Americana Absurdum

PRESENTED @ EDINBURGH 2000 IN ASSOCIATION WITH ABSURDUM INTERNATIONAL (NYC)

written by Brian Parks

directed by John Clancy

performed by Absurdum International

Originally Produced by The Present Company, New York City (John Clancy, Artistic Director; Elena K. Holy, Producing Director). Subsequently produced at THE NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL FRINGE FESTIVAL, a production of THE PRESENT COMPANY
WINNER: Scotsman Fringe First 2000

"... a pair of caustic, hyperarticulate comedies which fan flames of inspiration. Playwright Brian Parks and an expert cast send up American culture in the venomous tradition of Christopher Durang." (Peter Marks, The New York Times)

"A screwball comedy with so much wit, intelligence and bite, you'll be laughing and nodding your head in agreement throughout. Perhaps the best combination of play-writing and production to come out of New York downtown theatre in the 90s." (Tom Murrin, Paper Magazine)

AMERICANA ABSURDUM has all the giddy, faintly squeamish exhilaration of quitting your day job, overdosing on alcohol and cough syrup, jumping up and down on the couch, and surfing through infomercials hysterically at 3 in the morning. There's the same out-of-control sense of breakneck speed; the mixed joy and panic of ceding all responsibility; the dizzying insomniac excitement of imminent exhaustion; the blurry, garish colours; the sharp-faced fast talking hucksters selling off-brand product with specious philosophy. AND, most important of all, the inexhaustible pleasure of American spectatorship: watching the con without being the mark. At least, not yet. Not until you pick up that phone...

AMERICANA ABSURDUM celebrates the comic, vertiginous thrill of America in its many, fun-house mirror guises revelling in the comic possibilities of spectacular tragedy. parodying the bankrupt American dream and spotlighting the problematic value systems that its morality tales hide.

"Fast-paced, high strung, and brand conscious, these two (completely different) plays are like the bastard offspring of Len Jenkins and Joe Orton raised in a trailer park somewhere in mid-America. Their energetic surrealism does more than mock American mores: It inhabits them, jacks up the volume and blows them wide open. Its more than pastiche, its exploding intertext."Jessica Branch - newyorkcitysearch.com

PART I: VOMIT AND ROSES. Young Perth's family's beloved price-gouging funeral home business faces takeover by a huge, impersonal, nasty corporation, lessening the already negligible chance that his shy sister Kea will ever get a prom date. Sweetly romantic Kea is given to unprovoked outbursts about the moral defensibility of masturbation. Her mother rhapsodises about the secret inner landscape of viscera. These corn fed naïfs find themselves at the mercy of their aggressively litigious and ingratiatingly sleazy lawyer, Ermine Miami, from whose tender claws only an Act of God (or Brian de Palma) can save them.

PART II: WOLVERINE DREAM involves an airline-owning poetaster; some very depressed clowns with a morphine-addicted mother; two sisters fighting over who'll hand the estate onto the Scientologists; a blarney-speaking émigré with a support staff of leprechauns; and a Wolverine as the star witness of an hilarious climactic courtroom scene.

Reviews:

Scotsman Fringe First Winner 2000
Nominated Best Ensemble in Stage Awards for Acting Excellence 2000

[Vomit & Roses] "The New York company of 10 players takes the audience on a breakneck journey to the rotten core of America.. The themes are dealt with satirically and..are easily conveyed to British audience. Brian Parks's script is sharp and clever and the simplistic direction adds to the sinister atmosphere of a darkened stage lit with bare light bulbs which illuminate each actor as they speak. Slick and frenetic... It's flawless, although not for the faint-hearted or slow-witted." (Anna Adams, Metro 25/08/00)

"The American Dream gets the legs whipped from under it as Brian Parks delves behind the whitewashed porches of Shafer City - a town that is..surreal, dark, and ultimately very funny.. Illuminated by roving lightbulbs..the production waits for no-one racing through a comic tale that is both grotesque and sophisticated, turning American icons into trinkets: the playthings of a skilled cast who have perfected their timing, their delivery, and their sense of the absurd.." (Robert Thomson, The Herald 25/08/00)

