CALIGULA MAXIMUS - A Review

As you probably know, I started in working in theater as a teenager in the mid-1980s. Might as well have been a century ago, things have changed so much. Anytime I'm with someone else who was around in the 1980s, it's inevitable we fall into old fogey talk, "Remember when....?" As in, "Remember when that fancy bar was a bodega with nothing in it except for a few cans of Goya for decoration?" "Remember when that luxury building was the Gas Station (or the World, or Cuando, or the 5th Street Squat)?" "Remember when you could get a bowl of soup for a buck at Leshko?" Theater people can add to the old fogey list, "Remember when everybody was naked?"

I was put in mind of ye olde nudity at the opening night of CALIGULA MAXIMUS, currently playing until April 10th at La Mama. A line of people snaked out the Annex and as I got through the door, I realized part of the hold-up was Andre DeShields in an eye-popping orange zoot suit, a throng of admirers gazing at him adoringly, everyone else doing the New York thing of looking up around left right, anywhere but directly at The Wiz in the flesh. I did the New York thing too, said my magic words, got tickets, and made my way upstairs, where I was greeted by a stiltwalker and a bodybuilder with a facial tattoo that looked sort of a like a giant bruise. Going in, I suddenly felt transported to the theater I experienced as a teen in the 1980s. A topless hula hoop dancer yammered to audiences, as a girl with a huge blonde 'fro and lots of eye makeup wandered around in a tiny red tutu, and a big African-American guy cajoled the audience to buy peanuts and candy. It was totally carny, wild, Dionysian.

Halloween at Theater for the New City used to be like that. I remember the first Halloween I went to, back when TNC was on 2nd Avenue, I stumble into the Stanley just as a short play DYSLEXIA was starting on the teeniest stage I have ever seen. I am not kidding it was literally like 6 feet by 6 feet. As the ratty red curtain opened, Rome Neal and an actress from the Living Theater named Amber rolled out kathunk kathunk totally naked, flopping around in a vaguely sexual way, looking like elephant seals on that tiny stage. And then as they tumbled off, George Bartenieff tumbled on, playing their baby, who of course was naked. And then more naked people peered out, each teaching the (naked) baby something. And the (naked) baby gets dyslexia. And everybody (naked) squeezed together on this six by six stage and sang a slightly dissonant song about dyslexia ala Kurt Weill. It was amazing. And the nudity bit? Well, after about ten seconds, you stopped noticing entirely. But I do remember thinking, "Vicky, you certainly aren't in Queens anymore."

After about ten minutes of CALIGULA, I thought, "Vicky you certainly aren't in the 1980s anymore." What stands out to me about the whole gestalt of the 1980s is the political urgency that was intrinsic to the time - it was the last hurrah of 1960s people power - with the struggle for nuclear disarmament, housing rights, Tompkins Square Park, Tienanmen Square, Haiti, the end of Apartheid, the fall of the Berlin Wall.

CALIGULA begins with the promise of great revelations - fleshly and otherwise - and then exhausts the audience with an hour and a half of titillation and no climax. The Roman Emperor (Ryan Knowles) first appears to the whacka-whacka of 1970s soul on a giant golden cock that spews confetti, rhetorically asking why his acts of perversity are continually invoked in literature, theater and film. Director Alfred Preisser and writer Randy Weiner never get beneath the surface to really answer this question, basically averring that people like Caligula because people like sick shit. So we witness Caligula rip out his unborn baby from his sister's womb (played by the lovely aerialist Anya Sapozhnikova). We watch Caligula egg on four women to beat up various barbarian men and cut off their balls. We watch Caligula wrestle with Jesus. By this time, the hyped-up energy was getting tiresome and I was looking for some kind of aha moment, some denouement, some transformation, a climax please, all the frolicking was wearing me out. But Jesus made some sappy Biblical remarks and got kicked off the stage like the barbarians (with balls intact, however). And then Caligula decides there should be a Church of Caligula. The congregation gets the audience to join in a Gospel song and everyone (including Andre DeShields) ends up killing Caligula.

Preisser certainly has a way with choreography and the best thing in CALIGULA is the energetic dancing. It did seem odd to me that, though ostensibly set in Rome, with a very Caucasian Caligula, all the music and dance in this production is African-American. Don't get me wrong, I love soul, gospel and funk, and I'm aware that Preisser is fresh from a 10-year stint as Artistic Director of the Classical Theater of Harlem, but the ethnic specificity and the all-out fun of the music seems rather misplaced for this particular piece.

