Check out my review in the Village of this excellent, if morbid, new guidebook to the Lower East Side here.

One of my best pals in high school Matt Cohen used to regale us with tales of his legendary Uncle Marc, a sort of combination comedian, practical joker, con artist and entrepreneur. Oh yes and videographer. I’ll let you judge which of those skill sets come into play in his latest venture, Paymewithachicken.com. I think the name of the site speaks for itself.

RUTH ETTING, “SWEETHEART OF SONG”

For this reporter, Ruth Etting is the first of the Bland Bombshells, representing the advent of legions of non-descript performers who were to inhabit American popular culture in the 1940s and 50s. Her saving grace is a voice that is to die for, warm, pleasant and likeable, and, on record at least, that is all that matters. She sounded like, and looked like, the girl next door, which of course is the origin of her vaudeville handle. The essence of vaudeville prior to this, however, had been the colorful, individual character. Costumed, distinctive, and, yes, mannered. Posh or earthy, the mere mention of the name conjured up a personality: Nora Bayes, Eva Tanguay, Sophie Tucker, Fanny Brice, Beatrice Lillie…to name just a few. Henceforth, it was to become an industry where a pretty girl could get up onstage, smile ingratiatingly, and just sing. She might have the best voice in the world…but without that indispensable persona, we would forget about her the instant she walked off the stage. She was disposable.

This seems like a lot of heavy freight to lay at Ruth Etting’s feet, and Ms. Etting, wherever you are, I apologize. By all accounts she had no great designs on stardom, but would have been happy to continue on in the career she studied for in the late teens at the Chicago Art Institute: costume design. She started singing to earn a little money and soon became the principal project of one Martin “Moe the Gimp” Snyder, a Chicago gangster who became her manager and husband in 1922. (What is it with girl singers and these gangsters, anyway?) She became huge in Chicago before ever setting for in New York, playing the best vaudeville and nightclub jobs, performing on local radio, and starting to cut disks. Her Columbia hits included  “It All Depends On You” “Everybody Loves My Baby” “Mean to Me”,and many others.

Her New York debut was a 1927 job fronting Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra at the Paramount Theatre. In the 1927 Zeigfeld Follies she introduced another hit “Shaking the Blues Away”. The following year she appeared in both Eddie Cantor’s Whoopie! and Ed Wynn’s Simple Simon. While continuing to appear on stage, she went into films in the thirties, such as Eddie Cantor’s Roman Scandals (1933), and Hip Hip Hooray (1934), Gift of Gab (34) and 30 shorts for Paramount and Warner Brothers.

In 1936, she retired, further proof that she never had the mania for stardom to begin with. The following year divorced her husband/manager for her piano player Myrl Alderman – who soon found himself shot full of holes. You shouldn’t oughtta cross Moe the Gimp. This juicy story was made into a 1954 film, called Love Me or Leave Me starring Doris Day and James Cagney (for once, intelligent casting in a Hollywood bio-pic).

[Note: in addition to being Miss Etting's birthday today, it is also the birthday of "fourth Stooge" Fred Sanborn. Check out the movie Soup to Nuts, which in addition to be entertaining, is a major revelation. We get to enjoy Ted Healy along with Moe, Larry and Shemp...and a fourth Stooge, Fred Sanborn who is a sort of Harpo-like figure, silent (but for unheard whispers), weaving in and out of the plot doing purely visual schtick. We should have seen more of him!]

To find out more about these variety artists and the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

“THE TWO BLACK CROWS”

Moran and Mack have the dubious distinction of being the last major blackface team to work in vaudeville. As a boast, that’s sort of like putting “Kappelmeister to the Fuhrer” on your C.V.

Mack had been a stage electrician who told jokes all the time. Alexander Pantages suggested he go on stage. one night he was on the same bill as Garvin and Moran, and – just like that — Mack stole Moran.

Using the formula established by McIntyre and Heath, mack was the slow witted comical one; Moran, was the straightman, always frustrated by his partner’s stupidity.

MACK: Wish I had a thousand ice cold watermelons.

MORAN: Glory be. I bet if you had a thousand ice cold watermelons, you’d give me one.

MACK: Oh, naw! No, siree. If you are too lazy to wish for your own watermelon, you ain’t gona get none of mine!

Oh, git along, now, you two!

The team had great succes in vaudeville and in revues such as the 1917 Over the Top, Zeigfeld Follies, Earl Carroll’s Vanities, and The Greenwich Village Follies. In 1927 they recorded their sketch “The Early Bird Catches the Worm” on Columbia records. The team was featured in the 1928 Paramount film Why Bring That Up?

