Badpuppy Gay Today |
Monday, 25 August, 1997 |
ANGELHEADED HIPSTER & THE PILLOW BOOK Theater & Film Reviews by Leo Skir
ANGELHEADED HIPSTER Written and Directed by Kent Stephens Oooooooooo Wow! This is subtitled "A HOWL for Allen" (Ginsberg, natch.) Talk about Jesus coming back! Talk about Elvis! Forget Jesus! Forget Elvis! Our gay spirit lives again in Kent Stephens' masterful production, Angelheaded Hipster, in Minneapolis, part of Illusion Theatre's Fresh Ink series. Viewers who cringed at the all-American college-kid image of Allen Ginsberg in the film Naked Lunch can stop cringing and start pestering their local (small, non-commercial) theaters to put on Kent Stephens' play. It's more than a play. It's Allen, revived, the Allen Ginsberg this reviewer knew pre-beard when he'd returned to New York City from San Francisco, after HOWL had come out, he and his male-lover Peter Orlovsky, the two living with Allen's female lover Elise Cowen. Here he is, young, beardless, modest played by Michael Tezla. His own psyche still a shimmering mirage of his mother's madness, his father's poesy. Then he's the Allen-Militant, come back from India to lead the Human Be-In which started the Hippies, to go to Chicago with the Yippies. Here he is strong and defiant, with Ken Kesey and the friendly madmen, dropping acid, levitating the Pentagon. And he is played by Russell Konstans. And then there's the Allen I was to meet these last 20 years as his onetime friends/lover Neal Cassidy and Jack Kerouac died. And he continued: calmer, a sage now, but still for the young a Pied Piper, leading them to Truth and Beauty-that-is-Truth. And he was, in this production, played by Michael Tezla. All three "Allens" were very good. And also very very good were: Sally Ann Wright as Allen's demented-but-wonderful mother and Terry Hempleman who had the task of impersonating the three men Allen loved: Neal Cassady, Peter Orlovsky, Jack Kerouac. Note: the program credits have some lacks: no credit given for the grand design on the stage: Allen's Symbol, three fishes united into one head, and all 29 poems of Allen Ginsberg credited on the program but "Pull My Daisy" not given with the names of the two other authors and Peter Orlovsky's name not given as one of those played by Mr. Hempleman. We hope in future productions this remedied. And this piece, must -- must -- for Allen Ginsberg's sake - have a long future life. It had only five presentations at the Hennepin Center for the Arts from July 26th to August 1st 1997. But Allen, like Whitman, his spiritual father, needs to live on the lips of readers, needs to be heard, and this production has a potency that words-on-paper or a biography can never have. Long live Allen's spirit-works and this play written/director, stage three months after his death. Thanks to Kent Stephens for this. |
A Film Directed by Peter Greenaway When I was a lad Oriental Civilization was not that easy to come by. I went to Columbia College and Columbia University a leader in teaching of Oriental Humanities and I took the Oriental Humanities course. Columbia College was at that time all-male and my fellow male students went into a state of shock at the 10th century antics of Prince Genji, hero of Lady Murasaki's THE TALE OF GENJI. Genji was very active sexually (also a mean hand at writing poetry, this during a time when people had no computers and people talked about one's brush- strokes). Genji had a great rep in brush-and-body strokes and hardly had a night free. One night he messed up his schedule and came to a house when the lady was out. Her brother, who, is seemed had a crush on Prince Genji was in - and -- well! - Genji felt he owed it to the lad. My class (except for me) was aghast. They felt the Prince was queer and my instructor, William Theodore de Bary had a hard time convincing them that AC/DC stuff was OK currency in the 10th century! Which brings us to the other great writer of the 10th century: Sei Shonagon. Lady Shonagon was not a switch-hitter but she liked men as night-caps and breakfasts and lunches. But she really liked poetry, and -- those brushes! -- calligraphy. Which brings us to the story: laid in the 20th century. The Pillow Book. A young girl (her voice in an adult fluent English tells the story) has a nice daddy who's a writer and each birthday writes her a nice poem. So, what's odd about that? I'm glad you asked. He writes the poem on her. Nice brush strokes. His publisher comes for something like conjugal visits and her father wife has to put up with it. When her father dies she takes up writing, first moving from Japan to Hong Kong. Her mother liked Chinese songs. She learns English, and works her way up in the fashion world but still hopes for publication. The only publisher who will do -- are you reading this -- is the one who in Japan was bonking her father (father now dead). She finds she cannot seduce the publisher. The solution: she seduces the publisher's lover, an Englishman. The lover misses an appointment with her. She drops him. Being literary (she's been writing on him. He's white and she really finds his skin ideal) -- being literary -- he thinks of "Romeo and Juliet". He'll take pills. She'll come to him, revive him, love him. But he O.D.s. Dies. The publisher, still in love with him and loving the writing, takes his body and removing the skin, is able to make a great book. She, wanting the book and to punish the publisher, sends him a series of men with more chapters, the last man's writing persuading the publisher to kill himself. That's the story. Like Lady Shonogan (10th century) our heroine likes les hommes so we get lots of frontal nude shots as she works with (that's on) various dude's bods till that happy time she get all that white skin to work with. Note: this film shows Mr. Greenaway, the author/director moving a step back from his The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and Her Lover when he had the cook cook his rival and serve the corpse (naked but given a handsome tan roasted look) to his wife. Mr. Greenaway's films are not for everyone, but his reputation in England is secure and in his film version of Shakespeare's The Tempest -- called Prospero's Books he engaged the service of Sir John Gielgud, who in English has been fined for importuning a policeman in a London loo and knighted (the English love their queens). And so they should. And so should you. This film will be in all the art-houses and we hope readers will see the recherche video-rental stores, give shelf space to this film and others of Mr. Greenaway's including The Draftsman's Contract (1982. A rich English aristocratic lady forced to give head to commander-contractor on screen); A Zed and Two Naughts (1986) and The Baby of Macon (1993). Mr. Greenaway likes a good look up-front and we are glad to say Sir John Gielgud has given a full Monty for the bard. As it says in (my) good book. "It's what's up front that counts" Note: for those readers who read books: You can get THE PILLOW BOOK OF SEI SHONAGON in a new (1991) translation put out by Columbia University Press. $16 paperback, about 400 pages of which 150 are notes. We students at Columbia College in Oriental Humanities in the 50's had to be content with the Arthur Waley translation, which had only about a quarter of the text. Lady Shonagon is more restrained than our Hong Kong Japanese modern-day heroine. Lots about flutes in the book, nothing about skin-flutes |
