Ten Questions. Ten Answers. And One Big Decision: Rock, Paper, Or Scissors?

Chicken-Fried Ciccone: A Twangy True Tale Of Transformation

Production Company: Hard Sparks

Armed with an acoustic guitar, actor-playwright J.Stephen Brantley reveals how he got from junkie to functional with a little help from the queen of reinvention. Chicken-Fried Ciccone is one man’s journey to heroin and back, set to countrified covers of new and classic Madge.

Show Times:

• Wed 2/19 @ 7:05
• Mon 2/24 @ 5:30
• Fri 2/28 @ 7:05
• Thurs 3/6 @ 10:15
• Sat 3/8 @ 12:30

Answers by J.Stephen Brantley
(writer-performer)

1. Your tag line is out there on postcards and press releases so we know the PR version of what this play is about.  But when you talk to your family and friends, how do you explain the show to them?

JSB: “I’m sorry, but I had to.”

2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink.  What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?

JSB: There’s a secret revealed in this production that won’t be a part of the show in future venues. Maybe it’s that bit. Or maybe it’s the part about the transformational healing power of art. But it’s probably ‘Into The Grooverotica.’.

3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?

JSB: Yes.

4. In rehearsals, read-thrus, or prior incarnations, what’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you (or the team) the most proud?

JSB: “Oh there’s so much freedom!”

5. Let’s fantasize for a moment. Let’s take the “off-off” off. Imagine this show is on Broadway. Would that change the production itself?

JSB: Well…yes. Isn’t this a bit like asking, ‘if birds were fish, how would they be different?’

6. Taking that one step further – after paying everyone what they’re worth of course, what is the most lavish, luxurious, pointless thing you would spend money on if there was no constraints?

JSB: David Beckham.

7. Is there a scene, a moment, a gesture … anything at all in the show that you anticipate may get a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?

JSB: Yeah, everything. Unless we’re all replaced by some weird race of robots, both the show and the audience are going to be completely different every night.

8. What’s your favorite line from the show?

JSB: “Sex for money is really just site-specific theatre – with buttfucking.”

9. Is the world of this play sustainable outside a theatre? In other words … do you think people live the way the characters do? Would you want a world where they do?

JSB: Is this a trick question? (It is a ‘Twangy True Tale of Transformation.’)

10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?

JSB: Madonna. I should think the reason why is fairly obvious.

Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH

In the THM virtual Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH which FRIGID Show do you take on? And what do you throw?

CHALLENGES: I’ll take on Shooting Abe because I like Charlie Gershman,

THROWS: I will throw paper because he’s a playwright and he might need some.

But may I also use this forum to say howdy and bien venidos to I-DJ because Overtime Theater is coming from my hometown San Antonio and I’m really excited to see their show.

CHALLENGED BY:

- The Canuck Cabaret who threw ROCK.  That’s a WIN FOR YOU, Twangy!  Let’s see if your winning streak continues …

- Shooting Abe who threw SCISSORS.  So even though there was some great synergy there – with Shooting Abe challenging YOU and YOU challenging them right back it was a bit of a crumple for you as your paper gets cut to ribbons.  So with you and Shooting Abe going for two rounds, that’s actually TWO losses for you.

- East In Red who also threw SCISSORS.  Another defeat as your Paper is ripped to shreds.

So that’s one WIN that gets completely lost in the THREE LOSSES that follow.

Oh, Twangy - you’re plucky and fun, and when you call my name it’s like a little prayer, but even the Madonna herself couldn’t save you from this  triple loss.  I’d apologize but I can already hear you saying “I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know Please don’t say you’re sorry”.  Oh, Twangy – how I admire your Madge-like resolve.

Thanks Chicken-Fried Ciccone: A Twangy True Tale Of Transformation for participating in The Happiest Medium’s FRIGID New York Festival 2014 Q&A. And for playing our game! You’re officially PAPER in any and all challenges.  You may win, you may lose – who knows! This is how it works in the crazy world of the Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament of DEAAAAATH!

For the rest of you don’t forget to check out Chicken-Fried Ciccone: A Twangy True Tale Of Transformation !

~~~ 

  ~~~

Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 8th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4^th Street between 2^nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A) February 19-March 9. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling 212-868-4444. 

Related Posts:

• Óscar Tango-Bravo: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• A List Of Irrational Fears For Future Leaders Of The World: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• MY HIGH-HEELED LIFE: Or, How I Learned to Keep Worrying and Love My Stilettos: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Gardai: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)
• Steve: A Docu-Musical: 10 Things To Know About The Show Before You Go (2014 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL)

There’s an episode of Will & Grace where Jack tries to ignore Patti LuPone as she chatters, crawls around on the floor, and just generally makes herself un-ingnorable. At one point he screams “Shut up Patti LuPone! Shut your brassy, magnificent trap!!!”

