Chron: Speeding Motorcycle is the cult hit of the summer

The Houston Chronicle got out to the rock opera I've been working on last week and the review came out today. Here it is. Miss it at your own peril. There are only three weeks left and it's selling out fast. Make reservations now or miss it. www.infernalbridegroom.com for info. 713-522-8443 for tickets. And, seriously, if you want to see this, call soon.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/3926134.html

June 4, 2006, 8:10PM
THEATER REVIEW
Daniel Johnston as rock opera
Speeding Motorcycle brings weird Austin vibe to the right Houston stage

By EVERETT EVANS
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Speeding Motorcycle should be the cult hit of Houston's summer.

Infernal Bridegroom Productions' out-of-this-world premiere rock opera takes its inspiration from cult figure Daniel Johnston, an outsider singer, songwriter and artist who first gained recognition in Austin during the 1980s.

IBP founder and former artistic director Jason Nodler makes a welcome return as guest artist, after three years of freelancing outside Houston. He has adapted and assembled Johnston's idiosyncratic songs and concepts into a freewheeling musical-theater piece and staged the resulting show with vivid imagination.

Johnston, Nodler and IBP prove a match made in alternative-arts heaven. The material, staging, design and performance all reflect what might be called the Austin aesthetic — as in, "Keep Austin weird."

IBP often has seemed a slice of Austin right here in Bayou City, but never more than with this outing. You feel you've been beamed to some funky venue off Red River or Sixth Street back in Austin's oddball glory days.

Many of Johnston's autobiographical work concerns a guy's unrequited love for a girl, who marries an undertaker instead. His songs and comic-book-style art feature recurring figures: Joe the Boxer (Johnston's alter ego), Captain America, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Jeremiah the "Hi How Are You?" frog immortalized in Johnston's mural at Austin's Sound Exchange. His work often reflects his struggles with bipolar disorder and other health problems.

Speeding Motorcycle centers on Joe's response after his beloved rejects him. Kyle Sturdivant, Cary Winscott and Joe Folladori all play Joe, appearing both separately and together. Sturdivant usually represents Joe at his most beleaguered and despondent. Winscott mostly fields Joe's determinedly optimistic efforts to find a bright side and keep going. Folladori makes up the difference as the watchful, open-faced, not-yet-decided side of love's fall guy.

The show begins with all three before a red curtain, introducing the unrequited-love plot in a simple ditty. The first cool surprise comes as the curtain parts to show the entire cast, all strumming guitars and singing the same refrain. So, now and then, everyone can be a manifestation of Joe (or Johnston).

As Joe hangs around outside his ex-love's new home, she and the chorus try to discourage him. "He's a man obsessed/He couldn't be a lover/So now he's a pest." (Love that lyric!) He attends the wedding, at which the pregnant bride gives birth. This makes Joe suicidal. He crashes his car, determined to die so that his love (as the undertaker's assistant) will "care for him" (i.e., prepare his body).

Captain America tries to save the hero, pep-talking him with You're Gonna Make It, Joe. But the chorus of negativists taunts him with pictures of his love. He expires, and as the first act closes she is indeed preparing his body for burial.

Act II, treating Joe's afterlife, grows even more surreal. There's a "let's go to the funeral" chorale: "Got me a coffin, shiny and black/Goin' to a funeral and I'm not coming back." A philosophical gospel rouser (Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances) enlivens the wake. After the mourners depart, Joe (Sturdivant at this point) sits up in the coffin and delivers a keening aria insisting he still loves that funeral girl. A chorus of skeletons surrounds him in a giddily spooky routine.

Then Joe morphs into Casper for a wistful monologue on ghosthood (ghosthood, ghosthood), with self-pronounced echo (echo, echo).

At last, Joe's various avatars unite and reconcile themselves to the hand life has dealt: "Even when the jokes were bad/Think of all the fun we had." (A fine example of Johnston's knack for making a resonant point with a simple lyric). Creating songs and art, they imply, has made the suffering worthwhile; the whole cast joins in the celebratory finale, Lovin' Feelings.

But that's not all. Everybody out to the lobby for a live concert by Joe the Boxer — a rousingly affirmative epilogue.

You may find Speeding Motorcycle funny, touching or just plain weird, sometimes all at once. But you will find it different from anything else you've encountered.

Call him a savant, primitivist or perhaps an instinctivist, Johnston's work seems guided by instinct rather than formal rules. Just as his songs are not traditionally crafted, Speeding Motorcycle is not a "well-made" musical. But as his songs seem to simply "be," the show's pieces flow together as a natural stream, alternately melancholy and loopy yet always genuine and distinctive.

There's something irresistible in the show's blend of madness, sweetness and childlike innocence. It's like Marat/Sade enacted by Mr. Rogers and his friends.

"I like to make things up," Joe says. "It's the healthiest thing that I do."

The show projects that childlike glee at the sheer fun of making things up — from the frog who consoles Joe at his lowest ebb to non sequiturs with a hint of Ogden Nash ("Someone once said life is like a cow/But I don't know how.").

The show abounds in droll visuals. The undertaker (Troy Schulze) always appears carrying a shovel. The straitjacketed Joe (Sturdivant) makes a phone call by picking up the receiver with his mouth and dialing with his nose.

Anthony Barilla's musical direction and arrangements are a key strength, adding here a sax and trombone, there the tinkle of toy piano and xylophone. Tamarie Cooper supplied the zany choreography, Maria Yingling the wild costumes.

Kirk Markley's nifty setting features a proscenium frame, tilted askew like the sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Atop the frame, a red bloodshot eye, flanked by bat wings, stares out. Watch for the "tear" it sheds at the close of Act I. Clever.

It goes without saying that anyone who's ever enjoyed Johnston's work should not miss IBP's exuberant celebration of his unique creativity. For those who've never experienced it, Speeding Motorcycle makes a fascinating introduction.

 

oomp: True that, but he left out "uneven."

OldManB: The movie was at the Landmark River Oaks for like a month, but it's gone now. Great movie.

Fatty: As usual I don't understand what you're saying.

Everybody: Come see the show.

 

It was scheduled for the Greenway but it moved to the River Oaks at the last minute.

I did get to work with him some, yeah. We met last summer to talk about the project but then he had some serious health issues and had to back away for a while, so I finished it with IBP. He's been to see the show each weekend so far though and he loves it. He's been saying we should do another one.

You coming out to see it?

 

Anytime's a good time to come. I'd just recommend making reservations in advance and showing up early. It's general admission and it will probably sell out the rest of the run. Also there's no late seating.

I'm there every night. Introduce yourself and I'll buy you a beer. Look forward to meeting you.

 

As for the director. That's me. And let me know when you're planning on coming so I'll be on the look out.

IBP's season is pretty eclectic. No telling when a rock opera might pop up. The last one was in 2003. But they're holding general auditions (along with several other cool groups) on June 24. Go to www.infernalbridegroom.com for details.