The MENding Monologues by Kevin Six

I have seen courage.  It comes in odd shapes.  Rarely, if ever, does it look like Clint Eastwood makes it look.  For he's a wiley pro who knows what we think we're looking for.
No, courage comes when ordinary people are exposed to awfulness and act like humans in the face of it.
It was the case last night (3-23-12) at InnerMission's production of the MENding Monologues.
The story of the movement is as courageous as the men who performed last night, to say the least.  As is usual in society a woman spoke up first.  Eve Ensler had basically seen enough violence done to women and decided to do something about it.

As luck would have it, Eve Ensler is a brilliant writer and her courageous step (what, if anything can one person do in the face of overwhelming awfulness?) lead to more steps and, well, a movement.
Then Derek Dujardin did something equally courageous (and maybe more so because men are raised to be stoic in the face of just about everything).  He called bullshit on men sitting idly by as the Vagina Monologues were performed, on men getting away with telling rape jokes and, really, men getting away with rape.  Really, the statistics are staggering.

Ask the men of InnerMission's The MENding Monologues.  They put those statistics up there for everyone to see.  Along with a bunch of excellently-wrought soul searching, a bunch of great words and, both my favorite and least favorite moment, the legal names of all 19 people who knew what Jerry Sandusky was up to at Penn State and did nothing.

Nineteen men associated with the scandal. Big men. Well respected men. Athletes.  Strong.
But not courageous.

No, my friends were courageous.  They stood up there.  Sp

Publish Post

oke from the heart and the gut and called bullshit and basically made everyone cry.  And it was very cool.

Hopefully the people in the audience will go home from last night's experience and think twice before letting someone get away with... a joke at the expense of women, the maltreatment of women, children and other men and maybe rape and violence will cease to exist.

Oh, and the Vagina Monologues is probably just as good.  I'm seeing that tonight.
Tet your tickets at: http://innermissionproductions.org/

Kevin Six on writing and directing "The Blood Countess"

I belonged briefly to the Lotus Theatre Collective, which produced "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" and co-produced my last world premiere "Love Negotiated".  One of the projects we talked about but never did was a play about Elizabeth Bathory, about whom I knew nothing until I saw a Discovery Channel documentary on her.  It turns out that the exploits of Elizabeth Bathory made her more of a vampire than Dracula.

After watching the documentary, I pitched my collective-mates on a story that juxtaposed the historic countess with modern "psychic vampires".  Psychic vampires are a group of people who seek to take the energy of willing participants through odd made-up ritual.  But there are people who can take your energy in the form of time (by being late), money (by screwing up in business) and life (by driving like a zombie on California freeways).  I call them psychic vampires but they’re also known as “Crazymakers.” 

Crazymakers were first introduced in The Artist's Way.  "Crazymakers thrive on drama, and melodrama requires a sense of impending doom. ... Theirs is a world of trumped up conflict, confusion, and chaos."  --The Artist’s Way at Work – Riding the Dragon. Twelve Weeks to Creative Freedom by Mark Bryan, with Julia Cameron and Catherine Allen

This type of person has haunted me for years.  A committee member who brings business to a screeching halt because she "doesn't understand" any on a number of small things; that member of a sports team who is always getting himself hurt; and probably every cast member on every reality series ever made.

I was ranting about this while volunteering for DangerHouse on their production of "An Evening of The Grand Guignol".  DangerHouse and Grand Guignol were made for each other: theatrical realism, melodrama and blood all mixed together to make for theatre that makes people wonder either why they're so afraid or why they enjoy being scared so much.  Marie Miller, a DangerHouse founder, is an excellent lighting designer who has worked on two of my previous productions.  She mentioned that there was a very Grand Guignol-esque theatre that DangerHouse rented and asked if I had anything to put in it.  I gave her my Elizabeth Bathory vs. the Psychic Vampire pitch and told her I had "almost a whole play written".  She agreed to a commission (because she knew full well that I didn't have more than a few pages down but a very good idea).  And she wanted a bloodbath.

