"I Don't Have Any Fun On My Own" comes from Matt Marks' album The Little Death, Vol. 1, which is now in the midst of a two-week workshop as a stage work at St. Mark's Church in the East Village, courtesy of the Incubator Arts Project. (The video above was directed by the Satan's Pearl Horses collective.)

Is this thingy an opera? Well, first off, it's only an hour long–but, that fact aside, the correct answer would be "no." Is it musical theater? Certainly not by any traditional yardstick. But The Little Death, Vol. 1 is catchy, conceptual and rambunctious–so call it whatever you like. Either way, the baseline "story" here (such as it is), involves two characters named Boy and Girl, who are having trouble balancing the carnal with the godly. Over the course of 11 songs, they push and pull against each other, their respective desires and philosophies, and–as singers–the genre divides between Christian Pop, old-school hymns and frantic electro.

It's not a completely finished work by any means. As the title suggests, we're only seeing one part of the narrative. Also: the most suspenseful action happens near the front of the piece, when Boy shoots Girl, before the story leapfrogs back in time to their first meeting. (Presumably Vol. II will show us what happens after the gunshots.) As a stage work, The Little Death is clearly still gestating. Nothing wrong with that; the Incubator Arts Project in fact exists to usher works-in-progress along. (And even so, the direction, by Rafael Gallegos, contains a few well-wrought surprises.)

So, fine, these kids are all still figuring everything out. But that actually turns out to be the best argument for spending your time with them. Marks himself is a founding member of the new-music Alarm Will Sound crew, and has recently been working with the Dirty Projectors to arrange their piece The Getty Address for the stage. That is to say: he's got skills across a pleasing range of disciplines. Here, even when I was confronted with moments or gestures that I found awkward or too call-attention-y, I respected his overall compositional attack.

Equally impressive is his co-vocalist Mellissa Hughes. I saw her sing in Louis Andriessen's De Staat at Carnegie's new music space a couple months back, and with the Signal ensemble at this year's Bang On A Can festival, but those were both stand-and-deliver performances behind sheet music. So I actually wasn't prepared for the strength of her physical performance in The Little Death. When she gutted out the the familiar tune "He Touched Me" while wearing a virginal wedding dress and sashaying toward Boy, Hughes came across as confused in the most delectable of ways. But when she turned it into a degraded, Madonna-at-the-1984-VMAs pole dance, everyone in the tiny St. Mark's Church gym seemed under her crypto-erotic-religious spell. Developmental hiccups aside, I can always make time for that.

The Little Death, Vol. 1 plays four more times this week, from Wednesday through Saturday.

Seth Colter Walls has a day job.

---

See more posts by Seth Colter Walls

1 comments

The theme of the set was "nightclub," which didn't have much of anything to do with the actual songs. Performers "entered" and "exited" through a big, pyramidal revolving door and sometimes a chorus member would walk through the door as though to leave only to revolve all the way back onstage. I have no idea whether this was a choreographed move, genuine confusion, or just old people having fun with the fact that younger people have a hard time telling whether they're making a joke or being really senile (exploiting this uncertainty is absolutely the part of being old that I'm most looking forward to).

The other immediately charming thing about the show was that each member of the chorus seems to have been given complete independence w/r/t costume choice. A couple of guys who had originally taken the stage in normal suits re-emerged (for no reason) in bowling shirts somewhere in the show's middle third. One woman carried a doll around for the whole show; the two were dressed exactly alike. Another highlight was Len Fontaine, the 90-year-old who took the verses on Bon Jovi's "It's My Life." He wore a gray zoot suit (some of you may know this as what "pimps" wear) over a shiny orange shirt, and the feather coming out of his fedora was probably a foot and a half long. The line "It's now or never" probably had special resonance for Leon.

Now obviously there's an element of gimmickry to the group's appeal, but it's not like that appeal isn't grounded in cultural history. Rock has been explicitly biased against the aged from the very beginning, to the extent that it's probably our current cultural ageism's most important and influential ancestor. I'm not saying that every rock song feels this way. That would be like saying that every single member of the Tea Party is a racist. But just as white supremacist longing is undeniably a component of that identity, so does pop music loathe and fear people who age and decay. It can't help it.

