Latest / The Delicious Culture with Jon Francois / Rhinoceros Was Delicious w/ Ian Walls

Transcript

Rhinoceros Was Delicious w/ Ian Walls · The Delicious Culture with Jon Francois

• 0:00
  Hey, delishies, grab a plate and feast on the
• 0:02
  delicious culture. I'm your host, John Francois.
• 0:04
  We are feasting on food, pop culture and lifestyle
• 0:06
  with actor and content creator. I feel like I
• 0:09
  should add like video game enthusiast on the
• 0:11
  list too, right? That feels accurate. Video game
• 0:15
  enthusiast, a minor league crocheter. Throw whatever
• 0:20
  you want on there. A man of many talents, Ian
• 0:24
  Walls, who I had the pleasure of recently performing
• 0:26
  with in a Vermont stage production of Rhinoceros.
• 0:32
  I was gonna ask. I mean, that sigh, that awe,
• 0:37
  that tells you all you need to know about the
• 0:39
  experience that we both went through, which was...
• 0:42
  Uh, which was, was, it was, it was fun. It was
• 0:44
  fulfilling. It was, it was, uh, exhausting. It
• 0:48
  was sometimes brutal. Like it was just all things
• 0:51
  wrapped up into one. Absolutely. They were like,
• 0:53
  I'm so happy with the final product that we got
• 0:56
  out there. And like the group of people we got
• 0:58
  to work with yourself, all the other actors,
• 1:01
  designers, cast crew, incredible people. I think
• 1:04
  we put together just this phenomenal piece of
• 1:06
  work. It was definitely, um, rough getting there.
• 1:10
  Uh, You know, as often is. Oh, yeah, yeah. That
• 1:16
  is that is an understatement. And, you know,
• 1:18
  the funny thing is, is that, like, I don't know,
• 1:20
  like, how long have you been doing theater? Oh,
• 1:22
  I've been doing theater. since I don't remember
• 1:27
  how old I was, but I was in daycare. So that's
• 1:31
  what I recall. We did my little after school
• 1:34
  daycare program when I was in kindergarten. I
• 1:37
  think we had a sort of theater club there because
• 1:40
  my school didn't have one. And I got on as soon
• 1:44
  as I could. I remember my first line on stage
• 1:47
  ever was little five, six year old me. I was
• 1:52
  the fairy godfather. And I said, I ain't putting
• 1:55
  on no wings, and that's final. And from then
• 1:59
  on, I was just the godfather. The fairy godfather,
• 2:02
  what was the name of the play? That was, I believe
• 2:05
  that was Twinderella. Oh. OK, yeah, because when
• 2:08
  you said fairy godfather instead of godmother,
• 2:11
  I was thinking like, oh, is this like some kind
• 2:12
  of Cinderella alternative? It absolutely was.
• 2:17
  Twinderella, so this is twins who... both become
• 2:21
  Cinderella or they're fighting to become the
• 2:23
  ultimate Cinderella. What's the show about? I
• 2:25
  remember exactly two things from that show. One.
• 2:31
  Had to pretend to be the godfather and little
• 2:34
  little six -year -old me had never seen the godfather
• 2:37
  movies Yeah, so I just talked like this the whole
• 2:40
  time and that I think that that's that's what
• 2:43
  I thought the godfather was And the other thing
• 2:47
  I remember was there was in fact a fairy godmother
• 2:51
  for the other twin Okay, she actually got stuff
• 2:56
  done. Gotcha. So Okay, so one Cinderella twin
• 2:59
  had a fairy godmother and they were the more
• 3:02
  active productive team They got they made sure
• 3:05
  they were getting to the journey of the glass
• 3:08
  slipper or whatever the hell it is Exactly, and
• 3:10
  then the other ones were just kind of slacking
• 3:11
  and eating potato chips and whatever I'm over
• 3:13
  here just sounding a little bit like a six -year
• 3:16
  -old Gilbert Gottfried I was getting Gilbert
• 3:20
  Gottfried. I was also getting like 1930s black
• 3:22
  and white movie gangster there. Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 3:26
  Maybe I had something to go with the Godfather
• 3:28
  there. It sounds nothing like Marlon Brando's
• 3:32
  Godfather. It sounds absolutely nothing like
• 3:34
  Marlon Brando. Yeah. Cause he like basically
• 3:37
  stuffed cotton balls in his mouth. I don't know
• 3:39
  if I could do a good impression. I've seen it
• 3:40
  a couple of times, but it's like you hold your
• 3:44
  jaw and it's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also did
• 3:52
  a terrible one right there. Yeah. Trusting a
• 3:56
  Godfather reference to five or six year olds
• 3:59
  for a play is just wild. Wild choice. Wild choice.
• 4:04
  That is a prime example of how adults, when they're
• 4:08
  directing high school or kindergarten or whatever
• 4:10
  plays, they will only know what they know, which
• 4:14
  is their reference point. And they think, oh
• 4:16
  my God, this is hilarious. This is great. This
• 4:18
  is going to get us through the patience involved
• 4:22
  in teaching kids. how to perform and making sure
• 4:24
  they behave, but what they don't forget is kids
• 4:27
  are just performing this and probably in the
• 4:28
  back of their mind they're just like, what? What's
• 4:31
  happening? What am I saying? Oh my God. I feel
• 4:34
  like it's sort of like those jokes that they
• 4:36
  sneak into like a Disney movie where it's like,
• 4:39
  oh, this is for the parents. You guys have brought
• 4:43
  your kids here. You're sitting through this movie.
• 4:46
  Let's just give you a wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
• 4:48
  Yeah, yeah. And you know what? In a way, that
• 4:50
  could be the best kind of content. Like a SpongeBob,
• 4:53
  for instance. What I loved about SpongeBob SquarePants
• 4:55
  growing up was that there was something that
• 4:58
  the kids could enjoy, and then there was stuff
• 5:00
  that the teenagers and adults could enjoy. Um,
• 5:04
  I, I, you know, if you can find that perfect
• 5:07
  family friendly kit product where everybody can
• 5:09
  enjoy it and nobody gets lost in the mix, it's
• 5:11
  kind of a tricky thing, but, but it, it, if it,
• 5:14
  if it's able to be produced, it can work. Absolutely.
• 5:17
  I look at Spongebob. I'm like, when I was a little
• 5:21
  kid watching Spongebob, did I know who Nosferatu
• 5:24
  was? I don't even remember that reference. What
• 5:27
  episode was that? It was the, um, it was the
• 5:30
  hash slinging slasher. Uh, where, where there's
• 5:34
  the, where Squidward starts telling these like
• 5:36
  haunting ghost stories to spook SpongeBob about
• 5:39
  this like slasher murderer going around with
• 5:42
  a spatula. Uh, and then it starts to get all
• 5:46
  too real and Squidward starts getting scared
• 5:48
  by it too. And then eventually they figure out,
• 5:51
  oh, it's all, it's all just been like either
• 5:53
  pranks or random happenstance. And they start
• 5:57
  explaining away everything that's happened through
• 5:58
  the episode, except for the flickering lights.
• 6:01
  the Krusty Krab, and they're like, wait a minute,
• 6:04
  but who was flicking on and off the lights? And
• 6:07
  then it flips over to a picture of old timey
• 6:10
  Nosferatu from the old black and white movie,
• 6:13
  just flicking on the light switch and off. And
• 6:15
  Spongebob is like, Nosferatu. God, isn't it so
• 6:22
  great to watch that years later and be like,
• 6:23
  oh my God, I get what they were doing. Oh, that's
• 6:27
  so great. Spongebob Rewatches is really something
• 6:31
  that I've been thinking about, but I don't know
• 6:33
  if it's on a streaming service somewhere where
• 6:35
  you can get like 25, 26 years worth of episodes.
• 6:39
  Right. That's the tough thing too, with like
• 6:42
  some streaming stuff, it's hard to figure out
• 6:44
  if it'll be a continuous sort of series of all
• 6:47
  the episodes, especially if it's been running
• 6:50
  longer and longer. Like there's no one single
• 6:53
  streaming service you can get to watch all of,
• 6:56
  say, Pokemon, you know? You gotta go to like
• 6:58
  35 different, you gotta go to your like Paramount
• 7:00
  Plus and your Hulu, you gotta get your separate
• 7:03
  Toonami account, you gotta get your Crunchyroll.
• 7:06
  Oh my god, it's so, so, so, so - But to backtrack,
• 7:12
  I know we were getting into an interesting conversation
• 7:14
  there. I think the original question was, when
• 7:16
  did you start doing theater? Oh, yeah. So like
• 7:19
  roughly five or six years old, and you're how
• 7:21
  old now? I am currently 29 years old. OK, all
• 7:25
  right. So like 25 years or so. I started doing
• 7:28
  theater in high school. I'm 34 now, so that's
• 7:32
  like 20 years. OK, all right. And what I've learned
• 7:35
  through on and off of doing theater for 20 years
• 7:38
  is that dysfunction, that's going to happen.
