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Dollface:
Proud to be one half of the
Kipper Kids, Guerneville actor
Brian Routh poses with one
of his fruity buddies.
Theatrical innovator Brian
Routh remains steadfastly
eclectic by BRIAN ROUTH, one
half of the groundbreaking
twosome known as the
'The
Kipper Kids,' has
stood solidly at the vanguard
of the modern experimental
theater world since the glory
days of that amorphous art
form's unsettling emergence
in the early 1970s. From his
unique perspective both as
a revered performer and as
a teacher of avant-garde theatrical
methods--often termed "performance
art," a label Routh finds
misleading and pejorative--this
deceptively soft-spoken Englishman
has observed some awfully
strange things.
None so awful or so strange
as what occurred during the
final session of a class he'd
been teaching at San Francisco's
Academy of the Arts a few
years back.
"Everyone
had been asked to prepare
one final bit to be performed
for the class and their invited
guests," he recalls in a calm,
Essex-accented voice. Routh
had already disappointed one
student when he refused to
allow a live sheep to be slaughtered
onstage as part of the show.
"Then this other student,
without telling anyone what
he intended to do, suddenly
poured petrol all over himself,
with his parents sitting there
watching, and set himself
on fire."
Though
teachers often talk of setting
their students' artistic visions
ablaze, Routh felt this was
going a bit far, even for
the man who'd once horrified
audiences by literally beating
himself to a bloody pulp during
the Kipper Kids' notorious
one-man boxing matches.
"The
student wasn't badly hurt,"
Routh explains, "though I
had to chase him down the
street and throw him to the
ground in order to put the
fire out. My students can
do whatever they want to themselves
after they get out of school,
but there's only so much alternative
expression I'll allow."
Now
a resident of Guerneville
("As a child of rural England,"
he says, "I've found Sonoma
County's peace and quiet to
be quite soothing"), Routh
expects no such pyrotechnics
when he brings his teaching
act to Petaluma's Cinnabar
Theater at the end of the
month. "I'm never quite certain
what to expect from these
workshops, though," he adds.
The class, simply titled Adult
Acting, will focus on freeing
the actor's imaginations with
a series of exercises and
rituals. "A lot of the exercises
I've pinched from a class
I once assisted with at a
psychiatric hospital in Los
Angeles," he says, adding,
"and no, I was not a patient."
To those who wonder what an
internationally renowned performer
and acting coach such as Routh
is doing at the relatively
rustic environment at Cinnabar,
he says, "They wanted me.
That was enough. I'd been
looking for a local spot to
teach at while working on
Kipper Kids projects and my
own solo shows.
"I
get very excited about teaching
and never like to stay away
from it for long."
Routh will be debuting a new
work titled Psychic Attack,
an improvisational romp through
the world of New Age spirituality,
at Cinnabar's second annual
Eclectic Theatre Festival,
an assemblage of experimental
works by a roster of local
and international artists.
Under
the direction of Lucas McClure--whose
own piece, the deconstructionist
The Lear Project, will
be part of the show--the Eclectic
Festival is expanding from
last year's two-week stretch
and will include works by
Jan Monroe (Nothing Human
Disgusts Me, just finishing
a successful nine-month run
in Los Angeles), L.A. Mime
Co. co-founder Mitchell Evans
(Me & Her: Tales of
Love, War & Housecleaning),
and Deborah Eubanks (A
Lady of Letters).
After its premiere at the
festival, Routh's show will
move to San Francisco's Yerba
Buena Center for the Arts.
He declines to give many details
about the show, other than
to say that it is "a performance
about information, masturbation,
inspiration, dedication, and
confirmation"; that it is
the culmination of a 10-day
countdown during which he
and other players (including
wife Jeana Stace) will explore
books, texts, and songs and
create video images; that
it will skewer a bevy of sacred
cows; that every word will
be made up on the spot; and
that it will feature a supporting
cast of weather-beaten dolls
he's picked up at thrift stores
over the last few years.
The
dolls are Routh's co-stars,
and they often end up upstaging
the ad-libbing human who gives
them voice.
"I've
been using the dolls for years,
and I have a whole cast of
recurring characters," he
explains. There is a square-headed
teddy bear, a banana, a pair
with lipstick and white socks,
and a knit rag-doll of a rat
in a yellow dress and hat.
"She's a bit of a Cockney.
She always has a lot to say,"
Routh chuckles.
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