What I'm trying to get across is that there is something more than a gimmick going on when the singers in Young @ Heart perform songs that just wish they would die already. The group was founded in a Massachusetts nursing home in 1982, and its youngest member is currently 71. Last year, the chorus lost one of its most beloved members, Fred Knittle, who had been singing since 1992. Remember, when imagining the kind of emotional impact this would have, that these people don't exactly have a lot crowding up their schedules. In interviews, some of them are pretty open about the chorus being pretty much all they have.

In the show's second half, a woman named Dora shuffled up to center-front. She is 88, and she looks it. She performed "As Long as I Can See the Light" by Creedence, and the way the song had been arranged had her doing about the first half verse totally unaccompanied. As the piano and bass started to come in, bit by bit, it became uncomfortably clear that she didn't have anything close to the right pitch. I'm pretty sure she knew that something was up, because she tried to adjust a few times, but the distance between where she was and where she needed to be was two or three whole steps.

This seemed like the show's first outright disaster, but somewhere in the instrumental bridge Dora figured things out and recalibrated. She came into the second verse right on tune, and she obviously heard that she had come in on tune because suddenly she began to actually sing. At this point, it became pretty clear that she used to have a terrific voice, or at least a very well-trained one. She was doing the diaphragm-support stuff that anybody with memories of high-school chorus will know about, but she was also pulling off a smooth transition between her chest voice and her head voice, which is more than your basic-level vocal instruction.

The point being: she totally killed the rest of the song, nailed a couple of high notes and runs, and received a nice round of applause. Then she shuffled to the back of the stage, and sat down on a bench, obviously tired, with a big white shawl over her head. I don't think she sang a word for the rest of the show, although it looked like she spent a lot of time locking eyes with the woman who sat back there with her to make sure she was OK. They seemed to be friends.

Is the Young @ Heart chorus inspiring? I think yes, although I may be especially un-inured to the kind of Midwestern sentimentalism and humor that run through a production like "End of the Road." It's obviously not inspiring, in and of itself, for old people to be doing wacky stuff. Old people do that all the time, as anyone with decent grandparents knows well. But this show is a more or less serious attempt to get comfortable with what it means to know that you're going to die soon. I have a grandfather who, after smoking for his entire life, was recently diagnosed with emphysema, as of course you would when you smoke for your entire life. The consequences are the normal ones: very restricted physical activity, no flying without an oxygen tank, etc. And in less than a year I've watched anger and helpless frustration largely consume the person whose bi-annual visits made me nearly insane with happiness as a kid. On Saturday, I watched the Young @ Heart people stand in rows and sing, mid-tempo, "Theologians / They don't know nothing / About my soul;" and it was pretty clear they knew exactly what they were singing about. I remember thinking that I wish my grandfather knew the same things.

Richard Beck is from Wallingford, Pennsylvania.

---

See more posts by Richard Beck

2 comments

These kinds of emotional middle grounds are characteristic of Mendes, who works harder at creating moods than at anything else. He has his own take on whatever the emotion is that has equal parts sadness and hope-it's what you get at the end of a Grey's Anatomy episode or an Allstate commercial (Are you in good hands? I want to be. I think I am?! [cries]). Five films in, his career's iconic moment is still American Beauty's Wes Bentley (late of Ghost Rider) filming the garbage bag swirling around. He has made two movies about how the suburbs are suffocating. So: this is not exactly an ideas guy.

Both of this year's productions can be boring, but both are also lots of fun to watch. BAM's Harvey Theater is attractively dilapidated, and Tom Piper's sets and Catherine Zuber's costumes match: wood, nice muted color palettes, lots of "exposed" stuff. It's a semi-industrialized version of shabby chic, AKA what "Brooklyn" looks like. There's also some great acting by both Brits and Americans (transatlanticism being the point of the Bridge Project). If you have twenty bucks and a free evening, it would be a good idea to go see one. Here's how you might choose.

As You Like It is a satire on the pastoral, a genre that isn't doing too well these days outside of Thomas Kinkade paintings. Its plot is: a bunch of courtiers head into the forest of Arden, where they meet, make fun of and then sometimes fall in love with simple folk. Today we still more or less understand the pastoral's broader outlines-simpler times, trees, unsophisticated honesty-but many of the specifics have been forgotten. So you get the feeling, as you watch people banter, that you're missing things. I mean the play is four hundred years old, after all.

