Stage Notes: Anger/Nation

Radiohole is back, and The Kitchen has them. Yes, there are other anarchistic, madcap theater groups, and I love them all, but Radiohole always seems to go further to do something on stage that you won’t see anywhere else. Like in Fluke, where they effectively did most of the show sightless, with eyeballs painted on their closed eyelids. Or the endless chicken-eating and beer-guzzling scene in another. In any event, their shows are not to be missed. They are futuristically theatrical and grounded in hard work, grit and the pure fun of performance. This one, Anger/Nation is about the erotic cult filmmaker, Kenneth Anger (Scorpio Rising), and the hatchet-wielding, barroom-busting, temperance prohibitionist, Carrie Nation. I spoke with Eric Dyer and Maggie Hoffman on speakerphone. Scott Halvorsen Gillette rounds out Radiohole, and Iver Findlay is the special guest performer.

I love the title. I thought it referred to the emotional state of the U.S.

Eric Dyer: The essence of the show is this very bizarre and sensory world that’s coming out of this Kenneth Anger film, The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1959), about a hedonistic side to us; that is, people in general, and you can apply that any way you want.

How does the movie figure in the show?
ED: Anger created the world of “The Pleasure Dome” in his movie, and we have taken things from that.

How does Carrie Nation fit into the show?
Maggie Hoffman: She comes in and tries to convert everybody, to stop the good times.

So, Maggie, you play Carrie, right?
MH: It’s all men and me, I’m the only female on stage. [Carrie Nation] was a feminist of the time, in a big way. Eric and Scott and Iver are the hedonists, and I come in to stop the party. In the end, it doesn’t work, and I come over to their side.

Carrie Nation didn’t succeed either, did she?
MG: She failed. Men were getting drunk and beating up on their wives. She tried to stop it. She had a powerful idea, but she wasn’t taken seriously. We’re trying to do it in the way Carrie Nation really was. They throw tomatoes at me and I keep going. I have this message and I keep talking. But then I get taken over to the dark side and we have this orgy at the ending. We’re all taken over by the hedonism.

Is that the specific theme?
ED: Thematically, the show has a lot of levels. There is a Dionysian, or wild, erotic, side, and there’s an Apollonian, or restrained, harmony side. The voluptuous, sensuous side vs. the rational, clear-headed side. But I feel that there are levels that we (the creators of the show) have no idea about. When you come to the play, Tom, you can tell us afterwards.

What are we going to see?
MH: An amazing video that were using.

ED: I’ve seen $10,000 plasma screens and giant projectors in shows, but I thought, what if you had shitty videos, tiny little images, like the kind that have worked their way into our view in phones, ipods, elevators, taxi cabs, supermarkets, etc. I feel we’re being invaded by these tiny videos. So we’ve got tiny video monitors, and they’re hung on this tree, on the branches and they extend out into the audience. There’s a continuous starscape of images going on. And the video tree is very tall.

(Note: Video Design is by Iver Findlay, So Yong Kim and Radiohole)

The Kitchen, 512 W. 19th St., (212) 255-5793, x11. Sept. 11-27. 8 p.m. $15.