So I began writing about three Goth Girls from UCSD on a trip to Transylvania to give Elizabeth Bathory her due.  Then Marie took me to the Victory Theater.  It was perfect!  The building is old -- circa 1920 -- and has housed, among other things, a movie theatre and an evangelical church.  It is the current home of Technomania Circus.  The Techno-Maniacs welcomed me with open arms and Castle Bathory began to take shape in my mind.  I had thought of doing the play originally at Sweedenborg Hall (where I was the playwright in residence until recently) but the sheer amount of blood, blasphemy and breasts meant that I probably couldn't do the show anywhere near a church.  But a former church?  In a bad part of town? OK!

One problem with bringing this story to the stage is that Elizabeth Bathory spent a lot of time in the tub.  I wouldn't be surprised if the term "bloodbath" were traced to her.  You see, she bathed in the blood of virgins because she liked the way the blood made her skin look.  In the TV special, there was a scene of the Countess striking a servant girl with a brush.  So the bathtub and the brush would be recurring props.  The twin constructs would be power and bloodlines, along with a strict upbringing and liberal use of the brush on little countesses who don't respect those constructs.

Meanwhile, in San Diego, we couldn't find a tub! Until we found a 350-pound faux-brown-marble tub I had nightmares!  The tub was one of those things that fell into our laps after five minutes on Craig's List and one phone call -- and it was literally sitting ten blocks from DangerHouse (yes, it's a place; Marie lives there).  Providence! A theatre and a tub!

Then I worked to make the play a commentary on the youth-obsessed American psyche.  Well, actually that was easy.  I watch TV commercials like only an under-employed actor can and you’ll see it in a day.  Now my three Goth Girls were smart and socially astute -- something DangerHouse's Marie Miller had insisted on.  Three smart girls, a Renfield-like castle handyman with a secret and a mysterious minister of culture who doubles as Thorko, Bathory's manservant/lover/occultist .  Now to draw the Blood Countess.

She was easy as well.  It turns out all those Crazymakers from my past came in handy.  She is more powerful than smart and more smart than nice.  And she wants to tell her story.  To do that, certain rites must be seen to.  Then, when she breaks out of a statue (yes, that cost a lot of money, thanks for asking), it's a simple thing to reunite with her servant/lovers and compel the American girls to set the story straight.  But what would make a woman kill and bathe in the blood of over 500 local virgins?  Her violent past?  Her mysterious lover/manservant Thorko?  An evil father?  How about yes to all three!  So the tale she tells is a brutal one.

The Goth Girl in charge is the self-proclaimed Psychic Vamp Ilona Black, who began life and her stay in Transylvania as Eileen Brown.  The Scene Vamp Darcy Sainz is her friend and consort in any number of occultist dabblings and Darcy's kid sister Dot, the smart one, does all the research.  But three smart, privileged American Goths are no match for The Blood Countess. When The Blood Countess gets into their heads, they play all manner of characters from the Blood Countess' life and some get stuck in character...

There needed to be bondage.  Bathory's victims needed to be kept somewhere between bleedings and bound and gagged seemed like the best bet.  To represent this, we're asking the audience's indulgence.  Four lucky audience members will be tied up on stage each night. The cast are all well-versed in knot-tying... I looked into various knots used in the bondage community and the interesting thing was that they were all pretty much the name knots I use in theatre and circus rigging.  Yes, I have done time as a circus roustabout and a trapeze catcher, hasn't everyone?

I might as well give the rest of the plot away.  I recently read that Romeo and Juliet is, and always has been, the most popular story in history simply because everyone knows what's going to happen.  And, if audiences don't know this, they are told in the prologue AND the epilogue of the play.  So my Elizabeth Bathory comes to life on Valentine's Day (Marie Miller's idea not mine, I wanted Halloween).  She does this only when there's a full moon on St. Valentine's night.  Romantic?  Yes, she and Thorko are lovers in this play -- one of the benefits of preparing a play for a Feb. 14 opening.  So the statue comes to life, finds the Goth Girls charming, and compels them to tell her story properly.