"Borrowing a synopsis from American film, big time capitalist attempts to swallow bourgeois smallholding capitalist, this piece treats like for like, playing each with equivalent ideological malice... Brian Parks' script is as literate as it is ingenious... the playing is splendid... The use of sudden blackouts and rapid transitions makes for deft narrative framing in a production which sees director John Clancy display some clever stagecraft. As prettily structured as a formaldehyde frenzy could be." (Steve Cramer, The List 24/08/00)

[Wolverine Dream]"The hilarious second half of this surreal national portrait parades a collection of oddballs and misfits before us. Beneficiaries of disaster, they are all bound together by the financial fallout from an air crash... The nine cast members are constantly onstage. Lights pick out individuals while the rest lurk in the darkness.. The writing is superb." (Helen Freshwater, Three Weeks 21/08/00)

[Vomit & Roses] "This is an hilarious play, a send-up of everything American from family values to business to the military. But it's not a vicious satire: quite the contrary. It's like... like a caring father chastising his child to bring him back on the right road... The staging is simple but ingenious. The big nasty corporation, for instance, is represented by one man and two suits on hangers. ... Great fun! Now I am disappointed I'll not be seeing the second of the Americana Absurdum plays, Wolverine Dream, but time, alas, does not allow." (Peter Lathan, About.com)

[Vomit & Roses] "The ten-strong Americana Absurdum company fit a week's worth of surrealism and one-liners into a bare fifty minutes in this show, playing in repertoire with their Wolverine Dream.. Scenes are played at breakneck speed, illuminated by hand-focused single-bulb lamps, in delicious reductio ad absurdum (exactly) of apple-pie values. Laugh for more than a second and you'll miss another gag. A beaut." (Ian Shuttleworth, FT.com)

[Vomit & Roses]"Using little more than handheld lamps and a 100mph delivery, John Clancy's production is a darkly comic compendium of glorious non-sequiturs that knits together the stock types and sacred cows of American culture, and makes them look ridiculous.. America may be a mess of hypocrisy and sleaze but that's what makes the country so funny." (Neil Cooper, The Times 22/08/00)

"Its component plays both plumb the depths of corporate malpractice, legal chicanery and family breakdown..Both are staged in a darkness broken only by handheld bulbs, which illuminate scenes in quickfire succession..Brians Parks' writing, and its delivery in John Clancy's production, is highly stylised..It's undeniably dazzling stuff, notably in a series of pyrotechnic soliloquies by which Parks sets upon national or professional mores..A top-notch cast, all perfectly attuned to the production's hyper-sardonic mode..Parks is possessed of a lucid and original comic sense." (Brian Logan, The Independent 21/08/00)

"Sheer relentlessness of delivery.. This is a fast show.. It's also a virtuoso display of theatrical pyrotechnics..This is satirical social commentary - laughter with meaning. Frenetic." (Iain Macwhirter, Sunday Herald 20/08/00)

"A zany send-up of adolescent dreams and American institutions.. Brian Parks' script is sparky and..there is a wide-reaching satire..Director John Clancy's staging is classy, his cast slickly doubling as macabre tech crew who huddle round and spotlight each rapid fire scene with flick-on, flick-off lamps." (Kate Bassett, The Independent on Sunday 20/08/00)

[Vomit & Roses] "Clever wit and spark from writer Brian Parks, and a talented ensemble, telling the story of an all-American family whose business gets swallowed up by a corporate take-over...This is fast. perceptive, surreal and funny." (Critics` Choice, The Scotsman 19/08/00)

