Leading up to our free performance at the Arts Council of Princeton, April 18, 7pm, here are some scenes from the show--photos from rehearsals, and a videotaped performance. Come check it out in beautiful Solley Theater!
Kitty Getlik plays a therapist in Turf Therapy, as one of her more difficult patients, a Suburban Lawn, works through its issues of chemical addiction and an irrational fear of weeds and bugs.
I don't know, this guy seemed pretty nice, but what's that exhaust pipe doing on his right arm? He said his name is Captain Hooked-On-Fossil-Fuels. Cheryl's thinking "Why do all these guys come with issues?"
Thanks to Dwaine Williamson for videotaping this performance of "CO2: We're an It," in which CO2, not wanting to be the bad guy, tells a packed room at the Trenton Library to "find energy above the ground and leave the carbon underground." (May need to crank the volume a bit. CO2 molecules tend to be soft spoken.)
Steve Hiltner and pianist Phil Orr bring an element of original Sustainable Jazz to Climate Cabaret performances.
In Climate Cabaret, theater and music combine to find comedy, poignancy and beauty in the greatest challenge of our time: our relationship to Earth. A stubbornly abstract subject is brought home to our bodies and our hearts. Molecules become characters; carbon becomes a seductive renaissance atom with issues. Hamlet drops in to ask the existential question, "To act, or not to act?" Witness a man's tragicomic breakup with his car. Mock drug ads for Lyatol and Gasoline list troubling side-effects. Classic songs are "climate-adapted" to speak of human folly and love for a planet. Witness this unique, Princeton-born production, featuring the musical and theatrical creations of writer/composer Stephen Hiltner.
Performers: Cheryl Jones, Basha Parmet, Kitty Getlik, Fred Dennehy, and the Sustainable Jazz duo of actor/saxophonist Steve Hiltner, and pianist extraordinaire Phil Orr.
What a tremendous pleasure, and really an honor, to be able to perform "CO2--We're an It" in the presence of 150 lovers of poetry, including our nation's Poet Laureate, in the Trenton Library reading room this past week. My torso got to play the role of carbon, while my outstretched fists served as oxygens. The piece starts out with "We're an it, not a he, not a she. LGBT has nothin' on us three, 'cause we're CO2, you see? Just a little bit of matter that never used to matter ..." Afterwards, the MC shook my hand and told the audience, "That's the first time I ever shook hands with a molecule."
The open mic session, before poet laureate Tracy K. Smith read from her new book, brought out a wonderful variety of talented writing and deliveries, and a glorious rendition of "Wade in the Water".
I'm told that Dorothea of Labyrinth Books worked with a friend to get the ball rolling on the event, which was run by the African American Cultural Collaborative of Mercer County. The Collaborative will have another open mic Feb. 8, 2018, this time at the Arts Council of Princeton as part of its community stage programming.
Our Climate Cabaret show includes a mix of comic theater sketches interspersed with satirical drug commercials ("Lyatol is packed with the lies you need to get through the day") and music. Some of the music is original instrumental jazz, but we continue to add climate-adapted songs to the repertoire. These are popular songs from the past that are being adapted to survive on a planet transformed by climate change.
My Climate Valentine -- Becomes a love song to a very special planet. "Is your figure less than Greek? Is your jetstream getting weak? When we change you week by week, are we smart?"
My Unembraceable You -- Recasts "Embraceable You" as a love song to the environment, which is constantly embracing us, but can be logistically difficult to embrace back. "How could what is all around me ever leave me, never do, my unembraceable you."
There's a Road -- John Denver co-wrote "Country Roads" in 1970, the same year as the first Earthday. Climate-adapted lyrics turn it into an anthem for the electric car, powered with renewable energy. "There's a road we can take, to the place we belong. West Virginia, keep your mountains. Let the sun take us home." If We Only Had a Brain -- From Wizard of Oz. "Oh the oceans wouldn't be risin', and continents downsizin'--a future full of pain. We'd have listened to Al's story, taken heed of allegory, if we only had a brain."
I Should Care -- How many lyrics completely change the song's meaning in the last two words? "Maybe we won't find a planet as lovely as you, but I should care, and I do."
Some passages of Shakespeare bear an uncanny relevance to the human predicament with climate change. In this climate adaption of Hamlet's famous soliloquy, a failure to act becomes synonymous with death, while taking action becomes the way to sustain life. Ironies abound in climate change. The status quo carries the seeds (or disperses the carbon) of its own destruction. To save our comfortable lifestyles, we must change them. If at some level we would experience the loss of our carbon footprints as a kind of death, or have come to view sacrifice as a self-diminishment rather than a profound expression of who one is and what one believes in, then this climate adapted soliloquy adheres more closely to the original than it seems.
Here's the original, for comparison:
HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep-- No more--and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep-- To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprise of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now, The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.
Early in our show, carbon dioxide, a.k.a. CO2, tells the audience in rhyme and reason about how it's really a good molecule that's being made to do bad things. Usually three of us do this sketch, one for each atom, but here it's done solo.
We had a great show at Ewing's 1867 Sanctuary. Cheryl Anne Jones sang glorious versions of My Climate Valentine and a love song to the environment--My Unembraceable You--and even CO2 got a chance to talk to the audience about how it's really a good molecule that's being made to do bad things. Earth sat on the piano, taking it all in, as it always does.
