On Making Off: Misadventures Off-Off Broadway (23 page)

“
Locked!” the woman shouted. “No key!”

“
Oh, the door is locked, and you don’t have the key!” Harrison replied to her, another outstanding deduction from our spokesperson. “How long have you been in there?”

It seemed like a silly question considering the circumstances until…

“
Five hour! No people. Five hour! Please help!”

She hadn’t seen anyone pass by for five hours? How was that possible? It was approaching midnight, but still, she must have seen someone. Something was getting lost in the translation. It was tragic that her only hope of rescue was a band of brownie-brained artists.

Finally, somebody had the presence of mind to get her to write down a phone number, which we promptly called from the one cellphone in the group. Why there wasn’t a phone inside the shop was too difficult a topic to discuss. We notified the person on the line that someone they might know had been locked in a store for five hours, and if they would be so kind as to let someone else know, preferably someone with a key, we would be grateful. It was the best we could do without breaking the window, something we pondered, but decided against. We wished her luck and pressed on.

We finally found Ria’s apartment and headed back to the subway. The topic of conversation revolved around how much we disliked downtown Manhattan with its sterile canyons of corporate office towers and flesh-eating tailor shops. But once the J train crept along the Williamsburg bridge, we pressed our faces against the windows, and all we could talk about was how beautiful downtown Manhattan looked and the dizzying heights of the skyscrapers reaching up, like flames, into the night sky. Some things just look better from a distance, like one’s youth and mountains.

Halfway across the bridge, something else caught our attention. Dickey was turning green. And not green-
ish
or pale with a green hue, he was turning Shamrock Shake green.

“
Dude, are you OK?” Harrison asked.

“
No. No, I’m not feeling very good.”

“
I can tell. You’re green.”

“
Shut up. Don’t make fun of me. I really don’t feel well.”

“
I know. You’re green,” Harrison repeated.

“
That’s not nice, Harrison,” said Dickey, sweat building on his forehead. “I’m not feeling good.”

Everyone saw what was coming and began to back away. Harrison stayed close and comforted him.

“
I told you someone was going to die,” Dickey said.

I looked over at Lolly. Could this be it? Was this going to be the first time someone actually died when Dickey said someone was going to die? The irony it would be Dickey was…terribly funny, and we couldn’t help but laugh.

At least, that was what
I
was laughing at. No actual words were exchanged, so Lolly could have been laughing about something else entirely. And then the napalm hit again, and the whole subway car started laughing. Even people we didn’t know—and who certainly hadn’t shared our dessert—were laughing. It was a happy subway car. Everyone was happy.

Everyone except Dickey.

“
I’m glad you guys are having a good time. You should have a good time. Don’t be sad on my account.”

It was an unfortunate thing for him to say. There is just nothing funnier than a martyr. So we laughed more.

Poor Dickey. It was terrible we were making fun of him. He’d been working his ass off hustling up quite a bit of money for the company. And I don’t use those terms lightly. He was sleeping with the right people and managed to get our show seen by key foundation folks. Once they saw the show, we got the grants, but they probably wouldn’t have seen the show had Dickey not lured them in. Morally questionable, yes… but oh so profitable.

Boy, was he turning green. It had progressed from Shamrock Shake to Incredible Hulk, minus the muscles. I didn’t know people turned green. I turned yellow once when I had hepatitis, which seemed unnatural, but this green was otherworldly.

By the time we got to the first station in Brooklyn, Harrison had taken the address for the party and volunteered to accompany Dickey off the subway. The train doors opened, and Harrison expertly guided Dickey directly to the trashcan, where he began his business. The doors closed to the sounds of our fallen comrade, exorcising the brownie from his gut.

We finally arrived at the address listed on the Gentrifuckers’ flyer. The neighborhood didn’t look gentrified at all. It was half-industrial, half-residential, but there were no coffee shops, bars, or boutiques. No establishments you generally associate with gentrification. I began to wonder if these Gentrifuckers were so good at being against gentrification they’d managed to keep the gentrifiers away. We surrounded the large metal door and read the sign: “Don’t knock, just kick the fucking door in.” It was written with a Sharpie on white spiral-notebook paper.

After a brief conference, we decided to do what the sign said. So, I took a step away from the door, leaned back, and kicked the fucking door in. It flew open with such ease, it practically flew off its hinges. The half-dozen people sitting on the stairs on the other side practically wet their pants with fear.

“
What the fuck are you doing?” one of the guys asked.

“
The sign says, ‘Kick the fucking door in,’” I replied as we began stepping over them. “Is the Gentrifuckers party upstairs?”

“
Just ’cause the sign says…it doesn’t mean...follow the music. You’ll find it.”

I wondered why he was so upset we’d kicked the door in. We couldn’t have been the first people to follow instructions.

Once we got up the party, it became very clear we WERE the first people to “kick the fucking door in.” The party was a bunch of Westchester kids slumming in Williamsburg in their pseudo-punk Gap clothes. The irony of the name Gentrifuckers was about as clever as this group got. We bounced around the party, joining conversations where we could, but nobody knew or cared much about gentrification, which was what we wanted to talk about. We couldn’t find anyone who had any interest in social activism, so we looked for people who, at the very least, were as stoned as we were, but we couldn’t find any of those either. Nobody was interested in talking to us about anything. It was a sad vibe.

Everyone there was so concerned about being part of a scene that nobody actually
was
a scene. I mean, who puts a sign on their door that says, “Don’t knock, just kick the fucking door in,” and then expects us to politely turn the handle?

Then, we learned that Gentrifuckers was the name of the band playing that night. This wasn’t a group of activists after all. It was a party for a band with a name we mistook for a movement. So, we littered the place with postcards, filled up on keg beer, and left.

