July 10-12: District of Columbia

Friday, July 10^th, 2009

Woke up to discover that I have once again sunburned all of my exposed flesh. And, once again, this has taken place during a show where I am exposing much of said flesh.

Headed on down early to check out a series of previews going on at the beer tent – I’m doing one myself tomorrow, and I wanted to get a sense of the crowd/venue. It was initially discouraging, going from one staff member to another, none of whom had heard of it. I finally went to Fort Fringe and asked someone there, who looked at me in confusion and promptly disappeared for five minutes before returning with the information.

Watched a few previews. These could all be fine shows – but I’ll most likely never know, since I barely heard a word of what was said. Took several notes. I’m pretty sure I can handle this performance-wise – I have a lot of experience with this kind of venue – but I’m not sure what piece to do. As I’ve discovered working my material at various open-mic events in the Twin Cities, this show doesn’t excerpt well. Something strongly visual would be nice, but the densely-composed prose of the various pieces and prophecies are difficult enough to follow while in context, let alone outside of it. Must think on it.

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Four people in the audience tonight – this was likely due to the fact that I was scheduled against one of the Fringe’s after-parties. The band was playing in the venue immediately adjacent to mine, and started playing about halfway through the show. I spent a good chunk of it trying to shout my dialogue over their musical stylings. I’ve had better times.

I was approached afterwards by some dude from Mississippi, who asked me if I was from Louisiana. I’ll take this as a compliment – one of the great tests of an accent is whether or not you can fool the locals.

(I’ve also been asked, more than once, if I’m a Gulf War veteran. Er, no – particularly in light of the fact that I would have been, what, eight during Operation Desert Storm? I saw it on TV, though. That’s almost as good.)

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Hung out late flyering the crowd, then spent about a half hour trying to find a cab to take me back to my billeters’ place. There were plenty to choose from, but none that would take me where I was trying to go – mainly because, while I had the address, I’m not a local, don’t know the neighborhood, and couldn’t direct them. (Er, if a cab won’t take out-of-towners to places they don’t know, doesn’t that kind of defeat much of the purpose of a cab service?)

In any case, finally hit up a bunch of locals who gave me a few numbers to call. No answer at the first one, but the second was more successful. When the cab showed up, the guy still didn’t know what the place was, but this time I refused to get out until he pulled a map out of his trunk and found it. (Spent about five dollars doing so, but at that point? Well worth it.)

Saturday, July 11^th, 2009

Had two people in my audience today. Sucktitude.

I guess at this point I’m trying to regard my work here as a series of (ludicrously expensive) dress rehearsals. And the material is tightening up. I looked up during the Merlin scene to see half of my audience – well, one woman – sitting with a big goofy smile plastered across her face. And suddenly it hit me that, yeah. This scene is fun. That’s why I like this character. Most of Merlin’s lines are plucked directly out of Geoffrey and Malory, and they have a playfulness to them that’s still kind of irresistible.

And the scene between him and Pellinore is really charming – one of those classic, bizarre relationships that form between two people who have absolutely nothing in common. It’s a light comedy scene, and it can be played as such. Lord knows, the show badly needs it.

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Dear Minnesota Fringe Festival:

Thank you for teaching me how to work an outdoor venue.

Sincerely, Me.

I have a lot of experience doing street theatre. I have a lot of experience working bars. Both paid off at my preview. I ran up, snapped off a few quick jokes, and dived into the middle of a scene.

I chose the battle between Pellinore and Arthur. It has some physicality to it, is one of the sequences that I perform off-script, and is one that, given the nature of the preview, can possibly be played as a pulse-pounding action scene.

And I discovered that, hey. It’s not that it can be played that way – it should be played that way. It’s two guys beating the hell out of each other in the middle of the desert for no good god damn reason – it brutal and senseless and awesome. I’ve been trying to play it with the same ponderous, affected delivery of the prophecies, and that’s a mistake.

In any case, it’s not like this was an amazing or life-changing event or anything – but it was fun. I was up there, rocketing through the scene, working the crowd, and they were with me. And it reinforced for me that this piece can be really, really fun with a crowd to bounce it off of.

It’s a shame that none of them will be coming to see the show. I wish I understood why.

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ME: I saw a show yesterday, and the woman doing it seemed shocked that I was there. What’s up with that? Don’t the artists see each other’s shows here?

LES: I have my usual rule about seeing other artist’s shows: if they don’t see mine, I don’t see theirs.

ME: Huh. I usually do the passive-aggressive Midwestern thing, where I go to their shows and then they feel guilty and have to see mine.

LES: (rolling his eyes) Honey, I’m from L.A. We don’t do guilt.

