I Am My Own Wife, a one-actor show fresh off its 2004 Broadway debut, concerns itself with Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a real-life German transvestite who survived both fascists and communists. Most exciting of all is this production’s star: veteran stage actor and baritone Bradley Greenwald. Best known for the musical stunt-piloting he does over at Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Greenwald now leaps to the Jungle stage. Notably, Greenwald was also seen at the Jungle in its 2001 production of Torch Song Trilogy, in which he played, with gusto, a depressive drag-queen. 2951 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-822-7063; www.jungletheater.com
Author: rakemag
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Pippi Longstocking
According to many fairy tales, Disney films, and children’s adventure stories, the secret to a fantastic childhood is the eradication of meddling parental units, especially mothers. Stronger than Popeye, wilder than Peter Pan, way more fun than Orphan Annie (although both boast badly styled red hair), Pippi Longstocking is completely unfettered—her mother died when she was a baby and dad was lost at sea. That gives her full license to live with animals, dress as weirdly as she pleases, and wow the neighbor kids with unsupervised adventures. Swede Astrid Lindgren published her first Pippi stories in the 1940s, making her nine-year-old heroine one of the first and most personable female superheroes. This production, a fast-paced and frenetic musical comedy with dark undertones, has become a favorite at the Children’s Theater Company. 2400 3rd Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-874-0400; www.childrenstheatre.org
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Phoenix Fabrik
In case your American Theatre subscription has lapsed, you should know that Daniel Alexander Jones is one of fifteen artists “whose work will be transforming American stages for decades to come.” The Penumbra Theatre Company and Pillsbury House can boast that hip and socially aware works from this young playwright have already been seen on their stages. Now, his Phoenix Fabrik, which premieres at the Pillsbury House, examines the unlikely friendship that develops between two girls working in a South Carolina doll factory in 1945. Both of them, a black girl and a German orphan whose uncle owns the factory, keep hidden memories of a violent past, and Jones rattles stereotypes and presumptions as he unfolds their stories through a traditional ring play format, accented by music and dance. 3501 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-825-0459; www.pillsburyhousetheatre.org
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Negativland
Negativland is celebrating its first quarter century in the music business with notoriety, empty pockets, and an art show, of all things. The collective has always lived double lives in the visual and aural worlds. Core members Mark Hosler, Richard Lyons, Don Joyce, and David Wills entertain various fascinations with video, radio mechanical experiments, and fine arts, in addition to the band’s better-known musical pursuits, media hoaxes, and ongoing efforts to make culture jamming and copyright infringement more than just publicity ploys. Hosler talked to us about Negativlandland, a traveling exhibit that takes the themes Negativland has explored in its music and makes them into a full sensory experience.
How would you describe the Negativlandland exhibit?
The show is divided into different lands, just like Disneyland, with more than seventy pieces in every medium. There’s the Booper, which is an electronic noisemaking device built by David in Negativland, and a seven-foot-tall animatronic robot of Abraham Lincoln, and a virtual automotive wrecking yard, with things we found inside the cars, car parts, video, and a soundtrack.
Wait—go back to the part about the robot.
A fan of ours sent us a fifty-CD set of every individual sound component of every Disney ride, and the voice sessions for the man who was the voice for Lincoln in a Disney attraction called “Great Moments of Mr. Lincoln,” which debuted in 1964 at the World’s Fair. We collaborated with Joe Griffith, an artist from Tampa, to make a Negativland version of a Disneyland attraction, using manipulated audio that’s been snuck out of Disneyland. It’s really funny, but it’s also about imperialism. It references what direction our country is going in, with all of our wars to promote democracy.
So you guys are making political art now.
Well, we have a new live performance, and its theme is “Why We Believe in God.” We wanted to talk about something that’s going on now, globally. One way of looking at what’s happening in America and Iraq is that it’s kind of a battle for God: Who is right? And if you’re wrong, we’re going to kill you. It’s nice to do something that’s not about copyright infringement, or anti-corporatism, or any of the things we’ve been associated with previously. We wanted to pick something timely, and timeless.
Hey, speaking of copyright infringement, are you a little worried about Disney?
Not at all! Our new record [No Business], in fact, is one hundred percent appropriated—there’s nothing original on it whatsoever. There’s an image of Mickey Mouse on the cover, and Starbucks on the back. The project is about collage and appropriation, and includes an essay about these issues. Any lawyer who picked up this project would read the essay and say, “We can’t sue these guys, because the project itself is their defense.” I think—I could be wrong—it’s bulletproof.
Sample-based songs are all over the radio now, so it seems the world has changed for sound-collage artists. Do you guys take any credit for that?
Well, when we were sued by U2’s people for our U2 record [which mixed samples of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with an unauthorized, off-the-air rant by Casey Kasem], we really did cause enough of a stink, and embarrassed the people who went after us enough, that people in the mainstream music industry have told us that they aren’t going to get involved in that sort of policing anymore.
Who buys Negativland’s visual art?
So far, almost nobody! It’s hard for us to get by making records and running our own record label. It’s even harder with art. I just did a lecture tour in New York, and I’ve been making more money talking about what we do than actually doing it. But we got a really nice review in Art in America, so I guess the art world has decided we’re OK.
