URANIUM MADHOUSE DIRECTOR SPEAKS FROM BEHIND THE FRINGE
Uranium Madhouse: Conversation Storm and The House of Cards
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Uranium Madhouse Founding Artistic Director, Andrew Utter is interviewed by Stephen Dandy for “Behind the Fringe.”
The following interview, along with interviews with other Hollywood Fringe participants can be found at http://www.behindthefringe.com/
BTF: Will you tell us about your show?
AU: We have two shows. In Conversation Storm, three friends from high school are reunited in a cafe. As old rivalries resurface, the friends find themselves drawn into a surreal role-play of the “ticking time bomb” scenario used to legitimize torture in the last decade. The play takes an often humorous look at the imagination and its role in decision-making, the nexus of friendship and politics, and the effects (or lack thereof) of the passage of time on relationships. In The House of Cards, a woman unfolds a series of parables and meditations while building a house of cards. She conjures scenes of searing beauty and brutal violence by turns, as the house grows ever higher. Themes from Conversation Storm such as torture and nuclear catastrophe resurface. But who is she building the house of cards for? And what will happen when it is finished? Director: Andrew Utter
BTF: How and when did it come about?
AU: I was looking for a play to produce with a small cast that was tough-minded and challenging. I find a lot of American playwriting to be faux-lyrical, but I wanted something that worked with language in surprising ways, but was grounded in a real situation that cried out to be examined. I came across Conversation Storm in one of Martin Denton’s anthology, and it jumped off the page in all these respects. I have been aware of Charles Mee’s writing for twenty years, but a recommendation from a friend prompted me to take a closer look. I came across The House of Cards on his website, and it seemed like a great companion piece to Conversation Storm. Some thematic continuities, but also quite different. One of my designers said he liked it was completely modern, but there wasn’t an iota of irony in it.
BTF: What’s your story?
AU: I went to the MFA directing program at the Yale School of Drama, and planned on being a freelance stage director. However, I was dissatisfied with the experiences I had in the years following school, and I decided to explore other things. Eventually, though, the siren song of the theater came back to claim me, and I founded an acting school in San Francisco while doing a PhD. in German literature at Stanford. The school prospered, and I found that teaching afforded me many of the pleasures I had hoped for from directing, without many of the headaches. Eventually, I expanded it to Los Angeles, and after two years of commuting between the cities, I made a move to the Southland. Inspired by my new circumstances, I founded Uranium Madhouse. I wanted to create a company where I could build on the relationships I was forming with long-term students, and where I could let my penchants for rawness, complexity, and the absurd run wild. Conversation Storm/The House of Cards is our inaugural effort.
BTF: Do you have any influences?
AU: I have set up a 9 Muses page on the Uranium Madhouse website. The page consists of figures, mostly from outside the theater, whose spirit I find emboldening in some way: Patti Smith, Miranda July, Thomas Bernhard, and six others. I admire the Wooster Group, although I also have a great admiration for those who can bring a play to life without all the electronic bells and whistles.
BTF: Just how bare bones is your show?
AU: Both shows call for a fair amount of sound and even projections, so we do have those things going on. We also have created a set that will work for both plays, consisting mostly of a floor and some flats mounted on the theater wall. So not radically bare bones, but pretty austere nonetheless.
BTF: If you were meeting your prospective in-laws for the first time, how would you describe the work you do?
AU: I run a theater company dedicated to simultaneously renewing the spirit and invigorating the mind.
BTF: What shouldn’t an audience expect from you?
AU: A smooth ride. An exercise in the totally familiar. To be taken for granted.
BTF: If this is your first festival, what do you think you’re in store for? If you’re a pro, what is it you’re in for?
AU: I’m looking forward to getting to know lots of people whose love of the theater and theatermaking is totally irrepressible.
BTF: So what’s the fun in Fringe?
AU: I’m looking forward to finding out, but the fact that it is a truly democratic theater arena, with no gatekeepers or inner sanctums, is very alluring.
Fringe performances of “Conversation Storm/The House of Cards” will be June 16, 17, 18, 23, 24 and 25 at 8 pm at the El Centro Theater in Hollywood, 804 N. El Centro Ave. Hollywood, CA 90038.
About Uranium Madhouse and Andrew Utter
Uranium Madhouse is a theater cabal, based in Los Angeles, founded in 2010 by Artistic Director Andrew Utter, founder of The Mother of Invention Acting School. Seeing the theater as a place for madness, Utter’s mission statement aspires to unleash chain reactions of personal and social transformation. For more information, visit http://uraniummadhouse.org.
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