On Making Off: Misadventures Off-Off Broadway (15 page)

But now, overcome by a cocktail of exhaustion, determination, and anxiety, I’d lost my composure. Feeling drained, confused, and somehow excited, I looked at Lolly on my left, snickering into her hands, and Bobby on my right, shaking his head in total disapproval. They looked like the devil and the angel, sitting on each of my shoulders, whispering their temptations into my ear.

The fact that Bobby was playing the part of the angel forced me to seriously contemplate the severity of my behavior. The Girls weren’t wrong to feel the way they did. They just had really bad timing—bad emotional timing. If they had come to me a few weeks earlier…

“
You know…” Bobby said, interrupting my thoughts. “They’ve been trying to talk to you about this for months.”

Fuck! It was true. I knew it was true. I was dismissing it as insecure nonsense, hoping it would go away. I never thought insecure nonsense could grow into anger, then hatred, then tears. And I remember thinking my ability to be empathetic was shockingly poor. Not that I wanted to do anything about it. But I recognized it.

Of the many minor dysfunctions I wasn’t addressing, I had ignored the Lolly-versus-Girls problem for far too long. And it wasn’t just The Girls. The entire cast disliked Lolly as a director. But haven’t we all had directors we didn’t like? I didn’t understand what was burning them up so much. Lolly was available to talk anytime. Why didn’t they sit down over a cup of coffee and discuss it? Were their differences so drastic?

As a writing team, The Girls and I were highly functional. We had set up a series of deadlines, and we all met them. We were extremely supportive of each other’s efforts, knowing this was the first time many had written dialogue. Our process had been exciting, fulfilling, and largely un-dramatic, and that made the current situation even more perplexing. I started mining my memory to see how far back this problem went.

We’d completed a decent working script a week before rehearsals began and were proud of our accomplishment. Lolly affirmed its merit but had very clear ideas about the visual texture and tone of the piece. After our first reading, I could tell the script was too pedestrian for her vision.

In our play, Zelda Fitzgerald has written what the other characters recognize as a superior book. Is it a novel or a manifesto? Nobody can put a finger on it, but clearly they feel threatened by it. Right from the start, Ernest Hemingway takes shots at Zelda with his rifle, Dorothy Parker verbally assaults her, and her loving husband F. Scott tries his drunken best to put her back in her womanly place. But Zelda just frolics through the play, immune to their attacks because she knows she’ll get the last laugh.

As we see what she has written, everything starts to fall apart. Her book is the story of their lives, told in heartbreaking detail.

When the book opens (which literally happens on stage), we are treated to snapshots, everything from romantic first meetings and decadent soirees, to adulterous affairs and miserable bouts with depression. Zelda captures their lives, not in their entirety, but at the ripest moments, those moments of raw beauty and unstoppable, horrible decay.

“
This is a great base,” Lolly began at the top of our first rehearsal. “I want to add a few things.”

We listened with eager ears, excited for feedback from a new mind.

“
First,” she continued, “I’m going to add a character.” This certainly wasn’t the feedback we had hoped for, but we listened. “This character won’t be a real person per se…rather more of a symbolic, or I should say allegoric, representation…”

“
What is this person’s name?” I asked, attempting to get her to the point. She could have been talking about Pablo Picasso, Gerald Murphy, or, God forbid, Ezra Pound. Lolly paused and then answered quickly.

“
Fire-Food. The character is called Fire-Food.”

The way she said it almost made us think we knew someone named Fire-Food—as if a quick search of our minds would reveal memories of classmates named Fire-Food, an uncle we affectionately called Fire-Food, or Fire-Food, a first love. The tactic was brilliant. We were all so disarmed by her nonchalance, we sat in silence, unable to question the moniker’s legitimacy for fear of offending the one person in the room who had a cousin named Fire-Food.

“
You’ll see. She’s going to add ritual and mystery to the show.”

