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UNFINISHED NOTES FROM NOTHING OFFICE (NO)

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UNFINISHED NOTES FROM NOTHING OFFICE (NO)

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SUNDAY, 9.13 - Pick up the never-before-seen set from the wood shop in Sunset Park where it had been dormant for half a year and drive it all to Philadelphia. The wooden box which looks like a coffin pretends to be a grand piano in the back seat.

MONDAY, 9.14 - Pick up a bag stuffed of costumes, never worn, from Andreea Mincic's costume studio in a corner of a warehouse in Brooklyn and take it on the Chinatown bus down to Philly, rubber chickens and Pierrot's collar peeking from a Trader Joe's bag -- then spend the evening howling with glee & disbelief in the empty empty storefront, making small videos & pretending to be a smudge on the wall.

TUESDAY, 9.15 - Unload never-before-seen props and costumes into the empty space and try to make sense of them, caressing and sorting papers & old plans that no longer hold.

WEDNESDAY, 9.16 - Pick up the stage from FringeArts, Swift helps us strap it to the very top of her car, then spend a day and night in the Office, touching my notes. Eva visits to attempt to structure the weeks to come.

THURSDAY, 9.17 - Andreea comes down on the train to help us fill the space, we paper the floor to make room for scrawling, go to fetch dollies from the empty theater, scrape letters from the storefront in an act of poetic erasure, and eat a lovely clown dinner of rice balls and wine with Seltzer.

FRIDAY, 9.18 - Andreea finishes cleaning up Wilhelm's room while Shane and I shove a flat from Pig Iron into the trunk of his Subi... I arrived depressed and depleted from Center City traffic, we quickly adjust the tail feathers on my dollar store Harpy costume (made, virtuosically, from a yellow rain poncho to look like a Rubber Chicken) and Andreea leaves to go back to NY, no time for a final clown lunch :(

DAY 1 & DAY 2
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, 9.19/9.20 - I perform. A total and complete blur. Performer black-out. I try diligently to "research nothing." But when passerby come by to watch, I am compelled by entertainer complex to improvise fitfully as long as they stay watching. Sometimes, they stay watching for hours. One night, I write nothing in the air with a stray harpy tail feather until at least 2 in the morning. The "show" hasn't even "opened" and I am exhausted.

DAY 3
MONDAY, 9.21 - I perform. One same sweet crew comes by again for the third afternoon. I like performing for them because I can hear them laughing and squealing, and they always touch their hearts and wave when they leave.

Eva comes by, and we try to have a chat, but I am in some kind of performer mania and cannot converse. When she leaves, I forget to lock the door after her. That afternoon, a man bursts, exclaiming loudly: I love clowns. Omigod this is so cool. I LOVE CLOWNS. My performance cocoon feels punctured. Excuse me! I say. (For some reason it comes out in a German accent.) I am so glad to hear you like clowns! But it's a pandemic and it's actually illegal for you to be in here. I must ask you to leave! Something in him switches on, or off. WHAT THE FUCK. He screams. IF YOU DIDN'T WANT PEOPLE IN HERE YOU SHOULDA LOCKED THE FUCKING DOOR. Yes, thank you for your input, says I. I certainly will lock the door... right after you leave!

He exits screaming and I can hear him in front of the window: WOW, WHATTA FUCKING BITCH! FUCKING "PANDEMIC." FUCK YOU! An older man is watching it all unfold. I write to him: What an angry man! What was he so upset about? I wave my hands about as if to say: Sheesh! I'm just a clown! The old man laughs and laughs. We laugh together. But I am very shaken up. Soon after, a famous Philadelphia drag queen comes by with a friend. I mime the whole story to them. Thank G-d they came by! I had to tell someone.

Very Meta, I write. A man feels hurt and becomes very angry. A veritable Pierrot. This whole country is being run by a bunch of Pierrots, sad heartsick violent vile clowns. Who pretend to love women but get hurt -- and end up hurting them. (I just noticed "vile" is inside "privilege".)

Later, a very lovely duo of dudes watches for a long, long time. I wonder if they are testing me, in a way, to see how long I'll last. Something feels rather cosmic in our trio. They come and go but always return. The next day, one of the men comes back with this son.

