Cranking 'Em Out

I've always admired those creative types that consistently turn out new work at a rapid rate. Folks like Woody Allen, Steven Soderbergh, Stephen King, Louis CK, Dave Sim. People like these—and several others—who produce new works in their respective field at least once or twice a year (or in Sim's case, once a month). Prolificacy is something I've always looked up to. Hell, even with creative types whose work I hate, I've still been impressed with their productivity.

Some of it's motivated by compulsion. No matter how many times he's announced his "retirement," King clearly just can't stop—or slow down—writing. Woody Allen has said in interviews he makes a movie every year because it takes his mind off his life and feels restless when on vacation for too long (he also comes from a background in television, where you don't have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike before creating—you have to produce content week in, week out, no matter what). Some of it's dictated by the rules of the field. Monthly comics, like television, have to produce on a fixed schedule. And some of it's motivated by good old-fashioned work ethic. Louis CK announced that he's going to start from scratch with material every year, and come up with an hour's worth of new material annually. (Even amongst other professional stand-ups, this is unheard of.)

Whatever the reasons—and look, I don't know these people personally, so I'm not interested in engaging in too much mind-reading armchair psychology—there are creative types that are known for being unusually prolific in their medium, and it's something I've found incredibly inspiring and compelling.

This is not to say that the output of these people is always gold (there are many films by Woody Allen that I've found seriously rushed and underdeveloped), or that I don't appreciate, admire or enjoy the work of those artists who meticulously take their time with seemingly forever to complete their projects (the Kubricks, the Malicks, the Flauberts, the Brian Wilsons and Lauryn Hills). It's just that when contemplating my own work, I've always wanted to be in the former camp in terms of creative output.

I'd rather write and stage 20 plays or more in 10 years that are hit-or-miss than two in the same timeframe that are considered (by either myself, the audience, critics, or some combination of all three) masterworks.

Although I'd like to consider myself prolific in the playwriting field, it really seems I'm just on par with the scene (my buds and colleagues Qui Nguyen, Derek Ahonen, Joshua Conkel, and Jeff Lewonczyk among many, many others, are all staging one new play a year or more). I guess for folks like us, it's inconceivable to do less. I mean, we love doing this, we can do this, and we're fortunately in a position where we can get our work staged the way we want it staged. So what's the alternative? Just not write?

Lately, however, I've wondered about the advantages of taking considerably more time to work on a new script or project. Now that Nosedive is over 11 years old, we no longer have Something To Prove (we've done over 20 shows in 10 years and have two new shows lined up for the summer; I think we can be seen as an actual theatre company at this point). We can afford to take time between productions.

Also, at this stage of the game, I don't want to just be producing solely for the sake of producing: writing a play simply because we've got an open slot in the upcoming season that needs filling.

In other words, I don't want to just be marking time.

And again, hey: I'm still a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick. Maybe there's something to taking a substantial amount of time in creating something. So maybe, after 11 years of writing and producing theatre at a steady clip, it'd be worth looking into being more meticulous with the next project.

Besides, wouldn't it be fun to spend over a decade producing two to three new works a year, then go into hiding for a year or two (or three), then unveil some new long-in-the-works secret project?

(This isn't to say that I'm against revising or rewriting, but just that the revision process is still part of the fast turnaround—a month writing the rough, a month putting it away and working on something else, then a month revising.)

Well, it doesn't seem to be sticking. I've quickly found that "taking my time" rapidly devolves into "procrastinating writing," which in turn rapidly devolves into "not writing at all."

It's not that I've run out of or am having a tough time coming up with ideas. Quite the contrary. I've currently got a number of ideas I'm contemplating. But I'm really only doing just that: contemplating. I've been procrastinating, dragging my feet, waiting for one of these ideas to grow on its own before making a decision to cultivate (translate: write) one.

Yeah, clearly this method of creating just isn't for me. In some ways, at this stage in the game, I wish it were. But I don't think I have it in me.

So, although this season—Blood Brothers, Captain Moonbeam & Lynchpin, and possibly Infectious Opportunity—has already been written (not counting if we're invited back to the Vampire Cowboys' Saturday Night Saloon), there's currently nothing yet written for 2012. Which means that needs to change. And soon.

This also means I need to make sure this isn't just a case of me marking time: it means I need to follow Louis CK's philosophy of keep working, keep producing new material, but make sure every new work is better than the last.

We'll see how this goes.

Back to work.