A dispute arose when Mack, who owned the act, refused to give Moran more than a tiny share of the take. Moran quit and a man named Bert Swor was brought in (though billed as Moran). This version of the team did 1930 film called Anybody’s War. The film did poorly, so Moran was re-hired at a high salary and the team resumed touring the RKO circuit.

The team was discussing a deal to do a series of shorts with Mack Sennett in 1937, when tragedy struck. The three men were driving to New York together when they were involved in an accident that killed Mack. Moran continued to perform but there was an ever decreasing market for his work.

To find out more about these variety artists and the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

Hard to believe this is already my third annual Holiday podcast for nytheatre.com! This year’s batch of victims was an eclectic one: Heather Curran and Trey Compton of the Gallery Players, talking about their production of Christopher Durang’s Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge, featuring its original star. Then I talked to my old friends from the Axis Company (in particular artistic director Randy Sharp) about their 7th annual production of their holiday children’s production Seven In One Blow. Nutcase Jeffrey Solomon gives me the lowdown on Santa Claus Is Coming Out. And playwright/actor Ricardo Perez Gonzalez and I discuss war and peace and his new play In Fields Where They Lay, which is based on a real-life incident during World War I when German and British soldiers ceased fighting in order to celbrate Christmas together. Hear it all here.

We had a modest but not unpleasing week for Kitsch press attention: three separate articles, all positive. With a short three week run and one of the weeks containing a holiday, and with myself as sole publicist (on top of my tasks as producer, playwright, songwriter, playwright and actor) this is liable to be the extent of it, so I will savor it to the full. (Though several major, influential journalists are attending without reviewing). Adam McGovern of Comiccritique came. He was perhaps the only critic who had a complete, intelligent appreciation and understanding of every aspect of Willy Nilly, so I was glad to get him here. He is already one of my favorite writers. His well-parsed encapsulation is here. Likewise, Scott Stiffler, culture editor of the Villager/Downtown Express constellation, and an old cohort presents this knowing preview. And Martin Denton of nytheatre.com chimes in with his own fair and balanced assessment. One thing Martin gets really, really right (and which most reviewers almost never do) is an awareness of the conditions and limitations which cash-strapped Indie theatre artists operate under. When he spots some problems, he bothers to ask why they exist, and even postulates what it would take to address them. Hence, the production’s sluggish pace, brought on my the chronic underrehearsal we are all so tired of, improves with every performance–as he predicted it would. (The entire cast was never in the same place at the same time until opening night). And he notes that he large scale of the theatre make quick-changes tough…but in that observation, he’s just being generous. You have five more opportunities to catch the show, and we had a large crowd last night—make your reservations now! Here’s how: theaterforthenewcity.net/kitsch.

This Hollywood hoofer paired off with the best of them (Ebsen, Astaire, Bolger) but always worked best when in the solo spotlight. Her intense individualism explains how she got into dancing in the first place: her parents put her in ballet lessons to help her get over her shyness. She started out performing in Gus Edwards revues in Atlantic City as a child. Edwards convinced her parents to allow her to travel with the act to New York. For the engagement, she applied herself with rare, almost massochistic rigour (e.g., tying sandbags to her feet) to learn tap. Scouts spotted her and cast her in the 1929 show Follow Through, which was where her career truly took off. Subsequent Broadway shows included Fine and Dandy, Hot Cha, and George White’s Scandals. She broke into films with Broadway Melody of 1936, and continued with Born to Dance (1936), Honolulu (1939), Lady Be Good (1941), Ship Ahoy (1942) and the Red Skelton vehicle I Dood It (1943). In 1939 she did a brief tour of what was left of vaudeville, dancing and doing impressions of Kathryn Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. In 1943, she retired to marry actor Glen Ford. She played the role of housewife and mother until an acrimonious divorce in 1959, shortly after which she made a brief comeback, performing at night clubs in Las Vegas.

To find out more about these variety artists and the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

Doug Henwood, our previously announced representative of the left for Sunday’s debate, has chickened out (bok! bok! bok!) under the mistaken impression, I surmise, that as a former libertarian I’d be skewing the event against him. But the fact remains that I am also a former socialist, have written several appreciative articles about the protest community for papers like the Village Voice and others, and that the event will be at Theater for the New City, one of the last bastions of pure leftism in the entire city. One thing this event will have is balance.

Fortunately, Stanley Aronowitz has stepped up to the plate, and the left will be very well represented. He’s a prof at CUNY Graduate Center, the director  of the Center for the Study of Culture, Technology and Work, and the author of 25 books. His full dossier is here: http://www.stanleyaronowitz.org/new/about

Mr. Dobrian will no doubt have his hands full.

