Queer Voices
Queer Voices
November 14th Queer Voices: Brian Jucha discusses LOVE BOMB from Catastrophic Theatre
Join Brett Cullum of BROADWAY WORLD for an illuminating, inspiring, and incredible conversation with Brian Jucha, a visionary artist reshaping the Houston theater scene through his groundbreaking work with Catastrophic Theatre. Brian studied with Anne Bogart and artistically directed the VIA THEATRE in NYC. Dive into his latest creation, "Love Bomb," a dynamic musical inspired by the legendary musician Melanie, who ruled the charts in the early 1970s. Discover how Jucha's teenage admiration of Melanie's music has blossomed into a unique interdisciplinary dance theater production, where cabaret-style performances invite audiences to interpret the narrative in their own way. The show features the concept of "taxi dancers" - folks who, in the 30s and 40s, danced with you in dancehalls for a nickel.
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In 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. Culminating and forming Via Theatre, which he took over as artistic director and became a part of the downtown New York City performance landscape of the 90s. And Via Theatre produced two to three original works a year. It's amazing. You go back, you look at New York Times interviews and their raves and everybody loves it. But in Houston we get to experience Brian's work through Catastrophic Theatre and Love Bomb opens on November 15th at the Match Facility in Midtown and runs into early December.
Speaker 1:This will be his fifth collaboration with Catastrophic and its four-runner Infernal Bridegroom Productions, including they Do Not Move, toast, last Rites and we have Some Planes. And we have Some Planes has a specific history to it because it landed Yuka and the Catastrophic IBP Ensemble on the cover of American Theatre Magazine, which they still talk about. So welcome to Queer Voices, brian. Yuka, thank you Happy to be here. I'm excited to have you because obviously I mean from this introduction you've done a lot and you're definitely an artist of note and you definitely made an impact here on the Houston scene. And Love Bomb, the most recent work it's touted as a conceptual musical about taxi dancers, set to the tunes of Melanie, the girl from Woodstock who everybody knows because of that dang song about roller skates Love Bomb obviously.
Speaker 1:Now I have been a theater critic for 10 years and I missed we have some planes. It was before my tenure of doing that. For some reason, another broadway role writer took the assignment for every other collaboration that you've done with catastrophic. So I'm I am coming in fresh. What can I expect from love?
Speaker 2:oh boy, what I do is interdisciplinary dance theater that has a loose narrative that can be interpreted differently from one audience member to the next. Text in my work is not the primary source of the experience. The text is as important as the music, as the movement, as the gestures, as the dance, as the songs, as what is happening between actors relationship-wise from one to the other. And, as I say, the funny thing about we have Some Plans. There were eight company members in that and we had some people come back and see it eight times so they could just watch each person Because, honestly, if you, you know, depending on who you lom onto at any given moment, you're experiencing something different. So it's not just to be clear, it is not. It is not size specific, it is not interactive, it is not audience participation.
Speaker 1:Melanie is a connection that we probably have, because I'm a big fan of Melanie as an artist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard that, which I think is crazy.
Speaker 1:It is kind of crazy. And she is the musical muse for this show. What made you want to do a piece exclusively with her music?
Speaker 2:Okay, I was a teenage, melanie Groupie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw pictures Okay.
Speaker 2:I discovered her when I was 10. And I went to see her in concert for the first time when I was 11. Between the ages of 11 and 20, I probably saw her 40 times maybe. And then the joke is, I then went from Melanie to Patti Smith. That was my grouping status. But so I mean I have known her forever and for ages.
Speaker 2:I have always wanted to do a piece using her songs. I was planning to do this last summer. I never anticipated that she would pass away, which she passed away in January, so I actually never got around to asking her if it was okay with her. I have gotten the approval and the blessing of her family and her children and her record company and manager, so, but I think she would have been pleased. You know what I love about her and if you and her record company and manager, so, but I think she would have been pleased.
