CS Weekly Archive > Happenings > 9/23/05

Francis Fregoli Tries to Forget
and Charlie Kaufman Loses Hope:
Two Live Audio Plays at the Theater of the New Ear

By jeff goldsmith

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman again proves that a love of writing makes anything possible as he takes his off-kilter humor to the stage with these plays about loneliness and a woman trapped in the audience of a one-act play authored by Charlie Kaufman. As with his big-screen forays, Kaufman continues to meddle with and toss aside many tenets of traditional storytelling, without losing ever his audience.

Beware: Naughty content and equally naughty spoilers!

The genesis of this smartly written project lies with film composer Carter Burwell, who, after being asked by the Royal Festival Hall to perform live renditions of his film scores ranging from the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona to Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation, asked both the Coen Brothers and Kaufman to write some brief scenes and dialogue to accompany Burwell's live performance. The Academy Award-winning Coen brothers (Fargo) in turn told Burwell that they would instead write a new, sound-oriented one-act play he could score, which became Sawbones. Academy Award winner Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) also signed on and wrote Hope Leaves The Theater. "I like assignments," Kaufman told the Los Angeles Times. "You're forced to think in a way that's not necessarily comfortable for you." And thus, Burwell's Theater of the New Ear (TNE) was born during a very limited set of performances in New York, London, and now Los Angeles.

TNE consists of staged readings accompanied by Burwell's live music and full filmic sound effects via a live foley artist (doors opening, glasses clinking, etc.), allowing Burwell to revive the lost art of radio drama. With the actors remaining seated the entire performance while reading from scripts, with a full band and the foley artist behind them, the burden falls to the writing to engage the audience.

As Burwell describes the experience in the program, "You're watching a movie, in a theater or at home, and starting to doze. You can't keep your eyes open, but the sound of the film still seeps in through your ears, which sadly are never closed. Your mind paints the picture itself in that meaningful but not quite visual way that dreams play out. This is the experience I'd like you to have now." Devoid of sets, props and costumes; everything the writer wants the audience to know is now uttered through these talented actors mouths -- without the use of any narration whatsoever within Kaufman's plays. (The Coen brothers did use narration.) Only the non-traditional storytelling styles that the Coens and Kaufman are famous for would keep an audience in their seats and paying top dollar just to experience it, and so Burwell realized: why not broadcast it?

That's exactly what he did when a performance was rebroadcast to the paying subscribers of satellite radio network Sirius Radio. Sure, these performances boasted recognizable stars (Meryl Streep, Peter Dinklage, Hope Davis, Steve Buscemi, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John Goodman, etc.) but remember, the distinctive storytelling is what drew in all of these performers to begin with. Taking this concept a step further, with the newly revitalized Internet radio technology of podcasting, screenwriters everywhere now have the capability to write and produce their own radio drama for under $1,000 and easily distribute it to worldwide audiences. Podcasting has gone through the roof recently (click here to listen to Creative Screenwriting Magazine's free podcasts) and generated an explosion of new content. This audio-based medium becomes a cost-conscious delight for any screenwriter hoping to produce their own work and make a name for themselves. If companies like Sirius continue to buy such content, radio drama could once again become viable.

As for Kaufman's plays, a glance at the program made it clear that a solid night of odd comedy was in store. When the Coen brothers' cast were unable to perform Sawbones in L.A., a new play was presented to open before Kaufman's Hope Leaves the Theater. The play, entitled Anomalisa was credited to Francis Fregoli, which the program cites "is the pen-name of an established writer, who wishes to remain anonymous." Given Kaufman's writing credit on Adaptation, alleged to his fictitious twin-brother, while there's a 99% chance that the Francis Fregoli pseudonym is more Kaufman tomfoolery, as we have no proof, we can only say that whoever Fregoli is, hopefully one day he'll take full credit for his great writing.

Anomalisa is about a self-help business book author (David Thewlis) who travels to Cincinnati to lecture his disciples and meets Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) at his hotel. A drunken night reveals that Lisa is disfigured (we don't see this, as the actors are not in make-up) and doesn't want to discuss what happened, but she does mention that she hasn't had sex in eight years. The author falls in love with Lisa's voice, has sex with her, and vows to leave his family for her. The audio-based sex is intentionally comedic as we watch two actors moan and breathe heavily while a foley soundman furiously rubs silk sheets together between the seated actors. Next, the author has a nightmare wherein he's convinced that everyone in the world is in love with him and is in fact one sum-total "group" personality that incessantly wants things from him. Again, this is accomplished via audio as actor Tom Noonan does the same voice for pretty much everyone in the play except for Lisa.