• 7:42
  Like people are not going to have their shit
• 7:44
  together during rehearsals in some shape or form,
• 7:46
  whether it be like someone's blanking out. on
• 7:48
  lines or set pieces are not done on time. The
• 7:53
  last dress rehearsal before opening night is
• 7:56
  just no indication that we are ready. I've accepted
• 8:00
  that and then magically everything comes together
• 8:04
  by opening night. And Rhinoceros, because this
• 8:11
  was my... first professional theater experience
• 8:15
  where it was within such a limited amount of
• 8:18
  time, I think usually I do like two or three
• 8:23
  months of rehearsal and then like... a shortened
• 8:26
  five, six final performance period in front of
• 8:29
  the audience. With Rhinoceros, it was just three
• 8:31
  weeks of rehearsal. And then we performed the
• 8:34
  show in front of an audience for three weeks.
• 8:37
  And it's funny that this show was selected to
• 8:41
  be trusted with such a short rehearsal process.
• 8:43
  Yeah. Because as you know, I mean, for the audience,
• 8:46
  we'll just give some background information if
• 8:48
  you don't know. It's an absurdist play by Eugene.
• 8:52
  It's Ionesco. It's pronounced Ionesco, right?
• 8:54
  Yeah, that's how I've been pronouncing it. Okay,
• 8:56
  okay. So it's about, like, the inhabitants of
• 8:58
  a small town. They gradually transform into rhinoceroses,
• 9:02
  with the exception of our lead character, Beringey,
• 9:05
  played by the wonderful Jordan Gullickson. And
• 9:08
  he's the sole human that's resisting this conformity
• 9:11
  of everybody just transforming as rhinoceroses.
• 9:13
  And it was, I believe it came out in the late
• 9:15
  50s. It was a response to the sort of, like,
• 9:19
  blind get -in -line allegiance conformity of,
• 9:21
  like, Nazism and fascism. going on around World
• 9:25
  War II. And our director, Christina, decided
• 9:28
  to put this on for today because it is very relevant
• 9:30
  to today because we arguably have a presidential
• 9:34
  administration that seems to love doing things
• 9:36
  that equate to fascism. So yeah, when you have
• 9:39
  a play like this and it's absurdism, it's God,
• 9:44
  the dialogue is so dense and very fast moving.
• 9:49
  And we were incorporating all sorts of choreography
• 9:51
  from rhino transformations to... rhino dance
• 9:54
  that represented a nightmare that barren gay
• 9:56
  was having of turning into a rhinoceros and being
• 9:58
  surrounded by them like to try to get all that
• 10:01
  down in a period of just three weeks was Something
• 10:06
  how would you describe it? It was it's it is
• 10:11
  I will I will say what I've said to several people
• 10:13
  It's easily the most lines I've ever had to memorize.
• 10:17
  Yeah, it's it's dense It's there's I mean every
• 10:22
  every scene. I don't want to say wordy But it's
• 10:27
  definitely you know Ionesco was crafting this
• 10:34
  very precise and specific takedown of the rise
• 10:39
  of fascism that he had seen around him in Europe
• 10:43
  and in France just a few years ago, the Nazis
• 10:47
  had been occupying Paris, you know? And so a
• 10:51
  lot of the wordiness, I feel like, in the script
• 10:54
  has come down to like the hyper -specific...
• 10:58
  stuff that an audience in the 50s in France would
• 11:02
  have gone crazy for. And that we hear now today
• 11:06
  are like... Those are also words. Right. Yeah,
• 11:12
  saying things like religion is the opiate of
• 11:15
  the people. Exactly. Such beautiful language,
• 11:18
  but it's also not the way we would typically
• 11:22
  speak nowadays. So therefore it can be hard to
• 11:24
  get that dialogue in your veins and your soul
• 11:27
  within a short three week process. And so much
• 11:31
  of this play was like... two or three different
• 11:35
  conversations happening at once. So most of,
• 11:39
  I don't have to tell you twice, I think the biggest
• 11:41
  example of it was in that first scene with your
• 11:44
  character, the logician and the old gentleman
• 11:46
  having a conversation. Meanwhile, Berger and
• 11:50
  his friend Jean are having a conversation and
• 11:53
  you're responding to things that the old gentleman
• 11:57
  is saying, but your queue line is something that...
• 11:59
  that a whole other conversation has said, you
• 12:02
  know? Yeah, absolutely. And again, for our audience,
• 12:05
  my character, the logician, he was basically
• 12:08
  this charming politician, intellectual authority
• 12:11
  figure. He's a satirical representation of how
• 12:15
  you could just twist logic into something that
• 12:19
  is very much other than... morally true and morally
• 12:23
  responsible. Um, and yeah, I think he should
• 12:26
  like became the symbol of like, oh, if you just
• 12:29
  follow some, some sort of like narcissistic self
• 12:33
  -important person's logic blindly without really
• 12:36
  doing your homework, that could lead to a, a,
• 12:39
  a dark place because you know, the logician,
• 12:42
  I, I guess I've I saw him as, oh, this guy just
• 12:47
  is a charming BSer. He likes to appear to know
• 12:53
  what he's talking about more so than actually
• 12:55
  knowing what he's talking about. And your character,
• 13:00
  explain your character, Dudard? Oh yeah, Dudard.
• 13:02
  So I am an office colleague of... the lead character,
• 13:06
  Berenger. And we are, all of us, essentially
• 13:10
  watching our friends and family, our colleagues
• 13:13
  turn into rhinoceroses. And while Berenger is
• 13:18
  sort of secluding himself in fear, this is the
• 13:21
  worst thing that's ever happened, what's going
• 13:23
  on? What are we going to do next? How can we
• 13:25
  stop this? My character, Doudard, is very matter
• 13:29
  of fact about, well... Yes. People are turning
• 13:33
  into rhinoceroses, but, you know, that's sort
• 13:36
  of the way things go. And that's what's happening
• 13:38
  now, so we can't really change that. We might
• 13:41
  as well, you know, move with the times. And that
• 13:45
  eventually warps from, like, I don't agree with
• 13:48
  the rhinoceroses, but they're here to stay, into,
• 13:52
  well... Maybe I start to see the rhinoceroses
• 13:56
  point morphs into well, you shouldn't criticize
• 14:00
  the Rhinoceroses because they've actually got
• 14:03
  something going for them. Yeah morphing into
• 14:06
  I think I want to be a rhinoceros, guys. Exactly.
• 14:11
  Exactly. That that's sort of a blind allegiance.
• 14:14
  And meanwhile, the logicians just saying ridiculous
• 14:17
  shit like, hey, like all cats die. Socrates is
• 14:20
  dead. Therefore, Socrates is a cat. All dogs
• 14:22
  have four paws and cats have four paws. Therefore,
• 14:24
  a dog can be a cat. Like it's just it's it's
• 14:27
  that kind of language. And speaking of that dialogue,
• 14:29
  can you just remember like one particular line
• 14:32
  that you had to say that you just could not get
• 14:35
  down in rehearsal. It was just so hard to get
• 14:38
  that in your bones because of how rich and complex
• 14:41
  it was. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, there's a Doudar
• 14:46
  monologue in the last scene where he's about
• 14:49
  to turn into a rhinoceros that was... Thankfully,
• 14:54
  cut down a significant amount, but it was still
• 14:57
  kept in the final piece. Let me see, it's a little
• 15:02
  wordy and dense. It was definitely something
• 15:04
  I had trouble pinning down. My dear Beringer,
• 15:07
  one must always make an effort to understand.
• 15:10
  We must do this because we are, after all, thinking
• 15:13
  beings. One has to make an effort to understand.
• 15:17
  One has to keep an open mind that's essential
• 15:20
  to a scientific mentality. Everything is logical.
• 15:24
  To understand is to justify. Wow. My head's spun
• 15:30
  just hearing that. That's it. You get so many
• 15:36
  pieces like that in this show that like are,
• 15:39
  that on the one hand seem like word soup, you
• 15:42
  know? But on the other hand, you are playing
• 15:46
  the reality of the character. This is a thing
• 15:50
  that makes sense to them, that has meaning to
• 15:53
  them. You have to figure out, what am I saying?
• 15:57
  Why am I saying it? And it, you know, it's absurdism,
• 16:00
  but it's not like... It's not like Dada or like
• 16:05
  the theater of cruelty where you're like, and
• 16:08
  this is this should be a painful experience for
• 16:12
  you. The audience, you should know that this
• 16:14
  is not real. It's weird. It's it's wonky. You
• 16:18
  should feel strange things. It's like it's absurdism,
• 16:22
  but it's as as one of our cast members, Laura,
• 16:26
  who is also a dramaturg, put it. It's it's some
• 16:29
  of the most. It's some of the least absurd absurdism
• 16:34
  that you'll find, right? Because it is grounded,
• 16:37
  at least, in character and their wants and needs.
• 16:42
  And so you get these dense, wordy, absurd monologues
• 16:46
  and bits of dialogue. But it's the kind of show
• 16:49
  where you still have to say, well, this, all
• 16:52
  right, this has to mean something. Yeah, and
• 16:56
  it certainly did. I mean, it meant enough for
• 16:59
  some audience members to love it and others to
• 17:05
  walk out, I think, by intermission. I was not
• 17:09
  aware of this because I'm definitely not in the
• 17:11
  show as much as you and Jordan, who plays our
• 17:13
  lead character Beringey, but it makes sense because
• 17:16
  this is a show where I can see somebody either
• 17:19
  not vibing with it because of the dense, rich...
