Joseph Fletcher is a director, stage manager, and designer. He is the Lab Director and a founding member of the Artist’s Laboratory Theatre, an experimental theatre company, currently in the middle of a three-year “Place Project.” Past directing credits include China the Whole Enchilada (NYC Fringe), Alley 38, Bombs Babes and Bingo (ALT), War of the Worlds, The Pillowman, Candide, and The Sunshine Boys (Regional). Most recently he was the Production assistant on Sam Shepard’s Heartless at The Signature Theatre. Past Companies: Walnut Street Theatre, Cirque Du Soleil, Prospect Theatre Company, Target Margin Theater, Theatre Squared, Phantom Limb, Hippodrome State Theater, Orlando Shakes/Opera/Rep, and Utah Shakes. BFA Theatre from UCF. He will be directing the UCF Alumni Showcase and a reading of The Power by Tong Li later this fall.
TMT: Talk about your exposure to theater as a kid growing up in Florida. Was there a moment positive or negative that really sticks out? And yes Disney World counts.
JF: There wasn’t much I’ll tell you that. I dabbled in stop motion animation and small film editing stuff in elementary school and middle school, but didn’t really get involved in theatre until high school. Then that was more of social thing to start than anything else. It wasn’t until my junior or senior that I considered making a career of it. What I was exposed to was storytelling. I grew up for a number of years with my grandparents and my grandfather was an old newspaper man, mostly editorials on politics or social issues in North Florida and Southern Georgia. He was a storyteller, both professionally and personally. Crazy life, growing up in a small sawmill swamp town to island clean up in the pacific in WW2, to being a park ranger, to journalism. He picked up and moved his family twice just because something might be more interesting somewhere else. It wasn’t until after his death that I went back and read his stories and realized that part of him was reflected there too. So, long story short, I’m very much like him (the rest of my family are engineers 6 total) and we spent hours talking or staying up way past my bedtime watching old tv shows and movies from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s stuff mostly. All I know about comedy and where I get my sense of humor comes from Loony Tunes, Get Smart, the Muppets, and I Love Lucy. What I know about telling a good story and getting to the heart of the matter I got from him.
TMT: You’re the lead artist of Purim-schmutz. Give us a little context, for those of us who may not know what Purim is, why is it important and what drew you to this distinctive Yiddish narrative?
JF: Ok, here the test starts for the gentile. Purim is a Jewish holiday in celebration of the Story of Esther and the salvation of the Jews from the “evil” Haman. Traditionally it’s a time of giving gifts, feeding the poor, and yes drinking heavily. I like to compare it to other cultural traditions like Mardi Gras, Carnaval, or the Bacchanalia. It’s a celebration for how good it is to be alive and appreciate all that we have. It serves as a release valve for a community in some ways. The beauty of this story is it took place after the time of prophecy. God’s name is never mentioned once in any of the Megillah, but his presence is felt through a series of coincidences. God is always there with you even when his presence is not felt directly. In a secular prospective, I also appreciate it being a story about individualism in the face of something terrible. I try and portray both in the piece. And what drew me to it? Well it was the only form of sanctioned theater in the Yiddish/Hebrew community for over a thousand years. Literally there were maybe ten stories performed over a two week period each year for a millennium. What evolved and changed was how that story was told, taking on what ever convention or form was popular at the time. From this contained tradition came the explosions of the Yiddish golden age, vaudeville, and Seinfeld.
TMT: Great. We know what Purim is. Now… explain the schmutz.
JF: Shmutz, if my Yiddish serves me, literally means garbage. Used in a phrase, “you got some schmutz in you eye”. I’m not saying the show is trash, but think of it as if you tossed a dozen very different Purim plays in a trash can, mixed it up, and then pulled out enough pages to tell the Story of Esther. It will hold the spirit of Purim, but won’t be your Bubbe’s Purim play from temple. Expect classical verse, to vaudeville, to fart jokes. Oh, and did I mention we try and get the audience drunk and encourage heckling (for Haman and occasionally Mordecai)?
TMT: Satire has always been a part of social, political, and religious criticism. And a great tool of all artists. And Purim certainly is no stranger to satire but when compared to the pithy, ironic, and often facetious modes satire can take today does it have the same affect? Does it lose its relevance and power in a culture where coy insincerity is our default commentary?
JF: This was actually a big topic of conversation in rehearsal. I do think there is a lot of social insecurity disguised as insincerity and sarcasm in how people deal with each other now a days, and furthered by popular culture. It’s a way of distancing themselves and avoiding dealing with things emotionally. That’s just not interesting to me in life and particularly on the stage. But satire’s power I don’t think gets lost in that, but becomes as provocative as it ever was if it’s coming from a genuine place. I don’t want to see someone commenting on what they are doing, I want to see someone living in what they do, so I can share in that. It dumbs it down when you tell me what to think about a thing. It reminds me though of people being at a space shuttle launch or a concert and they just watch the event through their cellphone while taking pictures rather than simply enjoying it. Think back about your life, what are your fondest memories? Its not those times you were thinking about the past or planning for the future, it’s those few times we live in the present and experience things that stick with us. It’s the curse of growing up too slow in the information age that we feel like we have to constantly document our own reality to prove our existence in it. It might be cause I’m old fashioned, but give me Jimmy Stewart every time, we see it as hokey now, but I think it takes a lot of strength and self realization to dare to be genuine and those are the interesting people in life and on stage.
TMT: You’re a founding member of the Artist’s Laboratory Theatre whose mission is dedicated to storytelling through the process of experimentation. There you’ve also been working on the Place Project, a series of site-specific pieces, with us at Target Margin Theater, and even the Signature Theatre. It seems you have a broad sense of the word theatre and what its possibilities can be. Give us just one definition.
JF: You’re asking me what is theatre? Ha, a whole lot of much smarter and informed people have written encyclopedias on that. Ok, here is my stab at the ages: Theatre is anytime a person or group tries to communicate an abstract idea or story with another person or group. Convention, location, style, or tradition are a happenstance of birth and belief.
TMT: Lastly… are you familiar with the fictional character of “Fletch” played by Chevy Chase? Is he a schmuck?
JF: Chevy Chase and Fletch are fantastic. And no Chevy Chase is not a schmuck, but he often plays one. Fletch is more of a yutz.
Purim-schmutz runs at The Brick Oct 26 – 27th at 9:30pm.
Tickets available HERE