Interview: Mat Lageman

For me the spring day in 1993 when Mat Lageman presented his Star Wars infused scene from Hamlet is a day that lives in infamy. Without the aid of action figures, Mat became an unknown forbearer of both Twisted Toyfare Theater and Robot Chicken.

Twisted Toyfare Theatre is a comic strip that began appearing in 1997 in the pages of Toyfare Magazine. The magazine’s staff creates each month’s strip by photographing action figures on sets that they have built themselves. The comic is known amongst comic and toy collectors for its bizarre humor and pop-culture references. An early strip (seen below) included Spiderman giving readers lessons on the Macarena.


The Emmy award winning animated series, Robot Chicken has its roots in Twisted Toyfare Theatre, as more than one Twisted Toyfare Theatre writer has joined the staff of Robot Chicken. The Adult Swim series, which also features animated action figures, first aired on Cartoon Network in 2005.

The jokes on the stop motion animated series tend to fall into two categories. Placing fantasy figures into situations that are meant to shock the viewer into laughter, because the sketch is at odds with their established personas. These sketches usually have violent or scatological results. One episode revealed that Roger Rabbit was responsible for the murder of O. J. Simpson’s wife. The second involves pop-culture characters being placed in realistic situations. One sketch for example revolved around a group of super-villains who are stuck in traffic while carpooling to work.

Mat Lageman’s scene for Bob Hetherinton’s directing class similarly placed pop-culture characters into incongruous situations, this time classic literature.

In darkness, the ghost of Ben Kenobi speaks to Luke Skywalker, to rouse Luke to revenge. Appalled at the revelation that his father has been murdered, Skywalker cries out, “O my prophetic soul!” As the ghost disappears into the dawn, Ben says Shakespeare’s immortal line, “May the Force be with you.” Intensely moved, Luke swears to remember and obey the ghost.

Inspired by recent viewing of Robot Chicken’s second Star Wars episode, I contacted Mat last month to see what he remembered of that day.

HG: Where did the original idea for your Star Wars Hamlet come from?

M@: The idea came from of all things...THE LION KING. Watching that movie, I saw the Hamlet parallels and wondered: "What other Hamlet themes are out there that I missed?" The idea came like a thief in the night.... who.... brought a dime bag of pot with him.

HG: Which scene was it? I seem to think it was Hamlet's first meeting with the Ghost)

M@: Yep. First meeting with the Ghost. This is painful.

HG: Who were your partners in crime? Who was in your cast?

M@: Ray Nardelli played Hamlet/Luke Skywalker and Tim Shinner was Ghost/Ben Kenobi.

HG: How long did you rehearse it?

M@: We had 2 rehearsals. The only thing I wanted was Tim not to laugh on the line I added at the end: “May the force be with you.” The rehearsals were short and I wanted it to be serious...sadly they were more funny the more serious I had them be.

HG: Were Tim and Ray able to get through the scene with straight faces?

M@: Yes, but Tim smirked after the "may the force be with you" delivery.

HG: Was it in costume?

M@: Yes it WAS in costume. Tim was in a large brown robe with a collapsible lance, which was the “light saber”, and Ray wore a long white shirt with the robe's sash around it and a gun holster.... I cannot remember if he had the gun or not. I can't believe I remember as much as I do now...

HG: Maybe this was covered in the class critique, but I need to know: What were you thinking?

M@: This is exactly what I was thinking: a.) Can I Pull It Off? b.) Can I Get Away With It? c.) How Far Is Too Far?

HG: What was the class’ response to the scene?

M@: There was a resounding laughter when Tim said: “May the Force be with you.” There was a cackle of Charlie Clark. Ray Nardelli looked ashamed at what he did. Brian Fagan couldn't believe I messed with Shakespeare’s writing. What I walked away with feedback wise from that day was kudos for the attempt but “no, No, NO!” The overall response was: "Too Much!"

HG: Were you surprised by the laugher in the class?

M@: No. Not at all. It was a gamble and I thought it would come but I HAD to see if I could pull it off. There are times where no matter how many people will tell you the oven is hot that I still find myself waltzing towards the burner just in case they're wrong.

HG: And Bob Hetherington’s response?

M@: Bob Hetherington in his Bill Cosby sweater just shook his head and said: “There are levels in hell for directors like you."

HG: Earlier you said, "Sadly they [Ray and Tim] were more funny the more serious I had them be." Do you mean the more straight they played the scene the funnier the scene became?

M@: Yes. The more they played it straight the more funny it was. Some of the most hysterical scenes ever performed were done with absolute seriousness. Monty Python is a perfect example. The material is preposterous and silly but the delivery is committed and serious. Star Wars Hamlet or as I like to call it: The Denmark Strikes Back is silly...the idea is silly...the whole concept is absurd and obviously silly....BUT...I still touch the burner...

