Paper: Interview With John Kelly
Posted December 13, 2010 at 10:00 am
Stage Notes: Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte
by Tom Murrin, Paper
Performer and visual artist John Kelly’s marvelous career has spanned 30 years, and he just received a NEA 2010 American Masterpiece grant. To many, Kelly is known for his uncanny assumption of the singing star Joni Mitchell — even Joni likes it. But he is a playwright, performer, choreographer, director and painter as well. Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte is a five-person ensemble piece about the Viennese expressionist painter, Egon Schiele (1890-1918), and earned Kelly an Obie when first done at Dance Theater Workshop in 1986. It was revived in 1995 at La Mama. The show features dancing, on-stage drawing, film (by Anthony Chase), live and recorded music, and is a true dance theater masterpiece. I spoke with Kelly, who plays Schiele.
Hi John. I remember seeing the original at DTW, and how moving and beautiful it was.
I’m using the original production as the starting point. I’m adding a dance I made in 2004. More than anything it’s about me jumping back into this role, and its relation to where I am now, physically, emotionally and professionally. Physically, I’m older; emotionally, I’m still very much moved by Schiele’s work and his life; and professionally, it’s important for me to keep my works alive for new generations, who don’t have a clue that I do anything but Joni Mitchell.
OK, I can understand that. Tell me about Egon Schiele.
He was a Viennese painter, an expressionist. He had a very short, turbulent life. He died in 1918 at the age of 28. He was imprisoned for pornography, and he was a creative genius. His life story reads like a tantalizing screenplay.
What will we see?
It’s a dance theater piece for five. There’s only one song. Since it’s a piece about a visual artist, I devised various ways of showing the process of painting and drawing on stage. Like literally drawing on the floor with lecturer’s chalk, painting on glass and revealing paintings that are hidden by a removable surface. Beyond all that, it’s about the body replication of certain poses in the paintings, because his work contains a very specific, angular and gestural vocabulary of poses.
What did Schiele paint mostly?
Mostly naked women and some naked self-portraits. They actually burned one of his drawings in the courtroom when he was on trail. He was like the incendiary James Dean of Austria.
What about the dance parts?
There are sections from the ballet, “Giselle,” that I include in the piece; because, as one of my inspirations, back in 1986, it was a way to merge my training as a dancer with my training as a visual artist.
I understand that you are also having a show of your visual work, running concurrent with the theater piece, at La Mama La Galleria. What’s in that?
It’s a show of photographic self-portraits of me as Egon Schiele, and also as certain of his paintings and
drawings. I did all of them this past summer in Italy.
Tell me about the other performers’ roles.
There are two other men in the show play the alter-Egons, who are basically different aspects of himself. We all look alike and sometimes do the same things. One of the two women plays his model/mistress, and the other plays his wife.
Anything else you want to add?
Since he was obsessed with sex, there is some sexual innuendo and nudity. I’m in training every day, 40 minutes of aerobics to get my stamina back up. I’m also at the ballet barre. So you are going to see this middle-aged performance artist jump around on-stage as a 25-year old. I may even show my ass.