In the morning, Thewlis drifts away from Lisa and, upon returning home to his family, has a mental meltdown. Fregoli expertly puts us inside Thewlis' P.O.V. for his nightmares and even during his breakdown, wherein the sum-total group from his nightmare descends upon him while the antique Japanese pornographic toy the author gave his son starts literally sputters out of control. The toy spews forth faux-semen and sings a Japanese song, which ends the play on an ambiguous note as we wonder whether the author will drift back toward his family and reality, if this freaky toy will magically destroy the author's world, or if this too is another dream during a restless night. Excellent details, wild storytelling, solid characters, and a unique P.O.V. without the use of a single image makes this character-driven drama successful. The crowd enthusiastically applauded, and what came next was classic Kaufman.

A glance at the program for Hope Leaves the Theater instantly reveals signs of silliness. Each actor has no less than 10 characters' names attributed to them (none are played), and a scene breakdown list that includes, "Scene Six: Engine room of an Argentinian freighter 1943. Scene Twelve: Elevator. One thousand years later." All hilarious ideas, none ever played out.

The audience members returning after intermission saw the Davis, Dinklage, and Streep already seated onstage with the house lights on. The audience seemed not to give it a second thought. Yet, the lights stayed on a little too long and the actors started softly talking into their mics. This chatter amplified while everyone was seated, and snippets could heard, such as, "Why are the lights on? Is this part of the show? Streep looks so young."

As the audience settled in, Davis, Dinklage, and Streep became the audience's subconscious, wondering what was going on and when the show would start. Then Davis instantly transformed into the character of Louise by launching into Louise's internal monologue regarding her body-image insecurity while squeezing through a row to get seated before the lights go down. Dinklage and Streep became audience members sitting next to Louise as the lights in the theater dim and Streep and Dinklage began the dialogue of the ostensible play, about two people trapped in an elevator with over 2,000 floor buttons -- which is truly awful, pretentious crap -- as Louis tells us when she gets bored and launches into another monologue. Her monologue is only quieted when she tries to watch Dinklage and Streep perform Kaufman's play. The effect is electrifying, as the P.O.V. of this live performance changes by the second between the audience and performance of the play. The P.O.V. shifts again when Louise's cell phone rings (with an annoying call from her nagging mother) and the real-persona of Meryl Streep has a meltdown onstage as she stops the show to lash out at Louise for interrupting this performance of what Streep describes as "the last play written by Charlie before he killed himself." (Only logical, after all, since Charlie killed his imaginary brother in Adaptation.)

Streep's outburst leads into a well-written persona battle between Dinklage, Streep, and the real Davis as the embarrassed Louise flees the theater and walks home through rainy streets. Kaufman has admitted that while he knows it works as an audio play, the visual of these static actors on stage was important too. "When I was trying to conceive of it, the fact that there were no visuals, but you still saw it was important," he told the Times. "I like the idea that the character of Louise is supposed to be in the audience, but she's sitting right up onstage with the other actors. And that when she leaves the theater, she doesn't leave the theater. So there's all this mental confusion, which is really appealing to me. It becomes more of a radio play when you put it on the radio because you don't have that [visual] information."

More of Kaufman's play-within-a-play unfolds between Streep and Dinklage, only to be interrupted again when Louise's phone rings. In her fright, she'd forgotten to grab her cell phone before leaving the theater, and more real-life-persona arguments unfold between the actors. Sure, there's gimmickry at work here, but Louise's lonely character remains a well-written, three-dimensional character, sadly comedic as we experience her having cyber-sex back home while simultaneously arguing with her mother on her home phone. The climax occurs when Louise calls her cell phone only to have it answered by the cute guy sitting next to her (Dinklage) who politely grabbed the phone for her after the show. Dinklage asks Louise out, and of course, in true Kaufman fashion, Louise rejects Dinklage's offer and hangs up on him (similar to how Kaufman's Adaptation on-screen persona initially rejects the doting girl Amelia Kavan (Cara Seymour). It is a smart twist for Louise, who seemed only to be happy while miserable and who is too self-obsessed to know a good thing when it comes knocking. The play then does a final P.O.V. shift as a theater critic bashes the play we've just seen and thanks the stars that the indecisive Kaufman finally made one definitive decision -- to kill himself.

At the behest of Burwell, Fregoli and Kaufman brought two unique and darkly comedic works to the stage in a new way for audiences to experience them. Their tight writing allows for new twists, and Kaufman's well-known fascination with shifting points of view feels organic rather than gimmicky. Hopefully these plays will end up in print, but until then, as you write your own radio drama, keep your eyes open on the 'Net and on Sirius' airwaves for Fregoli and Kaufman's works.

Jeff Goldsmith is senior editor for Creative Screenwriting magazine and serves as the Los Angeles Events Coordinator in charge of the Creative Screenwriting screening series.

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