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entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
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by kellie abrahamson
kabrahamson1@aol.com
Tired of stuffy stage performances, pretentious plots and sleep-inducing “classics”? Boomtown Subterrannea has the cure for your theater-induced ills. On January 18th the downtown theatre/supper club is proud to welcome back to their stage Pulp Fiction Theatre, a sampling of spicy tales taken directly from and inspired by pulp magazines of the 1930s and beyond.
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PFT began six months ago with tales of lady mobsters and time travelers. The decision was made to expand on the idea and create an entire night dedicated to the gritty tales found in proprietor Stephen Dare’s extensive pulp collection. Dare and co-owner John Allen Harrett called on the help of Steve Bailey, a local film critic who wrote, directed and co-starred in the theatre’s first show Plan Nine from Outer Space: The Rip-Off. Armed with an extremely talented group of young actors, these three men hope to revitalize downtown Jacksonville with stories of violence, sex and the old double cross.
The first vignette is Hell on Wheels, a story by Thomas S. Roche that was first printed in 1934. It tells the tale of a rather naive two-time convict who finds himself caught in the web of a crafty femme fatal. Next is Snatching the Snatch, based on the Max Allan Collins story A Matter of Principle. Here, a washed-up thug suffering from short-term memory loss stumbles upon an heiress’ kidnapping and tries to cash in. Finally there’s an original piece written by Bailey entitled Abstinence of Malice. When a mild-mannered suburbanite falls for a jiggly jogger, he finds that he may have more to fear than retaliation from his ho-hum wife. These vignettes will run for six weeks and then be replaced by a new set of tawdry tales.
Both Hell on Wheels and Snatching the Snatch were rewritten by their young stars Neil Campbell and Justin Reynolds. Other cast members include Ali Redman, Randi McFarlane, Michelle Whittington and Boomtown’s own John Allen Harrett. I spoke with Stephen Dare about PFT and his talented but still unknown theater troupe last Thursday evening.
“Jacksonville has very limited opportunities,” Dare said. “It’s a million two hundred thousand people. There are the same caliber actors and singers and writers and painters in this city as there were in New York in 1950 when they had our population numbers. But, no venue… When there are only 5 theaters and the possibility of 30 roles at any given time that means only 30 people in a city of a million two hundred thousand people are performing… The people that we have met along this stretch are outside that little political group of people that control theater”
During my visit to Boomtown I got to sit in on one of the cast’s rehearsals, not because I am in anyway special, but because all of the rehearsals are open to the public.
“We always leave our rehearsals open to the public so that people have interactivity and they understand what’s going on with theater… [For] some people this is just as cool…as seeing the finished product,” Dare explained. “Being able to see that process, I think, opens the theater up to people.”
Seeing the shorts deconstructed and progressing before your eyes is an education in theater on its own. During Hell on Wheels, Dare would often stop the cast and have them deliver their lines in a different way or alter their body language. These seemingly minor changes completely altered the tone of the scenes, making them sexier, funnier and more relevant to the themes found in classic pulps.
In addition to their formal Thursday night rehearsals, the cast will be at the theatre on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday the week of the show’s opening polishing their performances. These rehearsals will also be open to those who want to get a sneak peek at this highly entertaining and original project.
If the titles of the vignettes and the premise haven’t already given it away, PFT is designed to entertain both those who enjoy spending their time watching stage performances and the average Joe.
“Our mission statement is to create theater that regular people who don’t have a background in theater can approach,” Dare said. “People who would never see themselves going to see singing gay men at a musical theater can come and go Ha, ha! That’s funny! Wow, he just shot him! That’s our drive behind it: to create theater for non-traditional audiences.”
For more information on this incredibly unique theater experience, please visit the event’s web site at http://pulpfictiontheatre.tk/.
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