And then after all that dancing, all that nudity, and all that excess violence, the whole play nosedives into Caligula pondering why people didn't love him. Various performers in the ensemble respond with eye-rollingly limp insights like, "Because you had slaves!" or, "You can't force everyone to love you. That just makes people hate you."

Like the song says, is this all there is my friend? I am reminded of the 2004 blackout when I took to the streets with my friend Matthew, expecting a carnival like the one that hit New York during the blackout of the 1970s. Everyone was outside, bonfires were lit in trash cans in Tompkins Square, teenagers cavorting around. But when policemen came around with the command to put out the fires, the kids all in unison whined, "Not now! Not now!" Matt and I laughed at how juvenile they sounded, "Not now, Dad, we're having such a good time!" Whereas the retort twenty years ago was, "Pigs outta the park! Who's streets? OUR streets!"

Like those kids in 2004, CALIGULA fails to grapple with the deeper political implications that are right there in front of them. Making much of the spectacle of Rome, the play never dives into the real question of Caligula's perversity, which is really the perversity of absolute power. Yes, the mob rules in the end but the political insight that might come from this is completely lost with Caligula instead bemoaning that no one loved him. Failing to go any deeper than this, CALIGULA is only mildly titillating, revealing nothing more than a few bare breasts.

Candles for James

James Purdy's birthday was July 17th. He was never one to make a fuss and there was never any kind of dinner or party to celebrate (or bemoan) the passage of another year. I would call him or at least send him a postcard from wherever I happened to be in July.

"Vicky!" he'd say when I called in a tone that was both surprised and pleased.

We never spoke for very long - James always got a little impatient with the telephone after a few minutes - but before he hung up he always said, "I love you!"

"Love you too, James!" I would reply.

Now that he's gone, there's no postcard to write or phone call to make. But it didn't seem right to not be in touch somehow. So a dozen of us who cared for James and worked with him gathered in front of his Brooklyn Heights dream palace at dusk this past Friday. We lit candles and it seemed natural to stand in a circle facing his front door. Some of us read passages from THE HOUSE OF THE SOLITARY MAGGOT and EUSTACE CHISHOLM AND THE WORKS and fragments of writing that had been personally bestowed. John recited The Running Sun, which seemed strangely appropriate:

We who are under the ground
Indians and voyagers and wilderness men
Still breathe the bloom of plants in the air
And dream of the running sun.

Then we took one last look at the corner window where James used to live and one by one blew out our candles.

The Paper Angels experience

So it's over and as usual, I'm left with a huge mountain of bills to pay. I always say that theater artists are secret masochists.

I was on line at HSBC this afternoon with the box office cash, behind an old man playing with the dentures in his mouth and an old lady consulting her savings account book (she had $829 and deposited $300 the previous week). The line was LONG. I got the distinct feeling that 80% of the crowd had never mastered ATM machines. With the check coming from Theatermania and some of my paycheck this week, I'll have just enough to cover everyone's fees. Except mine of course.

But the production went well despite six rehearsals turning into two because of double-booking in the space, and me losing my voice, and the lead musician turning out to be a nasty snooty bitch... We had packed houses and very good responses and the actors were generally great to hang out with. Wish that I hadn't gotten sick so I could have sent invitations to more foundations. I think though that this isn't the end of PAPER ANGELS... full-production this fall? Hooray for masochistic activities!

Our hot promotional pictures above were taken by Damian Wampler. Jan Lee at Sinotique is an amazing guy for letting us use his space and borrow props:

Goodbye, James Purdy

James Purdy is dead.

The last time I spoke to him was about three years ago. I didn't recognize his voice. "Vicky!" he said and when I sounded confused, he said, "It's James!" His voice was raspier than when I had been visiting him every Sunday two years previously. He said he had fallen down the steep winding steps of his Brooklyn Heights townhouse but reassured me he was fine. I promised to visit, but I never did.

For those of you who don't know who he is, go to Abe Books right now and buy yourself a copy of IN A SHALLOW GRAVE or EUSTACE CHISHOLM AND THE WORKS. He's the only writer I've ever read that has made me catch my breath with the sheer beauty of his language, the dead-on emotionality of a perfectly-placed turn-of-phrase. He was audacious too, writing scenarios that few would dare approach - disgusting moments of disembowelment and crucifixion in his hands became tragic expressions of twisted desire - the homoerotic longing in my favorite books are exemplars of an unattainably perfect love.

From the Estate of Robert Giard, James as I remember him
with his prints of 19th century pugilists and photo of Dame Edith Sitwell.

