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Maybe there ought to be a different language in which to talk
about Jack Smith. lord knows he talks to us in his own
language, his own imaginative language in which trash is
tender and "exotic" means "sacred."
The problem with my language is that it allows me to be
schizophrenic.
One side is academic, theoretical, abstract, remote. This side
speaks in sort of ponderous quotations. "Although
classicism decrees that it's the other way around, the theater
of Jack Smith -- which has passed down, directly or
indirectly, to Charles Ludlam, John Vaccaro, Robert Wilson,
Jeff Weiss, Spalding Gray, Lee Breuer and the like -- implies
that life is order while art is chaos."
The other side is whiny, skeptical, impatient, realistic. It
says what it sees: Jack Smith's performance Exotic
Landlordism of the World, at the Times Square Show, is
just nothing. His "flaming creatures" are burnt-out,
sad, morose, unexciting, inept, pitiful.
People flocked to see this performance, paid $4 apiece at the
door, and now they're sitting cramped and uncomfortable in
this tiny storefront theater, craning their necks to see what
is or isn't happening "onstage." Nothing happens in
the playing area for a long time except that someone sets up
some electric wiring and the loudspeaker emits
"exotic" hoochie-coochie music and tapes of street
noise. A figure wrapped in veils like an Arab or a bag lady
appears. When the figure removes a veil to drink from a paper
cup, you can see his beard. It's Jack Smith.
He digs through a pile of cloth and other junk. He has rings
on every finger. he takes out a faded pink brassiere and
spends the next 10 minutes or so putting it on over his ragged
veils. The soundtrack is wonderful, weird '50s fantasy music
("Green Fire," sung by June Valli maybe, a chorus
singing "The Wonderful World of Aloha," Patti Page
singing "You Belong to Me"). A woman in a harem
outfit appears, kneels on the long table that more or less
comprises Jack Smith's set, and salaams, saying, "I bow
to the image of Maria Montez." She does an awkward
pseudo-bellydance waving a $20 bill.
Jack Smith lights a bunch of incense and his veil catches on
fire. The belly dancer helps put it out. A guy wearing ripped
pantyhose, binocular-shaped false boobs and leather boots
falls down the steps to join them. Nothing really happens,
just a lot of bumbling. Jack Smith smokes a pipe of dope or
something, holds up an empty beer can, shakes it, strokes it
(hoping for a genie?), picks up an overloaded extension cord
and pronounces it "the Octopus of Atlantis." He asks
"Sinbad" (the Brassiere Boy) to read a story --
"Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves" -- aloud from a
children's picture book. The guy does so in a flat, fast
monotone.
Every so often, Jack Smith says, "Show them the
pictures," and the guy flashes a picture to the audience,
someone claps facetiously, the guy bows and says, "Thank
you, thank you." During the story, frighteningly loud
explosions happen outside on 41st Street (cherry bombs). After
the story, literally nothing happens for a while except that
the soundtrack plays -- a woman screaming as if being
tortured, a man grunting. Behind us, some men at the door ask
the ticket taker, "Is that a sex show? I want to
see!" The soundtrack switches to meowing. My companion
gets fed up and leaves; people have been leaving the
performance steadily since it began. Some German radio drama
comes over the loudspeaker. The Brassiere Boy and the harem
girl act out a scene, dancing clumsy pas de deux on the table.
"You will marry only Hitler, the most magnificent of
men," he says. "Well, at least he's a
vegetarian," she cracks.
All the while, Jack Smith wanders silently in the background,
fiddling with lights and curtains and junk strewn around the
stage. For a little while, the Brassiere Boy reads from
handwritten pages of script Jack Smith hands him. Then, while
the guy is gibbering on and on into the microphone, Jack Smith
produces a clear plastic disc attached to a paper stick (it
looks like a plastic lollipop) and announces, with much
hesitation and stammering, "It's a new health
food...because you merely open the package and drop it
directly into the toilet bowl." Some muttering about
"Sugar Hollywood...brain-picking... lobster
vampire..." More fumbling around. Jack Smith gives the
Brassiere Boy "the humility award of Baghdad...from Klap
Magazine, K-L-A-P, the magazine of life and art." The guy
wraps himself in a black curtain. "Steve is overcome by
exoticism," says Jack Smith. Then he says, "The blue
spotlight has overstimulated me" and slowly makes his way
over to the blue spotlight and toys with it. Then he looks up
and says, "We're gonna have an intermission now
anyway." Nothing changes. Some people leave, including
me.
I mean, what is this shit?
This is not what I expected from Jack Smith. Jack Smith the
legend. Jack Flaming Creatures Smith. I expected to
"like" Jack Smith. He talks a good game, or at least
his fans and critics (Jonas Mekas, J. Hoberman, Susan Sontag)
do. His bio is fascinating: did you know he was born in
Columbus, Ohio, in 1932, studied dance with Ruth St. Denis and
directing with lee Strasberg, acted in Ludlam's Big Hotel
and Wilson's The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud? I
love reading the titles of his works: Rehearsal for the
Destruction of Atlantis, Spiritual Oasis of Lucky Landlord
Paradise, Fear Ritual of Shark Museum, Horror of the Rented
World, I Was a Mekas Collaborator, How Can Uncle Fishhook Have
a Free Bicentennial Zombie Underground, etc. I expected
charismatic performance, virtuosity, fantastic and distilled
dementia along the lines of Ludlam's unforgettable sci-fi
puppet show, Anti-Galaxy Nebulae, the Performance
Group's terrifying chaotic Nayatt School and Point
Judith, Jeff Weiss's messy and mind-boggling bravura
revues.
No such thing. Just a dreary, bitter melancholic with no zest,
no fun, a fantastic record collection, and a twisted mind,
perched on the edge of the abyss and sifting through fragments
of an ancient fantasy he can no longer communicate.
Soho News, May 1980
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