If your band doesn’t make a SXSW showcase don’t let that stop you from playing. Just set up shop on a flatbed trailer, pull up in front of a house with a big front lawn, take a few swigs of Jim Beam and start rocking out.
Day: March 22, 2007
Categories
Theater Review: Severance
The play had started twenty minutes prior, and I had a weird feeling of unease. The house, stuffy from the stage fog, clouded my mind, and put the explanation just out of reach.
But then, as I watched a dramatic representation of the dying thoughts of a freshly beheaded obscure 19th Century Chinese woman, I figured it out: I just didn’t get it.
Sure, I get that Severance is made of vignettes, 30 mini-dramas of people (and one chicken) who suffer the misfortunate of leaving this earth in multiple pieces. I get that the play is supposed to be abstract, over-the-top and unsettling. And I even get that each piece is supposed to be 90 seconds long, the length of time the writer and director (Robert Olen Butler and David Jette, respectively) believe a decapitated head remains conscious.
The setup: I PITY THE FOOL that schedules the All Smiles show at 1:30. Mr. T was on another recon mission in Austin for this SXSW thing. Everybody knows that parking’s scarce for a tactical command unit and that fool Murdock was outta the van before you can say “The Office of the Governor has a zero tolerance policy for nonsense on 6th street, FOOL!”
The rationale: Face wasn’t pickin’ up his cell phone and some fool was blocking the street interviewin’ fools for the Tonight Show. How’s a T supposed to parallel park with a giant string section standin’ in my A-Team Van loading zone!
The altercation: “Hey FOOL! You might be a musical genius, but you aint no parkin’ genius! Get outta my loading zone before I comb your hair, suckah!”
Mr. T: Hey Fools! Don’t you suckas know what LOADING ZONE MEANS?