Negativlandland is on view at Creative Electric Studios through June 10. 2201 2nd St. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-706-7879; www.creativeelectricstudios.com
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Latisha "Tish" Jones
Dropping Tish Jones off on a deserted island might seem like the height of cruelty; she is anything but solitary. A veteran of the poetry slam circuit, a national scene known for its ultra-social and quite self-confident performers, Jones sometimes even performs her own work in ensemble form. Together with poets Ed Bok Lee, Reggie Harris, Isis, Ibe, and Mankwe Ndosi, Jones is part of Found in Translation, the spoken-word troupe that performs this month as part of the Minneapolis MOSAIC arts festival.
When we told Jones we’d be exiling her to the land of sand and solitude, she claimed she would not be able to live without her cell phone. Creative type that she is, we assured her she could rig up a substitute from coconuts. Barring the celly, here’s what she’d bring along:
1. My Tupac CD collection. Tupac is definitely my brother from another mother! So he has got to be everywhere I go.
2. A lifetime supply of paper and pens. I have to be able to write to stay sane. Plus I’d want to write up my life story, bury it somewhere on the island, title it The Treasure, then leave a map out and available for someone to find and search for it. And I’d probably take up architecture, so I’d need to sketch out blueprints for my new treehouse.
3. A volleyball. I could draw a face on it and have a friend while I was on the island, like Tom Hanks did in Cast Away.
4. My wallet. I find that no matter where you go, they always card you. So I’d wanna have my ID, just in case. And it would be nice to look at all the pictures of family and friends in the photo slots.
5. My collection of New York Yankees hats. Just to keep a smile on my face.
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Calvin Trillin
In Calvin Trillin’s world, the secret to living the sweet life is simply making the right choices. And Trillin’s prolific writing career is nothing if not the chronicle of a lifetime of impeccable selections: He’s eaten the best food, lived in the coolest city, traveled to the most interesting places, and had the good fortune to meet and marry a wonderful woman. That might make him sound completely unbearable, but Trillin is saved by his own self-deprecating touch. He looks at the world with such thoughtful humor and curiosity—his recent output includes a series of books examining the verbal and logical lapses of our president, and a novel about a man who takes up plum parking spots in New York City—that his work offers reliably vicarious pleasure for those of us bumbling through life eating fast-food and road-tripping to Topeka. 651-290-1221; www.fitzgeraldtheater.org
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Melissa Bank
It seems unfair to brand a writer as talented as Melissa Bank with the increasingly meaningless and disposable “chick lit” label. But there’s no denying that Bank’s Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing, published in 2000, was on the leading edge of an avalanche of thinly veiled romance novels that have since come to dominate (and, some say, destroy) women’s fiction. In their defense, chick-lit titles often reflect the realities of modern dating better than anything with Fabio on the cover ever did. Bank’s new book, The Wonder Spot, is a coming-of-age tale marked by abundant cultural wit and intelligent prose. Who knows why the follow-up novel was such a long time coming, but perhaps the hiatus allowed Bank to cultivate a bit of distance from the genre she inadvertently helped create. 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-625-6000
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Julia Glass
How tough would it be to juggle careers as a successful visual artist and an accomplished novelist? Mighty tough, one would suppose, although hardly pitiable. Such was the dilemma for Julia Glass, one of those rare people with bankable talent in two art forms. Having already achieved acclaim as a painter and rug hooker, Glass decided to try her hand at writing and ended up with the 2002 National Book Award for her novel Three Junes. She’s apparently decided to stick with writing for the time being, and is back with a complex new tale about a New York pastry chef who takes a break from her life and her marriage to ply her trade for the governor of New Mexico. The Whole World Over also features cameos by a few characters from the Three Junes, which should please readers who hate to see a good story end.
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Alison Bechdel
It sounds like an easy enough job: Just fill in a little box with some scratchy pictures and a handful of words that will make people laugh. For even the best comic strip artists (i.e. Gary Larson, Bill Watterson, and, most recently, Aaron McGruder), however, it’s apparently hard work with a serious burnout risk. Yet for more than twenty years Alison Bechdel has managed to keep her Dykes to Watch Out For strip funny, moving, and relevant by engaging her characters in a world that has changed and grown in step with our own. In Fun Home, Bechdel tells the story of her own deeply sad childhood in a graphic novel that casts a family drama in literary and wryly funny fashion.
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John McPhee
With his uncommonly graceful way with words, sharp eye for details, and knack for getting along with just about everybody, John McPhee can write compellingly about virtually any topic. His enormous body of work includes books about oranges, geology, watercraft, basketball, and characters both famous and anything but. In his latest book, the Pulitzer-winning journalist turns his attention to the world of heavy transport, tagging along with various freight haulers, from the UPS man to towboat captain, as they go about their business. Everything we eat, wear, use, and own comes to us from somewhere else, and McPhee has coaxed some amazing, seldom-heard tales from the people who make their livelihoods moving all manner of commodities from one place to another.