In a remote part of southwestern New Mexico, the famed outlaw “Salsa” Sam Lawless is sitting around a campfire with the men he has chosen to form his new posse.  His old one was wiped out in a deadly shootout with the Pinkerton Detective Agency of Chicago during an attempted bank robbery.  It is a solemn moment as he inducts them in one of the wild west’s most sacred rituals.

“Alright, men…  After a lot of a deliberation, I have chosen each of you to be a part of my new posse.  Now, I’m going to officially welcome you by giving you your outlaw nickname.  As you all know this is probably the most defining moment in your career as an outlaw.   This is the name history will remember you by…  the name that will appear on wanted posters throughout the country…  the name that one day will be etched on your tombstone.  Ok, you there…  you come from the brushy regions in southern Oklahoma…  I’m going to call you “Brushy” Bill Roper.  And you over there, you made your name hunting buffalo on the great plains…  I’m going to call you “Buffalo” Bob McRee.  And you…  you’re probably the deadliest man in the gang now…  you’re known for your custom pistol with the hammer filed down extra short so that you can cock and shoot faster than any man alive…  I’m going to call you “Short-Cock” Steve.  Alright, now you over there…  (Sounds as “Short-Cock” Steve tentatively interrupts) Huh?  No, no, no…  we can’t call you “Fast-Cock” Steve, my friend…  all guns cock fast.  No, no…  what makes you so unique is that you filed that bastard down short.  “Short-Cock” Steve it is.  And now you over there…  I’ve gotta confess the only reason you’re here is that we needed one more man.  You’re cowardly…  effeminate…  and you’re about the least physically intimidating man I know…  but we gotta give you a nickname so we’ll call you “Deadly” Dan Nash, “the Fastest Gun in all the West”.  (Sounds) Hey…  hey…  where are you going, “Short-Cock” Steve…   “Short-Cock”…  come back!

Review of the production of “Boredom Visits the Artist” by H. “Henrik” Stencil (Oct 3rd 2008, Chicago’s Cul-de-Sac Theatre)

Now, it is not my “job” per se to review theatre performances (at least not in the strict sense of the word which could be used more accurately to describe me as “a kiosk vendor”) but I feel compelled to weigh in on the recent performance of H. “Henrik” Stencil’s latest effort. Stencil’s name is, of course, familiar to all. To some it is even known in whole and for it’s connection to him and his works, while to many others it is familiar in a more piecemeal and tenuous fashion owing to their recognition of each individual letter of which it is comprised.

Stencil’s first play, “Apropos to Nothing”, was reminiscent of (and compared favorably to) Aristophanes’ ancient comedy “The Clouds”, in which the Greek playwright had skewered Socrates and other alleged Sophists as being out of touch with reality. In point of fact, the entirety of the premises and all of the jokes in the modern work were the same as those in the latter to the point that numerous pages bore the trademark signs of a photocopy, but it was generally agreed amongst critics that the passing of roughly two thousand and forty additional years lent “Apropos” a certain, if vague, originality. It was an enormous success and a star was born overnight.

However, after eight months the initial theatre mania the work had inspired died down in New York, Los Angeles, and then, lastly, rural outposts across the Midwest and Montana. Stencil had not followed up on this initial success well. At all. After eight years of complete writer’s block he suddenly struck upon the cynical notion of making his creative inertia the subject of a play by merely publishing his notebook of sentence fragments and doodlings, assigning each at random to one of 116 “main characters”. The result, “Boredom Visits the Artist”, which I had the ill fortune to attend here in Chicago at the historic Cul-de-Sac Theatre, did not go over well despite the intense and expensive efforts of a Madison Avenue marketing firm to frame it as somehow on the cutting edge of the avant-garde.

In the end its run lasted less than one full evening as two of the leading actors forgot altogether what they were doing on stage during a particularly ponderous dialogue, put their coats on, and left. The confusion, unfortunately, had arisen due to a dramatic pause. A very dramatic pause. Seven minutes. Unfortunately even this did not spare the audience as it was so in keeping with the utter randomness of what we had seen so far that it was assumed that it was part of the show and thus we stayed torturously put in our seats for the remaining scheduled three hours. For the last full hour there were no actors left at all, but the we remained put, mistaking the theatre’s cleaning crew for the third act. A brief altercation between the head janitor and his assistant did give rise to a few minor guffaws and all generally agreed that the old man’s last 15 minutes alone on stage with his mop were rife with sexual tension. The end of those three hours were rewarded with the standing ovation that is now seemingly mandatory at all modern cultural events, but it was markedly without enthusiasm and lasted less than 20 minutes.