On Making Off: Misadventures Off-Off Broadway (26 page)

The basketball game had ended, and we all congregated on the court, alternatively passing around a bottle of Jack and a joint.

“
Thank you, guys, for a great week,” I said to the Moon Monks.

“
No, thank
you
,” Chris replied. “You guys brought so much energy and excitement. This has been an incredible week. Really inspiring. Here, here!”

We raised our glasses just as Beverly poked her head through the door.

“
There’s so much food left. I want each and every one of you to come up here and make another plate.”

Beverly had perfect timing. The munchies were just starting to hit.

FAG HOG

“
You guys,” Dickey started, as we walked down Stanton Street in a blazing August heat. “We have to stop this…”

Lolly and I both knew what he was going to say next.

“…
or somebody is going to die,” we said together.

He was right, but the situation was out of our hands. We couldn’t do anything about it now, could we? We could have done something a few days ago, but now? How could we let this happen? More to the point, how could we stand by and let it get worse? Because it
was
going to get worse. That much we knew.

It all started when we got back from Atlanta. Or maybe it started when Dickey picked that horrible font for our cards. Who knows when these things start? Does anyone really know when the insidious crack forms on the dam? Our crack was forming. That much we knew.

We had pulled together plenty of fantastic ideas for our new show,
Stopping the World
, in Atlanta, but we only had two weeks until our first performance at FringeNYC. Two weeks, and we didn’t have postcards, posters, flyers, or even a show. All we had was our concept. And the title! We had the title. We had a concept and a title. We’d gotten by with less, hadn’t we? Surely, we could put something together with sheer determination and a little luck, right? After all, we created the TBG Development System.

We spent Week One mapping out a basic structure by combining Shakespeare’s stages-of-man speech from
As You Like It
with a brief history of evolution. This would illustrate the personal and the universal. The idea was to establish the growth of a human being and the evolution of life on the planet. Once the audience identified the pattern, they’d begin predicting the next steps. After all, they’re fairly predictable to everyone—everyone except creationists, I suppose, but creationists don’t often attend fringe theater festivals. Then, once the audience was comfortable, we’d introduce a “stopping-the-world” moment. We’d interrupt this predictable path with some tremendous event. We got to work piecing together the script, using the Bard and Darwin texts as our references.

During Week Two, we were allowed into the theater to start rehearsals. We arrived at Fringe Central on Stanton Street on the Lower East Side. While we weren’t expecting much from our facilities, we thought, at the very least, we would have four walls. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. We were placed in what we referred to as “Afterthought Theater.” With a corrugated tin roof and tent walls, it was the shantytown venue of the festival, the theater that had to be built when the organizers realized they didn’t have enough space for all the shows they’d accepted.

The one benefit to performing in Afterthought Theater was its location in Fringe Central, the festival’s hub of activity. Not only was this where people bought their tickets for the shows, it was also where performers and patrons mingled, which generated numerous marketing opportunities.

Of course, the crappy venue was the least of our worries. We still needed to come up with a show. When we got into the space, Lolly and I decided to illustrate the evolution of man and mankind not only through our actions and words but also through the audience. If you’re weak on content, make it interactive! The audience would begin watching the show from the stage floor while lying on their backs. Then, we’d ask them to sit up to watch from their bums. Next, they’d stand for a period, and, after five more minutes, we’d lead them to their seats, where they would remain fully evolved audience members for the duration of the show.

In two weeks, that was as far as we got. We had woven together 30 minutes of found text, an accompanying series of highly physical actions, and an evolving audience experience. All of this led to the big “stopping-the-world” moment—a moment that didn’t exist. Mere hours before our first show, we’d only managed to generate the first half. It was a good first half, but it was only a half.

“
We’re so screwed!” Lolly said in a complete panic she covered by laughter.

“
Yeah, yeah, we are,” I said. “I mean, I guess we just do the show until we don’t have a show and then stop. We can explain to the audience that it’s a work in progress, and, if they want to see the rest, they should come back toward the end of the festival. Maybe we could use it to our advantage and get some repeat customers.”

It was foolishly optimistic for sure.

“
Nobody is coming back, Randy,” Lolly said. “Would you go back to a show like that?”

“
Maybe,” I replied.

“
No, you wouldn’t.”

She was right.

“
I’ve got it,” said Dickey, pointing his finger to the heavens.

Lolly and I recognized instantly that Dickey was about to make some crazy joke, and she cut him off at the pass.

“
Dickey, we need to be serious right now. We have to figure this out.”

“
Or,” Dickey countered back, “we aren’t serious.” He grinned mischievously. “What if we do the show up to the point where we don’t have a show, and then the lights mysteriously go out? There is some commotion, a loud noise, and when the lights come back on, we’re gone.”

A really bad magic trick! Sadly, it was the best idea yet, but it seemed incomplete.

“
Where did we go?” Lolly asked.

“
Fag Hog took you,” Dickey said.

Lolly and I exchanged a look. Because of Dickey’s poorly chosen font, people constantly thought the
tbg
on our stationery and business cards said either “fag” or “hog,” depending on their particular level of crassness. And that was how the myth was born.

We’d been working on the legend of Fag Hog for almost a year. Fag Hog was an irresponsible band of fucked-up theater makers. A short brush with The Beggars Group had made them lifelong enemies. Their logo was a well-chosen font that said both “fag” and “hog” at the same time, utilizing only three letters. Sadly, this ingenious logo was often confused with the better-known Beggars Group, whose logo was quite similar. Fag Hog didn’t just make bad theater, they made bad human beings. The thought of conjuring their presence now was dangerous and thrilling.