Breaking for nobody,

James "Spaceball One" Comtois

Amoral Cowboys

The Vampire Cowboys and the Amoralists are two companies that put on work that I always make a point to see no matter what. Currently, they have two shows up that have again reminded me why.

Although tickets for both of these shows are going fast (and are maybe already gone), if you haven't checked out the Vampire Cowboys' The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G or the Amoralists' Bring Us the Head of Your Daughter, you need to rectify that as soon as possible.

Although radically different shows, they both mark turning points for each company, revealing the Cowboys and Amoralists branching out in new directions. What's even more interesting is that while you could technically call Agent G a sequel, it's still like nothing writing-directing team Qui Nguyen and Robert Ross Parker has ever made before. And with Bring Us the Head of Your Daughter (which features a whole news cast of actors not found in previous Amoralists shows), writer-director Derek Ahonen tones it down a notch, but doesn't make his play any less fun and engaging than his previous works.

Agent G tells two intersecting stories. In one, Paco Tolson plays Hung, a James Bond-esque secret agent who has to return to his native country of Vietnam to connect with and confront the daughter of the man he killed while on his way to America (this part of the story was originally told in Qui's first-ever play, Trial By Water). Meanwhile, William Jackson Harper plays playwright Qui Nguyen, who wants to tell the story of his cousin's journey from Vietnam to America, but feels hamstrung by the conventions of theatre as well as by his own brand of genre and stage combat theatre-making.

Sure, it has fun stage combat scenes, cinematic motorcycle chase sequences, and sing-a-longs with giant puppets, but Qui—both the writer and character—reveals that these elements ring false for this story, which is deeply personal for both him and his family. Even Trial By Water, according to Qui—which the Cowboys didn't stage—had too many artificial constructs (such as a villain). With Agent G, the Vampire Cowboys get the Charlie Kaufman treatment.

In Daughter, a lesbian couple's relationship is rapidly deteriorating, due in no small part to their daughter Garance being on the run, wanted for murdering—and eating—a series of housewives. Their phone rings off the hook from anonymous callers wishing death on them. Where the hell did they go wrong? Or more importantly, what the hell can they do about it now?

Jackie's (Anna Stromberg) answer apparently, is to drink herself to death. Contessa's (Mara Lileas) response seems to be to enable Jackie while burrowing deeper into quiet tearful despair.

Before the couple has time to completely implode upon itself, Contessa's long-lost half-brother, Dexel (Jordan Tisdale) shows up at their doorstep. And without revealing too much here, we soon discover that Dexel and Contessa have been estranged for very good reasons.

And of course, eventually, the alleged cannibal-murderer finally returns home.

I admired the way Daughter still had that intense energy often found in Derek's shows, but bottled it for the most part, allowing the story to unfold slowly, and allowing its actors to engage in long silences. Despite it being a surreal black comedy—yes, I realize I've made the above sound very dour and morose, but it is a very funny show—there were still plenty of moments for quiet and tender scenes. I also found Daughter to live up to the company's name more than any other play I've seen by them—we've got some seriously damaged goods in this show, including a confessed rapist, yet they're all thoroughly sympathetic, likable and endearing.

I should also point out that the casts in both plays—mostly Cowboys vets in Agent G, all fresh faces in Daughter—are of course excellent.

The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G and Bring Us the Head of Your Daughter are both incredibly surefooted works by incredibly talented writers and directors ready and able to expand from whence they came. Even though these shows didn't surprise me in terms of ability and enjoyment, they definitely surprised me in terms of tone and content. These veteran companies show they're not afraid to take risks and try different things, even this late in the game.

Both plays—and companies—remind me why I love theatre.

The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G is playing at Incubator Arts Project on 131 East 10th Street until April 16. For tickets go directly to the box office.

Bring Us the Head of Your Daughter is playing as PS 122 on 150 First Avenue until April 24. For tickets go here.

Getting tasered for fun,

James "Public Menace" Comtois

Happy in the Poorhouse

Derek Ahonen's Happy in the Poorhouse opens with Paulie, a soon-to-be washed-up mixed martial arts fighter from Coney Island, arguing with his wife, Mary. He's got a noticeably massive wound on his right temple. She's running around the house trying to get it set up for a welcome home party for her first husband. During their fight, he gets so frustrated he pounds his fist through the plaster of the wall (near other fist-sized holes). Paulie then continues to argue with Mary while putting tape over the hole he just put in the wall.