DAY 4
TUESDAY, 9.22 - I perform. All I recall is that I think Andalyn came by, although I had smudged out my glasses with white clown face-paint the eve before and could really see nothing so I can't be sure. I like performing for Andalyn because I know she appreciates subtleties, I don't have to overdo it. I began to fix Andreea's tree made of Hurricane Isaiahs storm-tossed branches we found roadside in Chinatown on a walk to FringeArts and subsequently affixed with duct tape to a microphone stand. But then it turned into a tiny tree dance. My feet were in first position like the legs of the mic stand, my arms were the branches, haphazardly pointing in all directions, sometimes a stiff salute and sometimes drooping down like a dislocated shoulder or a limp dick. I felt very happy performing my tree dance for Andalyn. And I thought: sometimes the best parts of the show happen before the show starts, or after it ends.

I love performing for children, and old people, and people who notice and delight in the very small.

DAY 5
WEDNESDAY, 9.23 - I perform. A very late night. A bunch of clowns come by and tailgate, setting up lawn chairs to watch. It is a true show of sorts, perhaps it went on for hours I don't know. I can remember nothing except imitating one man who was puffing on his vape. I leaned against an imaginary streetlamp and sucked my mime cig, blowing out sweet smoke that wasn't there. I think we fell in love in that moment. The man stayed watching a very long time.

Finally, I had to go to sleep. I tucked in a tiny Pierrot doll to sleep, under a blanket made of paper. The man bowed his head in understanding, pressed his hands to his heart, and left.

I went out to get a glass of wine by myself for the first time since before the pandemic. A man in a suit sitting alone at a table by the street called out to me: Hey! Come sit with me! You're that art lady in the window! I sipped my wine and thought: am I really that art lady in the window? Oh dear.

I learn that none of the officers were charged in the senseless murder of Breonna Taylor. I fear that I might be too despairing to perform, or that performing death again and again in a window could be harmful. (Often I spill my guts in the form of red flower petals.) But I decide that it's okay to sit in the window and weep. The passerby seem to get it.

DAY 6
THURSDAY, 9.24 - Talked to Basie and Cass while biking to the Office... they suggested I somehow make clear my circumstances: that I am a sad clown, contractually obligated to perform in a storefront, for a show I am only losing money on.

Shane and I try to set up tech but it is a disaster. It's an abandoned storefront and nothing works. I am depressed.

Dan brings his kids by to watch, I am in a panic, not "ready" to perform. I cry my blue painter's tape tears and then drown myself in them. The children laugh and laugh with glee. But they seem to become perturbed when I start nursing a rubber chicken with my actual breast.

That night, Johanna comes by to watch. I put on Wilhelm's costume for the first time and write LITTLE BOY across the breast. A man begins shouting in words I cannot hear (nothing is audible through the glass). I write to Johanna: Is he upset? Yes, she nods.

When the crowd disperses, I sneak her in. What was he saying?! Well, she says, it was a.... mixed review. He was shouting about how the store had been looted, and now they put this art in here, who pays for it? Did her daddy pay for it? Who has money to put a clown show in a storefront when they don't have money to house people? (Valid.) But then he started shouting: AND WE GET HER POINT! WE ALL GET HER POINT! AND YOU KNOW WHAT?! IT'S A GOOD POINT! AND I'M GLAD SHE'S MAKING IT!

I am very touched by this. Because... what is my point? I would really love to know. And furthermore: I'm glad my piece somehow moved him to monolog.

DAY 7
FRIDAY, 9.25 - I go to FringeArts to shoot some "making of nothing" footage for my mockumentary, yet-to-be-made. Spend the afternoon cleaning up the Office. After 10 days, it is pure SQUALOR! Drive to Mahoning Drive-In and weep in the rain while watching horror movies too fogged up from mist to be visible.

SATURDAY & SUNDAY, 9.26/27 - Fully fatigued, I decide to take these days off.
I also have the excuse of it being Shabbos and the eve of Yom Kippur, holiest day of the Jewish New Year. My cousin writes me immediately: no, technically you can still work the 24 hours from sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday. We argue.

But then, the soldier (!) from my Birthright trip (!) writes me: the whole argument is moot because clowns enjoy what they do, therefore, clowns don't work, therefore, clowns don't need a day of rest. Talmudic argumentation in my DMs. However, I decide clowns, like everyone, have a great deal of repenting to do. So I take the two days off.