“
Yes,” Lolly said. “And then we come out as Fag Hog and terrorize the audience.”

Lolly and I started laughing. It was a ridiculous idea we never should have followed through with, but possessed by panic and inspired by necessity, we did. In a matter of minutes we had assembled costumes and props that consisted of a sombrero, ponchos, swimming goggles, a bag of flour (that would represent cocaine), a bottle of tequila, and a stage gun. We headed down to the theater.

Our first audience is light, which isn’t surprising since we hadn’t advertised. We pull in our venue manager, Dom, to help fill out the seven-person audience, and the show begins.

At first, nobody knows what to make of being instructed to lie on the stage, but once we start running in place and vibrating the floor, everyone gets it. This is the massaging portion of the show. Since the novelty of watching a show from your back wanes quickly, we easefully move the audience from lying positions to sitting. We get them up to sitting, then standing, all the while telling the magical stories of the growth of humanity.

Right as we run out of play to perform, the lights go out. Lolly and I yell and hit things backstage while we change into our Fag Hog costumes. Thirty seconds later, the lights come back on, and we burst onstage complete with ponchos, booze, swimming goggles, “cocaine,” and toy guns.

“
Fuck The Beggars Group!” Lolly shouts. “We’re Fag Hog, and we’re gonna show you what real theater is!”

This commences our improvised disparaging of The Beggars Group.

“
Ladies and gentleman, what you’ve been witnessing here is complete crap!” I explain. “The Beggars Group likes to claim they make good theater. But they don’t! We do!”

“
Yeah, we do!” Lolly chimes in. “We make good theater. We just can’t…well, we just don’t have anything...theatrical, I mean, that we can do right now.”

“
That’s not true,” I say.

And we launch into a really bad series of improvised skits. When I say “bad,” I mean really, really, REALLY bad. Once we finish (a merciful five minutes later), Dickey brings the lights back down, and we noisily change back into Randy and Lolly. The lights return, and we walk, half-dazed, onto the stage.

“
Ladies and gentleman, we apologize for the interruption,” I announce. “I don’t know what to say. Those people are awful. They answered an ad we placed in the
Village Voice
looking for collaborators for this festival...”

“
Obviously,” Lolly continues, “these are not the kinds of people we want to get involved with.” She is on the verge of tears.

“
We’d like to start…Lolly, are you OK?” I ask.

“
No, Randy, I’m not. I can’t believe this happened. I can’t do the rest of the show. I’m sorry.”

Bursting into tears, she runs out of the tent into Fringe Central.

“
I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen. Sadly, it looks like we’re going to have to end the show there. We hope you enjoyed what you did get to see and will tell your friends. Thank you for coming.”

It’s a sincere speech, and my obvious embarrassment only adds to the authenticity. Stepping outside to say goodbye to our guests as they leave, I’m relieved to see they are all smiling. I am so busy feeling foolish, it never occurs to me our audience might actually enjoy being part of the joke.

I look over and see Lolly in the crowd of Fringe Central with an acquaintance consoling her. She explains to him in great detail how our show was just terrorized by this rogue theater company called Fag Hog. I am quite sure no one will believe this outlandish story until several audience members approach her to offer their sympathies and corroborate her story! The match is tossed, the fire spreads, and the joke is on.

The same thing happens at each performance. We do our show until we have no show, Fag Hog appears, and Lolly bursts into tears and out into Fringe Central. Each time, our little audience is fully complicit. They wander into the crowd never saying much, which is just enough. They have a few fuzzy details about a disruption and a group called Fag Hog.

Our venue manager Dom, on the other hand, enjoys being in on the joke so much, he tells the full story in great detail to anyone who asks. I’m sure he’s the one who planted the idea in the heads of another theater troupe that Fag Hog was gunning for them next.

“
If those fuckers even try to disrupt our show, I swear I’ll take my prop gun and pop them right in the fucking face!” said Bowman, smashing his fist into his hands. The cast of his show,
Fuck You, or Dead Pee Holes,
had an emergency meeting on how to deal with the increasing threat of Fag Hog.

“
How do they get in?” a cast member asked Lolly, who they brought in as an unfortunate expert in dealing with the rogue theater company.

“
They used to just come in through the front door,” she told the silently attentive group. “But Dom has been standing by the door now, so they’ve taken to coming in through the roof.”

“
How many times have they disrupted your show?” asked another cast member.

“
Every performance. Look, guys, they have a bone to pick with The Beggars Group. I don’t think they’re going to try and fuck up your show.”

Unwilling to reveal the truth, Lolly wanted to ease their minds as much as she could. Even the thought of having their show invaded was disrupting to them.

“
Well, if they do, they’ll be sorry,” Bowman said with conviction to loud cheers from a unified cast. “I’m ready to kick some fucking ass.”

This was starting to get out of control. Every time we were at a Fringe Party, or even at a Lower East Side bar, someone would approach us and ask us to recount our tales with our nemesis.

We performed our sixth show without a hitch to another single-digit audience. Lolly assumed her position, crying in Dom’s arms in the heart of Fringe Central. This time, however, John, the head of the festival, catches notice and approaches her.

“
What happened?” he asks. “Why are you crying?”

“
You haven’t heard?” Dom asks, and he launches into the whole story.

Within minutes, Lolly, Dickey, and I find ourselves sitting in the FringeNYC offices being drilled by the festival heads, John and Elaina. We had been summoned because they thought we were victims, but we knew in our hearts we were not victims. We were criminals. I was already convinced they were going to shut us down. Just like my fifth-grade jungle gym haunted house.