We had no doubt a character named Fire-Food would add mystery to the show. I quickly decided to trust Lolly to flesh this Fire-Food thing out. The Girls, meanwhile, were still digesting the Fire-Food sneak attack. History had shown they were uncomfortable with spontaneous artistic turns, so this could very well throw the apple cart off the cliff. Kathy raised her hand, and I braced for the worst.

“
Yes Kathy,” Lolly said, pointing to her.

“
Will she be billed as Fire-Food in the program?”

“
Yes.” She paused. “Any more questions?”

Lolly looked around and waited a good 30 seconds for another question, but nobody moved. Kathy had sabotaged us. In the face of such confusion, she had asked a ludicrous question, leaving us newly dumbfounded at its absurdity.

“
Great,” Lolly pressed on. “Now, I’ve written a song about fucking geese that I want to put into the piece.”

I immediately laughed. I find rhymes funny. Geese, piece. Call me eight years old, but any time someone rhymes, I laugh. Everyone else was silent. What was this woman talking about?

“
When you say ‘fucking geese,’ do you mean like, ‘those God-damned fucking geese’ or ‘copulating birds’?” I asked. The way she inflected “fucking,” it could have gone either way.

“
No, it’s not about geese having sex. It’s a song about men having sex with geese.”

Oh. Of course! That cleared everything up. It was a poem about bestiality. That’s exactly what this play about 20
^th
-century literati needed.

In all fairness, if it
was
about
burning
geese, I might have followed the logic. That might actually have brought some meaning to this Fire-Food character. But as it was presented, I felt it to be a bit harsh. It wasn’t fair. The stealth of the Fire-Food introduction followed by the crudeness of goose-fucking was too much to process. Besides, both concepts seemed completely detached from each other and, more importantly, from our story. These new ideas added nothing but distractions.

Lolly handed out the new text, which proved to be very funny, and, as it turned out, a great illustration of the hedonistic decadence of the early 1920s. Did it fit into our show? Doubtful. Is it true the titans of industry sat around copulating with geese and breaking their necks at the point of climax? Anything is possible, but we were fairly certain none of our characters had engaged in this behavior.

I couldn’t figure it out. This was how Lolly chose to start the rehearsal process? By sitting us down and introducing a character called Fire-Food and a song about fucking geese? Didn’t we already have enough to think about? Weren’t we already confused? We all felt as though Lolly was fucking up the show. As we left the rehearsal that evening, I thought about giving Lolly a tub of Vaseline with a note that read, “This isn’t prison, please use generously,” but opted, instead, to bite on my pencil.

Two weeks later, when I arrived at the rehearsal room, I noticed a strange man sitting next to Lolly. He was wearing glasses with thick black rims. By the exchange of snickers and whispers between them, I could tell trouble was brewing.

Rehearsals had been going OK. Lolly was demanding, but she kept things moving. She had given the scenes we’d written a very clear style, one with specific movement and highly intentional dialogue delivery. It was almost presentational, but we didn’t address the audience the way a mime or a clown would. It was more like a continuous wink, subtly letting the audience know we knew they were there and “in” on something. She had choreographed the opening, where we emerge one-by-one from a coffin-shaped piano. The effect would leave the audience wondering just how many people can squeeze into one coffin.

“
Welcome, everyone,” Lolly said, clapping her hands. “Before we start today, I want to introduce everyone to my friend Harrison. He’s going to be watching rehearsal today, and if there is something someone can’t do, like a handstand, for instance, he is here to replace you. Man or woman, it doesn’t matter. We’ll put him in a dress. He doesn’t care. He just wants to work.”

We all knew this was targeted squarely at Deborah, our Zelda, a physically and emotionally demanding part that, I believe, every lady in the room—including Lolly—was dying to play. During a lively dance to the goose-fucking song, Zelda was supposed to spring upside-down and walk around on her hands, her dress and crinoline falling over her torso to create the body of the bird, and her feet in yellow slippers to represent the bill.

