The Happiest Medium review by guest contributor, Linnea Covington.

The first trick to getting into Cowboy Mouth is handed to you by a sullen looking lobster standing on a dingy street corner in the East Village. With a glassy-eyed stare the human crustacean thrusts a bag of plastic-wrapped fortune cookies towards you.  Inside each delicate confection is your instruction. Hence, the madness begins as you enter the red door.

Inside the room is a bed. On the bed is a couple, sleeping, rolling around, moaning, and what not. As you choose from one of the many mismatched sofas or chairs spread around the front of the room, another choice befalls you—should you, or should you not, take from the box of cheap Burgundy wine? I choose a sip and then no more, but regardless it’s there, it’s free … it’s part of the show.

Cowboy Mouth featuring Geoffrey Pomeroy as Slim, Diana Beshara as Cavale, Matthew Mark Stannah as Lobster Man (Photo credit Leah Benavides)

Now, you’re ready for Cowboy Mouth, a play that first made its appearance in 1971 when it was written and performed by punk-poetess Patti Smith and dramatist Sam Shepard, who were having an affair at the time. The current run by One Old Crow Productions successfully takes on the intense, three-person ballad in a whirlwind of tense, raw emotions so pure that at points I wanted to cover my ears and close my eyes.

The play takes part in the apartment of a skinny rocker named Cavale where she and her man Slim drink, eat, fuck, do drugs, play music, and fight.  A lot. Slim has left his family for the tiny muse and Cavale is finding her own path after a stint in a mental hospital. They’re both crazy, though, and throughout the play it’s not clear who is real. Is Cavale, adeptly played by Diana Beshara, a figment of Slim’s imagination? Is he truly trapped there? Or is it his own mind that has imprisoned him in the dream of rock n’ roll fame? Geoffrey Pomeroy plays the angst-ridden Slim and the chemistry which he and Beshara share on stage makes you wonder if in fact they are a real life tortured couple, living in a dirty flat in the East Village just as Smith and Shepard were.  This is, after all, Smith and Shepard’s real story.

As the pair fight and throw things at each other the pure poetry that is so much the baseline for Smith’s personality gets interwoven in the dialogue, which the two spew out as if it’s in their blood. Beshara too has an essence of Smith, whether it’s because of her wiry frame, mess of black tresses, or ability to look manly, feminine, ugly, and beautiful all at the same time.

As for that forlorn lobster at the beginning of my journey, he  (played by Matthew Mark Stannah) makes his way on to the stage, never saying a word but conveying everything with a glance. It’s the combination of these intense actors under the direction of Leah Benevides that have made this room in the Village a mirror to the past as they create a space that one could easily see Smith and Shepard inhabiting all those years ago when they first came out with the show.

Cowboy Mouth featuring Diana Beshara and Geoffrey Pomeroy (Photo credit Leah Benavides)

~~~

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The final bow for The 2010 National NewBorn Festival was Sunday, and it was anything but uneventful. After reservations soared, the last two days of the festival were hosted in a different venue, giving the staff including myself extra work to schlep everything from one place to the other. The recipient of The Audience Favorite Award that received a second reading on Sunday was Carol Carpenter’s Good Lonely People. For those of you that don’t know about “NewBorn” it is the flagship program of the Off-Off Broadway theatre company MTWorks, showcasing new plays taking place and/or inspired by other regions of the US. I was honored to perform and be under the direction of The Happiest Medium collaborator Diánna Martin in A Home Across the Ocean, by Louisiana playwright Cody Daigle.

If you missed “Part 1″ or need a refresher click here.  As promised, “Part 2″ is focused the directors of NewBorn: Dev Bondarin director of Slip/Shot, Annie G. Levy director of Good Lonely People, Hondo Weiss-Richmond director of The Faithkiller, and Diánna Martin director of A Home Across The Ocean.

Artistic Director David Stallings, Vice-Chair Ann Marie Yali & Antonio Miniño at the Opening Reception of "NewBorn" | photo credit: Robin Madel

AM- When did you know directing was your calling?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) Once I started directing in college, I knew that it was the part of theater-making to which I was most drawn. If I had to pinpoint a moment when I knew it was “my calling”, it would have to be when I directed a production of Tom Stoppard’s Hapgood for my undergraduate senior thesis. It is a thrilling play and was the first time I remember being proud of my directing work.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) I was in my first directing class in college and we were copying the spacial composition of famous paintings. Once we had recreated the painting using actors, we would spin the composition around and see how the emotional effect of the composition would change based on how it was oriented in space. This was possibly the coolest, most mind blowing thing I had ever seen. Space had meaning. Space told stories. I was hooked.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) I’ve known that I wanted to direct since college, but I had flashes of this awareness even earlier- when I discovered that the areas of the production I was interested in extended past the appropriate territory of whatever role I was playing.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across the Ocean) I actually started off as an actress, and I still act; but over time I began to teach acting and direct as well. Although I took directing classes in college (both here and in London) as well as acting, I learned about directing from my father, acting teacher/director Ernie Martin, and from wonderful directors I worked with as an actor.  I enjoy working with other actors in a myriad of ways, and directing is, to me, another art form that allows me a symbiotic relationship with the work, with the actors, and with the audience.