• 17:24
  dialogue, how fast it moves and how overstimulating
• 17:27
  it could be with the sighting of the rhinoceros
• 17:29
  says, Oh, my God, there's a rhinoceros doesn't
• 17:31
  have one horn does have two horns is Asiatic
• 17:32
  or African? Like, and then you know, you might
• 17:35
  have those other people that really know the
• 17:39
  political message behind it, and how it ties
• 17:42
  to our current times, and they're just like,
• 17:44
  meh, no, no, give me, give me Music Man, give
• 17:48
  me Murder on the Orient Express, which you performed
• 17:50
  in recently. Another very fun show. Yeah. Like
• 17:57
  genuinely fun or fun in that it also just was
• 17:59
  kind of cratering during rehearsal and then just
• 18:01
  magically came together on opening night. Little
• 18:02
  column A, little column B. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 18:08
  But, um, yeah, I don't know. Just the magic of
• 18:10
  theater. It's, uh, it's, it's alive when you
• 18:12
  see it. And it's also live in the sense of like,
• 18:15
  Oh, anything could happen. A lighting thing could
• 18:18
  fall. Someone could blink out on their lines
• 18:19
  in the moment. Uh, someone could be sick and
• 18:22
  maybe we have to have a replacement or the show
• 18:23
  has to be canceled. Like anything can happen.
• 18:26
  The show must go on. Oh God. I'm still like,
• 18:31
  To shed my my deep dark secret on audience walkouts.
• 18:36
  I Love an audience walkout. Yeah, obviously like
• 18:42
  context is important, you know? I'm not necessarily
• 18:46
  saying, like, every audience who's like, oh,
• 18:48
  an audience saw Rent and they were like, oh,
• 18:51
  they've got gay people, let me leave. But I do
• 18:55
  love the idea of theater doing something real
• 19:00
  and visceral to people, eliciting a reaction,
• 19:04
  and I think a walkout is... Some of the reals
• 19:08
  it gets, you know, I've I've done shows where
• 19:11
  your audience members walk out intermission This
• 19:14
  is this has not been my first time Really? What
• 19:17
  are they? Can you tell me the other shows and
• 19:19
  why they might have walked out? Yeah The one
• 19:21
  that comes to mind for me is it was something
• 19:24
  I did in college, right? Actually my first show
• 19:26
  in college. It was Marat Saad Which is another
• 19:31
  sort of sort of absurdist surreal piece based
• 19:35
  around the French Revolution and particularly
• 19:38
  based around an insane asylum where two historical
• 19:43
  figures, the Marquis de Sade and Jean -Paul Murat,
• 19:49
  are both held. And the Marquis de Sade essentially
• 19:54
  puts on one of his characteristically... sadistic
• 19:58
  pieces of theater for the owners of the Insane
• 20:02
  Asylum. And so the audience is supposed to be
• 20:06
  like the people who've been invited to this production
• 20:10
  within the asylum. It's it's a very it's a very
• 20:17
  bloody show. I mean it's it doesn't shy away
• 20:19
  from the French Revolution Heads are rolling.
• 20:23
  It's a very sexual show. Yeah It definitely it's
• 20:28
  not like you're like the 45th time a theater
• 20:33
  has put on Tartuffe in a calendar year It made
• 20:36
  a lot of people uncomfortable and we had we had
• 20:38
  walkouts pretty much every show at intermission
• 20:41
  and One thing I also really enjoyed about that
• 20:44
  show as far as like causing discomfort in the
• 20:47
  audience was like, we didn't take a curtain call.
• 20:51
  We didn't come out to bow. Really? We crawled
• 20:54
  up into the rafters or down through the trap
• 20:57
  door at the end of the show after we had beheaded
• 21:01
  the leaders of the insane asylum or the owners
• 21:05
  of the asylum. And then we just, we leave the
• 21:09
  audience with that. Oh my God. With their bodies
• 21:12
  on stage and just wait for them to leave. It's
• 21:16
  not great art unless it provokes some kind of
• 21:20
  like strong emotion such as someone, I don't
• 21:23
  know, ferociously laughing or ferociously crying
• 21:26
  or just saying, no, this makes me angry. I don't
• 21:30
  get this. I'm going to walk out. Like if art
• 21:32
  can produce emotions like that, then it is doing
• 21:36
  its job. I don't know. I mean, I've had family
• 21:44
  and friends come see the show. And they're obviously
• 21:48
  kind to come, you know, see me and support me
• 21:51
  and say like, oh, you did a good job and stuff
• 21:53
  like that. But I could tell like within all that
• 21:56
  I could tell when someone's coming to see you
• 21:59
  and they're there for the support and they probably
• 22:03
  didn't quite get the show that was going on.
• 22:07
  And that's okay. That is absolutely okay. And
• 22:09
  speaking of not getting what was going on, I
• 22:11
  had cousins come to the show. This might've been
• 22:14
  our final Saturday. matinee and they were like,
• 22:18
  Oh, I think it's about like addiction and evolution.
• 22:21
  And I'm like, Okay. Okay. Because, you know,
• 22:25
  the addiction, because, you know, Berenger being
• 22:27
  an alcoholic and I guess the rhinoceros made
• 22:31
  him think of monkeys and Darwin. I don't know.
• 22:33
  I don't know. I don't know. There is that element
• 22:35
  of like, okay, like that's how you interpret
• 22:38
  it and that can be respected. But at the same
• 22:40
  time, here's this article that I'm going to share
• 22:43
  with you that says that it is very much about
• 22:47
  fascism and Nazism. A picture with the evolution
• 22:51
  sort of like carcinization where we're all all
• 22:55
  all crustaceans are eventually becoming crabs
• 22:58
  and we'll just all mammals are eventually becoming
• 23:01
  rhinoceroses. Yeah, yeah. So it does. Yeah, it
• 23:05
  does sort of relate in that sense. But yeah,
• 23:08
  no, in terms of like, you know, dialogue that
• 23:10
  was hard to get in my veins. Yeah, I mean, the
• 23:14
  two moments in act one scene one are a big moment
• 23:16
  where all the cast is on there. Yeah, the the
• 23:20
  logician old gentleman convert. and the Sean
• 23:22
  and Beringet, like just those two different conversations
• 23:25
  happening. Like, you know, I'm telling the old
• 23:28
  gentleman about like, oh, if two paws have two
• 23:30
  cats, how many paws are left to each cat? And
• 23:32
  then I got to listen for my cue line, which is
• 23:34
  Beringet saying something different. Like, you
• 23:37
  know, the laundry is so expensive. It's like,
• 23:40
  wait, what does expensive laundry have to do
• 23:42
  with my next cue line having to do with the two
• 23:45
  paws and the two cats? And it's like, but fortunately
• 23:47
  with repetition, with the intense rehearsal process,
• 23:50
  You know, with those long evenings during the
• 23:52
  weekend weekends, it just gets in your bones.
• 23:55
  Like, oh yeah. When you say into the picture,
• 23:58
  I say some shit about logic, meaning justice.
• 24:05
  And then, yeah, and then the other point later
• 24:07
  on in Act One, Scene One, and I have to commend
• 24:09
  you and Laura, who plays Grocer's wife, and Brayden,
• 24:12
  who played the grocer, and Mark, who played old
• 24:16
  gentleman, and who am I forgetting in the big
• 24:18
  logician moment later in Act One, Scene One?
• 24:21
  There's, Sophia comes on for a brief moment.
• 24:24
  Who plays the housewife, yeah. Who plays the
• 24:25
  housewife to come on to introduce you from offstage.
• 24:30
  He's a logician! Like, yeah. Yeah, and this is
• 24:32
  the pivotal moment where logician... has, like,
• 24:35
  absorbed all the talk going on amongst the characters
• 24:38
  about, like, the rhinoceros that we just saw.
• 24:40
  Was it a single rhinoceros? Did it have two horns?
• 24:43
  Did it have one horn? Was it actually two different
• 24:45
  rhinoceroses with one horn? And me just spewing
• 24:49
  my logic about what it could mean, but not actually
• 24:51
  giving a definitive answer, like, oh, it could
• 24:54
  be a rhinoceros with two horns. It could be two
• 24:55
  rhinoceroses with two horns, one rhinoceros with
• 24:57
  one horn. And I got to say thank you for you
• 25:01
  guys, my, you know, fellow cast. in that moment
• 25:04
  when I was spewing off all that bullshit, because,
• 25:07
  you know, Christina, the note was like, let's
• 25:09
  have it have this very call and response preacher
• 25:13
  going to church vibe. And I think one of our
• 25:18
  castmates, Aaliyah, who plays the waitress and
• 25:22
  Miss Papillon, who's the office manager, she
• 25:25
  had complimented on how, like, even though, like,
• 25:29
  there were other parts of the show where we were
• 25:31
  still trying to kind of figure... out the pace
• 25:32
  and the flow of things, it seemed like we had
• 25:35
  that pace solidified fairly quickly, like when
• 25:39
  it was like Legitian and Old Gentleman and Dudard.
