After Seeing Rockefeller and I, Steve Capra interviewed the solo performer, John Gutierrez, and the director, Uwe Mengel — both of whom wrote the script. The show was presented by La MaMA, May 25-28, 2022, in NYC. Also see Steve Capra's review at TotalTheater.com.
STEVE CAPRA (SC): Is your earlier work like this?
SC: Was it designed from the beginning, from the genesis, to be repeated?
SC: I’m interested in the looping. It reminded me of Beckett’s play called Play. They’re both obsessive.
SC: Well, artists would be!
: SC: Oh, yes, we are an audience!
SC: As a matter of mechanics, how many of your audience stay for all three loops?
SC: I’m so glad you’re doing street theater. I used to work with Judith Malina (and The Living Theater). And of course we did a lot of street theater — but who’s doing it now?
JG: We wanted to do as little theater as possible in some ways.
UM: So that people can just walk by and not even recognize it. That’s what I’m more interested in.
SC: And you think that’s a sign of the times? [END]
John Gutierrez (JG): Somewhat, in that it has me infused within it. I think that every new piece that I make is pushing something that I’ve been working on from prior pieces or maybe things didn’t think I could do before — especially the collaboration with Uwe Mengel here, who’s known me a very long time. We’ve been trying to collaborate for about six years. A piece like this wouldn’t be possible without both of us coming together and him allowing me to push to my edges and explore some of the things that I think have been a little bit more — I’ve been a little more fearful of venturing into.
Uwe Mengel (UM): Yes, that was the idea — the very early idea. We didn’t know how many loops — that was the question. It was just by accident that I found in Rockefeller Center many years ago a little piece of paper with the Ten Commandments by Rockefeller Jr. — “How to Live your Life.” We said “How about if we juxtapose this life and your life, where you come from, and let’s see what we come out with.” So that was the basis where we started.
JG: And so are we.
UM: One of our visitors — I cannot call them audience when you’re on the street —
UM: — when she saw the first loop, she said “Oh, it’s kind of a parody,” but the third time, it really got to her. This is not a play that says “Oh, how bad is capitalism, how good is this,” or “Look at my poor life.”
Instead, it gives you snippets. You hear it again and again and again, and you start building your own play.
JG: It starts to chip away at something I think.
SC: Yes, yes. However, this obsessiveness — and I think this is what Beckett was talking about — seems futile. Is that what you had in mind?
UM: It is true, in a certain way, yeah. I mean, look at the world we live in. Is there any hope? We don’t want to give answers. That was our idea. We don’t want to give answers.
JG: At least a third. Some of them have been just people off the street who stumble by and then stay. Some people have come back — we’ll engage with them and give them a small program and they’ll return the next day.
UM: As for street theater, you have to do it very differently than Judith Malina did. Theater was very different then. We have different times, now. Street theater — that’s why we have it so small. There’s not a lot of props whatever.
UM: Yeah. Look at Bread and Puppet (Bread and Puppet Theater) When you see Bread and Puppet today, you would say it’s too easy. It’s so clear.