AM- Describe your play in one sentence:

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) A senseless act forces a group of people from different backgrounds to reexamine their “place” in the world in an attempt to redefine their future.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) On the eve of the 2008 presidential election in rural south eastern New Mexico, a handful of Democrats come together to try to collectively cheer on change.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) The friends, lovers and enemies of three versions of the same super-hero must decide what they believe in and whether or not to fight for it.

(Diánna Martin -  A Home Across the Ocean) The dynamics of family, love, and loss effect everyone as five people weave their way through the medium that is the human condition.

AM-What makes your point of view stand out from the rest?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) I am interested in creating a meaningful theater experience, one that challenges audience members to rethink preconceived notions or assumptions, while also telling a good story. As a director I am empowered to find the truth in the characters’ relationships to serve as a mirror for audience members to see themselves in a new light.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) As a New Yorker, I have always been surrounded by people who think the way I do, politically. So my point of reference seems out of place in the world of the play. I am trying to be aware of that distance in creating a world that is not so “other” for the audience.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) Since I mainly direct new work, serving the play, and its point of view, is usually my priority.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across the Ocean) I just work with actors in a way that gives them as much freedom as possible to follow their impulses. I approach directing with the eyes of an actress and an acting teacher as well as the vision of a director. I focus on getting actors to really deal with each other as they would in real life – for what are characters in a play? They are people in a set of given circumstances trying to live their lives with what is going on around them. So I focus a great deal on organic behavior between actors so that the moments they have together are not forced but come from true impulses that they have in the given situation.

AM-Whose work do you admire-inspires you?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) I am always inspired by good writing: Tom Stoppard, John Guare, David Lindsay-Abaire, Itamar Moses. And a few of the directors I admire include: Kate Whoriskey, Diane Paulus, and Daniel Sullivan.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) Caryl Churchill, Mary Zimmerman, Ariane Mnouchkine are all touchstones for inspiration.  But I am continuously inspired by work I see, either be artists I think I know or an out of left field who are these guys and where did they come from? companies.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) I recently worked with Daniel Aukin and Melissa James Gibson; I really admire them and their work together.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across the Ocean) In regards to theatre there are many, but for one, Mike Nichols. I remember seeing the original Hurlyburly back in the 80’s, and the play had a profound effect on me.  Then there’s Sam Shepard -  over a period of a month got to see him direct  A Lie of the Mind because my mother was in it. Ernie Martin’s directing of Orpheus Descending at the Actors Studio in the 80’s was incredible. I also really love Alex Dinelaris – he directed me in Hello Out There .  Will Frears, who directed Alex’s Still Life is someone to keep an eye on.  Another would be Robert Falls, who blew me away with Talk Radio.

AM-What do you hope the audience will walk away with after this reading?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) A sense of how we are all creators of our own stories and that we all have not only the ability but also the opportunity to make change.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) A better understanding of who we consider the American “other.”

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) It would be great if The Faithkiller audience left with compelling questions about the relationship between religion and media, as well as a sense that they’d spent an enjoyable evening at the NewBorn Festival.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across the Ocean) I want them to feel that these characters share the same human condition with emotions and feelings about their lives and those around them. They deal with love, anger, humor, and sadness, all for different reasons and from different points of view. My hope is that the audience feels they were just given a glimpse into another world – and also one that they are a part of.

