Archive for February 20th, 2007

According to its organizers, the lovely ladies of Cudzoo, The Bad Art Party was created with the intention of celebrating

1.”human creativity in its most unacceptable and morally objectionable forms”

and

2. “the art we pour our hearts into, only to realize it sucks.”

In my opinion, they succeeded at the first but could have upped the gasp factor, and should be commended for making an attempt at the second. I came expecting odd-ball folk artists displaying the kind of art you’d maybe find for sale in a lonely strip-mall hallway kiosk somewhere in middle America. What I found was that most of the art on display was intentionally awful, and mostly hilarious.

Rather than celebrating creative fuck-ups, it felt more like a reclamation of the way we experience art by demystifying it through blatant irreverence, heavy drinking, and a warm embrace for all who came through the door. If you’re like me, you’d rather hold your loved one under the covers while farting than spend an excrutiating night holding in your discomfort in the name of decorum. In much the same way, it just feels healthier to boo an artist (encouraged at this event) for her mediocrity rather than hold your breath at a fancy exhibition of garbage (literally) for fear of your own stupidity (imagined or real) leaking out (like so much methane).

If you’re still with me after that simile, I salute you and encourage you to keep an eye out for future events sponsored by Cudzoo.

If said ladies are reading, however, what was with the pop music and TVs playing sports? Are there no bad video artists? I mean, are there any video artists that are not bad? Or, not not bad? Is there no awesomely bad music in the world? The competing media was confusing, and at one point I thought I overheard the bar regulars discussing mutiny.

In the general spirit of the evening, I give you my final summary: BOOO. Go back to art school you losers (I kid!).

By Guest Reviewer: Eugene Slepov

Richard Foreman is the Woody Allen of experimental theater. Matching the great filmmaker’s prolific output, Mr. Foreman’s new play — the irresistibly titled Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! Your Unconscious Mind Is Dead! — is his 50th production in almost 40 years. Come to the Ontological-Hysteric Theater to see what the inside your mind looks like if your super-ego could dance with the id, and if your id could dance with the ego.

This is the third Foreman play I‘ve seen, and I feel confident saying that avant-garde theater doesn’t get much better than this. But what’s it all about? Sometimes it seems as if Mr. Foreman, like a good Dadaist, is mocking the idea of meaning itself. Sometimes the actors look like people on LSD playing charades. Relax, as Mr. Foreman writes in the playbill, and just enjoy the spectacle.

Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! is set on a claustrophobic stage, scattered with books, flower bouquets, and newspapers climbing up the walls. This is like something out of a Salvador Dali landscape or a Nine Inch Nails music video. Four actors dressed like Goth Catholic School students perform a kind of cosmic ballet. A fifth actor is dressed like a Charles Lindberg-era aviator. A toy replica of his plane is suspended from the ceiling, piloted by stuffed animals. The four Goth actors frolicking around the stage seem to be commemorating the aviator’s accomplishments. But are they really celebrating air travel or mourning its invention?

A sinister voice repeats “The invention of the airplane: a mortal blow to our unconscious.”

The message of Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! seems to be that modernity is destructive to psychic health. The invisible voice plaintively repeats things like “It could happen in my life time,” and “It’s broken and it can’t be fixed.” The performance becomes a re-enactment of the paradox–articulated long ago by Freud, whose name is also evoked– of how collective progress in the development of mankind requires psychic repression in the individual. But you probably knew that already. Just don’t forget to take your Xanax before the show starts.

Popular culture rarely gets more experimental than in the films of David Lynch. This is unfortunate because watching Mr. Foreman’s plays is the closest I ever came to having what some may call a religious experience. Even the simplest gestures are laced with transcendent significance. Mr. Foreman’s actors are always pointing to seemingly random things on stage: a book, a light bulb, moving images on the screen, a stuffed animal. A gesture as mundane as pointing, in this context, makes the actor seem like Moses on Mount Sinai accepting the Ten Commandments.

This is not everyone’s taste. A visit to the therapist is often less anxiety-inducing. While I enjoyed the play on the whole, I admit struggling to stay focused for the last half. Wake Up Mr. Sleepy is like a one-hour long Zen koan. If you’re not primed for a life of meditation, you may experience enlightenment sporadically at best. Still, Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! is bound to be the most beautiful nightmare you’ll ever have.

Wake Up Mr. Sleepy! Your Unconscious Mind is Dead! runs every Tuesday and Thursday-Sunday at 8pm. Tickets are on sale thru April 1.