A Richard
Foreman and John Zorn's music/theater collaboration
With
my long-standing - since Rhoda in Potatoland - interest in the
mind-twisting work of Richard Foreman and my nose for noise, I was drawn swiftly
into the Foreman-Zorn music/theater alliance ASTRONOME : A Night at the
Opera.
Then immediately on entering the theater I silently uttered a moo of relief; intuitively observing the absence of movie screens
on the set - as was the case with the prior two Foreman presentations. Enough
all ready with the canned action, I remember thinking. At long last, a return to the
over-the-top hysterics of actual jolting being that I
have come to love and need and expect from ForemanÕs theatrical
recombinants.
For
me Foreman means corporeal confrontations in a compact arena with bodies of
bizarre outsized men and strange sensual women that require (and recompense) my
complete attention. No - more than my complete attention. His workÕs tremendous
vibrancy typically exceeds my attention as at his more engaging performances -
like Maria Del Bosco, Bad Boy Nietzsche, and Paradise
Hotel (Hotel Fuck) - I am characteristically conscious of my frequent
shifts in awareness, both on the horizontal axis and in depth of field. There
is just so much delicious silly nastiness going on in my peripheral
field-of-view to comprehend visually and theatrically. So it is as if
everything in the world is integrated on stage; including my horniest of
fantasies coupled with such feelings as ardent rage. Of course with Foreman
there is always (happily) a predominance of bewildering punch lines conveying a
wacky/tacky pathos laced with gleeful flourishes of black humor, dizzying
shrewd philo-poetic tangled tangents tied to rapid cadences of concatenation
(followed by washes of slowcore tenderness), a good deal of bricolage and
bucolic litter penetrated by furious trance-like movements that seem lost in
the tatters of time: all expressed through an incredibly precise craftsmanship
that masks as improvisational sensual intimacy.
But
alas, such oceans of sensual majesty are about to halt - especially the
physically intimate ingredients. Richard Foreman, our leading provocateur of
the imagined conundrum (our Raymond Rousel), is hanging it up as of April 5th so as to turn
his creative energy to feature film. That was the tragic ending for me, to what
had been a richly mercurial night of playful-sexy vaudeville revealed in the
public post-show interview Foreman granted
Sally Oswald.
What
awaits ahead for a fan like me, I fear, is the coldly concerted activity of
downloading and watching Foreman films of canned encounters on a 2x3 inch
screen on my ipod Š as I am rather skeptical that his films will enjoy
commercial movie-house presentation. (*) Though
that would be nice as an augmentation to his actual theatrical presentations, I
think I will miss the animal in me engaged when confronted with one sort of conspicuously excessive encounter or another in
which the affirmation of the other keeps appearing and disappearing in a play
of meaty maneuvers (or mechanisms) destined to avert my gratification. Oh well.
I will remember all
the more fondly then how the recorded music of John
Zorn (The Moonchild Trio) lent itself well to ASTRONOME : A Night at
the Opera
as the glossolalia-like vocal theatrics of Michael Allan Patton (reminiscent of
Diamanda Galas) - mixed with hardcore pastiche
(reminiscent of the Butthole Surfers).
It was wonderful how
that choppy music being played over the top of FormanÕs elaborately constructed mystical exploits (just as there was no
opera here, there was no real collaboration between Zorn and Foreman) enforced
in me the creation of regressive memories of my simultaneously dabbling in punk
and the occult. Such reminiscents began prolonging my current inner hysteria
into an infernal eternity through the construction of noise as clichˇ. In that
sense, the reoccurring message of Ņraising the deadÓ that was intoned actually
transpired. Dead memories from my youth came to the surface of my consciousness
and flooded my mind. And I felt the pangs of loss. But have I failed to mention
the enormous nose and the hanging Medusa?
**Fin**
Joseph Nechvatal
Limited
run from February 5 to April 5 2009 at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater at St.
MarkÕs Church, 131 East 10th Street, East Village http://www.ontological.com/
I
viewed the February 17th performance that was followed by an
interview of Richard
Foreman by Sally Oswald (Paper Theater and Play a
Journal of Plays).
ASTRONOME : A Night at the Opera
Directed and designed by Richard Foreman; music by John Zorn; lighting by
Mr. Foreman; technical director, Peter Ksander; stage manager, Brendan
Regimbal. Presented by the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Mr. Foreman, artistic
director; Shannon Sindelar, managing director. At the Ontological-Hysteric
Theater at St. MarkÕs Church, 131 East 10th Street, East Village; (212)
352-3101. Through April 5. Running time: 1 hour.
WITH:
Deborah Wallace (Woman in All Black), Morgan von Prelle Pecelli (Woman in Fez),
Fulya Peker (Woman in White Blouse), Karl Allen (Man in Striped Hat), Eric
Magnus (Man in Fez), Benjamin Forster (Man in White Blouse) and Jamie Peterson
(Man in Green Face).
The Moonchild is formed by: Joey Baron (drums), Mike
Patton (voice), Trevor Dunn (bass), John Zorn (producer, conductor, and
composer)
John Zorn (The Moonchild Trio) - Astronome [2006]
tracklist:
01.act
one: a secluded clearing in the woods; a single bed in a small room; the
innermost chapel of a secret temple
02.act
two: a medieval laboratory; in the magick circle
03.act
three: a barren plain at midnight; an unnamed location
(*) See,
for example, Strong Medicine 1981: http://www.ubu.com/film/foreman.html
My other
takes on Richard
Foreman's plays:
WAKE UP MR. SLEEPY! YOUR
UNCONSCIOUS MIND IS DEAD!
http://post.thing.net/node/1261
http://post.thing.net/node/1902
Maria Del Bosco
(Sex and Racing Cars: A Sound Opera)
http://www.eyewithwings.net/nechvatal/foreman.html