My Name Is Mudd (Jackalope Theatre Company)

Gang, as some of you know, I am a MAJOR history buff, and Abraham Lincoln is one of my favorite subjects. In fact, the amount of historical fiction written about this dude is only beaten by two other men, Attila the Hun and Adolf Hitler.

3 ruthless dictators.

Let me tell you what Historical Fiction is. Historical fiction is a medium of art that shows our greatest heroes of History in a new, fake light.
For example, I just read: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

This was a biography of Lincoln, hitting all the major points of his life, except in this version, everything he did to free the slaves, bury his children, etc. was all motivated by his deep-seated hatred of Vampires.

There is also a medium called Historical Erotica. That is where you take a figure like Ghandi and write a porno where he goes to Argentina and rails a bunch of Ex-Nazis. I love this kind of fiction because I like to hear about chicks in the past getting plowed by my heroes.

THEN, there is a genre called "Actual History" where you tell the story of someone's life correctly using all factual information. This way is sort of cool, but there aren't ever really any surprises because you know how it ends. You usually have to find a new angle that may or may not be interesting, because if you are telling a story about, say, The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, we have heard this story about 10 million ways and cannot possibly tell me anything new.

This was my attitude when I went to see "My Name Is Mudd" at the Viaduct Theater last week. A play centered around the doctor Richard Mudd who treated John Wilkes Booth after he broke his leg, or treated Lincoln... he treated somebody for something, it wasn't totally clear.

Jackalope Theatre Company has a long and storied history of doing plays, I think. I haven't ever seen a Jackalope play before, so I don't wanna speak for their body of work, but they must have done SOMETHING good before because they have some pretty big names in the cast!

There is John Ross Wilson, Esteban Andres Cruz, a couple different Samuels and another Mexican fella named Roy Gonzalez!

So far, this play has 2 more Mexicans than Lincoln ever met in his life.

The set is an old R.E.M. video set from the early 90's, so immediately I was intrigued.

The premise is simple: A group of Vaudeville actors are going to sort of tell us about the events leading up to, and surrounding the famous assassination. Sprinkled throughout the show are pieces of factual evidence that is both eye opening and sort of crazy sounding.

The performers are first rate. The jokes are funny. The story is, like, the most famous American story there is, so what's not to like?

NOTHING! Parking is sort of hard over there, actually.

Esteban Andres Cruz steals the show, as usual as this wig maker who is working on Booth's show. Cruz has this way of being serious and goofy at the same time. How does he do it?

Anyway, listen. I am rambling on a bit, but you should make it out to see this show. This young company is going to start taking leaps and you could stand to learn a thing or two.

Sic Semper Tyrannis to Everyone!

A


-Anderson Lawfer, Eric Roach

Slaughter City (Jackalope Theatre)

"Well, it is certainly no disrespect to anyone that is vegan or vegetarian. As you know, I am the most judgment-free human being on the earth. However, it has many interpretations but for me this evening. If we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones. And, I am not a piece of meat."

-Lady Gaga

Like many of you, I’ve spent the better part of the 2010-2011 season combing my way through Target trying to find Lady Gaga’s new line of meat clothing. Shortly after the VMAs, I sniffed out rumors of the new line that led me from Macy’s to Banana Republic to the Cheesecake Factory. But the hunt always proved fruitless, and I’ve had to make do with Mossimo shirts stained with Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ Sauce. I could not fathom what was delaying the launch of this sizzling new line.

Naomi Wallace’s Slaughter City, directed by Kaiser Ahmed and produced by Jackalope Theatre in the Raven Theatre’s West Stage, seeks to answer that burning question, “Where are my porterhouse PJs? And what does it take to get them?” We’ve known for some time that a line of meat clothing would have to be off-the-rack to be profitable, and Slaughter City offers us a glimpse into what the hell is clogging up the bacon bikini pipeline. It seems some people aren’t treated well by other people, and something needs to be done about it. “If we don’t stand up for what we believe in and if we don’t fight for our rights, pretty soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones,” said Lady Gaga. And apparently Naomi Wallace was listening, even though Slaughter City and Madonna’s Express Yourself came first.

The design elements are really strong – it took me a while to figure out that I was not in the secret meat sweatshop where Lady Gaga’s emperor’s clothes are made. At first glance, I thought that Eric and Andy had arranged a surprise Make-A-Wish party for me, but alas, it was an actual play, with acting and everything. The play centers on a group of delicious meatpackers (Kristin Anderson, Ryan Heindl, and Katherine Swan) and their malfeasant managers (Warren Feagins and John Milewski) and what happens when an ornery organ grinder and his mysterious monkey (Jack McCabe and AJ Ware) make a mess, leaving Irish Mary Poppins (Anne Sears) to clean it up, or at least explain it to us.

There were some tense, naughty scenes that made me think about tauntauns differently. I enjoyed the visceral use of the, well, viscera. And while the first act has chunks of gristle, the second act sizzles like fajitas. The more I watched, the more I became aware that Lady Gaga’s statements are utter tripe – that she IS a piece of meat to someone else, her body of work being cut up like a carcass and packaged into movable units, just like the rest of us. But what kind of accuracy can you expect from someone who judges themselves to be “the most judgment-free human being on the earth”? Or from a guy who desperately wanted a pair of sirloin slacks?

Ultimately, I have decided to abandon my search for Lady Gaga’s line of meat clothing. The near-perfect combo meal of American consumerism and pop activism had lost its lockjaw grip on me, thanks to the timely dissection made by the fine people of Jackalope Theatre Company. Thank Gaga her meat dress isn’t 4G and Flash-ready, or I’d be camped out at Best Buy, telling myself that factory workers don’t exist, or are at least un-American.

I’d like to thank the Saints for smiling at me demurely, and for showering me with Bacon Bits and glitter as I left the theatre.

A

-Mike Ooi