A first-person narrative from the Blood Countess' own lips as acted by the Goth Girls with the help of János and The Minister, who are always in for theatrical fun on Valentine's Night.  Then she turns the Americans into her servants from the old times.  The sisters Darcy and Dorothy Sainz are a perfect match for the witches Dorottya and Darvula Szentes and Eileen Brown (or the newly minted Ilona Black) is a perfect match for the nurse Ilona Joo.  The story is told, the audience is bled and the American girls pay the ultimate price for their fawning affection for vampires.

And that, my children, is the story of “The Blood Countess”.

Play Readings, a Primer

A great and inexpensive way for playwrights and theatre producers to inexpensively look at a play is a staged reading.  I have been in a lot of play readings and seen more.  I have been involved in readings for 30 years as actor, audience member, writer and producer.  So I think I know what I'm talking about when I offer advice for actors, directors and audience members regarding the play reading.

Actors: Hire professional actors and pay them if you can
Actors know how to read plays and, especially, how to read them aloud.  They can take direction with little or no explanation.  Actors also ask very good questions about scripts and they will make choices like actors.  Non actors and playwrights (unless they are also professional actors) not so much.  Plays were meant to be acted so have actors involved as early as possible.

Directors: Don't direct.
What?  Really?  Yes!  This is not the place or the time to make a statement.  A reading is for audiences, playwrights and theatre decision makers to hear the play.  That's it.

Playwrights: Don't act or direct.
If you are an actor or a director and a playwright you already know this.  You want to sit in the audience and hear the play with everyone else.  You also want to watch the audience and their reactions.  If you're not an actor or a director, you need to know that actors and directors don't like playwrights to tell them what to do as much as playwrights don't like actors, directors and audience members to tell them what or how to write.  Also actors hate being given a line reading; that is when you show them how to say a given line.  It's like an actor spelling the word "the" for you.

Audience members: Don't rewrite the play.
If the opportunity to discuss the play arises, please remember that the playwright is the writing specialist in the room -- even if you happen to be a playwright.  Remember that the writer is interested in your experience as an audience member.  If you have a bunch of great ideas about how the play should go, please write a play and have a reading.  Before you do, please read the above.


Thanks!
Kevin Six

From New Theatre World Blogger Tiffany Tang

...I also moderate some of the readings for the San Diego Shakespeare Society, which Kevin frowns upon, but I actually get a big kick out of.

Last month we had students from Grossmont College who were studying Romeo and Juliet for the first time.  It was great.  They were getting up and reading and really getting into it (especially
after I told them that the guys basically clown around and talk about sex the whole time).  And then of course, we have solid actors like Steve Jensen doing amazing readings as Mercutio and Benvolio.

This one woman came up to me quietly during the break and asked if she might read the balcony scene as Juliet.  She was thinking, when will I ever get the chance to play Juliet?  And it was great.  Sometimes the readings make for very special evenings.  Would that be interesting for a piece?

-Read all about Tifany Tang here-

Shakespeare and Anonymous

Another film about Shakespeare is here and this one (gasp) puts forth the authorship question.  The film Anonymous, which carries the tag line "was Shakespeare a Fraud?", was summed up by the San Diego Reader's David Elliott thusly, "Here is a film for people who hated Shakespeare in school, who think that iambic pentameter was taught in geometry, and guess that the first Hamlet was, uh... Simon Cowell? The movie, to its shame, enshrines ignorance about Shakespeare."

 I'm going to see it.  I love Shakespeare and watching scenes of his, in the period setting, is what gets me going -- regardless of who wrote them.  Then there is the virtual cavalcade of Shakespearean actors to be seen: OK only Vanessa Redgrave and Derek Jacobi but they're worth the price of admission alone.

So there are the period settings, the costumes, two great actors and three or four really good ones.  Done.  Now, for the arguments...

