So here’s the video for the web preview.
– Michael
michael d’addario
http://www.brokentoymonkey.com
Archive for January, 2009
22
Jan
09
brecht is smiling
I am always excited by Chris Gallu’s work. He makes bold choices with his productions which theater desperately needs. If theater is going to continue to thrive and be vibrant AND bring in a new audience, we need to have courage.
It was thrilling to be at the first read through of Roundheads and Peakheads and hear about the many production elements and how they will come together. Roundheads and Peakheads will feature live, original music, dance, video and an ensemble of 10 actors playing over 30 roles. I think Brecht is smiling. Chris even wrote two raps for the production. I remember receiving a file titled “not to share with anyone.” It was Chris’ prologue. It was Chris himself rapping with a backup beat and all! I was so impressed and inspired by his enthusiasm and dedication to his work. It reaffirmed for me why I do theater.
At Catalyst, we pride ourselves in performing bold and challenging works that you will not see on TV and all for $10. Trust me, you will not be disappointed with this next production. BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW, 1984 practically sold out and this will too.
Later tonight I am going to post some of the video we have been shooting…again, very exciting!
–Scott Fortier, Artistic Director
21
Jan
09
change has come to america!
Yesterday’s Inauguration was indeed a historic time for our country. I was not amongst the freezing on the mall, but saw it on my computer at work (Don’t tell my boss J). I marveled at the crowd. I have lived in DC for ten years now and have never seen so many people here. It was a sight to behold and I felt proud.
Bringing it back to the play, change has also come to the land of Yahoo. We have been rehearsing the first court scene for the last couple of days and I couldn’t help but notice how similar Iberin is to the idea of “change.” In Yahoo, like America, there is a war going on at the same time there is a financial crisis and people want change. Not everyone knows what that change entails, but they know they want it. I think South Park shows a perfect example of the ridiculous nature of this (The first five minutes of the video):
I play one of the Hatsos in this first court scene and it scared me to realize that Iberin is not an evil or wicked person, as I had originally read her to be; she is actually very hopeful and kind. When she starts spouting racial separation in the guise of unity I already bought the product and it’s too late to return it. I use the word product, because I think it mirrors what is happening now. I am not sure how many people ride the metro (probably a lot of you, if you went to the Inauguration by train), but there are Ikea signs up that say “Embrace Change”. An obvious rip-off of Obama’s campaign slogan and what has become an almost national cry to arms.
When a slogan is ripped off and used to sell (impossible-to-put-together) furniture, then it loses its meaning and becomes ridiculous, if not dangerous. Those with money (Big Five in the plays case, and Ikea/Target/Walmart in ours) use Iberin/Obama to sell what they want. As soon as the people buy it, in its distorted form, it loses all meaning and is out of the hands of the people who created it.
Let me know what you guys think.
–Andres Talero
What I love about Brecht’s plays is that he simplifies politics to their basest level: one-on-one human interactions. He shows us how complex political issues affect the common man. With just a ten actor cast, it makes it easier to see how the decisions of a select few in power can quickly become rhetoric and ideology for the common man to live by.
For example, not a day after Iberin’s declaration that the land should be split into two (Roundheads and Peakheads), violence commences against a Peakhead shop owner when he is “outed” by a competing grocer down the street. The people immediately use the government’s outlandish new laws to their own personal benefit, and turn neighbors into enemies at the drop of a dime.
The other thing that has struck me is how the government of Yahoo uses the politics of fear to encourage separatism. Iberin tries to make Zaks afraid of Ziks, by blaming Ziks for stealing their land, their pride, their daughters—in short, anything they are afraid of losing. Wherever a Zak finds themselves inadequate, they are to blame it on a nearby Zik.
Some of my lines as Iberin:
A fearsome foe lurks in our pleasant land,
Silently working his evil ways: the Zik!
‘Tis he who bears the blame for all your ills
‘Tis his who you must fight with all your strength…
The other thing on my mind this morning and when I first read the play was the simplicity of the racial distinction that the play is based on: you either have a rounded head or a pointed head. In modern day context, it just helps to make the segregation in the play more absurd, as no one can really tell by looking at someone what shape their head is in (unless of course aided by costume hats with points, which we will be).