Fortunately you can turn to Rosalind for guidance, because she gets everything. Rosalind, played by Juliet Rylance (who is really good), is the kind of genius-level intelligent character that people who aren't Shakespeare don't write very often. There's a really well-directed moment early on where Touchstone the clown is playing word games with Rosalind and her best friend Celia (if you are anti-pun, you should see another play, and probably steer clear of Shakespeare or fun in general). Touchstone is quick, but Rosalind is quicker, and finishes one of his riddles for him, while Celia looks on blankly.

Rosalind then meets Orlando, who is played by Rylance's real-life husband Christian Camargo. They fall immediately and awkwardly in love, and then each is separately forced to leave Duke Frederick's kingdom. When they meet again in Arden, Orlando is hanging his terrible love poems all over the place, on trees, and Rosalind is disguised as a man.

Now at this point what's supposed to happen is some A-level onstage flirting. Rosalind is in love, but she's smart enough to be suspicious of having gone head over heels so quickly, and she also knows that Orlando is a little immature ("From the east to western Ind / No jewel is like Rosalind," is how one of his tree-poems starts, which seems like a pretty obvious call for concern). So, disguised as Ganymede, she tells Orlando that she will help him snap out of his infatuation. All he has to do is visit her/him every day, pretend that she/he is Rosalind, and try to woo her. This is an awesome plan.

But Carmago ruins things by playing it as though Orlando really can't see the woman he loves underneath the summery blazer and straw fedora. So instead of insane sparks flying all over the place, we get Orlando being genuinely confused about why this short guy in the forest is so into the little role-play they have going. After they kiss, Carmago gets embarrassed at having done a gay thing. I'm not going to quote every line of Orlando's that is obviously flirting, but they are everywhere. It seems impossible to me that Rosalind would fall for someone who was actually that dumb. (As a suitor, Orlando gets especially upstaged by the peasant Silvius, who is played by Aaron Krohn. He tells the woman he loves–who can't stand him, by the way–that he will marry her "though to have her and death were one thing." That, it seems to me, is how you do it.)

The other best thing about As You Like It is the melancholic Jacques (that's "Jay-kwees"). He's played by Stephen Dillane, who is great in almost everything. In the first place, he has the advantage of looking a little like Daniel Day-Lewis, which is a great way for an actor to look. He does a funny Bob Dylan impression in the second act, and he also delivers the "All the world's a stage" speech like it's just something he decided to say, as opposed to the "All the world's a stage" speech. He makes his first appearance by asking a group of musicians to keep singing. They're pretty tired of singing, and somebody's voice is hoarse, but Jacques is insistent: "I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs," he says. I identified hard with that line.

Dillane, as Prospero, is also the best reason to go see The Tempest, although he sometimes drops his voice so low that it's difficult to hear. As the play is set on an explicitly magical island, it also involves more stage tricks, which are gracefully done. The acting is not quite as good, and there are fewer jokes; but if you are interested in monsters with skull-heads, island spirits with scary metallic wings, and reflecting pools, The Tempest is probably what you'll want to see.

Richard Beck is from Wallingford, Pennsylvania.

---

See more posts by Richard Beck

5 comments

Choire Sicha: Yeah, seriously, what the hell?

Seth: And why have you gone 3 times in the last week, weirdo?

Matthew Gallaway: Elektra is an opera written in 1909 by Richard Strauss, who is one of the most important composers of the 20th Century. In the manner of say, Picasso, he paved the way for the atonal dissonance and 12-tone scales that would come to define progressive music for the next 100 years or more. (Read Alex Ross for more accurate information!)

Seth: And regarding the music, for people who are not familiar? I'm going to drop that Steve Albini quote about punk. He says: "I like noise. I like big-ass vicious noise that makes my head spin. I wanna feel it whipping through me like a fucking jolt. We're so dilapidated and crushed by our pathetic existence we need it like a fix." ELEKTRA DOES THIS.

Matthew: Elektra is also psychologically nuanced and reflects the revolutionary theories of Freud/Jung. The librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal was obsessed with the past: he said something about how it's impossible to speak without hearing 2000 years of history reverberating in your head. He was a poetic genius. His collaboration with Strauss was like the ___& ___ of rock music.

Choire: I would add that Elektra retains a lot of its original power, amazingly. This piece that really did people's faces in when it was new still retains a lot of its blammo and kapow.