"Offers excellent evidence that contemporary theatre in the States is also a seed bed of fine satire. The constituent plays Vomit and Roses and Wolverine Dream shed hilarious and razor-sharp light into the dark corners of American society. Politically and historically literate, and dripping with veiled and not-so-veiled references to American literature, Americana Absurdum is a splendidly performed and brilliantly observed comedy." (Mark Brown, Scotland on Sunday 13/08/00)

"I was riveted as 10 players took to the stage for one of the funniest and most surreal performances I've seen. At neck-breaking speed, the play bounced from scene to scene, the action highlighted by swinging spotlights. The humour was black and sailed close to the wind more often than not as the American dream was deftly dissected for all to see. Part II went head to head with a force nine. Tailored for a certain sense of humour and bordering on sick, I thoroughly enjoyed it. No Part III?" (Alison Cockcroft, Scotland on Sunday 13/08/00

"Brian Parks' uproarious satire of the Land of the Free...An epic performed in two parts on alternate nights, it is a must-see show for anyone who has ever wanted to see Uncle Sam with his trousers down." (Critics Choice, Scotland on Sunday 13/08/00)

"A slick, quickfire pair of devastatingly black comic plays launch us into a world of loan-shark funeral parlour scams, corporate lawyers, nascent Nazism, post-modern literary criticism, twisted sentimentality and mass-transit mega-death. ... Staged in a series of fast linked scenes with a relentless succession of tag-lines and lit on a dark stage by the cast themselves with hand held lamps, it's as if we're taken on a roller-coaster ghost-train ride from set piece to set piece of hilarious intellectual horror. ... The breakneck speed and timing are flawless. No one misses a cue. (No one has time the time even to think they might miss a cue!) Hilarious - not to be missed." (Colin Donati, edinburghguide.com 10/08/00)

"If Americana Absurdum came in a tin it would do exactly as it says on the tin. It would also have two distinct flavours - 'Vomit and Roses' and 'Wolverine Dream'. But they would both taste of five stars and when you had finished one - it wouldn't matter which - you would be livid you had to wait until the next night to taste the other. You would definitely want to taste it for yourself." (Thom Dibdin, Evening News 09/08/00)

[Wolverine Dream] "The breakneck pace of the playing adds to the audience's hysteria in this frenetic piece, full of tricksy aphorism and surreal visual dislocation. A maudlin and very funny sermon on contemporary American life, this amounts to a memorable evening of theatre." (Steve Cramer, The List, 10/08/00)

[Wolverine Dream] "The second of Brian Parks' Absurdum plays is like a rapid-fire standup comedy show that has suddenly gelled into weird dream-like drama. It produces some of the most searingly, wickedly perceptive comic monologues I've heard in years." (Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman 08/08/00)

[Wolverine Dream] "A cracking cast and refreshingly mischievous, inventive author. The real target is American callousness, sentimentality and folly; a world where one of those questioned by lunatic lawyers is a wolverine who left its forest family to become a banker. Surreal stuff; but funny and biting too." (Benedict Nightingale, The Times 07/08/00)

"... a pair of caustic, hyper articulate comedies fan flames of inspiration. Playwright Brian Parks and an expert cast send up American culture in the venomous tradition of Christopher Durang." (Peter Marks, The New York Times)

"Comically grotesque... biting." (Alexis Greene, Variety)

"Pure machine-gun black comedy." (Francine Russo, The Village Voice)

"A splash of acid fun, transforming delusions, aggressions and insane hate into theatrical joy." (Randy Gener, The Village Voice)

Biographies:

Brian Parks - Author

Brian is also the author of Goner which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2002. Other work includes Out of the Way, produced in San Francisco and later adapted into the film Out of the Way Cafe by IDG Films. Brian recently retired from the Arts Editorship of the prestigious Village Voice of Ney York City after 7 years.