AM-What other projects do you have lined up in 2010?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) I am currently directing a production called Snapshots with Prospect Theater Company. The piece is comprised of seven new short musicals, each by a different writing team and each written about a turning point in the life of a single character. I am also collaborating with a playwright on a one woman show called Letters to Clio which deals with the personal struggle of a mother coming to terms with the kidnapping of her daughter and her transformation into a member of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo who protested the Dirty War in Argentina.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) I am directing Cloud Nine at Pace University, where I am an adjunct professor of Directing. I am also directing an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice and a new dramatic exploration about the Myth of Persephone.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond - The Faithkiller) Next I’m directing a short play for Sticky, at the Bowery Poetry Club, and then I am assistant directing one more show at Playwrights Horizons: A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick, written by Kia Corthron and directed by Chay Yew.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across The Ocean) Directing-wise, I have some projects in the pipeline going to do some readings of revivals that I adore: Kennedy’s Children, Coyote On a Fence, The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window, and Vieux Carré.  I’m also going to be working on my acting and building my acting school, Martin Acting Studios, while trying to support the theatre companies that I’m a member of. I’m just going to take it one day at a time and see what happens.

***

We shall see what next “NewBorn” bring and what shows MTWorks’ plans on including in their Season. We leave you with a clip of one of the directors inspirations, Mary Zimmerman as she discusses Arabian Nights.

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Developed 3 years ago, The National NewBorn Festival is the flagship program of a non-profit theater company very dear to me, Maieutic Theatre Works; or as we like to call it MTWorks – that way we don’t have to get into the whole “Maieutic is pronounced /meɪˈjuːtɪks/”.

New plays that have yet to receive a New York production are read in a festival setting and free to the general public from Thursday, January 21st through Sunday, January 24th. This year we are showcasing new plays by Barrie Kreinik, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Carol Carpenter, Gwydion Suilebhan and Cody Daigle.

The audience also gets to pick and vote for the recipient of the Audience Favorite Award. The winner receives a second reading on Sunday night after the resident reading of A Song for St. Michael’s by one of the NewBorn creators and Artistic Director of MTWorks, David Stallings.

What I appreciate about festivals is the networking opportunities it creates for dramatists, actors, directors and companies.  This week I asked all 6 dramatists some questions about their work and inspirations.

AM-How did you hear about NewBorn?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) I’m an MTWorks company actor and my first performance with the company was in NewBorn 2008, so I’ve already had some experience with the Festival.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) I read about the NewBorn online two years ago, and submitted my play The Oath. MTWorks liked The Oath so much that they produced it in 2009! It was an incredible experience! Slip/Shot is my first new play since The Oath and the fab MTWorks company offered to include it in the NewBorn Festival.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) I read about artistic director David Stallings’ work in an article or blurb online. When I realized we were graduates of the same college, I decided to reach out to him.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) I’m almost too embarrassed to admit this… but I found it on Facebook.

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) MTWorks produced my play Providence in 2008, and the experience was fantastic. When I finished the new show, I sent it to them, eager for a chance to work with them again.

AM-Describe your play in one sentence:

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) Three women at an American university face the consequences of crossing boundaries and discover the shape-shifting nature of love.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) It’s about people trying to make sense of a situation that simply makes no sense and, in doing so, create “truths” that may or may not be very truthful.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) Election night 2008 transforms a family in a small conservative town.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) The exploits of an atheist superhero in a 1940s New York radio studio, a run-down apartment in present-day Los Angeles, and a not-too-distant theocratic future: what do the stories we tell reveal about the things we believe?

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) A 13-year old foster child and a poet from London help a family and a gay couple face loss and redefine itself.

(David Stallings – A Song For St. Michael’s) A young boy is taught how to grieve within the cold rules of his structured community.

AM-What makes your work stand out from the rest?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) The play’s subject matter twists familiar tropes.  The issue of teacher-student relationships has been addressed in other plays, but what happens when the teacher and student are both female?  It’s about relationships and feelings that defy labels, where everything happens under the surface, where the characters are afraid to address what’s really going on — where they aren’t sure what’s really going on.  There’s a lot of language, a lot of quoting other people, but also a lot of unspoken communication.  I don’t know if this makes it stand out from everything else per se, but these are some characteristics of the piece.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) My plays have been described as “Southern gothic” so I think that makes my work different from the others.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) My work is grounded in the people and places of the American Southwest. There, I explore the tension between oppositional ideologies and cultures: between progress and tradition, urban and rural, professional and working class, religious and secular. My journey as a writer is to find beauty and value in those I judge, to uncover paradox and hypocrisies within myself through the insights of characters I would deplore in real life, and to harmonize conflict through humor and reconciliation.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) My work is very post-modern: multi-racial and multi-generational casts, interwoven narratives and meta-narratives, and a variety of media juxtaposed for a Twitter generation of theatergoers.

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) Ah, the dreaded “sell-yourself” moment. I think my work stands out because it’s quiet, simple, but the emotions are big. I’m very interested in the poetry of who we are in private, with the people we’re closest to, and I think that comes through in the work.