Matthew: My thoughts EXACTLY.

Choire: It's got a real Reichsmusikkammer! (Sorry! Kidding!)

Matthew: Whenever I go to the opera, I try to put myself in the shoes of those hearing it for the first time, 100-200-300 years ago, and what it must have been like to hear something that powerful (pre-Husker Du/My Bloody Valentine/Velvet Underground/etc.). People literally went insane.

Seth: Yeah, I wish I coulda been there. Instead, I saw Courtney Love bare her breasts at Lollapalloza '96 and then storm off stage to fight with Kathleen Hanna.

Seth: Why did you think last night was better than the time you went with Choire, and better than the dress rehearsal?

Matthew: I felt like the singers were less worried about being in the right place in the right time and 'letting loose' more than they had previously — I thought it had great 'energy.'

Seth: As I think you both know, I am the young-ish, enthusiastic sort, and am willing to forgive a production lots of little things because I am grateful that they are bringing fucking Elektra to my eye-sockets and ear-holes.

Matthew: I felt very much the same way...I was interested to note today that it is actually 100 years old, i.e., it premiered in Dresden in 1909

Seth: Obviously everyone always fixates on the title role. Is the singer in question up to it, etc. But while I thought Susan Bullock was pretty good last night — all the blah blah about her lack of power had me expecting something much more enervated — I was actually surprised by how much I liked Voigt as Elektra's sister Chrysothemis. Can we talk about her?

Matthew: Yes, I thought she also sounded great

Seth: Yall are older than me. Did you ever see her live, pre-surgery? All I have are videos. How does this compare?

Choire: I can't remember when I last saw her in the Olden Times. She isn't now as enormous vocally, from what little I remember? But I did think she sounded very good. Not like, "OMG WHO IS THIS CHICK HOLY CRAP" good? But very, very good.

Matthew: The thing about her voice — I probably saw her 10 years ago — is that it's always been kind of huge — i.e., a real Met voice — and now I think it's probably a little less 'creamy' than what you might have heard, but it has more of a 'laser-beam' quality.

Choire: Oh! That is a very good description!

Matthew: That's a very typical evolution for a dramatic soprano.

Seth: Secretly, I think Chrysothemis has some of the most beautiful music in this opera. So I was glad that Voigt sounded so good.

Matthew: I think her music is the most traditional and lyrical, and can feel like a breath of fresh air after the much darker sections of Elektra and Klytemnestra.

Seth: For the kids at home, here's Glenn Gould playing some of Chrysothemis's stuff on piano (starts at 3:32 mark).

Matthew: Although my favorite part of the piece — at least in the beginning — is when Elektra is ruminating (or obsessing) about her father.

Choire: Yes! Very gorgeous.

Seth: When we had that last night, I was thinking: Let's just stay here! No need to bring out any other characters or actors or things! Let's just have ruminative sadness and little stabby sounds from the orchestra. Heaven!

Matthew: Exactly, and the music is almost like an homage to the Wotan/Brunnhilde scene at the end of Walkure, which is brutally sad (i.e., a father saying goodbye to his favorite daughter forever).

Seth: But my whole problem with the Ring is that its gonzo eschatology kinda gets in the way of feeling anything for those people. Like, big deal Lord Goldman Sachs, you done fucked up the world. Boo fuckin hoo. Whereas with this Greek tragedy stuff, I think it helps Strauss write music on that grand scale that actually connects, and doesn't seem as schticky.

Matthew: I'm going to agree with you about Strauss but not Walkure!

Seth: Well, I like Wagner more when he writes for humans. Like Tristan/Isolde.

Matthew: Speaking of humans, let's talk about Klytamnestra — did you find her sufficiently deranged?

Seth: I liked Felicity Palmer's voice and all, as Klytamnestra. But when she gets the news that Orestes is dead? And she shakes her fists in the air to indicate her triumph like a five year old at a jungle gym? Not impressive. I think this is partly a production issue.

Choire: Oh God. Listen, for me? This was not exactly a wonder of stage acting, which is complicated by, yes, the production.

Seth: There's something ominous and spooky about Klytemnestra when she has those sorta-masked minders standing behind her. But then the libretto takes them away from her. And then she's just a woman in a weird getup. You'd think a better director–like, I dunno: Lepage, maybe even (gasp) Julie Taymor–might have engineered a costume for Klymee that would suggest her power even when she's alone.

