I was speaking with an actor last night about art.party’s upcoming projects, and she told me about Anne Washburn’s Apparition: An Uneasy Play of the Underknown. (Washburn wrote The Communist Dracula Project, which premiered at the A.R.T. last fall. She also did some stuff through Chashama!) Apparition, produced in 2005, took place almost entirely in the dark, with some candles, a flashlight, a dim bulb, etc. lighting the stage from time to time. The production was apparently quite successful. Some relevant quotations from the Brooklyn Rail on the effects of darkness: “Waters’ courageous choice to have much of the performance in blackout enhances the stillness of the oppressive darkness” and “The fact that it’s performed in sheer darkness amplifies the violence” (http://www.brooklynrail.org/2005/12/theater/review-out-of-the-darkness).  Seems to have achieved much what we are going for with Malfi. 

The other thing we spoke about last night was accessibility to the audience. The actor said that she found some of Washburn’s work to border on inaccessible. It is important to remember that our art should shatter expectations while remaining accessible. With Malfi, we will literally be putting the power to access (i.e., flashlights) into the hands of the audience. Pretty cool…

-CAM

As art.party enters the infant stage of identifying itself and its mission (”Who’s that baby in the mirror? Me?!”) I started doing some research about other companies to get a sense of how long it takes to get to a place where we will have “made it.”

Answer: A damn long time.

We are bound to toil in the darkness of obscurity for several years, slowly earning street cred with our peers until our breakout production. And though it feels like every production is our breakout production, logistics like funding and free time may force us to climb slowly and not meteorically.

While I see the value of having a vision (cf. Oprah’s The Secret) I think that what will continue to be my driving force as an artist–and art.party’s–will be to make art and have fun doing that. So far, we seem to be following that theme. That seems to be the only way to survive the slow, inevitable climb.

In September, we’ll take on another rung in the ladder as I’ll be the project leader for art.party’s residency with chashama (lower-case? what! what!). It will be hot off the heels of DUCHESS and art.party.outreach will be creating or polishing brave new work. (”O, brave new wor[k]!”) So, let’s have two big objectives: (1) make good art and (2) have fun. If we devote our energy to the creation, I feel it will come back to us. Even if ten years later.

Since I am not patient myself, I’m attaching a sketch I did yesterday for one night of the residency. Now I just need a performer or performers brave enough to do it. Any takers?

Lots of love,

JB