• 25:41
  Were you Dudard and Essene or were you the other
• 25:43
  character? I was the, I was the, um, the, the
• 25:47
  proprietor. The cafe proprietor. Aliyah's terrible
• 25:51
  boss. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just, um, yeah, no,
• 25:56
  just to pace on the rhythm of it was just, it
• 25:58
  was, it was very fun to work off of just the
• 26:00
  goofy energy of it was. And I loved, I, there
• 26:03
  is, there is one moment, especially in that,
• 26:06
  uh, it was, it was whatever, whatever, uh, Uh,
• 26:10
  you see, it's one of those like, or it could
• 26:12
  have been two, one, two rhinoceros. And then,
• 26:15
  oh, Laura hits you with the, ha ha. And then
• 26:18
  you, and then you're like, whip around. It's
• 26:22
  like, boom, boom, boom. It's like, this, this
• 26:24
  character is so excited to have his soap box.
• 26:27
  This logician is like, oh, I've been waiting
• 26:30
  for everybody to listen to me. Yeah, right, right,
• 26:34
  right. Like, yeah, again, it's just absorbing
• 26:35
  everything in act one, scene one for a majority
• 26:38
  of the time. up until that moment where it's
• 26:39
  like, yes, I'm going to tell you what it is.
• 26:42
  But really, I think I'm just essentially repeating
• 26:45
  all the guesses that everybody else has said
• 26:47
  about what kind of rhinoceros it was. Exactly.
• 26:50
  And then just saying, ha, I'm a genius. Goodbye,
• 26:52
  gentlemen. Ha ha. It could be with one horn.
• 26:55
  It could be with two horns. It could be Asiatic.
• 26:56
  It could be African. It could be anything. Goodbye,
• 26:59
  I'm a genius. That's all it was. I always think
• 27:02
  it's so funny with your exit being on the idea
• 27:07
  of like, Well, yes, that's all very logical,
• 27:09
  but it doesn't answer our question. Yes, but
• 27:15
  like, the problem is correctly posed. It's been
• 27:17
  put on the floor, and now goodbye, gentlemen.
• 27:19
  You guys deal with it. Oh, God. It was just so
• 27:24
  much fun. And yeah, to your point about Laura
• 27:27
  and the Gorgeous Wife giving me the ha -ha, like
• 27:29
  that's, again, that's the whole call and response
• 27:30
  thing. It's like... I wouldn't be able to do
• 27:33
  whatever the fuck I did, like, had I not had
• 27:35
  you guys with your energy to bounce off of it.
• 27:38
  Just like, it's an infectious thing, you know
• 27:40
  what I mean? And same thing with, like, once
• 27:43
  we got to show up in front of an audience. Like,
• 27:45
  there was a lot of times throughout that rehearsal
• 27:46
  process, through the difficulty of us getting
• 27:48
  the pacing and the dialogue and the choreography,
• 27:50
  where I literally thought, like, oh, what would
• 27:53
  happen if I just left this show and just never
• 27:57
  came to another rehearsal? Like, it was that
• 28:01
  tiring. because it was just... When we weren't
• 28:03
  getting it, and I was coming home at midnight,
• 28:05
  still had to go to work at five in the next morning,
• 28:07
  and we pretty much had to give up our weekends,
• 28:10
  and, you know, it's not quite working, not quite
• 28:12
  working, and then it gets to a point opening
• 28:14
  night where we have something, it may not be
• 28:16
  the perfect thing, but we have something, and
• 28:18
  then you get that audience response, and it seems
• 28:20
  like, okay, they're into it, they're into it,
• 28:21
  and then we become into it, and then we get more
• 28:23
  into the pace of it all. It's just, yeah, that's
• 28:26
  theater. That's theater. Theater can make you
• 28:28
  go, oh, I never want to do this again. Oh, I
• 28:33
  would do this again in six weeks. I can't tell
• 28:37
  you how many people I meet in theater who are
• 28:40
  like, God, why am I doing this again? Yeah. And
• 28:44
  then I see them in the next show I'm doing, and
• 28:46
  they're like, why am I doing this again? There's
• 28:50
  something that draws us back. Did you have that
• 28:53
  moment with Rhinoceros as well, or were you just
• 28:55
  like, nah, this is just another? Rhinoceros,
• 28:58
  I... I absolutely had the feeling of like, is
• 29:03
  this coming together? Is this, was this worth
• 29:06
  it? Have we done, are we in a good place? Or
• 29:09
  is this a disaster? And then we get an audience
• 29:12
  and I'm like, oh, okay, we're doing this. We're
• 29:15
  like, we're feeling the energy of the audience.
• 29:18
  We're feeling each other's energy. this 40 hour
• 29:23
  work week of rehearsals has paid off and led
• 29:26
  to something. Yeah. Yeah. And for the audience
• 29:28
  listening and watching, I mean, our rehearsal
• 29:30
  schedule and I'm not going to make it as brutal
• 29:33
  as it sounds because, you know, some people like
• 29:35
  myself and yourself. I mean, we, we had some
• 29:37
  nights off and some weekend days where we didn't
• 29:40
  have to work. But yeah, for the most part in
• 29:42
  that short three week period, we did what? Tuesday
• 29:44
  through Fridays, five to 11 PM. And this is after,
• 29:48
  you know, I'm getting off a 10 to 12 work. day
• 29:51
  driving for Uber and Lyft. So yeah, that's, that's
• 29:53
  a long day. And then the weekends are 11 to seven,
• 29:57
  which is pretty much your entire weekend. So
• 29:59
  you're just doing this, this very complex show
• 30:02
  over and over again. And when, you know, you
• 30:05
  can tell it's not quite there. It's not quite
• 30:07
  there. We're still lagging on pacing of the,
• 30:10
  the beginning of act one, scene one, where we
• 30:11
  spot the rhinoceros sighting. And it's like,
• 30:12
  Oh my God. Like, and everybody has to jump on,
• 30:14
  on top of each other in terms of lines. Did you
• 30:16
  see rhinoceros? Yeah. Well, look at that. We'll
• 30:18
  look at that. We'll look like we weren't getting
• 30:19
  the pace. We were getting slow with it. So, yeah,
• 30:22
  you do that over and over again for three weeks
• 30:24
  and you get the sense it's not quite working
• 30:26
  and it does take a number on you. And I just
• 30:29
  remember thinking in the back of my mind, like,
• 30:31
  okay, all right, big picture, big picture. It'll
• 30:34
  all somehow come together opening night. And
• 30:37
  once that last performance comes, I have the
• 30:41
  option of not doing theater again. I have the
• 30:44
  option of not doing this type of show again.
• 30:46
  This can be my final curtain call. Exactly. But
• 30:51
  at the end of it all, I said, you know what?
• 30:55
  I would do a theater production again. Never
• 30:58
  say never. I mean, I do have certain conditions
• 31:00
  as to what kind of production I would do next.
• 31:03
  But yeah, no, I mean, I'm not leaving acting
• 31:06
  behind. There's a certain infectiousness to it,
• 31:09
  as you can attest from the productions that you've
• 31:11
  acted in. Yeah. And honestly, glad to hear you're
• 31:14
  not, because you are a... stellar performer.
• 31:17
  Oh, you too, man. I've seen you because I saw
• 31:23
  you like between Rhinoceros and just the energy
• 31:26
  I could feel from you because I feel like we've
• 31:28
  auditioned together before besides Rhinoceros.
• 31:30
  Yeah. And I can't remember what it was. I was
• 31:34
  we were at we were at. Clue auditions together.
• 31:37
  We were. Oh my God. Yeah. We were. Holy crap.
• 31:41
  For the shovel players. By the way, you also
• 31:43
  killed it in Clue. I don't know if I've gotten
• 31:45
  a chance to say that to you, but that was a very
• 31:48
  fun show to see. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. Clue
• 31:50
  was very different from Minocerous in that. I
• 31:53
  don't think anybody walked out during Clue. I
• 31:55
  think it was safe to say that everybody accepted
• 31:58
  that. Like, oh, yeah, this is a harmless murder
• 32:00
  mystery board game turned into a play. But yeah,
• 32:04
  no, that shows so not every night. People loved
• 32:05
  it because everybody knows Clue. It's familiar
• 32:07
  IP. But thank you. Thank you. I mean, I had a
• 32:10
  small part as Mr. Body, the owner of the mansion
• 32:12
  where the murder mystery happens. But thank you.
• 32:14
  I appreciate that. I totally forgot that you
• 32:16
  were there because I remember. I was seeing you
• 32:18
  at rhinoceros auditions and I'm like, yeah, I
• 32:20
  keep seeing this guy when I'm doing like local
• 32:22
  theater auditions. Who are you? And it's nice
• 32:25
  to see, it's nice to see because, you know, as
• 32:27
  you know, in white ass Vermont, it can be hard
• 32:30
  to find fellow people of color in these experiences.
• 32:33
  Seriously, yeah. Like, even going from my high
• 32:36
  school years in much more diverse Connecticut,
• 32:39
  like I was still like the only black person that
• 32:40
  was regularly involved in my theater department.
• 32:42
  So when I see fellow people of color get involved
• 32:44
  in this, it's like, yes! I'm not a weirdo. I
• 32:47
  was so spoiled as a kid. I grew up in Milwaukee,
• 32:51
  Wisconsin, going to Milwaukee public schools.