Speaker 2:You know what I love about her and if you know her stuff, most people who know of her know her hit and have this conception of her as this. You know, flower child, hippie girl. Her first two albums are very there. You know they were very inspired by Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill. They're gems of songs about relationships you know and falling in love and stuff like that and falling out of love. Most of what we are using are songs from her very, very early career which were written mostly when she was a teenager. So I've wanted to do this for a very long time and I'm finally happy to get around to it.
Speaker 1:Apparently, since you were 10.
Speaker 2:Yes, apparently since I was 10. You know the way that it's being structured is that in our dance hall the taxi dancers also work as cabaret performers. So the Melanie songs are being performed as cabaret songs, as opposed to having a book that the songs inform one way or the other. So they are informing the characters, but they're not unlike a traditional musical.
Speaker 1:The songs are not motivating the action of the play it's more like a cabaret presentation and actually, ironically, the play cabaret sometimes has these musical numbers that are just presented as performances, which is uh kind of an interesting dichotomy there. But do you have like a favorite melanie song? I just was really curious.
Speaker 2:I know it's like choosing sophie's choice, but well, you know, it's really, really weird because I would have answered that differently six weeks ago, but because of the seven, because of the seven songs that we are doing, I've fallen back in love with some of the early ones that I had kind of forgotten about, including I don't even know if I should name them or not. One of them was suggested by melanie's manager and it has turned out to work out so brilliantly. The song is called take me home, which I had kind of forgotten about, and he was like you should consider take me home. And I was, and I was, like you know, went and listened to it and I was like, oh my God, that's perfect.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite songs is Leftover Emotion, which we are doing, which was written in her later years but wasn't really didn't get the recording due that it should have gotten when she was younger. She did record it several times, you know, in her later years, but it didn't make it on any of the you know, big albums in the 70s. The album Photograph is my favorite. I think that that's her work of genius that didn't get the do it deserved.
Speaker 1:Probably one of my favorite songs is Leftover Wine, which I have a feeling probably wouldn't be in the show, but it never happens, and I also really like Lay Down. Yeah, that's not in the show either.
Speaker 2:You're killing me, and neither is.
Speaker 1:Brand New Key that I'm fine with. To me Brand New Key was always like the gateway drug to Melanie for people I felt like you know people kind of it was the hit that you knew, but it really was kind of this novelty hit kind of thing and she did some things with her voice on it and it was a little bit it wasn't my favorite of hers. I think it's a cute kooky song, very catchy and obviously used a great effect in film and commercials and everything else now and part of our pop culture. But I do think there are so many more wonderful. As you said, she's kind of the taylor swift of her time as far as like breakup songs and you know she was, I mean, and interesting.
Speaker 2:I I mean I honestly do feel like she didn't get her due, because in 70, 71, 72 she was, like you know, billboard's top female vocalist and I mean she started her own record company when she had a falling out with Buddha. So she's the first woman that did that Started. I mean imagine a woman in 1971 starting her own record company, like that was completely unheard of. But then, you know, by 78, she was kind of like gone, you know. And also she will say wanted to have children. So know, by 78 she was kind of like gone, you know. And also she will say wanted to have children. So she had three beautiful children and that was more important to her than her career.
Speaker 1:I think now you mentioned a term going back to love bomb that some listeners may not be familiar with taxi dancer. What exactly is a taxi dancer?
Speaker 2:well, a taxi dancer is a term for okay. It was something that happened in the 30s and 40s, before, you know, around the war time period, there would be clubs where and it's largely thought that it's mostly men going to women, but it also was women going to men where you could go and pay someone to dance with you and they were called taxi dancers because then afterwards everybody would get in their taxis and go home. But it's basically what Sweet Charity is based on. Sweet Charity is a taxi dancer. You look at the number, big Spender. That is completely about taxi dancers.