It really is funny to think that people once believed you could tell character traits by the shape of one’s skull—i.e. the science of Phrenology—but it’s not so unbelievable when you consider what assumptions people once made about race in this country not 50 years ago. And here we are in Washington two days from having our first African-American president.
Ok enough intellectualizing: off to dance rehearsal! Oh yea, you didn’t know there was dance in this play huh?
16
Jan
09
juxtaposition of incongruities (or what do mcdonalds, camels and cell phones have in common?)
Hey ya’ll, just wanted to share some discoveries I found today. During our first week of table work we had discussed the physical location of the play, Yahoo. I googled Yahoo and a stupid search engine came up. (The jokes will just get better from here.)
What we talked about is what the world looked like. There were some ideas from Danielle Amato (Dramaturg) and Chris Gallu (Director) that the world was caught between an urban environment and a rural one. (No, I’m not talking about Mount Pleasant :). So you can have a Hardee’s next door to a farmer selling his goods. Agriculture and Industry have not melded together, but live independent of each other in the same world. The interaction becomes more obscene and distorted in war-like states.
Yahoo becomes a war-like state during the course of the play and there is much more interaction of the upper class to the lower class. The interaction may not be harmonious, but those from the higher class definitely come into contact with the poor in a way they have not before.
From my own experience, I see this mirrored in war-like countries. I was deployed to Iraq and Kuwait for a year during my Army Reserve days in 2004. It surprised me to see a guy walking a camel talking on his cell phone right next a McDonald’s. Here is a little picture as an example of what I am talking about:
So the message is: Eat more McDonald’s ya’ll. It’s good for the war economy!
(I was gonna include a quote from the play to show this, but then ya’ll wouldn’t have to see the play, cause we’d give it all away.) Peace!
Erica McLaughlin is an actor in the cast of Catalyst’s Roundheads and Peakheads, now in rehearsals.
A year and a half ago, I fled my safe, sound nest in the Baltimore/Washington area to head to the Big apple, with nothing in hand except big debts and big dreams of making it, well you know… big. There I experienced some successes, most impressively finding an apartment I could afford, or even better finding a job that paid me while at the same time giving me the weeks off needed to perform.
For me, in New York, there are shows here and there, lots of class work, and plenty of auditioning involved. Now, if you have told me that all that would land me back in DC to begin 2009 working on a little-known Brecht play, I would have never believed you. As much as I try to keep pulse with what is going on with theatre in other cities, particularly here in my home of the district, it is always a difficult task to make it to auditions in far away places.
And as we psuedo-New Yorkers are so Big Apple-centric, we usually just wait for the auditions to come to a studio near us. But as the economy suffers, Broadway shows continue to close, and long standing regional theatres shut their doors, actors are searching all over to find more meaningful employment, and theatre patrons must look away from the Great White Way to more cost-effective entertainment. So when I was called for a quick audition 230 miles away for the rarely produced Roundheads and Peakheads with the Catalyst Theater Company, the answer was a resounding, “Yes!” I ran to Drama bookshop, snagged the play, hopped on a Bolt Bus, auditioned in the afternoon and was back to work in NYC that very night.
I want to be clear that it was not just economic woes that landed me back in DC though. I could certainly make it through a few months by slinging beers at my busy sports bar in Times Square. What drew me here, is what has caused me to make many of the drastic moves in my career-in fact, the same desire that drove me to New York City in the first place-the desire to do a certain kind of challenging, socially conscious, thought-provoking work: indeed to be a part of a catalytic theatre.
Now certainly there are companies who are producing this kind of work in New York-notably my recent experience with The Amoralists Theatre Company–but a glance of professional auditions from today’s New York casting notices offer few opportunities for African American actresses with an appetite for experimental theatre. Which is what, I think, makes DC so special.
Indeed, I believe that when money woes come, penny pinching executive producers in the big city tend to go for what works for them: mainstream musicals, white-washed family dramas, old so-called “classics”, standbys of American theatre that they think subscriber bases will still pay for during hard times. Not to say it doesn’t happen here in the district as well, but what seems to dominate the theatre scene here are plays reflective of Washington’s diverse, tight knit, politically active community. I believe these theatres will flourish during the economic crisis not because of so-called “cultured” subscriber-dictated play seasons that need a Ph.D to decipher, but because the work they portray reflects the human needs of the community. People want to see themselves on stage, and right now, pardon my slang: We all broke an’ po’ ya’ll. And so I am honored to be a part of Roundheads and Peakheads because it documents the poor man’s experience, as he is manipulated by the powers-that-be in a time of financial crisis.