• 32:53
  It was a predominantly black school system. So
• 32:57
  by extension, all of the theater that I did as
• 33:01
  a kid was like, all my youth theater was predominantly
• 33:04
  black, was very diverse. And like I got out to
• 33:08
  Vermont and started doing theater at the University
• 33:10
  of Vermont. And I'm like, that's... I've never
• 33:14
  seen this many white people in a theater. It
• 33:18
  could be a shock to the system for sure. My experience
• 33:20
  like growing up in Connecticut was odd because
• 33:22
  like... Again take high school where I started
• 33:25
  theater I would just go to my English class or
• 33:28
  science class whatever like the diversity is
• 33:30
  all there There's no problem seeing blacks and
• 33:33
  Hispanics and Asians everywhere But then when
• 33:36
  I got it into the the black box theater for either
• 33:39
  an acting class or theater production It was
• 33:41
  just like oh, okay, like I guess I'm just the
• 33:44
  only person of color who just likes performing
• 33:47
  because Stereotypically like the people of color
• 33:50
  that I would take classes with or whatever like
• 33:52
  they just kind of go to class and maybe hang
• 33:55
  out at the basketball court or listen to music.
• 33:58
  Like they just didn't have the same interest
• 33:59
  that I had. And it was so much so that I remember
• 34:02
  we did a production of To Kill a Mockingbird.
• 34:04
  I played Tom Robinson. I was a shoo -in because
• 34:06
  again, one of the very few people of color to
• 34:08
  be cast. But no, literally, I just remember the
• 34:10
  other people of color that were in the show.
• 34:11
  They just had to like actually like out, like
• 34:14
  they had to search around the school. Like, hey,
• 34:16
  random person in this English class or whatever.
• 34:19
  Like, do you want to be involved in this production?
• 34:21
  Because it's... really weird, given the subject
• 34:24
  matter of To Kill a Mockingbird, which is very
• 34:25
  much in the Jim Crow South era to not have any
• 34:28
  other black people besides Tom Robinson. I won't
• 34:34
  go too much into detail so as not to besmirch
• 34:37
  the names of any Vermont theater makers, but
• 34:40
  I've been involved in processes where, in multiple
• 34:44
  places, where that process of casting has been
• 34:48
  very difficult when people of color are required
• 34:52
  for a production and... where I felt like the
• 34:56
  producers as well don't necessarily go out of
• 34:59
  their way initially to try and ensure that people
• 35:03
  of color show up to auditions. They're just like,
• 35:06
  well, you know, every other audition we have,
• 35:09
  people show up and we've been able to cast from
• 35:11
  that. So why should we expect this to be any
• 35:12
  different? Well, because... Because I'm one of
• 35:16
  three black people who's gonna show up to your
• 35:19
  audition. You have to understand if you're gonna
• 35:23
  put on shows that require... people of color,
• 35:28
  if you're going to put on shows about race, where
• 35:30
  a character's race is very integral to that role,
• 35:33
  you have to be prepared to cast that. And you
• 35:36
  have to be prepared to know what it means to
• 35:39
  cast that in your community. And if it's going
• 35:42
  to be a challenge to cast that in your community,
• 35:44
  and when you are a white theater maker in Vermont,
• 35:48
  it's often going to be difficult to cast that
• 35:50
  in your community. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
• 35:53
  maybe it's... sort of speaks volumes. I mean,
• 35:57
  automatically, I'm thinking of when Vermont Stage
• 35:59
  last year, when I first joined the company as
• 36:01
  a front of house staff member, they did a production
• 36:04
  of Primary Trust, which was a very beautiful
• 36:06
  show to see, really tackles, you know, mental
• 36:09
  health and, you know, pollucinating alcoholism,
• 36:13
  just great subject matter. And Mark, who played
• 36:15
  Old Gentleman in our rhinoceros show, he was
• 36:18
  in Primary Trust. And was he the only white person
• 36:21
  in that show? Because it was a pretty small cast
• 36:22
  and I think everybody else was a person of color.
• 36:24
  Yeah. Yeah. But, um, but aside from Mark, I think
• 36:29
  everybody else was from New York. Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:31
  Like, there was, like... Was, was Delante Keys
• 36:34
  in that production? Yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:36
  That sounds like a name that's familiar. Maybe
• 36:37
  he's local to Vermont. Delante is, is local.
• 36:40
  Or at least has been local. I don't know when,
• 36:43
  when they moved here, but... but has been local
• 36:47
  for at least a year or two. Gotcha. Gotcha. And
• 36:50
  I know has done some work with Between the Willows,
• 36:52
  directed our production of White that just ran
• 36:55
  at the same time as Rhinoceros. Yeah. And Between
• 36:59
  the Willows, that's, I believe, the theater company
• 37:01
  at the north end of Burlington, Vermont that
• 37:03
  you're board president of. Yes, indeed. Yep.
• 37:04
  Yep. Yep. Busy. Busy. Between Rhinoceros and
• 37:08
  running a theater company as a board president,
• 37:12
  how do you make the time and energy, I wonder?
• 37:14
  Uh, well, the, so my secret is I don't, uh, and
• 37:18
  I, and I just deal with the repercussions. I,
• 37:23
  I am constantly, I feel like I am, I am constantly
• 37:27
  committed. Maybe some might say over committed,
• 37:31
  but I, but I'm going to say. healthily saturated
• 37:35
  with commitment to theater productions. So is
• 37:39
  that like, would that make up your full -time
• 37:42
  work? Because I was thinking, again, of the intense
• 37:44
  rehearsal process of Rhinoceros. We have the
• 37:46
  performances, you're board president for Between
• 37:47
  the Willows, so you're, you know, supervising
• 37:50
  and making sure the productions are going well.
• 37:52
  And I remember, like, the Rhinoceros cast party,
• 37:55
  we couldn't see you, unfortunately, because you
• 37:57
  had to deal with the striking of the set, the
• 37:59
  taking down of the set for the recent production
• 38:01
  of White with your company between... willows
• 38:03
  and and I even like at the beginning of rhinoceros
• 38:06
  I was just like wait Ian was just in Murder on
• 38:09
  the Orient Express, which was like the show before
• 38:10
  the last show. And like just that narrow amount
• 38:15
  of time to get the dialogue in your system as
• 38:18
  much as you can. Because as you know, like we
• 38:20
  get cast in these shows months in advance. And
• 38:22
  then once rehearsal starts day one, you have
• 38:24
  to be off book as much as possible. Fast turnaround
• 38:26
  on that script. I guess my question is like,
• 38:29
  is theater like, is it a majority? Is that a
• 38:32
  majority of your work or do you have like other
• 38:34
  side jobs? Like, how do you make time? I wish
• 38:37
  theater could be a majority of my work. I am
• 38:39
  a software developer. There have been points
• 38:41
  in my life where I've been primarily employed
• 38:44
  by theater. Pre -COVID, I was doing theater full
• 38:47
  -time. I was a techie. I was an electrician,
• 38:51
  AV. I was a lighting designer, actor, all that
• 38:54
  jazz. And all of my contracts sort of amalgamated
• 38:59
  into a rough full -time in theater. Yeah. Since
• 39:03
  COVID, I just haven't been able to get back to
• 39:08
  that point. I'd love to. It is also just a little
• 39:13
  hard to go from a salary job back into contracting
• 39:20
  out to theaters all the time. to find full -time
• 39:25
  theater jobs. I would love to quit being a software
• 39:28
  developer. I would love to do theater full -time.
• 39:30
  And I feel like I put in enough hours for theater
• 39:34
  to be a full -time job, but there's just the
• 39:37
  unfortunate thing about Vermont and Burlington,
• 39:41
  Vermont. I love... the theater community here.
• 39:43
  I love the arts community. There's like no shortage
• 39:46
  of ways to get involved. Productions are happening
• 39:49
  everywhere. There's theater companies. It's a
• 39:53
  community that feels interconnected. It's really
• 39:56
  beautiful. I love it. There's not really much
• 39:59
  of an opportunity to for like a full time in
• 40:05
  theater arts here. I was thinking about this.
• 40:08
  I think because I don't know the entire Burlington
• 40:11
  area, what you want to call it, like a small
• 40:13
  area can have like 40, 50, 60 thousand something
• 40:17
  people, whatever. It's a it's a small city, essentially.
• 40:21
  And, you know, we have Essex community players,
• 40:24
  Shelburne players, which had the production of
• 40:26
  Clue that I was in. And then we have Vermont
• 40:28
  Stage, we have Vermont Repertory Theater, which
• 40:31
  mostly does like classical stuff. And then we
• 40:34
  have Lyric Theater, which does the musicals.
• 40:38
  I think Vermont Stage isn't the only one that
• 40:42
  pays out of all the theaters that I've mentioned.
• 40:45
  And even though it thankfully does pay, Lea,
• 40:48
  like you said, I mean, if you're going to work
• 40:50
  full -time for that company, you're going to
• 40:54
  be doing administrative work. You're going to
• 40:55
  be maybe an office assistant of some kind. But
• 40:58
  yeah, I mean, the next closest thing to full
• 41:01
  -time is getting involved in a show, which for
• 41:04
  six weeks is essentially, yeah, it can be a full
• 41:07
  -time job. with all the time dedicated to rehearsals
• 41:09
  and performances. The rehearsal block for a Vermont
• 41:15
  stage show is 40 hours a week. And thankfully,
• 41:18
  most of the time, everybody's not going to be
• 41:21
  individually called for that. But I mean, I know,
• 41:24
  I'm pretty sure Jordan was called to every single
• 41:27
  rehearsal, you know? Yeah. The man never left
• 41:32
  stage for more than five seconds. Didn't Jordan
• 41:35
  direct your production of Murder on the Orient
• 41:36
  Express? Yeah. Yeah, so he was there every single
• 41:40
  rehearsal. I was thinking that a whole time,
• 41:43
  like once Rhinoceros was casted back in November.