Speaker 2:I found it I first heard it with an interview with Rudolph Valentino, because apparently he was a taxi dancer before he was famous and of course he implied that it was more than just being a taxi dancer, that it led into prostitution. I just found it very interesting in you know, in terms of a dance hall place, that people would go to dance with somebody and pay them five cents or, you know, a nickel for a dance. So I think it's a great premise for human interaction. You know, I would do it now. I'm gonna be honest. You would go pay someone for a dance sure, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I see nothing wrong.
Speaker 1:We should bring this back maybe we should have a night after the show where we just taxi down genius, let's do it all right yeah so I have heard urban myth, whatever, but that you often come to houston with a concept and maybe you have a beginning, maybe you have an end. You get together with the cast, the catastrophic, catastrophic artists, you collaborate and create this whole show kind of organically. Tell me a little bit about your process and how you kind of differ from somebody that comes in with a fully realized script, like a Michael Marr that has everything already done.
Speaker 2:Normally I have themes, I have ideas for things that will happen. There might be a structure that we play off of, like last rights, we played off of Rites of Spring Stravinsky's ballet. We have some places really easy, because it was text from the morning of September 11th. So we literally use that as the structure. They said the text at the time that the text was said. You know that morning the actor.
Speaker 2:We will do composition work where the actors will create original characters. What they do is what becomes the basis for what the audience sees. We also use something called viewpoint improv work, which goes way back, which you mentioned earlier. But I did study with Ann Bogart and Mary Overly in 78 and 79 at NYU's Experimental Theater Wing, and also Wendell Beavers, who was Mary's husband at the time, and so we use the viewpoint method of improv to really create the human interactions that happen. We have pulled found texts from places. Occasionally we will have the basis for a text but, like even even with love bomb, I tried not to have a text but I found that to put it together in four weeks we needed something structurally to ground it. I won't say what it is.
Speaker 2:Some people may recognize it and some people may not, but it does have something to do with serial killers.
Speaker 1:I love you catastrophic artists, because you always come to me with this kind of thing.
Speaker 2:What the heck.
Speaker 1:Go back and listen to my interview with Walt Zipperman about Sarah Kane's cleanse.
Speaker 2:He would not tell me a thing, Well, you know, part of it is you also want people to be surprised and you don't want people to come in with a preconceived notion Toast. We use the script of Alien, of the movie Alien. Now, if I said that to people before, they came okay, and that was just one thing. You know, there was a lot of other texts with it. If I said to people, we're doing the script of Alien, well, you would think that that's what you. You would think that we were doing Alien, which is not what we were doing. So that's why I don't want to say what the text is from, because it would lead people to think one thing rather than experiencing it for themselves.
Speaker 1:This blows my mind because obviously I told you you know, I've been a theater critic for 10 years and I've been an actor for a lot longer, and I don't want to admit that how long I think about this and I'm like, if you wanted to restage, like we have some planes, it would be a different show, wouldn't it? I mean, even if you cast the same people, they probably would come up with different things, or I mean what in this process?
Speaker 2:I think it would be interesting and I kind of would love to restage we have some plans, because so many people were afraid of it, because we did that in like march of 2002, I believe that the actors would have to learn what the actor's original score was, and then they could make changes to some extent, but you'd still have to honor what the person originally did. So, yeah, I mean there's only been one piece that I remounted and it pretty much we ended up having two or three actors replace the original cast, and it was pretty much the same.
Speaker 1:So you just go through this process once and then, if you ever do it again, you've got kind of the basis.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, actually, we don't have the history of that because we haven't really done it.
Speaker 1:if I do anything again, previously when I talked with jason he was saying that you kind of work with them exclusively now or are you still working with via what's?
Speaker 2:no, via disbanded I mean yeah, viabanded, you know, in the early aughts.
Speaker 2:You know, via Theatre was originally a company that was created for Anne Bogart to produce her work in New York and she wanted to open it up to other directors. So we did and we were doing that and I was the first, and then we all went to Trinity Rep for a year where she was given the artistic directorship and then when we came back a lot of the Trinity Rep performers kind of became the Via Theatre Company. I kind of took it over because Anne was moving in other directions. You know and listen, I mean this is my hats off to Catastrophic.
