24HPP '08 - "The Order of the Four Legs." Part II: "The love child of Mamet and Ionesco"
Getting to the performance space was uneventful for once. Theatre Unbound has a new home at the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center for Community Building in St. Paul. We had to go past downtown St. Paul but not through it, and the place has its own parking ramp, so that wasn't a challenge. We did get locked out of the building for a couple minutes, but one of the company members was locked out with us, so she used her powers for good to get someone to let us in. I didn't miss the usual drama.
Neither did I miss last year's show emcees, who were replaced with Fringe megastar Allegra Lingo. Even though, by her own admission, Allegra knew next to nothing about how the 24HPP works, she knows how to host an event like this: she keeps the patter short, intelligent, and just weird enough that the audience is still puzzling over her words while she makes her exit and lets the show go on.
leorathesane and I chatted before the show with Abigail Garner, who we always run into at this sort of thing. I let Abigail do most of the talking; I had spotted our play smack dab in the middle of Act I and was awfully nervous. TU finally figured out that putting 4 plays in the first act and 2 in the second plus the auction does not make the show feel balanced. It makes it feel unbalanced with extra stuff thrown in at the end. So the pieces were divided 3 and 3 this year. By my calculations, this made 4 good spots (beginning and end of each act) and 2 crappy ones (middle of each act). And we had a crappy one. Had I created another hallucinogenic mushroom bowling monster?
There's something cruel and wonderful about the intro music that gets chosen for these pieces. The song goes perfectly with the play, but only 2 people in the audience get it, which makes it seem even more perfect. I didn't recognize "our" song, but it appeared to be Randy Newman singing about blowing up the world. The lights went down; the show went on.
I was blown away. It was hilarious. And I don't often say that about something I've written. Seriously, where do these people come from? Angela Marsh imbued Charlotte with a wonderfully creepy devotion to the Order. Kirstin Kuchler played Haley as much less stupid than we'd expected; she was more just bored and (understandably) confused by her sister's zeal. It was a good choice. Craig Anderson as The Sacred One pretty much walked away with the whole scene, making the arrival of each chair on-stage a side-splitting interlude. I may need to revise my theory about the way the order is chosen.
Because, honestly, our piece was my favorite of the night. I've never said that before. Even the other doomsday cult piece (that's right - there were 2) wasn't as good. "The Order of the Four Legs" isn't as profound as "Tess's Lament," or as artistic as "Fischtick," but it is funny, and it seems deeper than it is. Or, who knows - maybe it's deeper than we realized. Allegra seemed to think so when she called our writing team "the love child of David Mamet and Eugene Ionesco." Hah! And then Matthew Everett told me that "freedom wears no pants" was his favorite line of the night.
We done good. And we only had to blow up the world to do it.