Choire: DON'T YOU JULIE TAYMOR US.

Matthew: DITTO.

Seth: OK, OK.

Choire: JESUS CHRIST.

Seth: We'll give the assignment to the guys who did the Glass Satyagraha a couple years back. With all the puppetry and cloaking and whatnot. That was amazing. I found myself wanting them to do a new production of Elektra for the Met.

Matthew: If I can disagree about the production a bit, I think that its restraint in a way is to its advantage: if you go back and look at some of the older productions, there's a LOT of black eyeliner and mythological gestures, which I'm not sure is necessarily as appropriate in 2k9?

Choire: Sure. But you know, this production? I mean: wow, there is nothing there. Which is admirable? I have a question for Seth, because he brought a civilian, and I wonder what she thought of it? Was she thinking: WHY AREN'T THEY DOING ANYTHING?

Seth: No, she loved it. But mostly because I showed up in a suit. BUT SERIOUSLY. What obsessives usually forget about a piece of music like this is that a lot of the work is done by the piece just showing up and doing it to your earhole. This music is FUCKING AMAZING.

Seth: And a newcomer is mostly just knocked over by that reality. And doesn't spend a whole lot of time thinking, why is there a gigantic horse split in two on the left side of the stage OH WOW RIGHT TROJAN WAR. (Snore.)

Choire: True... Also I think she and you were there on a firmer night than I was? And while I wasn't underwhelmed? It became more and more like a recital than a performance, when the gusto wasn't quite brimming. Because let's be honest: NOTHING HAPPENS ON STAGE. Also maybe I am going a little deaf though, being old and all? Because I wasn't getting the sheer volume. However? GAY SIDEBAR?

Matthew: Orestes looked pretty damn hot.

Choire: Correct! Okay gay sidebar over.

Seth: Okay. So. After this, Strauss went all wussy. Writing rom-com operas for Maureen Dowd to quote in her columns.

Matthew: But more than that, I think it's important to remember that the music reflects a psychological pathos.

Choire: DO GO ON.

Matthew: The most dissonant sections of the piece occur during Klytamnestra's aria, when she is in a state of COMPLETE DENIAL about having KILLED her husband! She's literally begging Elektra to help, and of course, Elektra is like: 'here's what will help — YOU MUST DIE.' The music completely reflects this. Carl Jung actually published a book called the 'Elektra Complex' not long after this opera premiered as sort of a companion/counter text to the Oedipal Complex of Freud (because Elektra is so obsessively infatuated with her father — the music also reflects this dynamic).

Seth: You are right about all of this, and I want to download your intelligence into my brain, if we could make that happen, pls? I thought Bulllock's best ACTING + SINGING stretch last night came during the Orestes recognition music.

Matthew: Agreed — that was also very touching.

Seth: I thought that was all very well executed. And the fact that the orchestra isn't BLARING SO MUCH during that part particularly gave her some slack, volume-wise, so that she could shade the development of the scene.

Matthew: True, of course it's just the calm before the storm.

Seth: Yeah, the climax–in which Elektra celebrates the death and destruction and goes nuts–wasn't so hot for me. Bullock shouldn't try to dance to the orchestra's beat. It doesn't look rapturous. And it doesn't look crazy, especially. It just looks awkward.

Matthew: I agree that's a bit problematic, but it has been getting better.

Choire: [At this point it would be wise to disclose that Matthew has family ties to the Met, although his opinions are his own.] As for me, I felt like Bullock gathered steam steadily and then backed off right at the end. I was NOT LOVING HER at first but I grew to like her. Plus, as Matthew knows, I'm convinced she talks like Tracey Emin? All Margate?

Seth: I don't know these names.

Choire: HERE:

Seth: Oof!

Choire: I SWEAR that's what it sounds like backstage at the Met RIGHT NOW. Anyway! So I think we all agree that the draw here is: a great chance to hear a gorgeous piece of music.

Seth: Yeah, and how often do you get a chance to hear it live? Also: Met Orchestra is a good Strauss orchestra when it wants to be.

Choire: I feel like this year it's that and Ariadne auf Naxos. And, of course, LULU.