I learned of him through John Uecker, whom I happened to sit next to at Theater for the New City's Thanksgiving dinner at Arturo's in 1988. We instantly became good friends and my first evening visiting his apartment, he disappeared into the bathroom for (I swear) at least an entire hour. Left to my own devices, I went through his bookshelf and picked up a copy of IN A SHALLOW GRAVE. John had mentioned James a few times to me and my curiosity was piqued. I finished the book in one sitting, gasping through the middle and crying through the end of it, probably making sounds like a dying cat. I'm glad John was in the bathroom.

When I got back from a trip to Italy in 1989, John was about to direct SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS, an evening of two short plays by James and I fell right into producing, something that felt weirdly natural to me, though I was all of 17 years old. Natural or not, I wouldn't have done it if one of the plays, SOUVENIRS, wasn't astoundingly beautiful - one of the most lyrical plays I have ever read. The production was an incredible experience with Laurence Fishburne (then called "Larry") and Sheila Dabney. Yes, Laurence was great but Sheila was incandescent. Michael Feingold said in the Village Voice review, "Dabney can make the single word why sound like a complete requiem mass and make the cross from couch to easy chair look like the end of the world. The others only handle the language, she lives it."

Sheila Dabney & Laurence Fishburne in SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS, 1989

I think I saw the play six or seven times and it never failed that after the play was over and the lights came on, all the women in the audience of one accord let out a huge sigh and slumped over in their chairs. I am not exaggerating. The only woman who didn't react that way was Maria Irene Fornes, whom I happened to sit next to one night. She frowned and crossed her arms, warding off James' heightened Romanticism, I suppose. A few years ago, when I mentioned James Purdy to a passing acquaintance, he said that he's hung onto the program for SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS all these years - it was the most astonishing play he'd ever seen.

James Purdy, Jane Smith & Michael St. Claire
at the opening night party for 'TIL THE EAGLE HOLLERS

I produced two other James Purdy shorts ('TIL THE EAGLE HOLLERS) and then two full-length plays THE RIVALRY OF DOLLS and FOMENT. James was getting older by this time and coming out less, so I ended up visiting him more. I had a different take than his other visitors. Believing that a writer needs inspiration, I would bring over my son, who was then a toddler, and a book or an object that I thought would interest or inspire him. John worried that I was wearing him out and would occasionally give me an earful, but I was undaunted. I once brought a blind baby over on a visit and I spent a few weeks reading to him A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn. Somewhere among James' things is probably a ouija board that I bought - James refused to have anything to do with it, but I played with my son (then about 6) and we all got a little spooked by the antics of that ouija pointer-thing (particularly when it kept spelling AMOS AMOS AMOS). James stuck it under his typing table and we never touched it again.

Every Sunday for about two years, I would go out to his apartment in Brooklyn Heights, bringing him a healthy lunch that I would buy in a deli on Montague Street. For an 80 year old guy, he was very spry and would hop down the three flights, open the door and kiss me hello. I would follow his skinny heels up the steep winding steps, put lunch on a plate, sit and talk. He would have an entire pie waiting for dessert. I kept telling him it was unnecessary, but there it was every time - cherry or peach or pumpkin - and we'd eat three pieces and then he urge me to take it home. My son loved having pie at home all the time, of course. When James called one day to tell me not to come, I wondered if it was the pie - was buying a pie too much of a financial burden? Or maybe it was because I really was wearing him out? And then I had a falling out with John and never ended up visiting again.

It's sad to me that he never found the appreciation he deserved as a writer. Like all his friends, I worried about how he ate and paid his rent. James was always diffident, waving off his lack of popular success - calling the book industry and the "establishment book reviewing media" both "sister whores" - but I always felt that it must rankle. A compilation of his plays is coming out soon published by Ivan Dee - I'm not sure what's in it, but I hope to see FOMENT and ENDURING ZEAL. (Just think of that title - enduring zeal - isn't that what we all want?) There is no writer with a more unique voice than James Purdy, no one who wrote more truly from the heart and therefore more shockingly and disturbingly. James knew something about love and beauty most of us spend our whole lives trying to grasp. He told me once that when a student of his asked how he could be a better writer, he answered, "That's easy! Write what no one wants to hear."

James took his own advice and has left us an incomparable body of work that will probably be revisited now that the irascible thorny visionary himself is gone. Thank you and goodbye James. In my dreams, I'll see you on Sunday and share a pie we never could finish.

