Malcolm Tulip Theater Animal
Theatre is dark. Even its lights are dark. After the house lights have faded to black, one sits staring into the darkness of the performing space immediately before the action commences, feeling maybe a willingness to be experimented upon. Voice of Nietzsche: 0 Mensch! Gib Acht! Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht? (translation: "Yo. Dude. Word up. What's that the midnight is saying?") When the lights burst to life, there's a bright bright darkness inside of the glowing spots. The darkness in the light is made of impossible realities - all that has happened here or anywhere else is present by inference or simple invocation, and all under these lights.
The performer must stand directly in the "hot spot" - the point at which the beam of light is at its most direct and undiffused. One feels it on the face, this cooking force, streaming through colored gels up above; raining silently through the stage air til it irradiates the scalp, skull, nape and eyebrows. When you're in the hot spot, it is difficult to see much of anything; the audience in particular is invisible to you, and that is why you mustn't think. Do not think at all. Rather you should be there in that moment of ritual mnemonic delivery, and exist only as the space and time of theatrical reality call for you to be. You're absolutely a creature of light and shadow.
When the lights change, so does the darkness. And dark spots do dance before the eyes. Retinal receiver becomes chthonic transformer. Optical nerve juggles every gradation of dark and bright, and while in this state it is imperative that no rationalization should occur. Move instead through this other reality. Lead with the solar plexus or the heart, whichever comes first.
Perhaps one wears a mask. This in itself could be a frightening proposal, for masks are nothing to tamper with. Federico García Lorca, in his magnum opus "The Public," warns that The Mask might come and devour us; "and once in America there was a boy whom The Mask hung by his own intestines." I willingly confess that I have plenty of awe and respect for anyone who's studied with masks, as surely this is where theatre becomes most magical, and therefore one must be grounded - yes, grounded! The way we take precautions to prevent electrocution,
damnation & benediction. Now imagine a journalist attempting to force this kind of magic into the debased spewage of popular entertainment copy. Almost never has anyone managed to write anything in newspapers or magazines that had anything to do with what the artist was actually accomplishing onstage. Invariably the opinion surfaces, trailing great tangled turds of preconception, and everyone is asked to squint through the hideously distorted, myopic thimble-vision monocle of the Reviewer.
Every morning at dawn I thank the Goddess for being alive, and express my gratitude for not having been born a journalist. What I write is the result of cosmo-poetic research, and it just happens to appear on newsprint. Now let me refer us to Louis Aragon, who, in his 1928 "Treatise on Style" declares: "It is possible to shake hands with a journalist. Under certain conditions, of course. Wash immediately afterward. And not only the contaminated hand, but the entire body. Especially the genitals, for we still have little knowledge of how the journalist poisons his victims, and we cannot exclude the possibility that he emits from each and every pore or from his clothing a kind of volatile and particularly pernicious venom with an extraordinary aptitude for lodging itself in the folds of the body, even in those that are the most well-hidden by habit and decency."
And here in what might be construed as a journalistic arena, I stand once more despite the conventional tenets of journalism; a poet who's simply writing a quick tribute to one of my very favorite theatre animals: Malcolm Tulip.
grottesco prospero and continuo. It was 1987 turning to 1988. A strangely wonderful troupe pulled in at the Performance Network. Their eyes were sharp and clear with wild disciplines. They quickly transformed the performing space into what for me at least became instant dreamspace. "Fortune" was Theatre Grottesco's original group creation, set in a fortune cookie factory. I later was made to realize that much of what made this so unforgettable was the intensive training these people had undergone back in Paris with the legendary Ecole Jacques Lecoq:
"Acrobatics, juggling, combat, movement analysis, neutral mask, dynamics of nature, expressive and larval masks, animals, music, poets, painters, character development through physical creation, pantomime blanche, mime storytellers, melodrama, crowds and orators, Greek tragedy, heroes and chorus, buffoons, circus and theatre clowns, commedia deM'arte and modem half masks." (This is from Malcolm's resumé).
Theatre Grottesco's best work was at once strangely funny, profoundly moving and breathtakingly well-executed. "Fortune" was followed by ""My Dog's Got No Nose," "The Richest Dead Man Alive," and a futuristic tale called "Wenomadmen." All of this was very collectively woven stuff; modern inventions based in centuries-old theatre traditions. Some of the commedia dell'arte half-mask work was so effective I shall forever be subject to Pantalone flashbacks for having viewed it.
