Usher Roundup

The Neo-Futurists' production of Fear closed on Halloween, and with it ended The Fool Machine Collective's adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher. It's strange that this was just two weeks ago. It feel more like two months. Although perhaps that feeling can be explained by the insane amount of things that have been happening lately. Too Much Light gigs, benefit performances, rehearsals, classes, blogs to read, blogs to write, financial calculations, travel plans, the new Doctor Who special. (Although I haven't watched that yet. Feels wrong to watch it alone.) Activity makes life feel longer. And that's nice.

I'm not sure how many times we performed our Usher piece - assuming an average of five tours per night, the number comes out to ninety. Sometimes we did six tours, other times four. The actual number is probably a little under ninety. I don't think I have to tell you that is a lot of performances. The task of performing a piece - even a 12-minute piece - that many times was alleiviated by opportunites for spontaneity and exploration, things I consider to be essential to any worthwhile theatrical endeavor. Interacting with the audience is always a big help as well.

I felt, based on comments from friends, that it went well. Reviews were generally positive. Some were little more than summaries of the different pieces, which was disappointing and in my opinion lazy. But then, I suppose it's difficult to 'review' a haunted house in the same way you would review Tennessee Williams. Here are some choice quotes. First, the good!

"A room based on “The Fall of the House of Usher” features space-age dead people on the floor who ascend and take us by the hand to an impromptu haunted hootenanny." - Dennis Polkow

"Ingenious visual work (including a gallery of Joseph Cornell-esque illuminated boxes) and evocative performances add up to a mournful, creepy, fervently imaginative exploration of Poe's nightmares--and our own." - Kerry Reid

"And the centerpiece, Pierson’s adaptation of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” is a wonder. Scary, bizarre and sweet all at once, it enmeshes the audience in Roderick Usher’s gloomy world, somehow reimagined through the prism of MJ’s “Thriller” video." - John Beer

I've heard from friends that they felt Usher was the most fleshed-out piece. Their feelings seem to be echoed by these reviews, and that's good to hear, given that we spent so much time on it. These quotes pour a little bit a fuel into a gas tank that has been nearly emptied by the last seven months.
And now, the problematic:

"The puppet rendering of The Conqueror Worm is by far the most fully realized retelling. The actors are completely invested in all of the stories’ stylized renditions. But sadly, if we are expected to take the production more seriously then it has to seriously have more content. The chaos overshadows the audience’s connection to the stories and the intended impact is diminished." - Venus Zarris

It seems like Zarris was looking for Fear to be a cleaner adaptation of Poe, which is not unfair given the way we marketed the show. I personally don't mind when things are vague and chaotic, at least to a certain extent. I can see how some of the pieces in the show fall outside Zarris' expectation. I would argue that Usher was a fully-realized retelling, but it's not my job to argue with critics.

"The Neo-Futurists are storytellers at heart. Thematic and visual abstractions require a different sort of skill set, and even when the company brings in outside artists for these shows (as they have here), their efforts aren’t quite potent or focused enough to work." - Nina Metz

Metz's review was a bit frustrating. She seems to have set up sandboxes for all of Chicago theater and placed the Neo-Futurists into the 'storyteller' box. I'm not sure what goes in the 'thematic and visual abstractions' box. Redmoon, maybe? My point being that storytelling and abstraction are not mutually exclusive, and they don't necessarily require vastly different skill sets. No, we don't have a lot of money. No, we don't exclusively rely on spectacle on a regular basis. But if you watched Usher and didn't see a story being told, you weren't paying attention.

Finally, the yay-you-got-what-we-were-going-for:

"Through each visit with Poe’s work, visiting the stories of others’ darkness, one cannot help but reflect on their own disappointments, even questioning the true nature of our world today. It gets inside your head like a psychological thriller, as opposed to a shocking horror." - Joseph Erbentraut

"maybe the point isn't really to give you something specific to be afraid of, but a new reference point for all the already scary things. the possibility that you can't stop your mind from snapping one day. the possibility that someone familiar will turn on you. the unpredictability of violence. the chance that we will go to our graves never speaking again, with you thinking i wronged you, or didn't care, and that there is no making amends later, just regret and guilt." - a friend

These quotes get at the heart of what I hoped people would take away from this show. It's not about jump-scares or gore. The truly frightening things in life are the inevitable and unpredictable ones that will most likely happen to all of us at some time or another. I'm glad that came across. Now, on to the next project.

Chicago/Darwin 2009

Last weekend I attended the University of Chicago's Darwin Conference. It is an apt year for such a thing - 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species. The price was right and it didn't conflict with my shows, so I thought, "Here is an advantage to living in a big city. I can decide to take a day off and attend a major biology conference." So I did.

I had to miss the Thursday night plenary session. (Side note: "plenary" is academic-talk for "fully attended". So, some irony there.) I did drag myself out of bed Saturday morning and take two Metra trains and a cab down to UC, and made it in time to get my nametag (I got my own nametag!) and sit down in the main lecture hall for the first talk of the morning. (The main lecture hall was for the biology-based talks, the upstairs hall was for history/philosophy. I stuck mainly to biology, but did wander upstairs for a few talks there as well.) My condensed notes are below the jump, so please continue on if you have no fear of science-talk.

All in all it was a good time. I got to meet PZ and Marc Hauser, and even ran into a few friends.

I'll also note that PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne also have posts up covering the conference.