She turns around and deadpans … “They either love me or they hate me.” I laughed. I laughed because I … hate her. Those are HER WORDS …

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate her personally … I just can’t stand the way she sings. I’m sure if I had to sit next to her at a gala dinner she’d be pleasant enough company. (Note to the committee planning any gala dinner party to which I am invited: Please don’t seat me next to Patti LuPone despite what I just said.)

I remember complaining to a co-worker about how I couldn’t stomach her strident braying which evaporated every drop of sensitivity that moistened the sappy I Dreamed a Dream (which, I admit, is my most favorite song from Les Miz). In fact, before I read the liner notes and found out it was her I remember complaining loudly (and often) “Whoever sings that song does that annoying Patti LuPone thing”. Leave it to Patti LuPone to do that annoying Patti LuPone thing.

Sure, she starts off making you feel all sorry for her with her plaintive “There was a time … it all went wrong.” But by the time she gets to “I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I’m living” I’m always left clutching my ears and thinking how much less her life would be hell if she could only learn to speak softly and not FORCE every note from her “brassy trap”, in that manner that makes her sound like a senior citizen at the early bird special in Boca Raton demanding that the staff put out more croutons and Roquefort dressing in the all-you-can-eat salad bar … because they’ve run out AGAIN.

I still love the song. I still hate Patti LuPone.

This co-worker thought he would deflate me by (after my rant) declaring “Patti’s a friend of the family” (I think he delivered the line with an arched brow). Sure, I mentally stumbled a bit and the starf*cker inside me shouted “Oooooh boy! Can I meet her!!!! Can I got to a gala dinner with her!!!” But I actually stood my ground and held fast to my opinion and declared, with a toss of my head, “I still don’t like her so I don’t apologize“.

Later that year I went with this friend and some others to see Sweeney Todd in concert. The lead was sung by George Hearn (love love LOVE) and Neil Patrick Harris was there, pre-HIMYM-mania, and therefore, not the main draw. Of course Patti “couldn’t pick a worse choice for Mrs. Lovitt if you tried” LuPone was also there, pushing her voice through the notes so hard that I though she was trying to power the whole eastern seaboard with her singing alone. It almost ruined the whole experience for me except 1) I got to see George Hearn reprise the role I’d taped off of PBS when I was a teen and 2) Stephen Sondheim made a surprise appearance at the curtain call and I just about fainted and clapped so much it was as if I were trying to power the whole eastern seaboard with clapping alone. Small aside … I could never be sure but I was almost CERTAIN that one Ms. Monica (dry-cleaning-is-for-suckers … wait … I mean NOT-dry-cleaning-is-for-suckers) Lewinsky was in attendance that evening as well.

That was also the night I found out that when my co-worker said that Patti was a “friend of the family” he actually meant a “friend of a FRIEND”. And Patti was not so much a “friend of” a friend so much as a “person being stalked by” a friend. So.

When Evita came out in the late 70s the commercials were blasted at me every afternoon during Texas, a short-lived but memorable (at least to me) spin off of Another World.   I watched Texas every afternoon and the Evita commercial played every afternoon and so my childhood was impressed with this image of Patti stretching out her arm and beseeching Mandy Patinkin to “not keep his distance” and braying “just a little touch of Star Quality” so unintelligibly that for years I had no idea what she was saying. The commercial fascinated me. Her voice distracted me. The whole thing disturbed me. I was hooked on hating her.

So of course you have to understand my complete dismissal of EVITA until many many years later when, in the zenith of my Madonna Worship I lived the story of her journey to play Evita on the big screen. I knew of her seven page entreaty to Alan Parker. I saw her “Take a Bow” video which was shot as such a period piece that there was no mistaking that she was auditioning for the role to the whole wide world. Of course there’s also the sub-plot … Madonna’s jump-the-gun (“I’ll probably never get married, so I might as well keep this baby since I’m not getting any younger”) pregnancy which was kept a secret from Alan Parker until there was no more denying it … leaving Mr. Parker to cleverly try and disguise her tummy with purses and a children’s chorus during the shooting.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t consider Madonna the better Evita. Or the better singer, really. Or even the more interesting personality. Not by a long shot. And while I find her softer take on Evita more palatable it is NOT a better interpretation and really only speaks to the limited range of Madonna’s acting ability which was only as good as it was because she didn’t have to speak. (This is how Holly Hunter won her best actress award for The Piano, you know.) Despite my obsession, I always saw this for what it was: Madonna wanting to be considered a credible actress and refusing to admit that that ship had sailed. To Shanghai, I think. What a surprise.

So … my vote for best Evita? It’s obvious. Elaine Paige.

Related Posts:

• Swing Your Razor Wide, Sweeney