So the after-parties have been consistently thinning out at eleven. In many respects, this feels like the Bizarro Fringe – audiences don’t hang out late; locals don’t go to see the out-of-towners; patrons are unusually resistant to postcards; participants don’t talk to each other.

The last point is particularly weird. I do what I usually do at Fringes – walk up to either individuals or groups, jump into their conversations, start joking around with them – and they either just stare at me or ignore me. This may be tied to the fact that nobody seems to really be drinking, either. (At three dollars a pop for a PBR at the beer tent! They’re practically giving this stuff away!) I don’t know if this just an aspect of Midwestern beer culture that doesn't extend out this far, but I feel like I’m having an extraordinarily difficult time connecting with people. At any other Festival, after the first two days I’d have a crew of people I was looking forward to every night. Out here, I work the crowd for about fifteen minutes then end up sitting by myself until I go home. Bizarro.

Which isn’t a knock on the administration – far from it. The staff seems to be aware of this stuff and working hard to build an accessible Fringe culture – they’ve set up the beer tent (which very few people use), space for audience reviews online (which nobody writes on) – I don’t know what it takes to connect with this crowd.

I’m frustrated about my lack of audience numbers, but somewhat relieved to see that it seems to be across-the-board for out-of-towners (i.e. it’s not just me). I keep wracking my brain to think of what I could have done differently. I sent out press releases (snail- and e-mail) several weeks in advance; contacted countless special interest groups (everyone from the SCA to the local Republican Party); and spent every night flyering crowds. At any other Festival, I’d be selling respectably at this point. But I just feel so exhausted; I’ve been pouring out an incredible amount of energy and getting nothing in return.

Sunday, July 12^th, 2009

Went to explore the National Mall with Les – he was pretty excited about approaching the White House, but I could never quite lose track of the fact that we were approaching one of the most secure buildings on the planet. Nobody approaches that structure without being closely watched, and I wonder if somewhere our identifications are being matched up to a set of profiles:

NAME: phillip andrew bennett low

POLITICS: libertarian

VERBOSITY: maximum

SEXUALITY: excessive hetero posturing, likely homosexual

RELIGION: sort-of Catholic but whiny about it

PROFESSION: pompous douchebag

WEAKNESSES TO BE EXPLOITED IN HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT: cheap whiskey and self-loathing

ETHNICITY: possible Chinese sympathies

PERIL: yellow

LES: Look! There’s people just hanging out on the front lawn! Michelle said this was going to be “The People’s White House.”

ME: (snorting) Right. And just how far do you think I’d get if I jumped the barricade and bolted for the front doors?

(pause)

ME: I’m the reason they have security measures, aren’t I?

I am super-skeptical of the “People’s White House” thing, though. To the best of my knowledge, the last time anybody really took a populist approach to that building was during the impromptu kegger following Andrew Jackson’s inauguration. Which arguably did more damage to it than the War of 1812.

(Okay, so I’m an American history geek.)

Walking around, I’m struck by the odd fact that while in terms of population this is a huge city, in terms of geography it’s not much more than a small town: most everything seems to be within walking distance of each other, and I’m learning my way around fairly quickly.

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Spent a chunk of the day handing out postcards. Over the years, I’ve come to regard this as an interesting improvisational exercise: I see people walking towards me, and have to assimilate as much information as quickly as possible (what are they wearing? What are they saying? What are they looking at?) and incorporate it into a one-line marketing segue. (If I don’t come up with something in time, I have my usual repertory of lame jokes to fall back on.)

I may have delivered my worst marketing line yet, though:

HER: Oh, I wanted to see this one.

HIM: Yeah, but look – it’s sold out.

ME: Hey! You know what’s not going to be sold out? (whipping out my postcard) This show!

I’ve been encountering a lot of resistance to my usual flyering schtick here – people really seem to be working to avoid me. I get a few laughs and friendly conversations out of it, but a much greater proportion than usual of people wrinkling up their noses and giving me the vibe of “Oh…is this going to be good?”

I don’t know. It’s Fringe! Why do you care if it’s going to be good or not?

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Hit my fourth performance tonight, with a grand total of one – yes, one – person in the audience. This entailed the usual weirdness of a sparsely-attended storytelling show – do I just stare at him the whole time? Do I avoid looking at him?

So, any hope of turning this around has pretty much evaporated. That makes this Festival – with the sole exception of my mime shows – the worst-attended experience of my career. Yes, that includes when I was just starting out. Yes, that includes the Spirit in the House Festival. Yes, that includes my other out-of-town performances. So, am I coming back to this one? Oy! Expensive lesson learned.