Notions (Part 2 of ?)

Friend Davey responded in some detail to a post of mine from earlier this week:

"When you first mentioned Punch and Judy in your blog, I imagined it as
giant oversize puppets looming over you and Heather. I think I even
went
so far as to describe it like that to a friend of mine. So when later,
you
posted about P&J and then about Stilt costuming insects later, I was
confused, b/c in my head you had already mentioned doing Punch as giant
oversize
puppets, why split them up! So I had to re-read and
understand that
somehow I had added the giant puppets into the mix. What is
Patrick's Sukeu
mask?I saw your sister this weekend and she told me that her
biggest shock was
seeing you come out playing the Trombone. I can't
believe I missed it. The
clown film is ambitious, and ultimately sounds the
most... you I guess.
The most all around you. You've lived in the city
for the better part of your
adult life. It's about time you made it a
thank you card you ungrateful
bastard :P Seriously though, I think the clown
film would be an amazing
piece. Planning on staying in one clown for
the duration will be
challenging no? Does he go back to boring drab at
the end, or does he find
the rest of his troupe?"

All excellent, thought-provoking responses, Davey (even without the bizarre poetic structure Blogger decided to enact upon it), and I thank you and encourage everyone who's interested to chime in on these things. I've been giving a lot of thought to the subject of collaboration lately. So much so, it may be a good new topic heading. Now, if that isn't momentous, I don't know what is.

And I admit: I probably don't know what is.

The Punch & Judy thing is in such early stages of development that it's hard to say just what it will be. It's entirely possible that it would--at least at some point--involve Heather and I dressing in enormous P&J puppets, like you see in the NYC Halloween Parade. However, I'm more interested in keeping it simple to begin with, and exploring the characters and situations associated not only with the story itself, but the history of its audiences as well. I mean, we were watching Punch and Judy from an early age. It's just that Mister Rogers made them be nice to one another.

Years ago Friend Patrick, who is a brilliant mask maker and actor, made me a mask styled after discussions we'd had and named after the alter ego Friend Davey bestowed upon me in high school. It's very raven-like, with a rather long, stout beak and round eyes and for years now I've only played with it in private, experimenting and trying to allow, rather than force, what that character wants to be.

The clown film (working title: Red Signal) is ambitious indeed, particularly given that I know virtually nothing about film making and have no budget even for my day-to-day life, much less for a film. Still, for a couple of years now I've been mulling over the possibilities for making a sort of digital video demo of the piece, and Davey's questions help to move it along. No, it would not be hard to stay in the same clown the whole time. I'd have to chart out his progress to keep it all organized in my mind while filming non chronologically, but it would be essentially my personal clown character, and that's not hard for me to access or stay in. Now, as for the end: Good bloody question. I never thought he'd go back to drab completely, but it's a possibility. I also never even considered that he might find his "troupe." I got locked into thinking of it as a love story with a girl/city, but maybe it could be different.

Also, a couple of other things tickling my fancy (which is illegal in some states):

• Directing now, as an adult, a short play I tried to direct toward the end of college: Mimosa Pudica, by Curt Dempster. First step would be rereading the thing, because it's entirely possible that my tastes have changed. Drastically. But this is my first mental in-road to the possibility of directing more.


• Writing a show called . . . wait for it . . . The Project Project. This may be the stupidest idea I've ever had, but I'm particularly ticklish to it. The idea would be to write a play based on my experiences trying to collaborate to create a play. The idea is a comedy, for now, and would somehow revolve around the action of making a show from scratch, from beginning to end. I recognize this may be a completely Freudian impulse (no, not that kind)--trying to exert control over something inherently uncontrollable (oh...okay: that kind).