...just in case they're wrong.

HG: What grade did you get?

M@: D+ & the phrase: "This was an exercise in insanity & futility!" I was proud. It doesn't work and that should have been apparent from the start. It was a class. I fell so I could learn to fly. I abandoned the project but I had a whole cast list and everything. I will STILL do it one day as a joke and do a series called: 'Forbidden Shakespeare'

In the age of Twisted Toyfare Theatre and Robot Chicken and You Tube mash-ups what Mat’s Star Wars infused scene work from Hamlet is old hat. But for a select few (meaning me) what Mat had done back in 1993 was a revelation. That day inspired some of my own short plays, including “Master-Smurf Theatre,” and “Scooby Doo and the Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

I can’t help but wonder if Mat would get a better grade now that American culture has caught up to his way of seeing the world. It is with that mindset that I have recruited Robot Chicken in an effort to give you just a taste of Mat Lageman’s Hamlet!

"Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing/To what I shall unfold."

ABOUT M@: Mat Lageman is originally from Columbus, Ohio and he studied acting at Wright State University. After school he moved to Chicago to study Improv at Second City. While in there he performed in Flanagan's Wake (a Irish variation on Tony and Tina’s Wedding), and he was also a founding member of the Baum House Theater Company. Right around the time I made my own way to the City of Big Shoulders, Mat relocated to LA where he is currently an Ensemble Member of Improv Olympic's Mainstage Sketch Cast. His one big dream is to bring the soothing music of Motorhead to those who are lost and alone.

Ripe for the Picking: STRAY TOASTERS

Often when I read, I’m on the lookout for ways to adapt it. What would this comic look like as a puppet show? What would this novel be like as a play? You know this collection of short essays would be a wonderful dance concert! (Seriously, I have had that thought.)

Unfortunately theater is dead, and everyone is waiting for Hollywood to come knocking with a million dollar option. So while I have bookshelves filled with titles I would love to adapt I know that I don’t have the finances or the clout to secure the rights.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at my bookshelf and see what is "Ripe for the Picking."

I am wary of venturing away from the theater and into movie adaptations, but for me this is a special case. Welcome to the Hollywood edition of Ripe for the Picking. Today’s subject is the 1988 comic book mini-series Stray Toasters.

Written and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, Stray Toasters concerns criminal psychologist Egon Rustemagik’s investigation of a series of murders of young boys. His search leads him into another series of murders involving women whose bodies have been mutilated into bizarre science projects.

Back on March 22, 2004 Variety was reporting on story that the comic had been picked up by an effects company known as The Orphanage for a film adaptation. It was also reported that a screenplay for the movie had already been written by Sienkiewicz and Jeff Renfroe and Marteinn Thorsson. And that was it. Five years later and I can find no further information about the movies development.

One of the debates that I’ve always heard surrounding adaptations is: Should an author adapt their own work? There are arguments to be made for either way. In the case of Stray Toasters, I wonder if one of the problems in developing the material is the involvement of the creator Bill Sienkiewicz.

For me the comic is something that I have dipped into every few years ever since its publication twenty years ago. And I have to tell you the comic doesn’t make a lick of sense. Sienkiewicz work contains some great visuals, and a cast of characters that I really enjoy, but his writing comes up short. I always believed that he needed to embrace the classic noir aspects of his story. The comic told from an omniscient point of view contains pages of monologues from every character: the killer, a devil named Phil on vacation in the city, and autistic child, everyone. This diffuses the mysteries in the comic, and fractures the story needlessly. For any adaptation to be successful one of the choices that would need to be made is to focus the story on Egon Rustemagik. Egon is a great character burnt out and just released from a high security mental institution. A detective film told from the point of view of an unreliable narrator is a wonderful idea.

In my head I have always seen the movie as a low budget affair with practical effects as opposed to an elaborate and CGI heavy affair. My movie adaptation had more of a Robocop aesthetic than say a sleek film like I, Robot.

Here’s hoping that I get to see Stray Toasters in the movies someday.

Interview: Kevin P. Hale

Kevin P. Hale has agreed to be my guinea pig in my first interview addressing how playwrights approach adaptations.

Kevin is a graduate of Wright State University’s defunct directing program and currently works in the professional rights department at Dramatists Play Service, Inc. in New York.

He is the artistic director of Playlab NYC, a theater company dedicated to “unleashing the imaginations of artists and audiences by engaging them in the spirit of play.”

In the interest of full disclosure, Kevin and I have been friends since we met on the third floor of Hamilton Hall (WSU’s freshman dorm). He and his wife used to host an annual Christmas party based on my own “It’s a Rocky Horror Christmas, Charlie Brown!” He acted in my adaptation of “Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children” in college, and he generously attempted to create a platform for my own ideas of theater with “©” at Playlab NYC.