• 41:45
  When did you do Murder on the Order Express?
• 41:47
  Oh, gosh. We closed and then I had about a month
• 41:53
  off before we started rehearsal for Rhinoceros.
• 41:58
  So did you guys do it late last year or early
• 42:00
  this year, Murder on the Order Express? early
• 42:05
  this year. Okay, okay. Because when I was officially
• 42:08
  like announced the Rhinoceros cast and I saw
• 42:10
  Jordan's name on there, I was just like, wait,
• 42:12
  you recently directed Murder. I was told that
• 42:17
  that that was a struggle to put together, but
• 42:20
  it did come together and looked like audiences
• 42:23
  came out to see it and loved it. So that's wonderful.
• 42:26
  And I don't know, just to go from that, the big
• 42:29
  project that is being a director in such a six
• 42:31
  week, intense period of time to bearing gay,
• 42:35
  which is like, yeah, I mean, you look at the
• 42:37
  script and it's 99 .9 % bearing gay. And just
• 42:42
  that whole, what seems like three or four pages
• 42:45
  of monologue that he has at the end of the show.
• 42:47
  Oh yeah, the last four pages of that script are
• 42:51
  just Jordan talking. I was like, Oh my God. I
• 42:55
  mean, yes, again, to be fair, the show was casted
• 42:57
  in November. So from November through start of
• 43:00
  rehearsals in April, like, you know, we had time
• 43:02
  to memorize, but I mean, God, even, even with
• 43:06
  that amount of time for that. of a role, especially
• 43:09
  just coming off of directing a show like Murder,
• 43:11
  I just, I was like, Jordan, how are you, what?
• 43:14
  How are you still alive? And he's pretty nonstop.
• 43:19
  I mean, right before Murder, I also did Christmas
• 43:22
  Carol with him out in Middlebury with Middlebury
• 43:25
  Acting Company, and he was Scrooge. So again,
• 43:29
  he was a huge role on stage, almost... consistently
• 43:34
  throughout the entire show. Lines, lines, lines,
• 43:37
  lines, lines, goes into this huge project immediately
• 43:41
  afterwards of directing this large scale show,
• 43:45
  Murder on the Orient Express. Immediately after
• 43:48
  that, just straight into Rhinoceros more lines,
• 43:51
  lines, lines, lines, lines. He, Jordan impresses
• 43:55
  me so much. Just incredible actor. I can't, I
• 43:58
  don't know how he does what he does. Yeah. He's
• 44:02
  a machine. He's... It's coffee. It's coffee.
• 44:05
  At any chance I got, like, I saw him drinking
• 44:07
  coffee. And just him, you know, being like, oh
• 44:11
  yeah, I'm a night owl. I'm wired up. I'm ready
• 44:12
  to go. Like, I would mention, I have like a quarter
• 44:15
  of what Jordan has. And I'm just like, oh, fuck.
• 44:18
  Two show days. Because, you know, we had those
• 44:21
  Saturdays where we had to do both a matinee and
• 44:23
  an evening show. And I'm just like, because it's
• 44:25
  a big show to do two times in one day. And Jordan's
• 44:28
  just like, no, man. I actually like two show
• 44:30
  days. It just gets me wired. It gets me going.
• 44:32
  It gets me ready to go. Like, if I had to do
• 44:34
  what you had to do, uh, for two shows in one
• 44:37
  day, um, I would be a corpse. I would probably
• 44:41
  call out on the Sunday matinee and personally
• 44:42
  request an understudy. I'm, I'm exhausted doing
• 44:46
  what I have to do in a two show day. And that's
• 44:49
  not nearly what, what Jordan has to do. I mean,
• 44:53
  it's, it's just, it's so impressive. Yeah. Seriously,
• 44:59
  props to him and props to us. Props to us for
• 45:01
  taking on that show. You know, I would say one
• 45:04
  of the, probably the last thing that I'll close
• 45:08
  out this conversation with, because I realize
• 45:10
  we've already been talking for nearly an hour
• 45:12
  about right now. And there's like three questions
• 45:14
  that I need to ask you. But we'll get to it.
• 45:17
  The cast party was interesting. Not only was
• 45:19
  it really fun, but I remember, I think it was
• 45:23
  Laura, like I was in conversation with Laura
• 45:25
  and Sophia. and Aaliyah, and we were talking
• 45:29
  about our feelings now that the show is over.
• 45:32
  And I was expressing how I always have this weird
• 45:35
  melancholy at the end of a theater production
• 45:38
  because... You know, especially with this one
• 45:40
  where it was just like six weeks of like full
• 45:42
  time job, like intensity, you're exhausted, you're
• 45:46
  irritated, you're, you're, you're finding some
• 45:48
  hope and, you know, and then the performances
• 45:50
  go on and you find the thrill that the audiences
• 45:52
  that are finding in the show. And then it's all
• 45:54
  just done. Like it's, it's a weird feeling. It's,
• 45:59
  it's like, oh, wow. Like week one, I was. really
• 46:04
  just antsy and anxious about the time that I
• 46:07
  will have completed this and say that I accomplished
• 46:09
  this and it can move on and now that it's over,
• 46:12
  it's just like, huh. God, that's, it's strange.
• 46:15
  It's strange to just go back to normal life after,
• 46:17
  after a process like that. So, and I remember
• 46:19
  Laura following it up with like, you know what?
• 46:21
  We could have probably done like another week
• 46:23
  or so, because didn't you feel like toward like
• 46:25
  the last few performances, we were just finding
• 46:28
  our groove. Like we were hitting our stride.
• 46:31
  Yeah. Yeah. So maybe there's, there's the, that's
• 46:34
  a little bit of my melon colleague, just this
• 46:35
  idea of like, Oh, wow. Like, you know, just as
• 46:37
  we were like finding our stride, it's done, you
• 46:40
  know? Cause I think maybe, let's say roughly
• 46:43
  the first week was still trying to figure out
• 46:45
  what the show was. That tends to be the case
• 46:49
  with my experience with Vermont stage shows is
• 46:53
  you're sort of like that first week. You're sort
• 46:55
  of getting your footing. You've just been introduced
• 46:57
  to the set. maybe a few rehearsals ago. Yep.
• 47:02
  And so everything hasn't quite come together
• 47:05
  like a well -oiled machine. Yep. But by that
• 47:08
  second week, that third week, you're starting
• 47:10
  to feel, wow, wow, we're getting this. Yeah.
• 47:14
  And then it's over. It's gone. But no, but nonetheless,
• 47:18
  it was a great experience. And what feeling have
• 47:21
  you had? I mean, is it just largely relief on
• 47:24
  your end or have you had sort of that same like,
• 47:26
  wow, like that was an experience and now it's
• 47:28
  just done? You know, I get the feeling that I
• 47:31
  get after most theater, which is like... I just
• 47:34
  miss spending time with all these people. Yeah,
• 47:36
  same. I miss hanging out. I miss performing with
• 47:40
  y 'all. I mean, and now I'm just, I'm like, I'm
• 47:43
  always in my downtime. I'm like itching to get
• 47:46
  to my next production. Yeah. Oh, and I feel similar
• 47:52
  -ly -ish. I'm still trying to process it, but
• 47:55
  like, no, I mean, I have this podcast, which
• 47:57
  I want to, you know, devote a lot of creative
• 47:59
  energy to, and I do Uber and Lyft driving to
• 48:03
  pay the bills, so there's a lot of energy between
• 48:05
  those two things. But yeah, no, there is just
• 48:09
  something about like, you find your groove just
• 48:11
  as a theater production is closing, and then
• 48:13
  it closes, and then it's just like, oh, man,
• 48:15
  that felt good, and I would like to see if I
• 48:17
  could do that. again, even if it means going
• 48:22
  through the rehearsal process. And I figured
• 48:25
  it out. I figured it out. I mean, I don't know
• 48:27
  how you feel, but for me, the more I do theater,
• 48:30
  the more... the more... that I get with the rehearsal
• 48:38
  process. Like, I sort of have this internal diva
• 48:42
  attitude of just like, all right, yes, we have
• 48:45
  to rehearse it. Yes, that's essential to... Having
• 48:47
  something to put in front of the audience, but
• 48:50
  I'm not a big fan of let's like run through this
• 48:55
  scene or this act like two or three times in
• 48:58
  one rehearsal. Like I just feel like that's the
• 48:59
  easiest way to take the freshness, take the spontaneity,
• 49:04
  take the glow out of the material. You can burn
• 49:07
  out on especially material like like rhinoceros,
• 49:11
  dense stuff. You can burn out on that so fast
• 49:15
  if you're running it over and over and over again.