And as a poor actress traveling from NY to DC to find work, I can relate.
15
Jan
09
the big five
What has really struck me is is the personification of the Big Five. They’re the richest landowners in the town, pretty much in control of it all. When I saw the extreme physical choices that Chris and the actors made, I laughed-we all did. Then I looked closer, and saw how ugly, distorted, and miserly they were. How too much money can sometimes negatively transform the people that have it.
The repetition of the word “Money” made me cringe. And I thought, “Wow, this is brilliant. This is a really special moment.”
–Monalisa Arias
14
Jan
09
obama and cultural issues
“Cultural issues, which aren’t a top priority for new administrations even in the best of times, will have trouble climbing very high on the Obama agenda. But in light of what this election has helped us to understand about the potency of the arts in our national life, the new president would be wasting a glorious opportunity if he failed to give them his attention. Partly it’s because the overlapping crises we face at the moment give him a rare chance to dream big. Partly, too, his singular story gives him a unique ability to make connections among people that might change the way we think about culture. But it’s also a question of his larger vision for society, which the arts could help him to realize. If he treats them wisely, he might foster a climate for creativity as unprecedented as his election.”
writes Jeremy McCarter in Newsweek magazine.
14
Jan
09
rehearsal notes
“Roundheads and Peakheads, what is this!?” This is the first thing that popped into my head after I read the play. There is a lot going on in this play, and it was hard for me to keep focused on a central idea. It is very heady stuff. (We’ve been in rehearsals for just over a week now.)
Then last night it shifted for me. We introduced music! I know before that point I was living way up in my head, trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. Working on the music helped me bring the ideas down from my head and into my body. I am working on the rap in the play and I remember turning to Chris, our director, at one point and saying, “Oh shit, I get it! He’s stating an argument and using logic.”
When I thought rap, I went to my Mos, Encore, J-Live, Elzi and Sadat X collection. I forgot what attracted me so much to these artists. They state arguments with the images they paint and put it down to a crazy beat. They are not trying to sound pretty and clean. There is a sense of improvisation within the music/argument and it can be fun! Bad hip-hop is when the argument gets lost and the artist forgets what they are improvising on. So you go from Naughty by Nature to G-Unit.
Here’s a taste of some Gallu magic:
“But our hero, Mr. Brecht, he didn’t agree
He said these problems ain’t exactly what they seem
There are many stupid people who think they’re superior
But we’ll show you that their motives are ulterior”
–Andres Talero
(playing MC, Lopez, Hatso 1, Callamassi, Peruiner)
feb 11 – mar 15, 2009
by Bertolt Brecht
directed by Christopher Gallu*
Roundheads and Peakheads is a story of the mythical land of Yahoo, a country on the brink of civil war. The government is run by wealthy landholders who are facing an uprising from their poor tenants who are unable to pay their rent. In order to prevent their own overthrow, the landholders devise a scheme to trick the poor into fighting with each other. They tell the poor Roundheads that all of their problems are due to the minority Peakheads. There begins a story of class and race warfare that serves nobody but the wealthy and powerful. Originally based on Measure for Measure, this seldom-produced piece is sure to resonate with audiences today. Tickets on sale now. All tickets $10.
the cast
Monalisa Arias
Jenny Crooks
Catherine Deadman
Kathleen Gonzales
Cesar Guadamuz
Dan Istrate
Erica McLaughlin
Andres Talero
John Tweel
Grady Weatherford
the production team
Scott Fortier+*, Artistic Director
Elizabeth Richards +*, General Manager
Chris Gallu, Director
Danielle Amato, Dramaturg
Susie Pamudji* , Stage Manager
Kelly Brasseau, Asst. Stage Manager
Michael D’Addario, Scenic Designer
Elizabeth Richards+*, Props Artisan
Yvette Ryan, Costume Designer
Jason Cowperthwaite+, Lighting Designer
Brendon Vierra, Sound Designer
Michael D’Addario, Video Design
Cyana Cook, Choreographer
Chris Royal, Composer
Brian Allard, Master Electrician
* AEA + Catalyst Company Members
Catalyst Theater Company 