Speaker 2:The administrative horror show of raising money to do theater in the United States is incredibly draining.
Speaker 2:So you know, after 15 years of Via Theater, you know, every time we did a show we were $10,000 in debt. This for 30 years is just phenomenal and phenomenal that so many of the same people are there. You know, to think that people that I did the shows with in, you know, 1997 are still a part of the company is just that's nuts, you know, or that you know, of the seven people that are doing Love Bob, six of them have done other shows with me before. You know some of them have done three or four. So Tamri Cooper has done all five. So you know it's just amazing that they're, because I so strongly believe in the concept of company and I think that what a company of actors can do, you know there's a shorthand that just doesn't exist, I think, with you know you have to like get through that period with a new group of actors that when you have a company they just fall right into some kind of a pattern and pace that is just venous.
Speaker 1:Well, I've always had the perspective that Catastrophic is definitely one of the jewels of the Houston theater scene because they do stuff that nobody would touch. Your larger companies are never going to do it. They're not going to take a chance with experimental theater, they're going to run away from it shrieking because they've got christmas carol and they've got wicked and they've got phantom of the opera. That's going to make them tons of money. So you know, putting on a musical with melanie songs about taxi dancers is not on their bucket list or whatever.
Speaker 1:And I love the viewpoint that they bring, the fact that they do have this longevity and they do have this history. And you do feel that as a audience member even you can feel that connection between some of their company and the through line of coming and seeing them over again and different iterations of themselves and watching them grow as actors and all of that kind of stuff. It's a neat feeling, I think, and it's one that I think is unique not only to Houston but to Catastrophic itself. I mean, I have not seen very many companies like this around the country and so often we get artists that can't do business, and that's one of the problems with our industry is. It's hard to fund these things because we're not financial people.
Speaker 2:That's why the theater system has managing directors.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting and Houston really embraces Catastrophic, which I think is wonderful and definitely anytime that you come to town it's always a big event. So there you go.
Speaker 2:And I have moved here. Have you, I have you, I have moved here. Yes, yeah, the story of this was I had done the first two shows with infernal bridegroom and then jason was asking me every year if I would come and do a show and I kept saying I wasn't ready. Plus, my mother was very sick and I was taking care of her and blah, blah, blah and I had, you know, getting away from new york for six and I'm very unusual because I like to go to every performance. So it drives me crazy if I have a show running and I can't go.
Speaker 2:No-transcript. But no, the idea was before COVID, I was going to look for a place down here and snowbird COVID and people working from home and stuff like that, not to mention as somebody who lives in Manhattan trying to find a property in Manhattan, I mean. So basically, I found a condo in Houston. The bedroom is the size of what I could afford in Manhattan alone and I was just like you know, I don't need to be there anymore. Well, welcome to Houston as a resident?
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes, and that's exciting. Does that mean that we're going to see more collaborations with Catastrophic?
Speaker 1:on a more regular basis or Well, we hope All right. Well, brian Yuka Love Bomb opens November 15th at the Match Facility in Midtown. It runs into early December. You guys are in the traditional space, match 3, I believe, kind of the Catastrophic home most of the time. Sometimes they drift into 4, but I think 3 is typically theirs and of course you've got different nights and things like that. Are there any special events with this one? I know that. Is there going to be a talk back with you?
Speaker 2:there will be a talk back, there will be an industry night. Obviously we're not doing a show on thanksgiving, because you know we are. But listen, let me tell you, we are the ultimate christmas holiday entertainment he's thinking, thinking Love Bomb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm really not Take the whole family.
Speaker 2:I said to the company last week that we should sing one of Melanie's Christmas songs as an encore, because her Christmas stuff is great too.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing that you guys do is you do free beer Fridays, so every Friday you can enjoy a canned beverage with the company of Love Bomb and apparently Brian, because it sounds like you're at every single performance.