Seth: Yeah, Lulu is going to kick ass. But don't forget Gergiev doing The Nose.

Choire: I have not heard Lulu since 1987 with Catherine Malfitano! Shh, I am old.

Matthew: I thought it was interesting to think about what piece of music from 2009 will be performed in 2109. (Did I write that date correctly?)

Seth: Hm. What music, huh?

Choire: Isn't the answer, "None"?

Seth: NO NO NO NO NO. DIE!

Choire: WELL? TELL ME WHAT IS THIS YEAR'S ELEKTRA.

Matthew: Grizzly Bear? AnCo?

Choire: L. O. L.

Seth: Thomas Ades's The Tempest sounds very nice on the EMI recording that came out this year. Will reserve final judgment till when we get to see it in NY in 2012 or whatever.

Choire: It's more like CAN'T READ MY CAN'T READY MY NO HE CAN'T READ MY P P P POKERFACE.

Seth: Listen, that song's stock is gonna go down before 2019.

Choire: NO ONE LISTENS TO CASSANDRA. But the future will know I was right!

Seth: But if we're *really* trying to answer Matt's question, about operatic stuff?

Matthew: In 1909, there wasn't the categorization — Strauss was a huge star.

Choire: That's right. SCHOOL HIM, GALLAWAY.

Seth: Listen, people will still be singing this aria.

Choire: Yes, they will. It's a beautiful song, and one of only three things in that god-forsaken thing I ever want to hear again. (To be fair: the three things in it are each fantastic.)

Matthew: But seriously, let's say that 0.00000005 percent of people under the age of 30 have heard Doctor Atomic, in comparison to Lady Gaga? Opera in some ways has been destroyed by capitalism — it doesn't lend itself to commodification. And it's expensive as SHIT to produce. Nobody ever makes money on opera. Ask Oscar Hammerstein.

Seth: True.

Matthew: Another reason to go see it now: before it's DEAD! I'm being needlessly fatalistic, of course.

Seth: Also: the electric amplification of instruments, as Alex Ross points out in Rest is Noise, sorta made a 100+ member orchestra an economically irrational enterprise.

Choire: I, like David Byrne, do sort of cringe at a $32 million budget for the Ring Cycle in L.A.

Seth: Oh, man. That David Byrne thing made me mad.

Matthew: It was always economically irresponsible. King Ludwig spent a fortune on 'The Ring.'

Choire: Sure! Also? THIRTY TWO MILLION DOLLARS.

Seth: This is why what George Steel is having to do at City Opera (i.e., work with tiny budgets) is a good and useful thing.

Matthew: But compared to Yankee fucking Stadium? Come on.

Choire: (Duly noted: These complaints are by a man who likes a $300-million movie, so, whatever to me.)

Matthew: We should have more public funding of the arts instead of ____.

Seth: We should have some cheaper fucking productions of a greater number of interesting works. But to LA's credit! They will be doing the first North American staging of a Franz Schreker opera next spring. So there's that.

Choire: OH YOU AND YOUR FRANZ SHREKER.

Seth: I loves. Alex Ross: "Schreker was better on his best days than most great composers are on their off days, which is why canons of genius are suspect." Also: Hitler can go fuck himself with his Wagner.

Matthew: Don't even start.

Choire: Whoa. Whoa whoa and whoa.

Matthew: There's no Strauss w/out Wagner.

Choire: MM HMM.

Seth: YOU GUYS, I KNOW. I'm just saying: it IS unfortunate that most of the music the Third Reich deemed "degenerate" has yet to get a full hearing as staple rep. They buried it, and it's mostly stayed buried. Sadface.

Choire: No, sure. As The Gay, we can appreciate that sentiment.

Seth: That's all I'm saying with the Hitler/Wagner thing. And Franz never getting produced anywheres. It's a BALANCE thing.

Seth: To conclude? Fabio Luisi conducted the shit outta Elektra last night.

Matthew: Yes, the Met Orchestra was beautiful and dynamic. He had them on a tight leash.

Choire Sicha: Umm... something something THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID?

Matthew Gallaway and Seth Colter Walls would very much like for you to attend the opera. Choire Sicha is sort of okay if you just decide to stay home with your DVR.