The Inauguration Shuffle

Back in NYC after long drive where I vainly tried to keep my eyes open so Matt wouldn't feel like he was a chauffeur. Despite a stop at one of those cookie cutter service stations, I fell asleep anyway, the coffee clutched in my hand.

We were up at 7:30 in the morning today, thinking to get an early start on the inauguration. But with getting the kids up and making some much-needed coffee and trying to figure out what to take, we didn't get out the door until about 8:30, by which time, it seemed all of DC was already awake.

We walked down Independence towards the Capitol with other groups of families and friends, passing by a few tee-shirt vendors hoping to make a buck off Capitol Hill. Yesterday, we had walked through the mall and found barricades on the Capitol side that forced us to make a wide detour north, so we kept to the sidewalk on the other side of the street, thinking there would be another chance to make the right-hand turn onto the mall. Instead, we found ourselves trapped in the area where ticket holders were lining up to get into the better part of the mall. Barricade after barricade, silver ticket area to purple ticket area, we found ourselves jammed among more and more people, and unable to find our way onto the mall. We were directed over to the freeway and along with thousands of people, walked through the tunnel, trying in vain to turn towards the mall. After FINALLY making it to the 7th Street area, we found that it was full. They said 14th Street was still open but by that time, we had totally lost hope of ever getting on the mall.


Since it was impossible to get ourselves out of the crowd, we plodded on like lemmings. Or like cattle - an elderly African-American woman good-humoredly started to moo, as she hung on to her grand-daughter and her niece. Some people around us were still happy and hopeful and excited, but most people by that time were confused and rather frustrated. Finally, just at the entrance to 14th Street, we stalled entirely, pinned on every side under the 14th and Jefferson street sign. We could see a sea of people across the way stretching all the way to the Monument and the back of a jumbotron, but nothing else. Oh well, I thought, the buck stops here. But suddenly, it seemed some gate was opened and we sprinted towards the nearest jumbotron on the mall.

The sun came out and as the mall filled out around us, we regained our festive mood. Somebody was handing out free flags and though I am normally not a flag-waving person, I took two. We saw a woman with a box of hot chocolate and Miles went off to buy us all some sugary warmth. The area behind us was cordoned off for handicapped people and diagonally to our left, we could see a jumbotron and a crane with a camera. The crowd was multi-generational, multi-ethnic and seemed to be primarily comprised of African-Americans, college kids and working-class families.


Miles had vanished into the dense cube of people gathered in front of the hot chocolate man and I worriedly went to look for him, as they announced Clinton and Bush, Sr. There was no cell phone reception, so I had to go back to the Jefferson and 14th sign to text him - calls would not go through at all. After weaving among the people at the hot chocolate stand, I gave up and went back to Matt and Marcelo, who were huddled on a portable cane chair that Marcelo insisted had been abandoned.

The crowd gasped as the jumbotron revealed Cheney in a wheelchair looking all but dead and booed when Bush appeared. Some people behind us began to sing, "Nah nah nah nah, hey hey, good bye!" Marcelo went off the the port-o-san just before a worried-looking blonde woman with a toddler in tow came up to me and asked if the chair was ours. I apologized profusely and she went off with it. Miles still wasn't back. We were all up on our feet now in anticipation of Obama being announced, waving our flags and stomping our feet in the cold. Matt and I dubbed it the Inauguration Shuffle or the 'Naug Dance. Boy, was it cold.

A shout went off when Obama appeared with his wife and two little girls. With that many people it sounded more like a roar. They say that 950,000 people can fill the entire mall, so there must have been about that many. Aretha Franklin sang America the Beautiful like a gospel song, the live feed to the jumbotrons causing a slight delay that sounded like she was echoing through an enormous cavern. Miles suddenly appeared with two tepid cups of hot chocolate. We gulped it down and tried to listen while some prayer was said, doing the Inauguration Shuffle and hoping this guy would keep it short. He finally finished and suddenly, there was Obama with his hand on the Bible, giving the oath of office. We shouted and waved our flags furiously and our Inauguration Shuffle turned into something more akin to a Hop.



We didn't stay after Obama's inauguration speech. It was way too cold - I wonder which sadistic Founding Father picked the end of January for the ceremony? We trudged back to Capitol Hill with the crowd, getting on the highway for a long detour.
Later, I realized that we probably should have tried to visit a museum or something on our last afternoon, but our brains seemed to have stopped working when our toes froze over. Instead, we got back to the house and lolled around for two hours before getting on the highway for the trip home.