(David Stallings – A Song for St. Michael’s) It is the second piece in a trilogy about a town in Texas and the dysfunctional traditions passed down through generations based in stubbornness and ignorance.  Those who have seen the development of Barrier Island will enjoy seeing a different and equally entertaining part of the community.

AM-Whose work do you admire – who inspires you?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) Caryl Churchill, Tom Stoppard, Diana Son, Joanna Murray-Smith, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Wendy Wasserstein… to name a few.  This play in particular was influenced by the works of Virginia Woolf.  And I’m also inspired by Shakespeare — his incredibly rich language and raw emotionality.  His use of language.  I’m fascinated by language.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) I’m a huge fan of early 20th Century Southern literature – Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Carson McCullers come to mind.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) Sam Shepard, Horton Foote, Leila Buck.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) I’m inspired by playwrights who look beyond their own lives for inspiration… who use their plays to ask broad, penetrating questions about being human in the modern world.  David Hare, August Wilson, and Sarah Kane come to mind — diverse stylistically, but all of them big.

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) Tony Kushner, because of his incredible gift with language. Christopher Shinn, Sarah Ruhl, Melissa James Gibson, Paula Vogel, Terrence McNally.

(David Stallings -  A Home Across The Ocean) Shakespeare’s.  His universality and specificity are a paradox that few have been able to reinvent.

AM-What do you hope the audience will walk away with after this reading?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) I hope they walk away in deep discussion with each other!  I’d love to inspire conversation, dialogue, examination.  They might wonder about the ambiguity of relationships, about our need to name things, to label them.  Hopefully they’ll wonder about what the characters do after the play ends.  Whatever happens, I hope they’re thinking.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) I hope that the audience will laugh a lot, cry a little, and walk away thinking a little bit about how they tell their own stories and create their own personal “truths.”

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) Respect for uneducated, uncultured, underprivileged working class white folks.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) A glimpse, perhaps, of a way to get out of the ideological complexity and deep emotion underlying the religious culture clashes that have paralyzed American life for at least a century… and (I would be remiss in not adding) a very strong desire to buy a ticket to a full production of the play.

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) I hope they walk away feeling as though they watched something that felt deeply true, something funny, something moving, something real.

(David Stallings – A Song for St. Michael’s) My favorite reaction from an audience is a gasp!

AM-What other projects do you have lined up in 2010?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) I’m still in the process of lining up specific projects, but I’ve got ongoing work as a voice-over artist, singer, and dialect coach, and I’m working on a couple of new play ideas.  I put on a lot of hats!

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) So far, I have a world premiere of my commissioned adaptation of Little Women in San Diego and a production of my dark comedy the terrible girls in Philadelphia. My short play, His Last Fight, will also be published in the anthology “Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2010″ by Smith and Kraus.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) Good Lonely People is in the final running for the High Desert Play Development Series at Southwest Repertory Theatre. I am currently conducting research for a new book whose near-impossible goal is to convince working class conservatives that their economic interests are not being served by their party.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) My play The Constellation will be running in DC this winter, and I’ll be workshopping a new play called Reals this spring… more importantly, though, I’ll be having my first child — which is the greatest project I can imagine!

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) I’m working on two new plays – a play about architecture, real estate and theater (seriously!) called The Lasting and a relationship comedy called Cuddleman.

(David Stallings – A Song for St. Michael’s) Barrier Island with MTWorks opening April 30th and A Daughter of Israel with BOO-Arts in the fall.

* * *

The 2010 National NewBorn Festival takes place at The Asya Geisberg Studio (526 West 26th Street, No 1017. Between 10th and 11th Ave). The admission is free but you do need to reserve your seats as the space is limited. For a complete schedule and reservation information visit www.MTWorks.org.

Next week we will bring you an interview with the directors involved in the festival, including our very own contributor Diánna Martin.  I leave you with a short conversation with one of the many writers that have inspired the dramatists participating in NewBorn, Tony Kushner.

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Fool For Love - photo by Christina Watanabe

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Rihanna and Chris Brown in the headlines, the tabloids, the blogs, the daytime talk shows, the elevator banks … how he allegedly beat her and how they’ve allegedly reconciled. Wherever you go you’ll hear the same thing: What the hell is she thinking? I can’t even begin to speculate on what happened, or what she’s thinking. What I can say is … if it’s anything like what I think it is, it’s nothing new. And it’s been fodder for plays like Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love for years.

Some couples find something when they meet that has nothing to do with love but everything to do with passion, so they think it’s grounds for a relationship and they go for it. But passion comes in many varieties and the variety that comes with bruises and abuse is not love. Still, there must be something addicting about it for both people involved or they wouldn’t keep going back. People who do, Sam Shepard would have us believe, are Fools. I would have to agree with him there.