Many Oxfordians believe that Shakespeare could not have written the plays, sonnets and poems attributed to him because he only had a grade school education, was a simple tradesman and was an actor.  Oddly, these are about the only facts extant about perhaps the greatest writer in the English language -- and the same Stratfordian arguments for his authorship as well.  I will take them in order...

Grade School
In Elizabethan England, grade school was 10-hours, six days a week of Latin and Greek and has been likened to a modern Masters degree.

Tradesman
Shakespeare's father John was a Glover and an alderman who tried most of his life to become a gentleman.  William ran off to be an actor and returned to Stratford a sharer in the best theatre troupe in London, purchased the largest house in town and got his family a coat of arms.

Actor
Actors in Shakespeare's time had to have an immense amount of words in their heads.  They performed a different play every night and many parts in each play.  Imagine TV but live, with a limited number of actors.  Oh, and they all danced and sang too.  So an actor would have an immense vocabulary, understand plots and characters, and know how to put them together.

But only a genius could create the characters who said these lines and Shakespeare, whether he was a Glover from Stratford, the Earl of Oxford or the Queen herself (oh, yes that's a theory too).  I offer  three nice sources on the authorship question:


How Shakespeare Changed Everything by Stephen Marche.
This brief and witty book shares all the things Shakespeare brought into the world and some of the funny outcomes of actions by Shakespeare fans.  States that no one has ever been granted permission to write a masters' thesis on the Oxfordian argument.

My Name is Will by Jess Winfield
You might recognize the name of one of the founders of the Reduced Shakespeare Company and 
authors of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged.  His story is simply the best look into the life and times of William Shakespeare even thought the journey is taken by a dude on mushrooms at a Renaissance fair in northern California.

The Beard of Avon by Amy Freed
Tough going as a playwright to write a play that has Shakespeare, the Earl of Oxford, the Queen and possibly a few others as authors of the Bards work.  Tough because most theatres are Stratfordian and too few have produced it.  But read this play, even if you can't see it.  It brings Shakespeare to life as well as his theatrical partners and his witty wife.

If you want to have the argument, see the film, read the above and get ready.  It will be hard to change any one's mind.  After all the huffing and puffing, though, take your opponent to see a play!

Kevin Six is an actor, playwright and a self-described actorian who believes Shakespeare wrote his plays but had help from the actors in his troupe. He can be found at www.KevinSix.com.

Four Questions

As part of our continuing series, Four Questions, I have interviewed myself in an attempt to understand why it is I do the things that I do...turns out I'm a tough interviewer to face. Read and comment as you will.

You’ve studied theatre abroad in England – what’s one thing you’re really glad to have learned from this experience?
Obviously it was great to meet new people and experience all the cultural differences, but the most useful thing I learned while there was how to properly write a theatre review. I took a class that was dedicated to this style of writing, and as a requirement we had to see and review six shows. I learned that it is a tricky balancing act of summarizing plot quickly, getting across all your points succinctly and clearly, and being opinionated while still seeming rational. As with the rest of my writing experience, I found the hardest part was the art of being concise. No one is going to sit and read a ten-page essay on why they should or shouldn’t see a play.

Why aren’t you writing reviews of San Diego theatre now that you’re here?
I do on occasion, but I still want to work in other aspects of theatre in San Diego and it’s hard to do both at the same time. I also think it’s difficult for people to understand that a negative review doesn’t equate to dislike of the producing theatre company. In fact, a negative review should be seen as supportive encouragement to improve future productions. After all, reviewers want the theatres to succeed just as much as anyone else, otherwise they would be out of a job.

Why do you stage manage? Isn’t it a lot of work for little reward?
Yes and no. It is a lot of work. And there is often very little monetary reward. That sounds like a full-hearted yes to the latter question. But the question is akin to asking someone why they breathe. It is hardly adequate to reply, “Because I’m good at it and I want to.” That may be true, but it is more of a calling, a love, and perhaps a bit of masochism. Stage management picks you, not the other way around. Stage management is difficult, but it is like being on top of the world; you know everything and everyone within the production and can help all to succeed and reach their fullest potential. And although it’s a heck of a climb to get through rehearsals and tech, there is a beautiful sense of accomplishment when a show goes off smoothly.