John Clancy - Director

John Clancy was the founding Artistic Director of The Present Company, a leading Off-Off Broadway theatre company. He is also a founding Artistic Director of The New York International Fringe Festival, North America's largest theatre and performance festival. His plays have won The American Shorts Contest, The San Francisco Playwrights Center Dramarama and been short-listed for the Julie Harris Playwriting Award. Directing credits include Americana Absurdum, winner of a Scotsman Fringe First Award 2000.
He serves on the Advisory Council of The New York Theatre Experience, Inc., the city's pre-eminent advocacy and resource centre for downtown theatre, the Leadership Council of the Alliance for Nonprofit Governance and the Advisory Council of the English Language Theatre Society of Orenburg, Russia. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and his writing has been published in Off, Edge, Village Voice and The New York Times.
He was awarded The New York Magazine Award in 1997 for "creativity, enterprise and vision". He lives on the Lower East Side with his wife, Nancy Walsh.

David Calvitto (Father, Wallace Stevens)

WINNER: THE STAGE AWARD - BEST ACTOR 2002 (Horse Country)

David Calvitto is the Producing Director of Absurdum International and Dave Calvitto Productions.
Acting roles include: Ferdinand in The Tempest (w/Patrick Stewart); Brian Parks' Americana Absurdum and Goner, Directing credits: Off Broadway, The Boar's Carcass; Regionally, True West, A Streetcar Named Desire, Specter.
His play, The Five O'clock and his one man show, Dave's Play were performed at the Present Company in 1997.
From 1997 to 2000 David served as Volunteer/Scheduling Coordinator of The New York International Fringe Festival.

Leslie Farrell (Customer, Principal, Iola, Mother (Part 2))

...is a New York actor and puppeteer. Some of her credits include: Hazel Parks, Goner; M. Whitehead, Ascension Day; Meredith, Nigromantia; Trish Hammers/Dr. Helen, Reckless; Boo, Blue Window; Norma, The Diviners; Old Man, Lysistrata; Charlotte Cushman, Romancelanguage; Sister Celia, Papal Bull; Cyr Copertini, The Execution Of Justice; Regina, The Little Foxes; Ellen/Mrs. Saunder/Betty, Cloudnine; Dr. Emma Brookner, The Normal Heart; and puppeteer in Symphonie Fantastique. Leslie also directs at venues including: New York University, The Atlantic Theater School, HERE, and The Present Company. She has been an Artistic Associate at the Present Company since its inception. She received her Masters of the Fine Arts from Rutgers University.

Michael Hannon (Suits, Father (Part 2))

...is a native of Garden City, NY. Attended Adelphi and Southern Methodist University. Regional Credits include Bottom, A Midsummer Night's Dream; Bobby, Say Goodnight Gracie; Pop Shaver, Superbia. Recent Television Credits: Feds, Law And Order, The Hughley's. Recently appeared as Joe Tackle in the feature film, Final Rinse.

Jacqueline Lucid (Kea, Spoon)

...is delighted to be doing Americana Absurdum again. She has been with this project since its early days: first as two separately produced one-acts, then the full-length play for the first New York International Fringe Festival, and again when it was remounted for the inaugural season of the Present Company Theatorium. Her New York credits include: The Orphan Muses (Ubu Rep), Cafe Society (Manhattan Playhouse), Bargains (Primary Stages), Mrs. Warren's Profession, Romeo And Juliet (Riverside Shakespeare Co.), The Merchant of Venice (Royston Theatre Co.), Nigromantia, Blockbuster (Present Co.), Raps (FringeNYC). Regional: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Wayside Theatre), Noises Off (Creede Repertory Theatre), Courtship and Valentine's Day (Stage #1), Romeo And Juliet (Texas Shakespeare Festival), Beauty And The Beast (Dallas Theater Center), Love's Labours Lost (Fort Worth Shakespeare in The Park). TV: Courtship (American Playhouse, PBS), Loving (ABC). She holds a B.F.A. in theatre from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Christopher Sorensen (Stanley, Chet)

...is an Artistic Associate of The Present Company, where he has appeared in Americana Absurdum, Goner, The Paper Man and Blockbuster. He was recently employed at Cornell University where he was a Resident Professional Theatre Associate. At Cornell he appeared in You Never Can Tell directed by David Feldshuh, The Lesson and Romeo And Juliet. He also understudied Harold Gould in the role of Willy Loman. He received his MFA from the Rutgers Professional Actor Training Program where he studied under William Esper. Christopher has taught and directed at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Atlantic Theatre Company School.

