Actual Air On Stage

From http://www.infernalbridegroom.com:

18th February 2003. Infernal Bridegroom Productions kicks off the new year with the first in a series of four consecutive world premiere productions, and the indie rock world is already buzzing about it.

Having introduced Houston audiences to the works of Suzan-Lori Parks, Brian Jucha, Sarah Kane, Wallace Shawn, Mac Wellman and several other theater artists who represent the most exciting work happening in contemporary theater, IBP has found another outstanding playwright in rock and roll poet David Berman. And, as was the case with our recent production of The Kinks’ Soap Opera, people from around the country are already booking their tickets.

David Berman is a hero. He is a hero to fans of independent music and he is a hero to the fans of contemporary American poetry. Moreover he is a hero to longtime IBP company member Troy Schulze, who is uniquely suited to bring Berman’s poems to life and make believers out of the uninitiated.

Berman is best known for his work with The Silver Jews, a band which featured members of the legendary rock outfit Pavement. As the story goes, Silver Jews mate Stephen Malkmus, of Pavement, was so impressed by Berman’s third record that he became disillusioned. According to Malkmus, “It was such a better record than Terror Twilight [Pavement’s last release]. Much more inspired. After American Water, I could no longer make a record the way [Pavement] made records.” In his book Actual Air, Berman has accomplished a similar feat: reawakening the listless world of American poetry, taking sly observatons on life’s mundane rigors and twisting them into mythic, witty, passionate anthems. Berman's journey through a weird, dreamlike America is amusingly strange, yet it's strikingly familiar and precise. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate described Berman's poems as "beautiful, strange, intelligent and funny ... narratives that freeze life in impossible contortions."

Berman’s a hero, alright. He’s a hero of the most exciting variety. The sort you may never have heard of but you’ll almost certainly never forget.

Troy Schulze joined the IBP company during it’s second production, in 1994. In the time since, he’s played featured roles in 2 dozen productions, and was voted Houston’s best actor this year by Houston Press readers. In 1999, he directed Bernard- Marie Koltes' Roberto Zucco also for IBP. Houston Press theater critic Lee Williams wrote: "[IBP's] exquisite world of wonderland shows just gets curiouser and curiouser and smarter and smarter. And the thrilling intellectual puzzle of their latest endeavor, " Roberto Zucco," is as good as it gets." Schulze is a funny sort of director. Although his directing debut was an unmitigated success, he waited three years before mounting his sophomore effort. He was looking for a project which demanded his attention and his unique, visually arresting style. He found it in Actual Air.

Schulze's stage adaptation of Berman's book is a collage of American snapshots – a surreal anti-narrative decorated with striking visuals, hilarious dialogue and live rock music, which is somehow simultaneously bizarre and accessible, soporific and dynamic. As in the best of poetry, plays or music, it is the stuff dreams are made on. Simply put, it’s the sort of work Infernal Bridegroom exists to produce: fresh, bold, challenging, entertaining, brand new poetry in motion for the next generation.

In a pressurized cabin on the moon, a robot asks his maker about the relative sentience of snowmen. In another scene an omniscient voice summons “all students named Doug” to a mysterious concourse. In another a young man paints a self-portrait as a present to himself, meditating on simple pleasures and comforting himself with such thoughts as “at least I have not woken up with a bloody knife in my hand.” As another sly rock poet once observed, something is happening and we don’t know what it is. But something is absolutely happening. It’s poetry made live again. It’s theater made poetry. And Infernal Bridegroom, and fans of David Berman from across the country, couldn’t be more excited.

Ten years and forty-one shows after it all began, Infernal Bridegroom Productions is in its first full season in its very own theater doing what we've been doing all along. Only more. And better. Actual Air is the first of four world premieres, to be followed by a collaboration with Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre (The Noblest of Drugs), a new work by IBP artistic director Jason Nodler (Meat/BAR) and the eighth in our ever-popular Tamalalia series.

Actual Air will be playing at the Axiom, 2524 McKinney?, at 8:00 p.m. on the following dates: February 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, and March 1, 6, 7, 8. Opening Weekend, February 13, 14 and 15, tickets are only $5.99. Remaining performance ticket prices are as follows: Thursdays $10, Fridays $12, Saturdays $15.

Silver Jews T-shirt Bonanza

Drag City have two splendid new Silver Jews t-shirts for sale! They're $14.00 each plus postage. Click here for more details.

Big chords, sweet melodies and (sometimes dubious) wisdom

Typically, Silver Jews is the warmest, most homespun music of all the US stuff we represent; legendary leader DC Berman dropping the big chords, sweet melodies and (sometimes dubious) wisdom in equal parts. Bright Flight is a little different, a little the same - I read something about it that stuck with me, where the spin is that it's a little wilder and a little less kind than the Wild Kindness we experienced on the previous set, American Water. Maybe that's true, and the Nashville Joos sure sound lived-in, but DCB is incapable of sounding over-familar, naturally incorporating George Washington, Stephen Foster and Royal Trux into the best lyric schemes you're going to get outside hip-hop. Also Tennessee may well be the ultimate Joos track, if you ever need to turn a friend on to this incredible group in a hurry. And if it fails, well would you really want a friend who doesn't love this group?

Silver Jews Take Bright Flight To The Near Future

Whenever we hear the sound of Silver Jews, it always seems to come from another time, a moment in the near future, perhaps. Their songs are like predictions that come true — moments of déjà vu played backwards, instantly familiar, making us nostalgic for a past that hasn't quite let go yet. Well, it's time for Silver Jews fans to prepare for such moments of time travel in the immediate future... around November 20th, to be precise! That's the day the new release Bright Flight will be made available, like an IV, to all the fans out there. This time, you'll have two new titles to choose from: not only the new 10-song Bright Flight LP/CD, but also a 4-track 12"/CDEP called "Tennessee." This 12" is a cut from the record with three cuts not from the record adding up to a mini-trip all of it's own — who are you kidding, there's no choice! You've got four purchases to make an LP, CD, 12" and CDEP! Start slinging that rock ASAP!

And the record is great. Keeping in the tradition of not repeating past poses, D.C. Berman has typed up a new set of profiles. He assumes them all on Bright Flight, assisted by a couple characters from the American Water sessions (Tim Barnes, Mike Fellows) as well as a number of talented players from the Nashville area, where Bright Flight was laid down. This is one of those lonely-sounding, make-you-cry Silver Jews records so get ready for a cold winter. With Bright Flight in hand, it will be a long, devastating, worthwhile experience. This could be humanity s last chance so please — don t fuck it up, you kids at heart. Reality just got a little more real.

Actual Air

D.C. Berman's first book of poetry, entitled Actual Air, was published by Open City Press on July 1st 1999.

"David Berman's poems are beautiful, strange, intelligent and funny. They are narratives that freeze life in impossible contortions. They take the familiar and make it new, so new the reader is stunned and will not soon forget. I found much to savor on every page of Actual Air. It's a book for everyone." - James Tate

The book costs $12.95 and can be ordered on-line. There has been a small first printing.