By 1990 Malcolm Tulip, who'd been a Grottesco for better than three years, was ready to form his own company. He founded something called the Prospero Theatre Co. and they staged "Caliban Motel." Shakespeare's "Tempest" apparently has become a living part of Malcolm's medulla oblongata. At least that was my impression. Dr. Tulip discovered a perfect counterbalance to his own acting reality in the person of one Jonathan Smeenge. The carefully choreographed madness of "Caliban" included a birthing scene where two people formed a yoni with their bodies and Malcolm wriggled through it as if being born then and there. (This seemed to me to be Malcolm's loving acknowledgement of the mothering and midwifery of his partner Rosalyn).
Periodically, between Prospero shows, Malcolm has worked with a wide variety of other productions, bringing along his glib intensity and remarkable stage presence. When George Bush began dropping bombs on the people of Baghdad, a "Synthetic Circus" came together at Performance Network. I was fortunate, I feel, to work with Malcolm in some terribly bizarre clown scenes, as we grappled with the inanities of militarism. I enjoyed sneaking up behind him with a mutated television console covering most of my body. One of the musicians in our troupe had sampled a few bars from the theme of the television show "Combat" - little bits of that twisted march kept cropping up throughout our episodes.
"Don Don or The First Burning" was Prospero's next production; I remember it as alarmingly thought-provoking and well-put-together. Here were resurrected two who followed notorious masters: Don Juan's Sganarelle, and Don Quixote's Sancho Panza. Putting things into accurate historical context involved summoning up the spectre of the Spanish Inquisition, with its attendant live burnings of Jews, Heretics and anyone else who rubbed the Inquisitor the wrong way. Sanguine musical accompaniment by the Frank Pahl ensemble set a mood which is probably still lingering in the corners of the Performance Network space.
Malcolm worked with me on one of my stage tributes to composer Anton von Webern. He successfully generated the appropriate amount of neurotic energy, perfectly commensurate with the actual texture of Webern's personality, and with the expanded tonalities of the music. Christopher Potter, who hates anything from the Schoenberg school of emancipated dissonance, said we did a great tribute but that Webern didn't deserve it! Anyway thanks, Malcolm.
instigate, educate, elucidate Over the last five years, the Tulip dynasty has progressed at a terrific pace - such productivity we should find inspiring. There was "Eine Soiree en la Metamortue de Enrique Miasmo," wherein language began to come apart at the seams, and "Asylum/Asylum," for which there was no written script whatsoever. "The Robber's Nightmare" ensued, followed by "Down the Plughole," which seems to have dealt closely with - here's that word again - chthonic questions of self and sanity. A multi-level core sample of the artist was presented earlier this year under the heading: Tulipomania.
In mid-September, 1997 I saw the very last performance of "Molly Sweeney" by Brian Friel, in which Malcolm portrayed a talkative, eccentric Frank Sweeney. This is a beautifully written weave of three monologues which overlap and interpolate so neatly, I felt I was studying a metamorphic schist in the rocky flesh of a deep ravine. A tale of blindness, equilibrium, alcoholism, context and resignation. Outstanding interpretation of a damned fine script.
This was the first production in the Performance Network's first annual Professional Premiere Series of six plays. What that means is that our favorite space for creative performance has made it to the level of Small Professional Theatre, involving a contract with the National Actor's Equity Association of professional actors and stage managers. Which means simply that Performance Network has a stronger base of operations and will no doubt survive. Congratulations to all who have kept it alive thus far.
As for Malcolm, he's keeping terrifically busy. I spoke with him in his workroom at Community High where he heads theTheatre Department while simultaneously cooking up other projects at places like Lansing Community College and lowa State University. As we chatted, about every five minutes the door would pop open and another student would be standing there ready for directions. Malcolm calmly instructed them to haul a stack of wooden planks into the next room to be painted black. These will become the massive cage inside of which they will perform "Marat/Sade" by Peter Weiss, scheduled to open in November. It's great to see this fellow influencing young people in this way. We're very fortunate to have him here, you know. Take nothing nor nobody for granted. Least of all Malcolm Tulip.