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Salvadorian novelist Horacio Castellanos Moya was a haunting presence on stage, reading an excerpt from his eighth novel, Senselessness, in Spanish, as actor David Conrad echoed the translation into English. A drummer tapped off-rhythm in the background, adding an extra sense of eeriness to Moya’s refrain: “I am not complete in the mind.”
The unsettling excerpt reflected the tone of Senselessness, a novel Moya wrote in reaction to the genocide that accompanied Guatamala’s Civil War. In the 80s, at the height of the Guatemalan army’s reign of terror, human rights groups issued reports documenting the genocide. Inspired by one particular report, “Guatemala: Nunca Mas,” by the Catholic Archdiocese of Guatemala, Moya wrote Senselessness while in exile in Mexico City. The entire novel is a monologue – a rambling, often incoherent rant – narrated by a neurotic, alcoholic editor assigned to proofread a report on the genocide.
“…only somebody completely out of his mind would be willing to move to a foreign country whose population was not complete in the mind to perform a task that consisted precisely of copyediting an extensive report of one thousand one hundred pages that documents the hundreds of massacres and proves the general perturbation. I am also not complete in the mind …”The chaotic drumming, combined with the haunting echo of the refrain in both English and Spanish, transformed Senselessness into a disturbingly disorienting performance. When the lights went out for the next act and the applause died down, there was a lingering sense that the Cabaret’s audience also felt not complete in the mind.
In this state of darkness, an usher led me to my seat. As she brought me closer and closer to the stage, I almost thought there had to be some mistake: My seat was front and center, literally, the best in the house.
As the crew set up for the next act and I got out my steno to take notes, two women to my right asked me what publication I belonged to. I told them I was from Hunter and asked, “What about you?”
“Oh, we’re from The New Yorker,” they replied. I nearly died. More exciting, however, was the coterie to my left: Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, his alarmingly tall and beautiful date, and PEN Voices director Caro Llewellyn, who waved at me. As Irish poet Nick Laird took the stage, I was still buzzing with amazement at my good fortune.
Laird’s charming Irish brogue and self-deprecating introductions aside, his poetry was very enjoyable (“This guy is actually good,” saud one of the women to my right). Although “To the Wife,” a sonnet written in one sentence, had poignant moments, my favorite, by a landslide, was “Pug.”
“As a rule of thumb, you’re not supposed to write a poem about your pet dog,” Laird said, “but I did. Her name is Maude. She’s a pug, and looks like a cross between E.T. and an Ewok.”
Laird’s ode to Maude, which was published by the Pug Dog Weekly Bulletin, had adorable lines like, “When you’re overexcited, you tend to get hiccups, but your weapon of choice is the sneeze.” Judging by the giggles around me, I believed that the Cabaret’s audience was equally captivated by Laird’s quiet humor.
Up next was the most energetic piece of the evening, a poetry slam performed by Steve Connell and Sekou, “The Misfit.” While I was amazed by the duo’s ability to synchronize rhymes into a performance piece – often times speaking over each other, and miraculously making it work, their performance was more stage-y than poem-y. In the tradition of many Def Poetry-esque spoken word artists, their performance followed a rhythm that is standard to that realm of the slam scene. The poem that resonated the most was written from the personified perspective of free speech, encouraging the very foundation that the PEN World Voices Festival is based upon: Uncompromised free expression.
However, the poem would have been more powerful if Steve Connell and Sekou had applied this concept to the form of their poem. The standardized rhythm and rhyme, while remarkably organized and sonically pleasing, often failed to push their message beyond its theatrical value.
Novelist Mark Z. Danielewski has one of those inherently creepy voices better suited for narrating horror movie trailers than making small talk. He prefaced his reading with an apology to Laurie Anderson. He owes her money, he said, for sneaking into one of her films and illegally downloading one of her albums. This warranted a chuckle from the audience – the only chuckle Danielewski would receive that night.
In his suitably haunting baritone, Danielewski read a selection from his novella, The Fifty Year Sword. Too monotonous for such a lively evening, Danielewski’s words failed to wow me. In fact, after 20 minutes of reading, the only thing I could discern about The Fifty Year Sword was that it had a lot to do with … swords.
Following Danielewski was the celebrity-packed one-act adaptation of a Jonathan Franzen’s New York chapter in State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, a WPA state guide edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey. The protagonist of the story is Jonathan Franzen himself, played by actor, Columbia grad student, soon-to-be novelist and remarkably attractive human, James Franco (Freaks and Geeks, Spider-Man, Pineapple Express, Milk).
A Midwestern lad romanced by New York City in the 70s, Franzen returns to interview the personification of the state, played with seductive haughtiness by Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile, Vicky Cristina Barcelona). However, before he can reach his long lost love, Franzen is intercepted by her frazzled “publicist,” performed by the adorable Parker Posey (Waiting for Guffman, The Daytrippers, upcoming films Happy Tears and Spring Breakdown). With an obnoxious sense of entitlement, the publicist tells Franzen “the rules” – namely, he mustn’t mention New York’s dirty decades: Anytime “from ‘65 to ‘85.”
Franzen is then pushed through the bureaucracy, forced to deal with New York’s fact-spewing “historian” (Carrie Brownstein) as well as her “geologist” (Sean Wilsey) before finally reuniting with his beloved state – only to find she has long forgotten his existence.
Despite the dress-rehearsal-like feel of the play (the actors were reading off scripts), every member of the ensemble did a remarkable job capturing the nostalgia, sarcasm and humor of Franzen’s words. The performance truly lived up to the hype of its cast. And I’ve no complaints about sitting only feet away from James Franco’s gorgeous smile, either.
The most anticipated couple of the evening, rock icon Lou Reed and his wife, mind-blowing performance art genius Laurie Anderson, took the stage to thunderous applause. I was unprepared for the magnitude of trippiness that occurs when their forces combine. Throughout the performance, I felt like I was on a spaceship, watching Earth destroy itself from a far.
Laurie Anderson began the set speaking into a voice synthesizer that made her sound like a deep-man-robot. “How do we begin again? What are days for?” she asked, as the theater filled with disorienting electronics, shadowed by Reed’s guitar. True to form, Anderson’s lyrics were as thought provoking as they were disturbing, eerily blending with the backdrop of avant-garde cacophony.
Lou Reed sang vocals for two songs as well, his dead pan evoking raw emotion as he sung of being “a younger man, getting older … I hold a mirror to my face” from “Who am I?” a song on his 2003 album, The Raven.
Nevertheless, the experimental nature of the performance frightened many audience members who fled for the exits. However, those that stayed until the end seemed equally as mesmerized as I was by my two heroes.
Leaving Florence Gould Hall, and passing Parker Posey in the street, I felt like I was on a spaceship (Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson’s, most likely) coming back down to Earth. The PEN Cabaret had been just as inspiring of an experience as it was enjoyable. It left me with many ideas bouncing off the walls of my mind. Walking home, I made a promise to myself, to buy tickets – the first day they go on sale – next year. And to remind the WORD editor to be more vigilant with the next crew to cover the PEN.