Paul Urcioli (Assistant Director & Ermine Miami)

...recently ended a year long run Off Broadway in Over The River And Through The Woods at the John Houseman Theater. Other NY Theater: Kate Moira Ryan's Damage and Desire; the critically acclaimed Mojo and Rosemary For Remembrance with the Atlantic Theater Company; Brian Parks' Americana Absurdum and Goner, The Paper Man with The Present Company; Laguna Beach, Troilus And Cressida at HERE; Saved, Fit, Harm's Way, Christie In Love at the Ohio Theater; Instant Girl's Psycho Vanity at Lincoln Center's Serious Fun Festival. Regional Theater: So, Sue Me (directed by Bill Irwin) at The Kennedy Center & The Virginia Stage Company; Rosemary... and The Brat (directed by William H. Macy) with The Atlantic Theater Company in Vermont; The Tempest (with Patrick Stewart) in Oberlin. Film & TV: Shoplifting Channel, Law & Order, Late Night with Conan O'Brien (NBC), New York Crossing (Showtime), Loving and The City (ABC)

Nancy Walsh (Mother, Mashie)

WINNER: SCOTSMAN FRINGE FIRST 2002 - (CINCINNATI)

AWARDED: JACK TINKER MEMORIAL- SPIRIT OF THE FRINGE AWARD 2002- (CINCINNATI)

Nominated: The Stage - Best Actress 2002- (CINCINNATI)

Nancy is a founding member of The Present Company the producing organisation of The New York International Fringe Festival. She has performed in over 14 productions with The Present Company, including Secret Agent Man and Paper Man, both written by John Clancy, The Egg Game by Sheila Head, Texas Radio by C.J.Hopkins. Off-Broadway credits include the world premiere of Sabina and Lucrecia. She has worked with Atlantic 453, Blue Heron and most recently with Six Figures Theatre Company in Clowning the Bard & Bible directed by Linda Ames Key. She co-starred in an animated feature called the The Ruth Truth by Sheila Head for Oxygen Media and starred in the short indie film, Another Bed by Brian Dykstra directed by Margarett Perry-Dykstra and Ross Minichiello. Credits also include One Life to Live and commercial work for ESPN, Lifetime, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Nancy is also a state registered Private Investigator.

Most recently she co-produced Horse Country, The Complete Lost Works of Samuel Beckett... and Cincinnati at Edinburgh 2002 with her husband John... all of this while receiving treatment for a brain tumour.

Rik Walter (William Calley)

American regional theatre credits include: Comedy Of Errors & Love's Labours Lost at Orlando Shakespeare Festival; Buddy! at The Walnut Street Theatre; Noises Off at Two River Theatre (New Jersey Regional Theatre award for "Best Actor in a Comedy"); and numerous plays and musicals with Connecticut Repertory Theatre, including Lend Me A Tenor, A Chorus Line, Buried Child, A School For Scandal, The Seagull, & the title role in Jesus Christ Superstar. He has toured Germany in A Christmas Carol, and Pennsylvania as Santa Claus. New York credits include: Richard III; Othello; Coriolanus (title role; Rik appeared as Harrison Switzer on As The World Turns; and in the feature film, Hitting The Ground . Rik holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Connectict, and is an Artistic Associate of The Present Company, producers of The New York International Fringe Festival, and has been involved with Americana Absurdum in all its incarnations since its inception in 1995.