Our interview was conducted over the course of this last week via email and instant message. The topic of discussion was his musical The Circus of Dr. Lao, based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Charles G. Finney. Kevin provided the book with music and lyrics by Chicago’s own Jon Steinhagen. I caught a developmental concert reading of the piece at Theatre Building Chicago’s “Monday Night Musical” series back in January of 2006.

A brief synopsis of the novel from Fantastic Fiction:

The Circus of Dr. Lao is set in the fictional town of Abalone, Arizona, a sleepy southwestern town whose chief concerns are boredom and surviving the Great Depression. That is, until the circus of Dr. Lao arrives and immensely and irrevocably changes the lives of everyone drawn to its tents. Expecting a sideshow spectacle, the citizens of Abalone instead confront and learn profound lessons from the mythical made real - a chimera, a Medusa, a talking sphinx, a sea serpent, the Hound of the Hedges, a werewolf, a mermaid, and the elusive, ever-changing Dr. Lao.

HG: What was the original impulse to adapt The Circus of Dr. Lao?

KPH: There was a 1963 film adaptation starring Tony Randall that I saw on late night television in college. It was called the 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, and it was very much structured like The Music Man. I immediately thought I would like a shot at adapting the film.

While working at North Shore Music Theatre, I had the opportunity to meet Jon Steinhagen. Jon had come to the theater for a workshop of a musical on which he had collaborated. At dinner one evening the director of the workshop asked me what material I thought would make a good musical. I said without hesitation, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. Jon smiled and said, “I have three songs for it sitting in a trunk.”

A few years later, he approached me with the novel and asked if I really wanted to collaborate on the show with him. Once I read the book, it became clear that it was a much more interesting jumping off point than the movie.

HG: How do you begin work on the adaptation?

KPH: I began with a detailed outline of the book, and then started looking to see what characters could be combined, what were the most theatrical of the sideshow acts. I honed the outline down over several drafts, bouncing them off of my collaborator.

Once we had the basic shape I cobbled the novel into a rough book that would grow and change as Jon began providing me with songs.

HG: How familiar should a writer be with the original text?

KPH: They should know it backwards and forwards. I am always making little connections, like “Oh you know when Frank Tull makes that comment about the circus, it would totally work coming during that moment when…”

The book begins to cross-pollinate other scenes and characters, and if you are not familiar with the original work those little “ah-ha” moments get lost.

HG: How faithful should the adaptation be to the original text?

KPH: The correct answer, the textbook answer is that the writer has no obligation to be faithful to the original material at all. I can agree with that on an intellectual level I suppose, but what is the point. If you are going to throw it all away then why adapt it at all?

I guess what it boils down to, is what do you love about the original work that makes you want to adapt it? Whatever that impulse is, that is the thing to which you need to be faithful. I need to be very clear on it and write it down. When I loose my way, I can go back and see what why I wanted to adapt it in the fist place.

HG: How faithful do you think your adaptation is?

KPH: It’s been a couple of years since I have read it, but I believed it to be very faithful. It was very important to me to capture Finney’s sensibility.

However the writing of the novel is much more fractured than our show. It almost points the way to the cut up techniques popularized by William Burroughs. I had hoped to capture that by creating more isolation of the individual towns people and the side show attraction they visit, but as the town began to get a story arc the show began to get more cohesive. It was the organic direction that the script wanted to go into, and it wasn’t for me to fight it.

HG: As writers we are always told that we can’t be too in love with the material. What got cut from the story that you were attached to?

KPH: Honestly? The hedgehogs. At the end of the novel Lao presents the spectacle of a Witches Sabbath, and one of the many creatures present at the rites are hedgehogs. One of the things Finney writes about the hedgehogs is that they are “quiet little pincushions that hate the rain and are unimpressed by the revolutions among the men whose countrysides they adorn.” I wanted very much to find away for the hedgehogs to have a song about their perceptions into human beings.

HG: What is the current status of the musical.

KPH: It’s dead. Theatre Building Chicago had the reading in the beginning of 2006. John Sparks, the artistic director, seemed to think it had a lot of promise and spoke with Jon Steinhagen and I about including the a skeletal production of the show in their annual new musical festival “Stages.”

Jon and I were working on the rewrites when at the end of February we were contacted by Charles G. Finney’s estate. In March of ’06 we got a cease and desist email from Buddy Thomas at ICM, and that was the end of that.

HG: Meaning?

KPH: The novel was not in the public domain as Jon and I had believed. We had done a very cursory Library of Congress search back in 2003, and didn’t find any rights holder so we proceeded to work on the show. Once we realized the stage rights weren’t going to be available to us that was the end of it.