Right away, the Amoralists' new show—like their previous outing, the exceptional The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side—conveys a raw, intense energy and physicality that hooked me in within the first two minutes and didn't let go until curtain call.

I really enjoyed this play. Ahonen and the Amoralists have a wonderfully distinct style and aesthetic that is very engaging and exciting to watch. After seeing only two of their shows, the Amoralists has become a company—like Vampire Cowboys—that I'm making a point from now on to go see whatever they do. You should, too.

Happy in the Poorhouse is very funny and engaging. It's thought-provoking without being heavy-handed or pretentious. It feels simultaneously old-fashioned (in a good way) yet very fresh and new. To use a sound-byte analogy, this show feels like what would happen if The Honeymooners were directed by Martin Scorsese.

Paulie and Mary are dealing with two huge problems. Well, three. The first one (which may be surmountable) is that they're flat broke. Paulie's primary source of income is not from his MMA fighting—he's a few fights away from being done—but from being a bouncer in a local bar. The two real problems they have is that Mary's ex-husband and Paulie's former best friend, Petie, a more successful former MMA fighter, is coming back from a tour in Afghanistan, and she hasn't resolved her feelings about him yet. Why? Well, that's the other big problem: Paulie and Mary haven't consummated their marriage yet. Ouch.

Wait, there's more. Paulie's younger sister, Penny, is also coming home that night after being away in Nashville for five years pursuing—and apparently achieving—her dreams of being a successful country singer. Mary insists that Paulie ask his younger sister for money. Paulie doesn't feel comfortable about that at all. Well, it's a moot point, since when Penny gets home, she says she's done with the music biz, and just wants to come home and settle down with her new intense German girlfriend, Olga.

I'm not finished. The two of them live with Mary's brother, Joey, a horndog mailman who likes to get it on with all the honeys on his route. This proves to be problematic for Joey later in the show, as he realizes he may have made a huge mistake by having sex with Flossie, a teenage girl on his route who may or may not be legal (hey, she said she was 18). She brings her two large and angry uncles, Sally and Sonny, to Joey, who threaten to beat him to a pulp unless he admits this wasn't a one-night afternoon fling.

There is more, much more that goes on here (including Sally and Sonny running from a $10,000 gambling debt, a possible stalker who's looking for Penny, and Petie's inevitable homecoming). For all the new characters and subplots that Ahonen piles on throughout Happy in the Poorhouse, it never feels overstuffed or confusing. In fact, it's exhilarating. I didn't necessarily know where the show is going (I was expecting a completely different trajectory for the story), but I was never lost.

Although much of this has to do with Ahonen's vibrant writing and direction, a great deal of credit must also be given to the amazing cast he's assembled (many of whom are Amoralist regulars). There's a tight-knit and inclusive feeling that the cast conveys, so you immediately know—and believe—who's connected to whom in the story. Everyone in the 11-person cast is clearly very simpatico with Ahonen's work and each other.

In fact, everyone in the cast (many of whom are former Pied Pipers cast members) is superb, particularly the principals: James Kautz as Paulie, Sarah Lemp as Mary, and Matthew Pilieci as Joey. Nick Lawson steals the scenes he's in by playing a...you know what? I'm not telling you his role. You're just going to have to see for yourself. Nor am I going to tell you too much about Patrick McDaniel's role as Larry "The Lab," aside from the fact that he, too, delivers a hilarious powerhouse of a performance.

Al Schatz does double-duty as set designer and fight choreographer (how's that for a hyphenate?), and does an excellent job with both creating a fully-realized and believable set of a lower-middle-class house in Coney Island as well as orchestrating an intense and amusing fight between two MMA fighters, one of whom happens to be wheelchair-bound.

Like The Pied Pipers, Happy in the Poorhouse evokes an earlier period (the 1960s for Pied Pipers, the '50s for Poorhouse) yet takes place in the present day. Which makes sense: both plays follow conventions of such earlier plays as The Man Who Came to Dinner and The House of Blue Leaves (seriously), yet deftly infuses them with modern sensibilities in a way that doesn't feel awkwardly shoehorned in.

Happy in the Poorhouse deals with working class stiffs who still dream big despite the walls of reality closing in on them. Seeing Paulie pound holes in the wall, it's nice to think that even though he may be washed up as a professional fighter, he's still got some fight left in him.

Happy in the Poorhouse has been extended until April 26 at Theatre 80 on 80 St. Mark's Place. Click here for tickets.

Always fighting paraplegics and losing,

James "Coulda Been Somebody" Comtois