Eric Bogosian
What's Been Going On?
June 3, 2003.
The run has just ended of "Notes from Underground" starring Jonathan Ames and I am moved, (perhaps by the diaristic nature of that piece) to contribute to these pages again.
Jonathan was terrific. I wish you could have seen him. You may or may not know Jonathan Ames. If you don't, check out his books, start with "What's Not to Love" which I saw him perform last summer. I thought at the time, it would be fun if Jonathan would "do" "Notes from Underground" and so now he has, to great effect. The show ran sixteen performances, four weekends at Performance Space 122 and was sold-out for half the shows.
There's really no way to describe the shows if you weren't there. However, it is worth noting that at least three audience members fainted during the show. I was there last week when two young woman came reeling out the front door and collapsed onto the sidewalk in front of theater. As we passed them bottles of orange juice and candy bars, I could only think: The power of theater! It must have been the passage about knives and self-mutilation that got to them. Some people just can't handle blood. The power of the imagination! In the movie world, heads get chopped off, meat cleavers get flung into backs, no one faints. But one quick stroke of a razor-sharp kitchen knife across the membrane of the mind, performed by someone as charismatic as Jonathan and well, like I said, you had to be there..
I haven't written since before September 11, 2001.
We live very close to the WTC site and that should be self-explanatory. But life goes on.
(before 9-11) Williamstown 2001: I performed in Howard Gould's "Diva" with Bebe Neuwirth, and my buddies Kurtwood Smith, Michael Higgins, CJ Wilson and Darryl Thierse. We had a great good time.
(after 9-11) Sadly, the great and wonderful Amanda stopped working here.
TCG (who also publish "Notes from Underground" and my plays and solos) published "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee" - a strange artifact since the solo focused on the topics of terrorism, Arabs, plane crashes and the indifference of a sadistic god, almost a year before most people were thinking about Bin Laden.
My play "Humpty Dumpty" was produced by the McCarter Theatre (directed by Jo Bonney) and then a year later (this past winter) at San Jose Rep (directed by John McLuggage). I loved both productions very much, with slightly altered scripts and of course different casts. This is a play about some people stranded at a woodsey retreat when a cataclysm of unknown proportions takes away their electricity, phone, news, everything. This project began before 9-11 and was impacted by it.
Between the two productions of Humpty Dumpty, I returned to Williamstown and appeared with Dagmara Dominczyk in "Red Angel" a new play of mine. Neal Pepe directed that one. A nice nasty little piece. Dag and I and the rest of the cast had a very good time with it.
After 9-11, I decided to finish off my commitments for solo performing and stop for awhile, perhaps permanently. I very occassionally peform now, but not so much. I can't explain it, but for now, it feels right. Until it doesn't anymore.
For the most part I write. I am writing another novel, which I hope to complete by the end of summer 03. I'm not talking about it much and that's all there is to it.
Also I have had the great opportunity to act opposite Val Kilmer in James Cox's "Wonderland" - which I hear is coming out in late summer. I am very proud to be part of this effort. A terrific cast including Josh Lucas, Dylan McDermott, Tim Blake Nelson, Faizon Love, Kate Bosworth, Lisa Kudrow, Ted Levine.
Also I think I'm showing up as a dead guy in "Charlies Angels 2".
So that's it for now. Keep sending those cards and letters and emails. I read them all.
Last thoughts: I was listening to White Stripes and thinking about the source of their riffs, from old sixties stuff, blues, as well as great punk bands like The Stranglers, The Pixies, Oingo-Boingo, X-Ray Spex, L-7 and I think I had an epiphany. For many years I have been defensive about my own stuff getting ripped off, showing up in other people's material. At the same time I know who I've stolen from (or sometimes don't) as disparate a group as Sam Shepard, Bill Hicks, Robert Klein, David Mamet, Chris Rock, Denis Leary, Henry Miller, Bukowski, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Brother Theodore, Lord Buckley, pretty much every original voice out there that's loud and fast. And then I thought, what the fuck difference does it make? The history of art prior to the corporations is a history of sharing. Of thinking together. Everyone steals from everybody else. Artists aren't supposed to be rich. That's why they get addicted to drugs or burn their houses down. Why they die. They have too much money. Artists, in their heart, must share, that's what art is. You share with the audience, you share with each other (scratch each others eyes out, but about the creative stuff, not the money, money is so unimportant.)
So what's the big fucking deal? Who said it belongs to you (or me)? I mean, yes, if it's a question of should the big corporation get the bread or should I, I'll always side with the artists. Everyone should get paid. Poverty sucks. But what's all this intense possessiveness about? Most of my stuff is out of print, impossible to find. My record, "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll" as well as the film of the same, gone. I don't think "Pounding Nails" is available anymore. Shit, I hope people are bootlegging my stuff. Give it away. I like it when people hear my recordings, see my tapes. They're better than most of the crap out there.
So, I'm not going to think when I hear someone sampling or borrowing or stealing, that they are "post-modern". No, from now on, I'll think, man, that's pre-modern. Before everyone got so possessive.
Yours EB.