It breaks my heart. I would have an easier time letting the show go, but I really thought it was a good piece. I’m the first one to tell a person that my writing isn’t stage worthy, but I did think our adaptation had merit.

HG: Did you consider trying to secure the rights once you were made aware of the estate and the agent?

KPH: Jon and I didn’t get the impression that the rights would be made available to us. There was a lot of talk about interest from George C. Wolfe and Stephen Sondheim. I don’t know how old any of that interest was, but it became clear that the aspirations were for a Broadway production with big bucks and known talent behind it.

All I can do is hope that one day Steinhagen wins a Tony Award and is able to secure the rights. And hope that Jon is still returning my calls at that point.

HG: What advice do you have for writers working on adaptations?

KPH: Double check, triple check, and quadruple check that you have secured the correct rights to write the adaptation. And don’t take the Library of Congress’ word for it.

Ripe for the Picking: LEMONS NEVER LIE

Often when I read, I’m on the lookout for ways to adapt it. What would this comic look like as a puppet show? What would this novel be like as a play? You know this collection of short essays would be a wonderful dance concert! (Seriously, I have had that thought.)

Unfortunately theater is dead, and everyone is waiting for Hollywood to come knocking with a million dollar option. So while I have bookshelves filled with titles I would love to adapt I know that I don’t have the finances or the clout to secure the rights.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at my bookshelf and see what is "Ripe for the Picking."

On New Years Eve mystery writer Donald E. Westlake died at the age of seventy-five. Among his many accomplishments as a writer, were a series of crime novels about a ruthless criminal who went only by the name of Parker. Parker was the main character in 24 novels written under Westlake’s penname Richard Stark.  

Parker had an associate from time to time named Alan Grofield. The remarkable thing about Alan Grofield is that he only a part time criminal; his one true love is the theater. Westlake writing as Stark went on to write four novels for Grofield: The Damsel (1967), The Dame (1969), The Blackbird (1969) and Lemons Never Lie (1971). In 2006 pulp publisher Hard Case Crime reprinted Lemons Never Lie.

In the book Alan Grofield journeys from his Indiana theater to Vegas to hear Andrew Myers’ plan to knock over a brewery in upstate New York.

 
Unfortunately, Myers’ plan involves killing -- so Grofield walks out on the deal, and returns to his theater. Myers doesn’t like being brushed off, and Grofield must protect his wife and his theater from this angry criminal who vows to get revenge.

As more and more theaters seem to be going bankrupt during these difficult economic times, I think the time is ripe for a play where the main character turns to crime to keep his theater company open for one more season.

Script Review: The Count Of Monte Cristo

Because of raising a family and personal finances, I don't get much opportunity to get to the theater these days. To make up for not seeing shows on stage I try to read as many plays as I can get my hands on, and from time to time I'll try to post a review of the stage adaptations that catch my eye.

Alexandre Dumas' the Count of Monte Cristo: An Adaptation for the Stage by Charles Morey.

Charles Morey is the the artistic director of the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City. According to his bio he has tackled a number of stage adaptations including: The Three Musketeers, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and A Tale of Two Cities.

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO tells the story of Edmond Dantès journey of revenge. While in prison, Dantès meets Abbé Faria, a priest and intellectual, who has been jailed for his political views. In conversation with Faria and through flashbacks we learn that Dantès seemingly perfect life stirred up jealousy among three men. Together, they draft a letter accusing Dantès of treason. A fourth man sees through the plot to frame Dantès, but for his own reasons decides to send him to prison for life.

In prison, Faria turns Dantès into a well-educated man, and tells him of a large treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. When Faria dies, Dantès is given an opportunity to escape and swims to freedom.

Years later, Dantès reappears calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo. Armed with damning knowledge about each of the four men, Dantès sets an elaborate scheme of revenge into motion. In the end all four men are driven to death, ruin, or insanity. Dantès ultimately learns the importance of forgiveness and he seemingly picks up life where he left off as a sailor seeing the world.

Like any two and a half hour adaptation of such an epic novel, Morey cuts the plot pretty close to the bone. However the economy of the story-telling means that the action never lets up. My one complaint is that I found the ending to be unsatisfying and a little tacked on to the play. It is a little pat for Dantès to learn a lesson about forgiveness when he has successfully destroyed all of his enemies. I’m more of a Jacobean mind set, and feel that Dantès’ single-minded thirst for revenge would ultimately lead to his own destruction. That he simply is able to ride off into the sunset after satisfying a twenty-year grudge might be true to the tone of the novel, but it rings false.

I enjoyed the script very much and would welcome the opportunity to see it on stage. Morey's solid work makes me want to seek out his other adaptations.