Post 3: Allow me a digression

   I have for years had a "Steampunk Project" file, with the idea of creating an animated short in the spirit of "The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello", "Monsieur Cok", or "L'Inventaire Fantôme".
    The jointed mannequins of the "Dummies with Souls" series have a bit of a Steampunk character, though they came from a totally different source of inspiration. The "Spirit of Tomas" biplane, the "on hold soon to be revived" Cyclecar Project, the aborted "Clock Project", and my "Bobber Project" with motorcycles could be considered borderline Steampunk.  My education as a Mechanical Engineer may be responsible... 
     I should point out that when I use the word Steampunk, I don't mean so much the decorative "fashion, goggle, watch and jewelry" stuff, nor the literary movement that started it, but the serious worldwide Steampunk Art Movement as exhibited in the landmark show at the Museum of Science at he University of Oxford.  One of the major exponents of the movement in this country is Eric Freitas and his amazing clocks. 
    I have accumulated over the last 40 years a huge "treasure trove" of weird stuff,  found, bought, collected and home made, and my house has basically become a de facto "cabinet of curiosities":

    I also have a huge collection of digital images of just about everything and anything, and many photographic compositions that could be used for projection:

 http://www.jjgaudel.com/FLASHSITE/photography/FEETANDSTUFFpre.swf

http://www.jjgaudel.com/FLASHSITE/photography/MAGICBOOKS1pre.swf

    Instead of starting as a traditional play with a written script and a list of props and costumes to find, why not start with the stuff, put it on the stage, and see what we can come up with simply improvising and reacting to it? 
  

Post 2: Why the name

   Honestly, I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. I needed a name to start blogging,  that's what came to me, and I liked it. In my experience , the first idea that comes to mind is often the best, and I have spent hours brainstorming for more only to end up coming back to my first thought. I believe in automatic thinking, and that years of experience allow one to instinctively hit the right thing almost unconsciously. 
   Absurdist here can of course be understood on a primary level(the stuff seems really whacky), but also has the deeper meaning of Absurdism as a philosophy of life derived from Existentialism by Albert Camus.

Post 1: What prompted this new blog

   In my current plethora of blogs, is there actually room for one more? And why not?
   I am supposed to be working on the barely beginning Frida Kahlo Project, and here I am already taking a tangent because, as it has been the case in the past, research on a current project has revealed new information I wasn't aware of that got me SO excited I just had to do something with it right now, no matter what.
  Actually, the Frida Project can very well fit within that new concept, and might well be given a direction it was lacking so far.
  The Artist responsible for this new blog and all this excitement was named Tadeusz Kantor. He has been dead for 24 years, and I must admit I never heard of him until I ran across his "Dead Class" on YouTube... That was a revelation. 
   Further investigation brought up more YouTube Kantor gems: I shall Never Return,  Wielopole, Today is my Birthday, Let the Artists Die.
   I am of course not interested in producing an actual Kantor play, nor am I interested in doing anything very close. But his work inspires me tremendously, for several reasons I am going to try to outline below.
    First, I feel a kinship of sort, finding in his sets all my familiar fetish objects and symbols: mannequins, crosses, boxes, rope, old suitcases, strange hats, skeletons, nooses, crutches, canes, wheelchairs, carts, prosthesis, musical instruments, piles of old books, strange geared machines and contraptions on wheels, old beat up objects(things with a past life as I see them), vintage costumes, religious vestments, "torture" devices, cages, empty frames, etc...

   Second, it appeals to me visually, because of the graphicness, a certain stylized monochromatic "retro" look, the stark contrast of black and white turn of the century costumes(the bride, the nurse, the nightgowns), and a sparseness in the sets that I find very seductive. The scenes are moving "tableaux" composed just like paintings.

   In some ways, they remind me of the controversial macabre work of photographer Joel-Peter Witkin:

   Third, I am impressed by his mastery of movement, especially exaggerated movement, combined with an economy of text, and the mix of mime, vaudeville, almost circus, into his theatre. It is as if the words do not really matter, and just the sound of them in Polish accompanying the visuals is enough to make sense...

   Fourth, I love his black humor, the often(some would say) "morbid" side, the fearless iconoclasm,  the sense of derision and absurdity, the mix of the poignant, the intensely dramatic and the burlesque, with a certain amount of "wackiness". As a lover of puppetry, I particularly appreciate his combination of live actors and "dead actors"(mannequins and skeletons):

    I perceive a huge personality, an overwhelming originality, an immense talent, and a total lack of concern for what the "bourgeois" public may think.

     Fifth there is all the improvisational and "happening" side in his work, that corresponds so well to what Mary and I have been trying to do lately. He too extended the stage forward into the audience. 
   I would like to introduce controlled audience participation, and let things happen to a certain extent, take advantage of the unexpected happy accident and go with it.  
   The addition of projected sets and projected images above the stage, both canned and from live cameras, could bring another dimension, and add to the period look. I would like to use new motion control technologies(Kinect, Leap Motion, etc...) to let the actors create and move images, trigger sound and lights, play music. I can envision an on stage "conductor", as he often cast himself, but one that would actually have the power to conduct things, trigger sounds or lights, make images move, svn transform them live thanks to motion control technology :