The Golden Horseshoe: A Lecture On Tragedy

While I’m discussing Medicine, Man and Tesla’s  Letters now being available on the Kindle, I may as well discuss THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE:  A LECTURE ON TRAGEDY.  I conceived, wrote, directed and performed this 75-minute  autobiographical  tragicomedy about family skeletons, Nietzsche, Elvis and a trip to the Underworld in 2003. It came about because I had met Michael Wiener, an amazing performance artist of whom I was a big fan, at a party once. Doubtless I had consumed many martinis, and began blathering on to him about something or other.  At one point he stopped me and said, as I recall it, “You’re a good storyteller. You should come and do something sometime at this show I co-curate at the Gershwin Hotel.”  I was flattered, said sure, didn’t think he was serious.

Six weeks later I got a call from Michael’s co-curator, famed artist and Andy Warhol cohort Neke Carson, asking if I was interested. I said sure, and that I had a whole spoken-word, true story kind of thing worked out.  He said great, why don’t you come by in two days and tell me more about it.  In truth I had no idea what I’d do, so I thought – What’s the best true story you’ve got, Stanley?  What’s the story that all of your friends always ask you to tell over and over? Then I thought, Got it.

I’m not a seasoned actor, but I’m not shy.  I give lectures on playwriting and theatre history, I’m used to that.  So, to make it easy on myself I decided I’d pretend to be  giving an absurd lecture on Greek tragedy, using  a family that bore a striking resemblance to my immediate ancestors, and a protagonist who bore a striking resemblance to myself, as the subject matter.

But then I needed someone involved who could actually act, to play me at times and emote on my behalf.  How to pull that off? Put an actor onstage next to me posing as my Teaching Assistant.  It snowballed from there.  The playbill would look like a course syllabus.  I’d give out a ludicrous quiz at the end.

Instead of hiding backstage before the show, I would stand on the sidewalk in

News Flash: Theatre Really Can Change Lives

Despite my deep passion for theatre I’ve often quoted the cynical aphorism, Theatre changes nothing, but at least it changes that, and I have believed it to be true.  

I stand corrected thanks to the new book, Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre by Jonathan Shailor (Kingsley Press, 2010) about 14 prison theater programs.  The chapter “Drama in

the Big House” was penned by my good friend Brent Buell, a director, actor and writer who has volunteered for more than a decade for Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), a division of Prison Communities International, directing plays and teaching acting classes to inmates.  Brent’s locus in the New York State prison system is the original Big House, Sing Sing state penitentiary in Ossining, NY.

I first met Brent in 2004 through our mutual friend David Gaynes and took my first trip via Metro-North train from Manhattan,  zooming along the Hudson to the Big House to see the inmates’ production of Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, a farce written and directed by Brent (a photo from that production adorns the book’s cover).    I returned the next year to see the bold satire The N Trial, a meditation on the uses of the dreaded “N-word” in our society, including within prison walls, written by inmate Philip Hall, who was wrapping up a 20 year sentence.

Such productions of a full-length play performed for the general public have become an annual event at Sing Sing.  The cast and crew are primarily inmates, co-mingled with professional actors and crew who volunteer their time Continue reading “News Flash: Theatre Really Can Change Lives”