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

37 comments

ACT ONE
During a preamble, which includes a plea that no pictures be taken throughout the performance, something is stolen by a short guy with a ballet dancer ass who is wearing a striped green-and-black sweater. Some police officers in skin-tight bodysuits (these say POLICE on them) appear. They are on bicycles. Although they cannot apprehend the suspect from their bicycles, they refuse to dismount. There is a lot of crime in this city, which looks to be located somewhere between Norway and Mongolia. The city is filled with giant, frightening dogs, who roam about aggressing passers-by.

Most people choose to skate through this town, so that they are not assaulted by dogs or by thieves. Amid all this brutality, a boy and a girl begin to flirt. They make friends with a homeless woman. She is friends with a homeless crazy person who lives in a trashcan.

The thief steals someone's pants. He is forced to climb a dangerous rope to retrieve them. And a rich man passes through downtown, with sad results; his packages are stolen.

A policeman, still on his bicycle, plays a frightening whole body version of the five-finger fillet on the thief-just like the android in Aliens, but using only his bicycle tires.

A woman juggles because she is lonely and no one will talk to her.

Why is not not snowing, even though it is winter, the young boy wonders. That is because there is no more snow ever, he is told. Something bad has happened to the planet.

Then some huge fucking terrifying birds show up to indicate that things are only going to get worse.

ACT TWO
The children, who have moved beyond flirting and into the stages of devotion, leave the horrible city and go north to the land of winter. This place is a monarchy, where status is determined by the strength of one's floor routine. The queen of this land is extremely flexible and is forced into outrageous positions to retain her authority.

There are a number of Asian people who live in this country. They are forced to dress identically in identifying gold catsuits so that they are desexualized, although there are Asian men of lesser status who are marked by their Flash Gordon-esque vests with ridges at the shoulders. Oddly, these outfits bare their breasts.

Some very scary giant walking bags of trash show up and try to abduct the young girl from the city and to kill everyone. They are murdered.

The burglar shows up to steal things but is confronted with his identically-clad (and identically-assed) twin. They have hot gay sex, using some giant bouncy exercise balls. They crawl all over each other! They have been so lonely! But, for their interest in homosexuality, the Flexible Queen punishes them by commanding them to wear skirts.

There is a police raid upon the land of the north. Everyone is chasing everyone. More burglars arrive. More and more police arrive.

Then, two women descend from heaven. Using interpretive dance, they urge the people to repent.

The huge scary birds return. Enraged but unable to speak, they frantically flap their wings. Is it a warning? A threat? As the curtain falls, we hear the screams of rural villager and city person alike.

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

22 comments

So yeah, I was thinking this might could be like Carmen, that especially bad and super earnest hip-hopera (BARF) that had Beyoncé all up in it and this is where I stop talking about it because I totally didn't watch that shit and only got about four lines deep in the Wiki entry before I DIED. Anyhoo, DEEZ NUTS was a play about and STARRING Queens' own Beatnuts. They were a BIG DEAL in the rap scene as a part of the Native Tongues family especially amongst the Latinos since Psycho Les and JuJu are Colombian and Dominican and, what, non-Dominican gets along with Dominicans?

OK, so it didn't end up being a musical per se (thank God), it was a bunch of reenacted hilarious scenes from their childhood with interstitial LIVE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES and it was enormously engaging and then Juju got verklempt because he loves the opportunity to do something new and got misty talking about Big Pun (RIP) who was also a big (gigantic, really) deal since he was Puerto Rican. AND IT WAS SO NICE.

Anyways. THIS IS THE FUTURE OF RAP MUSIC AND/OR MUSIC JOURNALISM.

Think about it, we're in NEW YORK, lots of rap GREATS live in NEW YORK, Sacha is a music journalist and having grown up in Queen also, recounted his experiences listening to the Beatnuts as a youth and falling in love with hip-hop (man, Brown Sugar was a good movie) and it was WAY BETTER THAN READING because stories are good when I don't have to lift them and magazines are dead and live rap shows are horribly stressful because they run late (hey! CPT's not just a rumor, and I can say that) and you don't get to have cushy stadium seating.

This is a conduit for information that I can get behind because I am so lazy.

Besides, they called Queens "cultural bukkake" which is TRUE and at one point Psycho Les wore a cap with earflaps BACKWARDS which still served the warming function but as a new silhouette BLEW MY MIND.

---

See more posts by Mary HK Choi

3 comments