• 49:18
  Yeah. Yeah. And, and it was, I think that exhaustion
• 49:21
  with the repetition. of how many times you had
• 49:22
  to run through certain things was like part of
• 49:25
  like why I was kind of holding back in rehearsals
• 49:27
  because for me it's just like no I want to like
• 49:29
  save a lot of the energy for the audience because
• 49:33
  they're the ones that are gonna deserve it needed
• 49:35
  and then I get it I'm a diva too I'm like get
• 49:38
  me in front of an audience put me on my stage
• 49:43
  Exactly. The rehearsals are just, uh, how I feel
• 49:46
  about theater at this point is just the rehearsals
• 49:47
  are sort of this like, I don't know, this foot
• 49:50
  fungus that I have to deal with to get to the
• 49:53
  beautiful body sculpture that is putting this
• 49:55
  in front of an audience. Well, this was a great
• 50:01
  time, Jordan. I know we are like 53 minutes into
• 50:04
  our hour time. I apologize. But we're not going
• 50:08
  to go because I need to know these three questions
• 50:11
  that I ask every single guest to get to know
• 50:13
  them better. What is a delicious meal that you've
• 50:18
  had lately? Yeah, OK. I've been getting madly
• 50:20
  into different kinds of dumplings and crafting
• 50:25
  different kinds of dumplings. I'll say the best,
• 50:27
  I love a shrimp shumai. and the best I've had
• 50:31
  them in town, at least, are at East West Cafe.
• 50:36
  I love those. Like, there's something about the
• 50:39
  consistency of the shrimp and the steaming of
• 50:43
  the shumai wrapper. I'm just like, I could eat
• 50:45
  a dozen of those. And I'm like, where's my seconds?
• 50:49
  Where's some more? I, in my journey of dumpling
• 50:52
  making, have... I've mastered your basic pork
• 50:56
  dumpling. I feel like that's easy. That's easy
• 50:59
  money. That's a nice little relaxing, it takes
• 51:03
  a while, but it's a nice little relaxing process,
• 51:06
  fold in the dumpling, yada yada. I have recently
• 51:11
  been trying to master the pork shumai, crafting
• 51:15
  them, to challenge East West Cafe. I don't know
• 51:21
  what it is. I'm like, I can't get the consistency
• 51:25
  right sometimes, or like the rappers are too
• 51:28
  soggy, or like I just, I can't. get it right
• 51:32
  at home. And so anytime that I've, I recently
• 51:35
  have tried to craft them at home and been disappointed
• 51:37
  in my work. I've just gone to East West in order
• 51:40
  to batch there to remind me, God, I love these
• 51:43
  things. I can, I can do this. I could get there.
• 51:46
  Look, these restaurants, they make food in a
• 51:48
  specific way where there is basically saying
• 51:50
  to us, yeah, no, the only way you're going to
• 51:53
  eat this is through us. You're going to pay us.
• 51:56
  That's it. You try to make this at home. It's
• 51:58
  not going to be the same. So just fess up and
• 52:00
  pay. Okay, we are the professionals here. Okay.
• 52:04
  Oh, that's oh, that's cute Oh you you you baked
• 52:06
  a lot of bread in the pandemic. That's sweet.
• 52:09
  That's cute Yeah, tell that to my Michelin star
• 52:14
  Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, no east West Cafe I've
• 52:17
  never had had food there, but I've you know picked
• 52:20
  up a quite a bit of door -to -ash deliveries
• 52:21
  And and have used their bathroom for free when
• 52:24
  they have allowed me so good memories good memories
• 52:28
  My favorite restaurant in in Burlington, right
• 52:32
  like I If I were looking out my window right
• 52:36
  now, I could see it from my house. Oh my God,
• 52:39
  what a world of difference. So you live right
• 52:42
  there in downtown Burlington, right? Yeah, I'm
• 52:45
  right here. I'm technically on Church Street,
• 52:47
  but not on the marketplace, off to where it becomes
• 52:50
  residential. Yeah. And here I am up North and
• 52:53
  rich for an hour away. And I'm just like, well,
• 52:55
  you know, if I squint, maybe I could see some
• 52:57
  part of church. You've been making that commute
• 53:00
  this whole time. Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, because
• 53:02
  I already work in the Burlington area anyway,
• 53:04
  as an Uber and Lyft driver. So this this was
• 53:08
  this was nothing. I mean, if I was going to be
• 53:10
  involved in anything theater, it would make sense
• 53:12
  to do it in the Burlington area where I could
• 53:14
  just sign off of work, go to rehearsals and then
• 53:16
  I'll just make my usual drive back home. But
• 53:19
  yeah, no, no. Great thing about Vermont coming.
• 53:21
  from more traffic heavy areas like Philly and
• 53:24
  Connecticut and upstate New York is that the
• 53:27
  minimal traffic makes a difference. I would definitely
• 53:29
  not do an hour commute back and forth if I was
• 53:33
  living in, say, Connecticut, but Vermont because
• 53:35
  they make my life easy. You have barely any cars
• 53:41
  interrupting your flow, with the exception of
• 53:43
  this wonderful time of year that we like to call
• 53:45
  construction season. Yes, indeed. But yeah, no,
• 53:50
  no. I mean, just the easy drives and the fact
• 53:53
  that I can very much pay my bills with the amount
• 53:56
  of people that need Uber and Lyft rides in Burlington.
• 53:58
  It just, it all works out for me. So, yeah. The
• 54:03
  lift just piece of pop culture, Ian. This is
• 54:06
  a TV show, movie, book, podcast, anything. You
• 54:09
  had mentioned something that really stuck with
• 54:12
  my childhood heart. You are watching Batman,
• 54:15
  the animated series. Yes, I am. Yes, I am. I
• 54:19
  was at, I caught like a couple of reruns here
• 54:23
  and there when I was a kid, but I never really
• 54:26
  devoted sat down and went through it. Um, and
• 54:30
  I'm, I. have been taken by a recent hyper -fixation
• 54:35
  on everything DC Comics. When I was a kid, I
• 54:39
  was like, people would be like, oh, are you Marvel
• 54:41
  or DC? I'd be like, fuck, I'm to Marvel. What
• 54:44
  are you, are you crazy? I'm to Marvel all the
• 54:48
  way, all day, every day. And as I've aged, I
• 54:52
  feel like I've really floated over to DC. As
• 54:56
  a kid, I watched Spider -Man the animated series
• 54:59
  all the way through. Many multiple times since
• 55:02
  then, I've watched it, streamed it all the way
• 55:04
  through. But getting into Batman the animated
• 55:08
  series, I'm like, oh, this is kind of like a
• 55:13
  lot of the things that Spider -Man the animated
• 55:16
  series did, but earlier and better. Yeah. Yeah.
• 55:21
  Really? And maybe I've seen like little glimpses
• 55:23
  of Spider -Man the animated series. I haven't
• 55:25
  gotten into it too much. I'm definitely more
• 55:27
  familiar with like the Tobey Maguire Spider -Man
• 55:29
  movies of the 2000s. And then you had the Andrew
• 55:31
  Garfield movies. So in a movie sense, more recently
• 55:35
  in the past 20 years is where I'm more familiar
• 55:37
  with Spider -Man, more so than like the comics
• 55:39
  and like the animated TV series. I mean, Batman,
• 55:42
  the animated series, any sort of like Juilliard
• 55:45
  dramatization -esque quality that you see in
• 55:51
  animated shows, especially of the superhero kind,
• 55:54
  you go right back to Batman. Batman is pretty
• 55:57
  much what started it all. Because I think prior
• 56:00
  to Batman the Animated Series, any superhero
• 56:03
  representation on TV was more on the campy side.
• 56:08
  Like, I think literally the last TV representation
• 56:11
  before Batman the Animated Series came out in
• 56:13
  92 was, wasn't it the Adam West like live action
• 56:16
  Batman from like the 60s? I think so, yeah. Yeah,
• 56:19
  and that was live -action can't be like boom
• 56:21
  -boom like the little thought bubbles that came
• 56:23
  out like it was yeah, it was that and Batman
• 56:30
  in the anime series They just did something where
• 56:32
  like much like what we're talking about with
• 56:34
  spongebob in terms of the the comedy They said
• 56:37
  like alright. Yeah, we're gonna put this on Fox
• 56:40
  kids kids will be able to watch it but we're
• 56:42
  gonna handle the the dialogue the characters
• 56:46
  we're gonna handle it in such a prestige, mature
• 56:50
  matter that adults like you and I are going to
• 56:53
  be looking back on this show and just be like,
• 56:55
  wow, that is really fucking good. I go back to
• 56:59
  that show and I look at like I look at I look
• 57:01
  at. Like as a kid, I was like, oh, you know,
• 57:05
  the Dark Knight and stuff was coming out and
• 57:06
  I was like, oh, Batman's this like edgy dark.
• 57:10
  Break all your bones. Swear to me. Kind of character.
• 57:14
  But I look back at Batman, the animated series
• 57:17
  and like Yes, the Batman, the Dark Knight is
• 57:21
  a figure that strikes fear in the hearts of criminals.
