Today I finished the first draft of a new one-act play. It’s called The Rothko and it’s about a man who kicks a hole in a $30 million painting and can’t explain why he did it. This upsets people; and I have to be ready to deal with reactions from people because I am not giving them any solid explanation as to why he does it. There’s no traumatic painting-related experience in his childhood, he never met Rothko; there’s nothing simple or logical to it. He looked at it, he was suddenly compellted to do it, and he did it.
Further; I can’t explain why it is that, as soon as this painting-kicking idea struck, I decided that it should be a Rothko that the man kicks.
Ask yourself – honestly, now – could you see kicking this?
It’s actually a greater challenge to me to not wrap it up easily – it takes a lot of care to create interest and entertainment while teetering on the edge of ambiguity; and yet that’s what I feel duty-bound to do, because to me, the communication between art and its viewer is incredibly-unpredictable, personal, and powerful, and I couldn’t reduce that.
Does that mean I want to kick a painting? I’ve never felt that urge – although I confess I’ve felt myself wrestling with other strange, destructive urges in my life. The psychological definition of vertigo is the fear of falling set in tense conflict with an inexplicable desire to jump. But why would any person jump? Well – who hasn’t wanted to just say Fuck you, gravity, I’m doing this on my terms! I think we have a million varieties of vertigo, and the way that sensation manifests itself creates some unforgettable behavior; as well as some incredible art.
My favorite thing on the Internet today is this clip from a little-seen but-reportedly-awful early-80’s Australian musical superhero spoof about an alcoholic Superman-knockoff called The Return of Captain Invincible. Alan Arkin plays Cpt. Invincible, lured away from the bottle and out of retirement, and Sir Christopher Lee plays his sadistic nemesis, Mr. Midnight, who wants to use his Hypnoray to kill all non-white people.
The songs are by Richard O’Brien – the creator of The Rocky Horror Show and its film adaptation. And in this song, Christopher Lee reduces Cpt. Invincible to a fetal position with a pun-heavy rockgasm about how much he enjoys cocktails. It’s somehow weirder than I’ve described it:
Christopher Lee – Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Bond Villain, Tolkein Wizard, Sith Lord, Metal Band Frontman, real-life Nazi-hunting Special Forces Badass…also does showtunes
I’ve read stories about Richard O’Brien showing up at Rocky Horror tributes to sing (he performed the title theme and the role of butler Riff Raff in the film) and being too drunk to remember the lyrics. And when I look at something like this, I believe that something this wretchedly grandiose and wonderfully unhinged had to come from a somehow genuine place; from someone who has had to deal with the love and loathing and pleasure and destruction of alcohol in his life in a deeply personal way, and is responding to it not with denial or self-pity but nutso pizzazz.
I think it’s in the nature of creative people to try and capture the contradictory, the inexplicable, and often gloriously-unjustifiable behavior they see in others and acknowledge in themselves. Because none of our truly-interesting struggles are one-sided or cleanly-resolved. We have the most ingenious ways of fighting back against life and asserting ourselves and I really celebrate that; I find stories where everyone behaves exactly as the majority wants them to behave to be insufferable, because that majority can be used to enforce denial of what members of the majority deny with in themselves – all their delicious, weird uniqueness.
I guess that’s the closest I can come to explaining The Rothko. Maybe, if anyone asks, I’ll just point them here and hope for the best.