Blood sport? Nah – I only jest about that. In reality, I’m hoping one of these guys can help me make up my mind.

One fence – two utopias. Smells like the old Berlin!

Join us this Sunday (Nov 22.) won’t you, following the 3pm performance of Kitsch. For more info, go here: www.theaterforthenewcity.net.

I first knew Steve Bird as one of the principal, demented faces around the old Collective Unconscious. His work was always a heady cocktail of honey and bile, simultaneously intoxicating and disgusting, as all good liquor is. His new book Hideous Exuberance gives readers the pleasure of getting inside that disturbed head in the privacy of the home — and a sordid thrill it is.

Picture Winesburg, Ohio if it had been written by an inmate of a criminal insane asylum. The book is structured as a chain of bizarre character portraits of surreal specimens with names like Alison Shitbox and Gondolphus Clownhouse. The opening sections read like revenge salvoes against a gallery of grotesques who probably made Bird’s life a living hell during his formative years. Trailer trash bimbos rule this universe – Anna Nicole Smith meets Eva Peron (and when you get right down to it, they’re not so different). As the work progresses it gets at once more erudite and increasingly less coherent, as though the author had consumed the works of Heironymous Bosch, John Waters, Richard Wagner, Mark Leyner, Kurt Vonnegut, the Marquis de Sade, Rabelais, William S. Burroughs, Alfred Jarry, both Sedarises, and the Bards who sang Beowulf, vomited these works uo up, and was now serving the upchuck to us, chilled, in parfait cups.

Scatology is an important quiver in Bird’s arsenal. More than one character embraces “German shit porn”, and eats “hot brown poo pie”. This reviewer confesses to relishing such phrases in comedy so long as they remain phrases; I am nonetheless relieved the book is not a photo essay. And, as in the work of Mark Leyner, it as the level of the phrase or the sentence that Hideous Exuberance soars. Try to follow it as a plot and you will go just as insane as the author. But the smaller chunks are saturated with an inventiveness that is downright hyperactive. The work is rife with Joycean coinages all Bird’s own — and he sticks to them like the obsessive compulsive that he obviously is. Jesus is invariably rendered as ”Jah-heesus”. Evangelist as “Evilangelist”. America, for some reason, as “America Profunda”. The Feast of Fools meets Armageddon in this ungodly, God-like work. What emerges is a damning portrait of humanity in all its hypocritical splendor: venal, weak, and ingenious in its depravity. I therefore judge it as a highly moral work, a fiction of singular realism. I think it should be on the reading list of every 11-year old in the country – not because that is the level of its humor (though it is, and woe to those who are not 11 at least in sprit) but because 11 is also the age of understanding, and the book contains so many worthwhile lessons. Hideous Exuberance indeed.

For info on how to get this comico-religious work of scat porn, go here: http://www.voxpoppublishing.com/authors.php

As we head into our second week of performances, we have much to show and tell. First this great review from the grandiloquent Adam McGovern: http://blog.comiccritique.com/?p=137. A review in Nytheatre.com is expected any day, as is a photo spread in the Villager/Downtown Express constellation of papers. And herewith, photodocumentary recordings of der gang in performance (photos by Bane):

Michael Whitney as Nazi official Krauss; Gyda Arber as the maternity nurse:

Avery Pearson as Heinz the piano queen:

Roger Nasser as Hanswurst (far right) and rest of cast in the Klub Katzenratzen:

Esther Silberstein as Schwamm sings while gang looks on:

Pete Macnamara as The Baboon throws a drunk (Aaron Baker):

4 spies from East Germany: (Trav S.D., Roger Nasser, Pete Macnamara, Josh Mertz)

Josh Mertz as Agent Vogelbaum encounters Mrs. Bruderlieben (Michele Schlossberg-Cwiklik):

Two cool shots of Esther Silberstein as Schwamm:

Agents Geldhund and Milchstein (Trav S.D. and Pete Macnamara) meet up with Lulu (Kate Valentine):

A Baboon (Pete Macnamara) crosses paths with a snake (Michael Whitney):

The Chief Agent (Trav S.D.) tries to put the moves on his twin brother’s sister-in-law (Betsy Head):

The guys at the bar:

The big climax (Audrey Crabtree center):

We hope you’ll come see the other 9000 moments in the show that weren’t photographed. Her’s how: www.theaterforthenewcity.net/Kitsch

]]> http://travsd.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/kitsch-pix/feed/ 0 travsd nurse and kraus Heinz hanswurst at door schwamm sings drunk and baboon 4 spies vogelbaum and mrs bruderlieben schwamm halflit schwamm ms spies and lulu baboon and snake chief agent and leni guys at the bar climax