sunday last year, but Kate's staging really brought these first scenes to a disturbingly vivid life. Perry tries increasingly asocial ways to establish any kind of social connection.

ONEIDA: ALONE IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE
In contrast, Mary has an entire utopian community married to her to help her through the pain of her stillborn child. But in this next scene of Johnna's Oneida, that only makes her feel more alone. Because the Oneidans also practiced open and vigorous group criticism, Mary's failure to bring a child to birth subjects her to not only the group's concerned love, but also their concerned criticism; particularly at the hands of Ann, the head of criticism fiercely played by Flux newcomer Nitya Vidyasagar. In order to make up for her failure, Mary (heartbreakingly played by another newbie, Autumn Horne) asks for more and more severe criticism. This unsettlingly funny and sad scene was well staged by Jaime and featured additional great work from Jane Taylor, Ken Glickfeld, and Jason Paradine.

TEXAS TOAST: OTHER MARRIAGES DINING TOGETHER
In contrast with the 'complex' communal marriage of Oneida, Katherine Burger's Texas Toast again contrasted the vital and cruel marriage of the Texan Bo and Sally against the fragile and kind marriage of East Coasters Claire and Andrew. I was lucky enough to direct a dream cast of Richard Watson, Elise Link, Amy Fitts and David Ian Lee; and in a dinner scene between the two couples, watch how subtly Katherine exposes the fault lines and shifting allegiances between them. The theme of childlessness from Oneida carries through into Claire's chilling public declaration of her own barrenness; and as Andrew continues to hide the secret of his dalliance in Thailand, our hopes for this couple come under increasing siege.

BIRD HOUSE: TOGETHER UNTIL YOU'RE NOT
But if Texas Toast hints at the impending doom of a couple, Bird House gives it to us direct, albeit in its trademark vaudevillian style. Syl and Lousy have the banter of mutual shut-ins shut-in for a very long time - playwright Kate Marks even has ancient versions of them occasionally commenting on the action. But Syl, inspired by the hints of war and death and full of her own ability to change things, leaves the musty safety of Louisy behind; and in the silly comic banter that ensues, a little of the loneliness these zanies may find creeps in.

A WONDERFUL WIFE: ALONE WITH YOURSELF
The denouement of Jeremy Basescu's A Wonderful Wife served as a lovely and apt denouement to our days' work: whereas the other four plays' scenes dealt with breaking apart and disconnecting, Wife ends with June coming together in herself. She doesn't need Carl, Max, or the vampiric Angela to find beauty any longer; she has found it in herself. She has become, in the memorable words of Max's girlfriend (and Angela's defiant daughter) Christine, almost like the air in a room; her presence expanding to fill everything while at the same time giving room for others to move within. Rob Ackerman's reading of Carl the husband's letter to his lost wife proved a melancholy counterpoint to June's newfound independence - he is finally all the way alone and his only grace, knowing he is the sole cause of it.

After all the scenes were done, we had just enough time to circle and discuss one moment in the day's work that had some 'heat'; and all five plays received well-deserved attention. And I left feeling lucky to be a part of Flux's own, ever evolving and always complex marriage. Read the full story

PLAYING WITH POWER
Flux Sundays has been growing steadily, and we have now had to change our invitation structure so that new folks come for three sessions only - giving us a chance to know them, and vice versa - with the potential of future revisits after all on the waiting list have had a chance. However, those invited before this strange set of rules was put in place still have permanent invitations; and that is very happy news in the case of Kate Marks, a director/playwright who did both (and even acted!) in her Flux Sunday debut. (The picture to your left is an image from her production of The Odyssey at LookingGlass - can you spy a different Flux Sunday regular?)

THE DOG SHOW: POWER WITH A VIEW
All our plays this particular Sunday dealt above all with power, and that was especially true with David Ian Lee's post-Sleeper play, The Dog Show. I played Edward (the guy with the power) and Jason Paradine played Frank (the one, allegedly, without it), and Cotton Wright, a powerhouse herself, directed. Having had too many family members who took too much pleasure from the power they held over others, it was an uncomfortable if familiar skin I slipped into, torturing Jason's character by 'helping' him seek revenge on a common enemy. We were all buzzing about what will come next, as David laid just enough mysterious land mines down in this first scene that we're all wondering who will be blown to the moon.

A WONDERFUL WIFE: POWER LOST AND REGAINED
Jeremy Basescu's A Wonderful Wife reached its shattering climax. Angela, the 'visitor' who took broke apart June and Carl's marriage, has found a shared love of beauty and female power with June even as she is (or was) Carl's lover. Her power over them both is pulled out from under her by sketches drawn by June and Carl's son, Max. Max has tracked down Angela's daughter and drawn her nude - drawn her so beautifully that Angela's poisonous hold is broken, and husband and wife enjoy a blissful, if brief, reunion. Candice Holdorf's stunned reaction to being dethroned was one of the finest performances of a stage direction I've ever seen at a Flux Sunday. Both Rob Ackermen and Anja Braanstorm captured the beauty and fear of having their blinders finally ripped painfully off. And Isaiah Tanenbaum continued his excellent direction of Jeremy's work.

BIRD HOUSE: POWER AS A GAME
The first scene of Kate Mark's play Bird House was a zany yang to the gin yin of David's Dog Show. The birds in question are Lousiy and Syl, two roommates and friends bound to each other to fill the boredom of their days with silly songs and kukcoo bird watching. Almost like a Godot staged by Jim Henson, the characters try to entertain themselves in a darkly whimsical world where murmurs of war and death darken their play. Though fun was had by all, particularly capturing the earnest craziness of the play was Nancy Franklin's Louisy.

TEXAS TOAST: SEXY POWER
Kate directed this lovely set of scenes from Katherine Burger's play that I am currently obsessed with, and in these scenes, sex and power have a messy hook up. Andrew, our East Coast liberal mild mannered expert on Asia, falls under the spell of his boss, the Texas-sized social Darwinist, Bo. On their trip to Thailand, Bo slips a teenage prostitute into Andrew's room; and while Andrew at first attempts to get the girl out, the scene deepens as the complexity of both their needs are revealed. Claire, Andrew's wife, is obsessed with having a child; and Andrew cannot seem to give it to her; and as a result, their sex has become clinical. Feeling lonely and powerless, Andrew makes a mistake he cannot soon forget. In contrast to that difficult marriage, Bo and his ferociously Christian former cheer-leader of a wife Sally, attract with the vitality of their love even as the cruelty of their opinions repel.

In sum, a powerful Sunday. Read the full story