In this case, the two fools are Eddie (Kevin Shaffer) and May (Katie Bender) and even though we’re just given a glimpse of them one night as they battle it out in a motel room on the edge of the Mojave Desert there’s very little else we need to know of them.  Because from what we do see of them, they’ve given over their entire selves to this THING between them that holds them both captive, so much so that nothing else really exists. Other people may come into their lives, but only on the fringes and as a distraction. Other events may take them far away, but just the thought of the curve of May’s neck is enough to have Eddie drive close to three thousand miles without stopping just so he could be with her again.

After this long absence May reacts to Eddie with flashes of every emotion she can fit into that small motel room of hers: joy at seeing him, pain at having lost him at all, distrust at how much he’s willing to give of himself to her again, anger at still feeling anything at all for him. There’s also regret, playfulness, fear, lust, lethargy, animation … and other emotions that are so convoluted they have no name … they’re just tied to hard wiring in her brain. Eddie, for his part, has echos of whatever May throws out at him; when she’s clingy he’s strong, when she’s petulant he’s ardent; when she’s furious he’s violent. It’s clear that they’ve been doing this dance for a long time now, the steps are so ingrained in their movements that there’s a groove in the way they walk; they both know just how to come forward, move back, offer, pull away – physically, emotionally, verbally. Even when the other isn’t in the room they’re dancing with each other’s ghost, so powerless to break free that they tell their story over and over again living their past and their present simultaneously every time they’re together. Is it any wonder they’re so conflicted? Is it any wonder they’re twisting under this weight, hurling themselves at each other, hurling each other at objects, hurling objects across the room?  Everywhere they turn this thing they’ve created is with them and wont … go … away.

Yet even as Eddie’s telling May “I’m here now, and I ain’t goin’ nowhere” there’s barely any gentleness to him.  He’s yelling at her, his tone is harsh, his body language menacing. She’s cowering, head down, not answering him. To get a response out of her he literally flings her around the room at times; from ten rows back your cower in your chair, worried that their passion will carry over to you … that their complete obsession with each other will keep them from noticing you there at all.

Have you ever seen a couple and wonder what’s made them like this? Is it just who they are? Is it just written into their DNA that they find a match for their restless energy so that the two of them can simmer and pop and rattle together until one of them explodes and take the other one with them? Is that what happened with Sid and Nancy? Or with Joe Orton and Ken Halliwell? We may never know what happened when these couples were alone, or how they came to be the way they were, but in Fool For Love we eventually learn exactly why these particular two – Eddie and May – can’t stay together, yet can’t stay apart.

Throughout the events of the evening an Old Man (Bill Weeden) sits off to the side, commenting on what he sees, and at first his stories are quaint ramblings … texturing the past a bit and breaking up the tension.  Also helping these two from killing each other or themselves, at least for now, is Martin (Jonathan Wilde), a sweet, unassuming man who’s been seeing May for a vague period of time and who happens to be there that night to take May to the movies. To see Martin juxtaposed next to Eddie is to see why May is torn; each man is everything the other is not … and as much as she tries to convince herself that she wants a quiet life far away from Eddie with a nice man, the truth is she just wants Eddie.  Unless she doesn’t.  But of course she does.  But not anymore!  Unless he still does?  But it doesn’t matter, it’s too late!  Unless … poor Martin, he just wants to see a movie.

Soon enough, with the Old Man’s help, we get to find out what’s got these two kids so rattled. In a way … there’s really no other way they can be with each other. It suddenly all makes sense; the kind of sense that makes no sense at all.  Really, they’re just another pair of fools.

The entire cast is fantastic, and under Katherine Krause’s direction Kevin Shaffer Katie Bender and Bill Weeden manage to be explosive without being melodramatic. But my favorite moments belonged to Jonathan Wilde who is asked to do so much with such a subtle role. Without any grandstanding he managed to completely grab focus and act as the perfect catalyst to these two forces of nature; when he talked about trimming the grass around the sprinklers he was compelling; the perfect “nice guy”.  Of course he’d be the first to tell you … they finish last, those nice guys.

This great production is around for a few more days.  Don’t be a fool, see it while you still can.

Produced by The Bull, FOOL FOR LOVE will play at The Living Theatre (21 Clinton Street) March 4-22, Tuesday through Saturday at 8pm and Sunday matinees at 2pm. Tickets ($25) are available online at www.livingtheatre.org.

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