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Thanks to last month's post by evlbstrd (and the many recommends that percolated
the bastad's message up, to catch my attention), I knew about this obscure and unique
event occurring in my home town.
In gratitude, I must repay this debt...
So, I will be the sucker who will write the review.
*** PREFACE ***
I knew I had to see this play, to pass was not an option.
While I've never been a big Zappa fan, I did see one show of his back in my college
days (late 70's), and heard much of my roommate's Zappa collection blasting on my stereo
for a few years. After college, there was one album of his that was stuck in my mind,
Joe's Garage. In a buying spree of the new fangled CD format, I stumbled across it
and added it to my own collection. It's been one of my favorites all these years.
One of the few that never got old.
And now there was a play, for just a few weeks, perhaps never to be performed again.
I had to see this play. But it was showing down in Hollyweird. My only local friend
that knew this album could never venture into the city, for him, it was a price too high.
Surprisingly, my wife agreed to go with me (yes! cashed in all those points for seeing
"her" plays lol). My other two local friends, dig shit like this, they like all kinds of music,
and aren't put off by subject matters of a possibly obscene and deviant nature.
heh heh
*** THE PLACE ***
The Open Fist Theater is a venue Frank woulda totally dug. To say it's unpretentious
would be to sound pretentious. Six rows of seats, by 16 wide, with the bottom row just
chairs on the floor of the stage. The live music performed by 8 musicians stacked at the
left corner - where a few could wonder into the stage area and participate with the cast.
The scenery and props mostly all cheep and cheesy, just how Frank would want it.
As he once said: "If we can't be free, at least we can be cheep."
*** THE PLAY ***
The lights finally dimmed, the CS puppet blinking above spoke its intro dialog to
the visuals of projected slides, and then, a spotlight illuminated Joe and he began
the opening lines of the title song.
Wow.
I was struck by an unexpected surreal wave of feelings and profound awe, that I was
seeing, hearing, feeling that which for years and years had only been envisioned
by my mind's senses of the imaginary. Only seen and heard in my own private thoughts
There it was, happening right before me, with a group of others who too, like me,
were seeing this long time familiar, imaginary visage, conjured up before us,
in the Real World by Real People.
It's a hard emotional sensation to describe, it caught me totally by surprise,
and was too soon to dissipate and vanish as I adjusted to the new reality, of the
play unfolding. One that will no doubt, permanently replace the construction of
my mind's eye of the visuals that these songs had conjured up all these past years.
The song itself was nicely played, and it, like nearly 95% of all the dialog and
singing throughout the whole play, was faithfully playing out the album - but the
level of energy and stage presence of the cast "performing" Joe's garage left us breathless.
I felt a warm gratitude to the cast, musicians, and
whole production team for the gift they made of putting on this play.
I wish I was a better writer, able to describe every song, every gag, and the evident
fun the cast had last night... And the many shocked and stunned and mirth-exploding
reactions of the audience !!
Sooo funny...
Catholic Girls was hilarious, and Mary was so charming (in that little white dress).
The corruption of her into the Crew Slut was fun to watch acted out, with the first
pulling of her to the dark side of sleazery.
The Wet T-Shirt scene worked perfectly (the girls in the cast seemed to really get
into it hehheh). They actually got Mary's chest wet too rotfl - and to say that
she was enthusiastic to shake it around a little would be an understatement ! Oh,
and even the ice pick in the forehead left a red mark (they weren't missing a trick).
Joe was so sad when Mary didn't show up. I actually caught a few gasps and strained
laughs when the CS boomed out her reason for missing the rendezvous. Lucille was a
tramp slut in a Burger King outfit, you could feel Joe's pain, radiating incessantly
from his crotch. Both songs here (Hurt When I Pee, Messed My Mind Up) were
entertaining and haunting.
And then... For those not knowing what was coming.
Things began to get weird.
As they should.
L. Ron Hover fleeced Joe, taught him his German, and introduced him to Sy.
Wires, pliers, they turn me on....
For the most part, these scenes were tamer than they could have been. But the
suggestive actions, and of course the lyrics, made effective impressions on just
how far the crazy religious guidance had led Joe into his extreme sexual deviancy.
How 'bout some bondage and humiliation ?
OMG, speak to me... Sy. SY !!!
I must have plooked him to death...
But I can't pay, I gave all my money to some groovy religious guy two songs ago...
*** ACT II ***
Two scenes of choreographed torment and misery, Bald Headed John's Dong Work, and
keeping it Greasy (so it goes down easy), and we all felt Joe's pain.
The forlorn and pitiful state of Joe, led to his singing Outside Now - still is
echoing in my head as I write this. You could feel his yearning, his desperation.
An excellent transition here with a procession of the cast striding out onto the
floor all dressed plain drab church-like clothes, walking about performing symbolic
mundane chores, all with frozen blissful expressions, like living zombies.
Joe was driven deeper into his psychosis, the Outside being just another form of
hell no better than what he'd just left.
And finally...
Driven totally mad by it all, he returns to his ugly little room, and performs
his last imaginary guitar solo.
What came next was intense, and profound. (see my Epilogue Notes)
We transitioned from much exciting visual and musical stimuli...
(Packard Goose - Now that I got that over with I'll just play my imaginary
guitar again... hey, git down... la di da di da)
Fade to black, we're in the dark. The CS changes over to the "real one,"
from the album. And it's Frank's voice, switching to the original Real Voice,
cracking up, telling us, through his laughter, WHO GIVES A FUCK ANYWAY.
This was a bit of a mind fuck. All this time everything is 100% recreated,
by the musicians, the MC (SC), and actors. But suddenly now, a Voice of
the Dead, jarring us emotionally, all of us sitting in the dark, hearing Frank.
A lost loved one, gone forever. You want to feel sad, but he keeps cracking up.
Telling us WHO GIVES A FUCK ANYWAY.
And then, in loud crystal clear crisp notes, piercing the darkness like no
light ever could, were the haunting melodic cries from a guitar played by
a ghost from thirty fucking years ago.
*** Watermelon In Easter Hay ***
We soaked up this instrumental like sponges, sitting there in the dark.
The strands of guitar notes, the mesmerizing waves of the tubular bells,
and the winds of the background texture, swept us up into a personal
journey of listening, of FEELING music like we never seem to do any more,
in this day of iPods and multitasking.
It was a magic carpet ride.
We didn't want it to end.
But when it did end, and the last note had faded away, but before the final
ensemble number began, we sat in stunned silence - to clap was unthinkable - our
state of mind was too raw still. We weren't ready to come back.
Frank was gone again.
But !!!
Back we were, and there was a happy ending and a happy song yet
to be sung. And muffins to be topped, and passed out to the audience lol.
Joe was a happy guy now.
His face too now frozen, with that look of wide-eyed glazed happiness
that marked the end of his personal torment. A state of conforming.
And a lesson to us all.
---
*** EPILOGUE ***
In the first page of the Program Guide, was a note from Gail Zappa.
The last thing she said was this:
"One small footnote concerning Watermelon In Easter Hay - this composition is
one of three Signature Guitar Pieces identified by the composer and it remains
my intention, at his request, to refuse any request by anyone else to perform it."
IMHO - what the Producers and Directors chose to do, with presenting
this piece as they did, was brilliant. (even my wife said later, she didn't
want it to end - a shocking statement if you knew my wife) - I shall be
forever grateful for the new mental images I have to go with this album,
and for the fun and delight of having seen this play last night.
-Pluvious
---
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion.
At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down
the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way,
and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
-Frank Zappa, 1977
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