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- Sad Boy Score
- Tree Choreo
- Trace Shadows
- Read a Philosophy of Empty Seats
- Document End of Day Messes
- Fresh Signage
- Compost All My Notes
- Procure a Wandering Jew
- INFINITE REHEARSAL

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NOTHING OFFICE (NO) WILL REOPEN MONDAY EVENING 9/28 WHEN IT'S GETTING DARK

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NOTHING OFFICE (NO) WILL REOPEN MONDAY EVENING 9/28 WHEN IT'S GETTING DARK

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To everyone at FringeArts, especially Zach Blackwood and Katy Dammers, for believing in this project.

Direction ~ Eva Steinmetz
Dramaturgy ~ Basie Allen
Set & Costumes ~ Andreea Mincic
Lights & Tech ~ Shane Riley

And to Adam Stone who did the sound when this was still a show and to Kate McGee who did lights when the theater still existed.

And to everyone who ever visited the sad clown studio and talked to me about nothing, especially: Johanna Kasimow, Jenn Kidwell, Anna Lublina, Magda San Millan, Angie Pittman, Kris Pourzal, Kenya (Robinson), Isa Saldana, Jo Stewart, MC Uster, and Anh Vo.

And to Fred Moten for opera and carnival & Malik Gaines for encouraging my didactic songs.

And to Jason Winig Properties, for generously donating this storefront at 1606 Chestnut, which was in a past life a Supercade Amusement Center, whose spirits are no doubt very restless and continue to haunt the space.

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Setting up for nothing

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SETTING UP FOR NOTHING

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During the day WILHELM drinks coffee and reads.

At night, he drinks wine and attempts to make the show that never happened.

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I want to read and investigate these stories of self. But I also want to destroy these stories, and along with them, my self.

[SIGN FELT] is a long-term practice of digging into toxic foundations and layering in the rich detritus of a dying world so as to form, over time, fertile grounds on which growth might be possible. It is an attempt to be at peace with the no thing.

May this world, and the words that invented it, all rot and decay. Disinte...great! Yes. Time to fall apart.

This piece is a sad clown show.

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[SIGN FELT] is me grappling with the ways in which this bildungsroman (literally, development-novel) from 1794 could have been written yesterday, and how it sets the stage for coming-of-age tales that continue to center the malaise of privilege.

WILHELM wants to change the world with his art but doesn't know how and anyway he's too bummed out. His dad is a rich merchant so WILHELM has a all the time in the world to sit around thinking about how theater can change the world. (While hating himself too much to make any.)

He mostly stays in his room drinking too much coffee and thinking about all the great plays he will write. When the audience shows up, he realizes he somehow neglected to actually make the show.

All that time, he did nothing.

The question is and has been: How to interrogate this legacy without just... doing the same (no)thing?

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[SIGN FELT] "Sad Boys in Harpy Land" (the piece that didn't happen) was a disintegrating frame story: a falling apart show of shows within shows.

Digesting and vomiting up canonical Western narratives about what it means to grow up and be someone in this very troubling world, the unstable protagonist was a demented little German boy named WILHELM MEISTER who wants to be a theater artist but isn't very good at it.

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For a long time I was making a show about nothing. Fittingly for a show about nothing, it also did not happen. Two weeks before dress rehearsal, set for April Fools of 2020, the show was cancelled due to COVID-19.

"Nothing to Show," reimagines those lost weeks. I, Alex Tatarsky (as WILHELM MEISTER) will spend my days and nights surrounded by detritus of the unfinished show: sad boy movement scores, unpainted set pieces, costumes of harpies and Pierrot.

This embodied archive of a thing that never happened will culminate in a dress rehearsal for no one.

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[SIGN FELT] "Nothing to Show"
A show about nothingness            PROGRAM NOTES -->
(that never happened)                FOR NOTHING

SEPT 21 - OCT 4, 2020
Afternoons & Evenings

NOTHING OFFICE (NO)
1606 Chestnut St, Center City.

Alex Tatarsky (as WILHELM MEISTER) continues doing nothing.

An abandoned storefront in center city provides a window
into the process.

You are welcome to peek in.
Nothing much will be happening.

https://fringearts.com/event/nothing-to-show/

A crowd-sourced archive of nothing can be viewed on @nothing_teevee --> https://www.instagram.com/nothing_teevee/