“
This is a very clever bit of imagery,” I had whispered to Lolly when she first presented the idea.

“
I fucking hate clever,” Lolly replied. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t come off as clever. Clever is for comedians. I’m a serious artist, and this is serious art.”

I chuckled. Nothing is funnier than a serious artist trying to be serious when she’s making her serious art.

Sadly, in our circumstance, it didn’t much matter if it was serious or clever. Deborah could not perform a handstand. She’d turn upside-down, her legs would flail about for a few seconds, and then she’d collapse to the floor. We watched her try for 10 solid minutes. After each fall, she’d brush herself off, quickly think through what went wrong, and try again.

Twenty-five attempts later, she announced, exhaustedly, that she would practice more at home but was doubtful she’d master it by opening. I thought she was very gallant in her efforts, but we had “Lubeless Lolly” as a director. If Deborah could not stand on her hands, this Harrison guy would walk on
his
hands right into the coveted role. He even demonstrated his handstand abilities for a nauseating two minutes.

Lolly may have thought it was funny, but I was angry at her for pulling this stunt. I certainly wasn’t going to fault the rest of the cast for not wanting to mine their way to some mysterious point I’m sure Lolly could have illuminated in a million better ways.

After rehearsal, I walked to the train with Lolly and Harrison.

“
Listen, Lolly, you have to pull back,” I warned her. “Folks are getting really upset. Frankly, I’m surprised nobody quit tonight.”

“
I don’t care. They’re not trying, Randy. They’re not even trying.”

“
They
are
trying. Just because they can’t do everything you want them to doesn’t mean they’re not trying.”

“
Oh, they’re just making excuses. They can do it. They’re not trying hard enough. They should get past all their internal blocks and just do what I ask.” Lolly stopped. “I’m the director!”

“
Yeah. Sure. You are the director. Which means you have to direct us, not berate us. You’ve got to let go of some of that Landmark Forum crap and start really leading.”

Lolly paused at my desecration of the Forum, a cult-like self-empowerment organization spawned by Werner Erhard’s est, but I continued.

“
And don’t forget that some of these people are also the writers and producers of this play. We’re creating this thing together, and you have to work with them. If someone can’t do something, change it! No more, ‘This is my friend Harrison’ bullshit. It’s childish, and it’s dirty. No offence, Harrison.”

“
I’m dirty,” said Harrison, smiling. “So, no offence taken.”

“
But they can’t do a handstand!” Lolly shouted. “Why should I have to compromise my vision because they can’t do something? You see how resistant they are to my ideas. You know they’re going to question everything I say.”

“
They’re not physical performers, Lolly. They’re just not. Let’s work with what we’ve got, OK?”

“
I hate them,” Lolly said in resignation.

“
I’m pretty sure they hate you too,” I replied.

“
Well, at least everyone knows where they stand. That’s one thing we’ve got going for us.”

The situation felt pathetic. We both recognized it and agreed we’d continue the work sans any more “This is my friend Harrison” crap.

With production in full swing, my schedule was non-stop from 8 a.m. to midnight. We had a set, costumes, lighting, and sound designers all fast at work. Thanks to the spectacular photos and some momentum from the FringeNYC festival,
The Expatriates
was getting a lot of press. Bobby, as publicity manager, had done an amazing job of printing postcards—which we now produced by the thousands—posters, and advertisements which were all placed in every theater lobby, coffee shop, and bar in town.

More than 20 people were working on the production, twice as many as on our previous shows. Our venue had grown, too. FringeNYC had placed us in the Kraine Theater, the 99-seat proscenium stage at 85 East Fourth Street. The first-floor theater, more seats, and fewer stairs—if you weren’t in our inner circle, you’d say The Beggars Group was going strong.

Two weeks before opening and four weeks into rehearsals, the actress playing Fire-Food called me from a payphone near some basketball courts in Chelsea.