Caught on film were performances of some jazz originals. Leader Steve Hiltner has a masters degree in water quality, so it was only a matter of time before he'd write a tune called Funky River (below). The recording's notable for Phil Orr's beautifully conceived piano solo.
This beautiful building in Ewing was poised for the wrecking ball before a nonprofit swooped in to save and restore it. Now our Climate Cabaret will be performing there this Friday, July 21, with theater sketches and music about another sanctuary, spaceship earth, that also needs some TLC.
The music mixes original jazz with well-known songs recast to make them climate-relevant, as with John Denver's "Country Roads", which in the video below becomes "Let the Sun Take Us Home". The new lyrics were inspired by testimonials from friends about how much they like their electric cars, like the Chevy Volt and Bolt.
In the theater sketches, a guy breaks up with his car, a woman falls for a renaissance atom called Carbon, who turns out to be carrying some baggage (Carbon Dating), and a suburban lawn seeks therapy for feelings of emptiness (Turf Therapy).
Join us in this beautiful space for a show about a beautiful planet. 101 Scotch Rd in Ewing, parking across the street.
Cheryl Anne Jones--acting, vocals
Basha Parmet--acting, vocals
Kitty Getlik--acting
Steve Hiltner--scripts, acting, sax, guitar
Philip Orr--piano, acting (Here's Phil playing a solo on Funky River)
It's a real treat to see other acting troupes performing our scripts! Lawns are energy-intensive, little-used seas of exotic grass kept in a perpetually infantile state. They seem to make little sense, but they are everywhere. Here's a short play in which a real estate agent is showing his client a community called Quiet Acres, with "stately homes (the two seated actors) and vast, empty, green lawns (the two actors lying down in front)." The client's impressed until the lawns themselves start to bicker about who's greener than whom.
Thanks to director Steve Gaissert and actors Jan Applebaum, John Eldis, Frank Falisi, Rachel Friedman, Susan Gaissert, and Sarah Stryker, for a wonderful performance!
GROW UP!
By Stephen K. Hiltner, May, 2017
Two actors each represent a suburban lawn, lying on their backs on the stage, about five feet apart, feet towards audience. Immediately behind each is a house, represented by a chair. (OPTIONAL: A homeowner sits on each chair, stiff posture, looking blankly straight ahead.) The lawns tilt their heads up to argue with each other, but otherwise remain prostrate until the last line, when they both sit up and face the audience to utter their last line.
REAL ESTATE AGENT and CLIENT stroll in from side.
AGENT: (to CLIENT, gesturing clearly towards the homes and lawns) Here at Quiet Acres, you’ll find the neighbors are very proud of their stately homes and vast, empty, green lawns.
CLIENT: (impressed) I’d love to live here. It’s so refined, so peaceful, so controlled.
LAWN 1: (in the direction of CLIENT, who is looking elsewhere) I’m greener than her. (gestures towards other lawn)
CLIENT: (turning towards the talking lawn in surprise) What was that?
LAWN 1: I’m greener than her.
LAWN 2: No you’re not.
LAWN 1: Yes I am.
LAWN 2: No you’re not.
LAWN 1: Am so.
LAWN 2: Am not.
CLIENT: Hey, break it up. You both look great.
LAWN 2: (beat) She’s got weeds.
LAWN 1: No I don’t.
LAWN 2: Oh yeah? Well what’s that dandelion doing down there?
LAWN 1: You’re one to talk.
LAWN 2: How dare you?
LAWN 1: Look over there. (pointing to a weed on LAWN 2)
LAWN 2: Eck. Spray me!
LAWNS 1: Spray me first!
LAWN 2: Spray ME!
LAWNS 1: No, ME!
CLIENT: Stop it! (beat) Why don’t you … grow up?
(immediately LAWNS 1 and 2 react by sitting up, facing audience, feet still stretched out in front. AGENT (and HOMEOWNERS, if any) shows a sudden burst of vehemence.)
AGENT, (HOMEOWNERS), LAWNS 1 and 2: Never!!! (LAWNS 1 and 2 immediately return to lying flat on floor. Agent regains pleasant demeanor.)
It was a rare moment in theater when our Climate Cabaret actors demonstrated in slow motion the highly combustible and fateful moment when carbon dioxide is created out of carbon and oxygen. Our two oxygens (the 2 "O"s on the left) were teamed up in that familiar O2 combination that floats around keeping us alive, but carbon (the guy with the "C") was showing some volatility in that chain of fossil carbons he'd been stuck in for what seems like millions of years. When he got close to the pair of oxygens, all it took was a spark and, well,
you know how it goes. Their combustion right then and there was a totally understandable reaction. The carbon combined with the two oxygens to form carbon dioxide, which they all agreed was a total gas. Liberated from his carbon chains, his energy released to drive a piston or heat a home, carbon floated up and away with the two oxygens, ready to bask in the sunlight while they cook the planet.
Theirs was a happy molecule, feeling very stable in that O=C=O configuration. The stability of the world, however, was less assured, and future life on the planet could not be reached for comment.
Next performance, Friday, July 21, at the 1867 Sanctuary Arts and Culture Center, 101 Scotch Rd in Ewing. The show in this beautifully restored chapel starts at 8pm. Here's a map.