Jody Lambert (Perth/Stanley)

...recently made his Off-Broadway debut in the Atlantic Theater Company's revival of David Mamet's The Water Engine. NY Theatre: Belly Of The Whale, City, Doughboy (all with The Filling Station); Eric Bogosian's Suburbia (Atlantic Theater). TV/Film: Home, The Days And Nights Of Molly Dodd, The Mr. Potatohead Kids.

Daniel O'Brien (Pete O'Mayo)

...holds a degree from the University of Notre Dame and has trained at Shakespeare's Globe in London. Most recently he appeared as Sealove in the Off-Broadway production of Sealove, Manager. in 2001 he toured with the Briggs Rosatti production of The Three Musketeers. Dan serves as the Administrative Director of the New York International Fringe Festival. He is thrilled to be working again on the other side of the pond.

Daniel ZS. Jagendorf (Lighting Design)

Mostly just another set designer in New York City. Born in Baltimore, raised in Ithaca, educated at Oberlin College, employed in Illinois, overcome at NYU, ensconced in Brooklyn. Design: Companies include Screaming Venus, the New Punctuation Army, Hell's Kitchen Opera, Laguardia HS of the performing arts, the Present Company, East Coast Artists. Shows include: Goner, A Chorus Line, Hamlet, Geek On Smack, Brandon Teena, Baseball, Sex And Other Facts Of Life, Film And TV: Fortunes, Dead Leaves, The High Life. Dan is also amused to be TD for East Coast Artists.

The Present Company (Original Producer)

...was born in the summer of 1992 as a loose collective of writers, actors and directors performing at an infamous after hours club on Manhattan's Lower East Side. In the fall of 1992, the company mounted its first full-scale production, The Emperor's Shorts, and later that year produced John Clancy's Secret Agent Man and Brian Parks' Vomit and Roses (Americana Absurdum: Part I) during the fall of 1994. Vomit and Roses opened in January 1995 at NADA and went on to break all box office records in an extended run at the now legendary downtown performance space.

In 1995 The Present Company moved into a 2,500 square foot loft on West 45th Street, which would serve as its artistic home for the next three years. During the 1995/1996 season at the 45th Street loft, the company produced works such as Sheila Head's The Egg Game, Nigromantia, words for the theater by Don Nigro, and John Clancy's The Paper Man, and began conceiving of and preparing for what became the first annual New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) in 1997. During the 1996/1997 season, the company presented Trapped by Curtiss I. Cook, Brian Parks' Wolverine Dream (Americana Absurdum: Part II), and Peter Handke's classic Offending the Audience.

In August 1997, two years of work culminated with the launch of the first New York International Fringe Festival, which for eleven days featured over 175 shows from all over the world in 21 theaters on Manhattan's Lower East Side, including the first presentation of the complete AMERICANA ABSURDUM. The Festival was an overwhelming success, garnered international acclaim, and The Present Company's Elena K. Holy and John Clancy were awarded a 1997 New York Magazine Award for "creativity, enterprise and vision" in creating the festival. During the 97/98 season, the company produced CJ Hopkins' Texas Radio, and Marriage, an evening of short plays by Don Nigro and John Clancy, as well as continuing to support its ongoing programs, such as the Magic Circle Series, the Monster Dog Series, and gearing up for the second annual FringeNYC.

In the summer of 1998, the company moved into its permanent artistic home, The Present Company Theatorium, a 7,500 square foot theater on the Lower East Side. During the 98/99 season, The Present Company produced its third full season, including works by Brian Parks, Leigh Silverman, C. J. Hopkins and John Clancy, and served as presenter for over 100 works of theater, music, dance and performance art. The 99/00 season included Brian Park's Goner, Elena Penga's Gorky's Wife, John Clancy's Notice of Default, and C.J. Hopkins' A Place Like This. As producer of its own season of innovative and challenging works, and presenter of the eclectic popular entertainment that has come to characterize New York's downtown theater scene, The Present Company provides a forum where new genres and forms can be created and explored in the spirit of the theatoriums, dime museums and vaudeville houses of the turn of the 20th Century.