Theatre Blog – Behind the Proscenium

I normally attack theater from the review flank. I use my insight to take you, the possible audience member, into the “reality” of what a theatrical event may be like – without you having to actually be part of the reality. I try to express the theatricity of a theatrical event through the written word. It is my job – to bring the entire experience of sitting in a theater, marveling at what is taking place on stage, the smells of the greasepaint and the dinner that is stuck to the lapel of the patron next to you – without your ever having to enter a theater. Although entering a theater to see a play is always best!

And here is why… I’ve just returned from a performance of My God Is Better Than Your God by theater great Gina Grass. Once again, it is a one woman show.Normally, I would just review the show, but there was a moment when everything came together for me, as it will for you. As it will for anyone who ever lived to see theater. For anyone who has ever lived!

Here is a snippet from My God Is Better Than Your God, now playing at the Manka Open Mike in Tribeca.

Gina: You can’t possibly imagine my God. Your mind is too small. Imagine a goat trying to drive the Batmobile. Trying to drive the Batmobile with cooking mitts. That is you – stupidly in front of my God. Only more stupid. My God would laugh at you but h/she/it is above laughter. My God is always in a state of laughter because my God is always in a state of ALL. Eons ago, my God would have bathed in the lamentations of your women and children. That was before my God evolved to a point that evolution now means nothing to he/she/it. No, back then, my God would have taken a hoof (for my God only needed ONE HOOF!) and smashed that hoof on your pathetic being. And the bodies of the weak – like the previously mentioned women and children. And to make you feel even smaller than you already would be feeling – my God would rip the viscera from the chest cavities of those you loved in front of your pathetic face. And my God would use their intestines like a gore-drenched and dread sippy straw… and my God would suck and suck and suck the life out of everything you held dear. And then, for spite, my God would spit that life right back into your face. You turn pale. I haven’t really started. Then my God would smash YOU with the HOOF! And you would be dispersed into fragments no bigger than an atom. And even your smartest atom would kneel before my God in much the same way that a lichen kneels before you – if a lichen could kneel – BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I’M F-ING TALKING ABOUT! I see you. You are trying to comprehend my God. But you are like the contents of a Petrie dish trying to comprehend the scientist. The only difference is that the contents of the Petrie dish do not know to be afraid. And you should be SO afraid. Because my God no longer needs a hoof…

I have never heard the like on a stage before in my life. I could only imagine saying these beautiful words to someone who has cut me off in traffic, or to my landlord when he implies that my sub-lease may be invalid. In what situation would you use these words? And what would you do with your HOOF?!?

Kyrle Lendhoffer – Behind The Proscenium

There are times when one is a witness to history.

This week was such a time for me. I sat in on an early rehearsal of what is bound to become the most talked about, most loved theater experience in the history of man. Hyperbole? I think not.

Mankind will see what I caught a mere glimpse of… and mankind will be IN AWE.

Yes, finally, a production of THE MAHABHARATA that will make Peter Brook cry like a little girl… again.

I sat down with the man who adapted this great piece of Vedic literature, GUSTAFF HINTER. As we talked the genius director JACKSON NITRATE joined us.

Kyrle Lendhoffer: Gustaff, how are you today?

Gustaff Hinter: A bit harried. I’m falling behind on my translations.

KL: Translations?

GH: Yes. We first took The Mahabharata and translated it from Sanskrit to German.

KL: Yes, it was shocking to see the great Indian gods talking in German. Why the change?

GH: Both Jackson and I though that the guttural sound of the German language gives anything more emotional weight. More weight than if you could actually understand the play.

Jackson Nitrate then entered the room, and the conversation.

Jackson Nitrate: But then the fucking producers demanded that the play be in English. I said “no”… that I would walk off of the production if it were in English. But then I had an epiphany. The theater would be filled with smoke. And then laser lights would shoot through the fog and the audience could read what each character is saying in English.

KL: You mean like Lazerium?

GH: No! That’s so 1979…

JN: LaserFloyd was cool. That was 1979.

GH: Well, of course, but this is 16th century India colliding with 2010. That is not LaserFloyd. Not even LaserZeppelin. Anyway, I’ve now got to try to take everything that was translated from Sanskrit to German and now take it from German to English but then have the English version still be consistent with the Sanskrit. It isn’t easy.

KL: Sounds like a labor of Hercules. But back to The Mahabharata. The epic poem itself is a collection of over 100,000 verses. How long do you think this particular production will last?

JN: According to the producers, they don’t want it to be any longer than my award-winning production of The Bhagavad Gita which last five hours. I then told the producers that that hack Peter Brook’s version lasted nine hours. If Peter Brook was allowed that much time, then I should have a play that would run over the course of three days… some 36 hours.

KL: But 36 hours of brilliance.

JN: That’s what I said. But you know the suits. All they care about is that the play and the theater make money. I say “fuck money!” Theater is about art. And if art has to be 36 hours long, then so be it!

KL: My sentiments exactly. Who is playing the lead?

JN: Emerson Lightlander.

KL: Does he speak German?

GH: Uh, no.

JN: No, he doesn’t speak German NOW, but he will. Right now he’s learning all of his lines phonetically.

GH: Our Germany technical advisor says that he sounds like a German retard. And right now he does.

JN: Gustaff, do you have to bring that up in front of Mr. Lendhoffer?

GH: Uh, Emerson Lightlander will not sound retarded for very much longer, I can assure you of that. Better, Jackson?

KL: No quarreling you two! I must ask this final question – how hard is it for the two of you to be in each other’s presence, to bathe in the light of each other’s greatness, to be making history with every breath that you take?

GH: Uh…

JN: I’m the great one, Gustaff is just a writer. Kidding, Gustaff, just kidding.

And with that gem of humor, Jackson Nitrate and Gustaff Hinter began to “bicker” comically for the next half hour or so. My skin is redder from basking in the light of their combined greatness.

I am convinced when the world sees The Mahabharata it could quite possibly change the course of human history. In a good way.

Make a date to be at The Manka Black Box Experience. You will want to say that you were there the day the world changed for the better.

As I said, no hyperbole. No hyperbole whatsoever!

Kyrle Lendhoffer – Behind The Proscenium

Tag: Theatre Blog

My God Is Better Than Your God

The Mahabharata – A Discussion With Gustaff Hinter and Jackson Nitrate