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What it’s like on the inside

Posted by DCA Theater on October 14, 2011 in July-December 2011 Season, The Spirit Play

Submitted by Michael Downey, the actor who plays Doctor Buchard in The Spirit Play and is an Artistic Associate with The Strange Tree Group

It’s come to this. I’ve been asked to write an entry that measures my experiences working with the gruesome villains and the beastly ne’er-do-wells associated with Strange Tree’s latest chunk of theatrical devilry. The thought of re-experiencing this phantasm serves up nothing for me but deep fried torment. Alas, for you my gentle and unassuming friends I will recount the horror. The true and unwavering horror. 

What can one say when faced with the task of creating art whilst surrounded by pernicious and blackened flames? Merely staying alive at rehearsal while enduring the literal whip and ever stomping boot of the always drunken and most egregiously bile spitting director James “Samuel Whiskers” McDermott was task enough for your humble and unblemished narrator. Nary a scene would go by that I wasn’t singed in my face by the brimstone he would toss at me while guffawing like a broken phantom. Often he would follow me home after practice only to perch himself on the tree outside my bedroom window all the time dressed in his dark green and almost certainly bloodied robe. There he would scream abhorrent and miserable poetry to me in Aramaic all night. I don’t think I got any more than an hour of sleep an evening during the experience of preparing for the presentation of The Spirit Play. McDermott said this had something to do with “his plan” and never any more than that.

My long acquaintance with the vile serpentine sorceress (aka “playwright”) Emily Schwartz began innocently enough. A bloodletting here, a goat sacrifice there… the stuff of college weekends. Before I knew it I would be snared into performing her wicked verbal enchantments for an unwitting and soon to be possessed public. By the time I realized that the words that made up her plays were no more than the most unyielding spells of spiritual holding the damage was done. Now my walking earthly penance is to do all I can to bring down these “productions” from the inside by messing up my lines each night.

As far as my fellow performers? Each one comes with a rap sheet a mile long. Bob Kruse (Mr. Tennant) has blood made of pure acid. He’s relocated to Earth from the constellation of Ursa Major where he was known as General JirKlorf Zeem. He waits here on Earth (posing as an actor) for his opportunity to enslave the entire human race after transporting us to the Zocknuck Mines of Vorblog 7. Kate Nawrocki (Jane) leads an international gang of super-assassins. Chances are if a world leader has snuffed it recently…the air around his or her corpse was but recently inhaled by the lungs of Nawrocki. Carolyn Kline (Ms. Neal) and Matt Holzfeind (Gerard) are locked in a never ending battle with the archangel Gabriel. Their nightly battles can be seen from the Willis Tower Skydeck at the stroke of twelve. Their dark and light scimitars locked like eagles talons in front of the backdrop of Lake Michigan. The only respite to their nocturnal clashings is the coming morn. Delia Baseman (Ruth) is personally responsible for all the worlds’ major viruses. She once was a scientist dedicated to the pursuit of truth but a horrible accident turned her into a time traveling villain of the first order. So now at 10 a.m. each day she jumps back in time and invents a new virus and releases it into the water supply. If not for the actions of yours truly (my true identity I’ll keep for now) I doubt any of us would be here to read my wretched tale of misery. Jenifer Henry (Mrs. Buchard) and Elizabeth Bagby’s (Ms. Neal) secretly plan to overthrow the American government with an army of robotic man frogs and prop themselves up as a two-headed queen. Their nefarious intention is to bring about an age of Cimmerian shade that will last a thousand years all while they cackle at the newly formed proletariat from on top their floating sky castle. Kay Schmitt and Scott Cupper run a series of churches throughout the Midwest. Innocent you say? Nay! The name of the churches? “Our Lady of John Wayne Gacy.”  And lastly and most darkly? Musician Marty Scanlon was responsible for the music of Kenny G. True evil!

This has been my nightmare my friends. Surrounded daily by these beasts.  My recommendation to all of you?
1)    Hum softly while viewing this play so as to avoid being ensnared by the language of Miss Emily Schwartz.
2)    Do not look into stage manager Kathy Mountz eyes. If you do…well …then it’s too late. Enjoy your life of abject servitude you jerks!
3)    Run. Don’t look back.