I imagine the next day, when they were cleaning up, the Gentrifuckers would wonder where all these postcards with the naked chick came from. Then, someone would stand up with his arms full of empties and say, “I remember them. They were the ones who kicked the fucking door in.”

DOING IT ON YOUR BACK

At 6:30 p.m., I passed Tre Fleuve on my way into the theater. Our greeting was reduced to simultaneous nods of the head. My hands were full with two jugs of Carlo Rossini wine, and his were keeping the rhythm on his bongo drum. In the hour before our closing performance of
Do It!,
Tre Fleuve was busking up an audience.

“
Free show! Free wine!” he shouted to the beat. “Come see us
Do It!
tonight at 8. Have some free wine that doesn’t taste great.”

We’d sweetened our free show “deal” by adding a little booze. Who was going to turn down a free show and free wine? Even those who had no intention of seeing a play that night could be drawn into our web. And if we got them a little sauced, they’d be more generous come tipping time. But Tre Fleuve wasn’t kidding about the wine in his busking rhyme. It was God-awful.

Tre Fleuve’s act started on the street as an innocent busking guy. But down in the theater, he became a whole different animal. We’d decided during rehearsals that Tre Fleuve and Jay should do some pre-show entertainment. They were, after all, musicians, and we thought it would be nice to have some ambient music while our audience choked down their fermented grape slurry, as they always did with great enthusiasm. We had no idea how this simple little idea would grow.

During their jam sessions, Tre Fleuve and Jay decided to become The Fucks. Not The Fugs, a favorite band of the Yippies. These alter egos were loud, offensive people and horrible musicians. The Fucks were not a band you wanted warming up your crowd. The Fucks were, to put it nicely, fucking fucks.

Every night, The Fucks brought a new surprise. Sometimes, they’d play a bad chord and recite dirty poetry until it stopped resonating. Other times, they’d scream at the audience about the injustices of caging a man’s balls in tighty-whitey underwear. Or they’d make the audience participate in ridiculous games of call and response.

“
When I sing ‘douche,’ you sing ‘bag’!” Thankfully, most people paid little attention. They were too busy passing around the jug of wine.

We were not surprised when the reviewers showed no kindness to The Fucks. They always reserved a line or two to disparage our green show musicians.

“
If you can get past the banality of the opening duo, who do everything in their power to make the audience leave, you will be treated to a fast-paced and inspired show. The Beggars Group would do well to cut them.”

But we never did. That wouldn’t be very Yippie-like.

“
Can we open the house yet, Mr. Anderson?” Dickey asked, looking at his watch.

“
In a minute,” I replied.

“
Is Scott coming?”

“
He’s in Italy already.”

Scott had come to the show five times, and he really liked it, which relieved us both. He brought flowers and friends and quickly became a resident member of the
Do It!
family. His support was a blessing, and in one week, I would be joining him in Italy for a much-needed vacation after an exhausting six months.

Walking backstage, I told Harrison it was time for him to leave the theater. For Harrison’s character, “places” meant wandering around the streets of the East Village until ten past 8. And, unlike everyone else in the show, he was dressed in a suit. He popped a chocolate into his mouth, and I followed him out. We emerged and exchanged “break-a-legs,” as I watched him saunter into the twilight of East Eighth Street. I turned around and noticed a line forming. At the very front were my friends from Blah-Blah Big Bank, Rhonda and Roberta, munching on falafels. It was going to be a great closing night.

“
We’re going to open the house in just a few minutes,” I told them.

“
Don’t worry about us,” Rhonda said with her mouth half-full, holding up her dripping Middle Eastern snack. “We’re having a great time already!”

Images like this stick out in my mind the most. Friends and strangers gathering for these short-lived pop-up communities is why I love doing all this work. I get such an electric charge out of bringing people together. I headed back into the theater, two steps at a time. We had to open the house immediately. The tattoo parlor next to the theater doesn’t take kindly to people blocking their stoop—and tattoo people are not the kind of people you want to piss off.

“
House is open!” I shouted while doing a quick sweep of the space.

I poked my head out onto the street, informed Rhonda and Roberta the house was open, and they got the line moving. As the audience entered, Ria handed them a manila folder marked “Confidential.” This dossier contained everything the audience needed to know about the Yippies, Jerry Rubin, and The Beggars Group. That’s far more reading content than usual for a production of this scale, but we were inspired by the edifying programs you could purchase at a West End production and wanted to re-create that experience.

The Fucks played some ambient music that actually sounded good and left the audience to pass that big jug of wine back, aisle by aisle. The rest of the cast milled about the stage waiting for The Fucks to make their move. And sure enough, they stopped playing, and Jay welcomed everyone to the closing night of
Do It!,
which was greeted with applause. “Don’t encourage them!” I thought.

He then invited the audience on stage for a dance party. A dance party! The lights came down, funky dance music blasted over the speakers, and within minutes, the whole audience was on stage, jumping and twisting. Jay and Tre Fleuve passed through the crowd, bouncing and gyrating. And then I saw him. It was C.J., hopping through the group with that adorable grin.

A whole series of emotions flew through me, but the one that stood out the most was judgment. I felt judged. He didn’t approach me, though I was sure he saw me. He probably hadn’t anticipated dancing with the performers prior to the show. I watched him for a minute and allowed myself to feel everything one feels when seeing an old love for the first time in over a year.

It took a moment to get over the fear of feeling so much, but when I did, I realized this judgment wasn’t coming from him. It was coming from me. He just came to the show, most likely, to be supportive of my endeavors. To be supportive of me! And like everyone else, he didn’t come expecting to see something bad. He didn’t come to judge. He showed up with the hopes of seeing something good. And if I was proud of this show, why wouldn’t he be?