BattlePlays
Battleplays (2nd installment) premiered in Brooklyn in May 2009!
The third (and final!) installment will be coming in late 2009 to mid 2010.
BATTLEplays at Monkey Town in Williamsburg / Brooklyn
Thursday, May 7th & Friday, May 8th
7:30pm DOOR. 8:00pm SHOW.
$10.00 COVER. $10 or 2 DRINK MINIMUM.
RESERVE NOW! limited seating —>
http://monkeytownhq.com/reservations.html
Battleplays is a frenzied examination into the masculine and feminine psyche-in-crisis.
Isolation, Obsession, and American Myth in focus.
2 mediums. 2 live performers. 2 American Classics re-contructed in 60 minutes.
featuring Michael Mason and Darcie Champagne
visuals by Kalli Newman / sounds by Ryan Dorin
texts by Casey Wimpee / directions by Cole Wimpee
dramaturgy and associate produced by Adam Laten Willson
BRING ME THE HEAD OF JOHN FORD (approx. 30 min) – Confined in an area of 6 X 6 feet squared,
Fid enacts a ritual of mono-maniacal obsession with a classic Spaghetti Western.
Like a director’s commentary gone mad, this one-man and 5 video source performance is both
a humorous and dark meditation on cinephilia and the oedipus complex
on the frontier of culture in the American West.
AntiGONE WITH THE WIND (approx. 30 min) – Mixing densley layered audio sequences including voice-overs,
environmental compositions, 70’s femme-disco pop, battle field effects, and a chorus of barking dogs,
this one-woman live show reveals a girl named Sara who can’t find the center of the room.
Trapped on the periphery of a large room, she performs a psychological gesturing to
an audiobook of romance, fantasy, humor and suffering.
MONKEY TOWN is a performance space in Williamsburg/Brooklyn
Off the L TRAIN – BEDFORD AVE STOP
58 N 3rd St
(btw. Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211
http://monkeytownhq.com/contactinfo.html
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BRING ME THE HEAD OF JOHN FORD
Bring Me The Head of John Ford
…Freud?
…Blondie?
…birthday parties?
…over-the-counter speed?
Bring Me The Head of John Ford was featured in The Film Festival: A Theater Festival in June 2008 at the Brick in Brooklyn. A one-man, one-act performance art / play, Bring Me The Head of John Ford was the first part in a three part saga investigating myth in American history and popular culture. Theatre and cinema are transposed as Josh Fid, an isolated youth in the wilds of West Texas, lives out a narrative of his own troubled past as he and the audience view Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti western, The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. A monomaniacal obsession with the film develops as we explore the relationships between isolation and voyeurism, video and live performance, fantasy and reality, and the viewer and the viewed.
written by Casey Wimpee directed by Cole Wimpee
visuals by Kalli Newman featuring Michael Mason
Josh Fid is a video store clerk with a dark past in a sleepy west Texas town, where he lives alone in the Happy Trails trailer park in the customized trailer his late grandmother left for him. On the surface a quirky and slightly withdrawn young man, the true nature of this emerging sociopath can only be perceived in the confines of his trailer- in which he devotes all of his waking hours to watching westerns and nurturing an increasingly turbulent dexedrine addiction. A mono-maniacal relationship develops between Josh and a classic spaghetti western (‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’) into which he soon projects all of his innermost desires and memories.
The film, with its blend of gritty realism, surreal
images, and amoral themes, seems to embody the complex
psychological fantasy world in which Josh lives, where
good and evil are relegated to the fastest draw. But
as the film keeps playing and Josh spirals ever more
out of control, it becomes progressively more
difficult to distinguish not only the boundary between
good and evil, but between film and fan and,
ultimately, actor and audience.
WATCH A YOUTUBE trailer for \’\'JOHN FORD\’\’ here!
REVIEWS..
“..a humorous exploration of the revered director’s dark side“! – Flavorpill
“Best Re-Deconstruction of the American Dream” – The Brick
“visually beautiful and intense!” - NY Theater
http://nytheatre.com/nytheatre/film_rev2008.php?0=S&1=290
“..a clever and fascinating piece.” – Broadway World
http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Bring_Me_the_Head_of_John_Ford_Funnyhouse_of_a_Cowboy_2008061
and the neighbors are RAVING! – (this via an email we received shortly before opening)…
“For the past week he’s been falling down, screaming and stomping around a lot, apparently pretending to be a cowboy that is getting shot over and over, listening to music late at night, acting like he’s on speed, banging things, dragging things, dropping very heavy objects over our heads and continuously pacing with stomping steps over the floors…heavy thuds, moaning, yelling and falling and banging over our heads…we kept hearing screaming, falling, stomping and general foolishness…what sounded to us like stomping, falling, screaming, talking loud, dropping things, moving furniture, pacing the floors continuously with heavy shoes on, moaning etc. They literally could not sit still for any amount of time, and kept making so many bangs, thuds, shouts and other unwanted sounds, it was driving us nuts…one [of them] answered me pretending to be a cowboy, saying ‘uh, yes ma’am’…continued moaning, falling over, banging around and acting like fools until FIVE THIRTY IN THE MORNING…PLEASE talk with this guy and sort him out…I beg you to straighten this guy out!”