If you could do anything in theatre, what would it be?
I would own my own small black box theatre and invite theatre companies and groups to come perform. In this ideal world there would be a coffee shop / bookstore / bar next door with whom we would collaborate. On off nights there would be everything from mini rock concerts, to poetry slams, to readings of new plays, to art shows, to classes, and more. And as long as we’re talking hypothetically, the cost of a ticket would never be more than a trip to the movies. A person can dream, can’t they?

Four Questions

Four Questions is an occasional series in which we ask people to interview themselves.  Not many people have had the pleasure of being interviewed and many fewer have been able to choose the questions.  So we thought: what the hell?  Let’s see what happens when we ask people to ask themselves four questions and then answer them honestly.

As an example, I (Kevin Six) will now ask and answer four questions.  Please feel free to read and comment.  And get ready!  We might ask you to answer four questions too!

Is it possible to be a working actor in San Diego?
No.  That is if you want to earn all of your income as an actor in San Diego.  Most, if not all, actors in San Diego have second (and third and fourth) jobs.  Many work at theatres.  But as for San Diego being able to support a working actor solely, no.  It is possible in Los Angeles, where there are so many projects being filmed...  You could make a good living there as an extra but you'd have to be available to only to that kind of work and, the minute you aren't available to an extras casting person you are off the list.  That was the case in San Diego when Stu Segal Studios was furiously filming Tele Novelas here but that work has dried up...

Why do you act?
Acting one of the things I cannot do without.  I tried.  I really tried and succeeded for almost ten years. I was in nonprofit arts management, which can be like acting at times but there are even less rewards.  One day, I found myself unhappy in this life and decided to chuck it (and a pretty decent salary) to get a low-stress job and make myself available for work as an actor.

It's odd, really, working as an actor.  Some people have likened acting to prostitution but actors give of their emotions as much as their bodies.  So in that way, it's like super-prostitution; you can have my body, for a price, and, for a little more, you can watch me manipulate my emotions.  You can even tell me what emotions to experience and have input on how that looks and how those emotions are projected.  All this for about the same – or less – money than a prostitute makes.

What about writing - is the need/desire similar?
It's worse, actually.  With acting, you can go for a long while and it won't affect your life.  But writing...  Writing or, more realistically, not writing, can keep you up nights.  It can make you irritable, cranky and a little bit crazy.  The odd thing is that the feelings don’t stop once you start writing.  It's one of the few things that affects you no matter how, or how much (or little) you do it.  I don't write because I want to or even have to; I write because I can't live my life without doing it.

Is any of it good?
There's the question.  I have acted my socks off and been told "not so much".  I have driven home from an audition composing the resignation speech to my agent it was so bad and, before calling or e-mailing the agency, having them call me to say I've been offered the part.  What are these people thinking?  Don't they know I'm terrible/better/the best/the worst actor in the world?  It's just gotten to the point where I do my acting thing for an audience that includes me and whomever is there before me and if some of us like it, I keep doing it.

But writing's worse.  I remember reading that English speaking writers are competing with the English-speaking public.  There's nothing like competing against hundreds of millions of people who can read, speak and write your language to give you that you-are-here feeling.  You've all seen that postcard with a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy  and an arrow pointing vaguely to our solar system?

It can feel like that when writing or – or actually when thinking about writing.  This is why I try not to think.  About acting, about writing, about what people think, what people want, what someone will pay.  It's worth less than nothing if you want to create.  The best you can do is create, get the hell out of the way of the people watching/reading/reacting and let the feeling you get from finishing a process carry you on to the next one.

But, yes, to answer your question, a lot of it is good.  Thanks for asking.