• 57:24
  But he's also, I mean, he's a compassionate figure
• 57:28
  too. I mean, you look at like, you look at the,
• 57:32
  I feel like it happened multiple times of like
• 57:35
  enemies of his that were either... sort of children
• 57:39
  or were like or worse like I think of that like
• 57:43
  that character that was sort of just like trapped
• 57:45
  in the the child actress's body Okay, and I'm
• 57:50
  like the way that the way that he handles them
• 57:52
  with like so much care and and like yeah He's
• 57:56
  not here to break your bones. You're going through
• 57:58
  some rough stuff I forget what the villain is.
• 58:05
  We're sort of at the end of the episode. She's
• 58:09
  sitting on the swing, and he just sits there
• 58:11
  with her. Oh, man. I don't know. Yeah, I know,
• 58:14
  because I have the four -volume DVD set back
• 58:18
  at my mom's place in Connecticut still. There
• 58:22
  were, I mean, there probably were like less than
• 58:24
  100 episodes of that show, because I think it
• 58:25
  ran from like 92 to 95 on Fox Kids and then Kids
• 58:29
  WB. And, you know, we talk about Batman the Animated
• 58:34
  Series. I don't remember the episode you're talking
• 58:36
  about. Like, I'm thinking it like, oh, is he
• 58:37
  talking about Poison Ivy? But like one of the
• 58:39
  first things that I thought about was the introduction
• 58:42
  to Mr. Freeze, like that episode. Yes. Yeah,
• 58:45
  and and I feel like I could be wrong on this
• 58:48
  but I feel like previous versions Because they
• 58:51
  didn't like Arnold Schwarzenegger played. Mr.
• 58:52
  Freeze. Yeah Yeah, and one of those live -action
• 58:55
  Batman movies from like the 90s. Okay, so like
• 58:58
  Arnold and Robin. Yeah, Robin and Robin with
• 59:00
  George was that the George Clooney one where
• 59:02
  I think George Clooney Yeah, so yeah, it's honor
• 59:05
  Schwarzenegger. Like he's gonna play it up. He's
• 59:07
  gonna be campy. He's gonna be outrageous but
• 59:10
  Batman the NBA series like I almost wanted to
• 59:12
  cry at the Mr. Freeze episode because they got
• 59:14
  into his origin story and you see this guy who
• 59:19
  is mourning like the death of his wife. And he
• 59:22
  has like sort of this nutcracker statue thing
• 59:25
  of her and this silver ball thing, you know,
• 59:28
  Nara, my Nara, like, and he's in a jail cell.
• 59:31
  Like, I just remember moments like that. And
• 59:33
  yeah, obviously if it turns into Mr. Freeze,
• 59:35
  he does the villainous stuff. But what really
• 59:37
  stuck with me was the origin story of like this
• 59:40
  guy who is mourning and decides to process that
• 59:44
  in an unhealthy way. And. It made me feel like
• 59:49
  how I never felt I would with a supervillain,
• 59:51
  which is just like, oh my God, like, I feel for
• 59:55
  you. I, you know, yeah, you, you ended up doing
• 59:57
  something wrong. I mean, yes, you're responsible
• 1:00:00
  for those actions, but it probably didn't have
• 1:00:02
  to happen that way. If I don't know, your wife
• 1:00:04
  are still alive or maybe, you know, your parents
• 1:00:06
  loved you more as a child. Um, yeah. And I just
• 1:00:10
  think about like from Joaquin Phoenix is the
• 1:00:12
  Joker, like them diving into the whole mental
• 1:00:15
  health shit. Arguably led to him being the Joker
• 1:00:18
  stuff like that that we get in our superheroes
• 1:00:20
  nowadays It's like I think it points back to
• 1:00:22
  Batman in the animated series, which is all Batman.
• 1:00:24
  Yeah, absolutely I mean there's so there was
• 1:00:26
  this like there was this I feel like so many
• 1:00:31
  villains from comic books especially like these
• 1:00:36
  classic prestige older villains from 50s, 60s,
• 1:00:40
  whatnot. There was this theme of like some tragic
• 1:00:43
  accident and then they went insane and became
• 1:00:47
  villains. I look at like every other Spider -Man
• 1:00:51
  supervillain is like, and then they became insane.
• 1:00:55
  And what I love about Batman the Animated Series
• 1:01:00
  to sort of go back to what you're talking about,
• 1:01:03
  like these... It really delves into how these
• 1:01:06
  are like broken people. Yeah! These are human
• 1:01:12
  beings who have had some great tragedy befall
• 1:01:18
  them. And of course you have some characters
• 1:01:20
  like your Mark Hamill Joker where you're just
• 1:01:25
  supposed to engage with him as a bad guy. There's
• 1:01:29
  very little sort of redemption or sort of like...
• 1:01:32
  You know, like, oh, you learn to love him and
• 1:01:36
  his background and his backstory with that character.
• 1:01:39
  But you look at other characters. I mean, you
• 1:01:40
  look at the way that the animated show handled
• 1:01:44
  Harley Quinn, which also I think the animated
• 1:01:47
  show may have invented that character. Yes, they
• 1:01:49
  did. They did. I totally forgot about that. Yeah,
• 1:01:52
  yeah. It's easy to think that Harley Quinn was
• 1:01:54
  just another one that came from the comics, but
• 1:01:55
  no. You want to talk about how impactful that
• 1:01:58
  show has been. I mean, Harley Quinn... At least
• 1:02:01
  recently has been one of the bigger games in
• 1:02:05
  in the like pop culture Surrounding DC Comics,
• 1:02:09
  you know has had a series of Suicide Squad movies
• 1:02:13
  at our own TV show. I mean is also in a, I still
• 1:02:19
  have to finish this. I started it and I haven't
• 1:02:23
  gotten through it. The Suicide Squad anime, the
• 1:02:26
  Suicide Squad Isekai anime. Okay. All right.
• 1:02:29
  I'm not familiar with that one. Okay. It's an
• 1:02:32
  interesting one. They get, are you familiar with
• 1:02:35
  the Isekai genre of anime? No, no, no. Tell me
• 1:02:38
  more about that. Yeah, it's it is a very, very
• 1:02:41
  popular genre of anime where essentially something
• 1:02:46
  happens to a person, a character, usually living
• 1:02:49
  in our world or a similar normal world to ours.
• 1:02:54
  Something happens to them and they find themselves
• 1:02:56
  transported to fantasy or magical or or strange
• 1:03:03
  world. And it's it's it's. so big in anime, like
• 1:03:09
  ones that come to mind are like Sword Art Online,
• 1:03:12
  where the character finds themselves teleported
• 1:03:14
  into a video game and have no way, no idea how
• 1:03:17
  to get out, you know? Right, right, right. Um,
• 1:03:20
  and they made... An anime of the Suicide Squad
• 1:03:24
  called the Suicide Squad Isekai, where essentially
• 1:03:28
  they send the Suicide Squad into... Amanda Waller,
• 1:03:32
  the head of Argus, the sort of Nick Fury equivalent
• 1:03:36
  of DC, sends the Suicide Squad into this... anime
• 1:03:41
  isekai world, this magical fantasy world. Like,
• 1:03:44
  they rip open this portal to a magical fantasy
• 1:03:47
  world and send the Suicide Squad in to do what
• 1:03:49
  they do. That is awesome. I'd definitely have
• 1:03:52
  to dive into that. Yeah. Yeah, no, Harley Quinn,
• 1:03:54
  like, from Batman, the animated series, and then
• 1:03:56
  they incorporated her into the comic universe.
• 1:03:59
  And then, I believe Lady Gaga played Harley Quinn
• 1:04:02
  recently. Oh, yes. Yeah, in the newer Joker movie.
• 1:04:06
  I didn't see that. Yeah, the Joker, Fualiado,
• 1:04:08
  which was a sequel that was not received as well.
• 1:04:10
  Well, that's the first movie. But yeah, no, Harley
• 1:04:13
  Quinn has just been, has gone from, oh, there's
• 1:04:16
  that quirky Joker's assistant in that animated
• 1:04:18
  show, Batman, to just now, you know, a character
• 1:04:22
  who could definitely hold her own. So that is,
• 1:04:24
  that is very, very, very interesting. Yeah, no,
• 1:04:27
  going back to Batman the animated series, I mean,
• 1:04:29
  it used to be a tradition every year at Christmas
• 1:04:32
  time, my brother and I would watch the Christmas
• 1:04:34
  with a Joker episode. Like we would just. on,
• 1:04:37
  and maybe was it Batman, the series that started
• 1:04:40
  that famous song, uh, uh, jingle bells, Batman
• 1:04:43
  smells, Robin lady. I feel like they did because
• 1:04:48
  where else would you get that from the comics?
• 1:04:50
  I don't think would be reciting that to you.
• 1:04:52
  Yeah. I don't know. I love, and I, I love, I
• 1:04:56
  love about. feel like Batman the animated series
• 1:04:59
  was and and the showrunner Bruce Tim has like
• 1:05:01
  talked about this it's like it was it was story
• 1:05:04
  first you know like we were crafting like a narrative
• 1:05:08
  we're crafting a story we're crafting a piece
• 1:05:10
  of art and and you know out of that DC and Hasbro
• 1:05:16
  can take what they want and make the toys and
• 1:05:18
  sell sell whatnot you know and you look at the
• 1:05:21
  quotes from sorry to keep bringing up Spider
• 1:05:24
  -Man the animated series. No, no, no, you're
• 1:05:25
  fine. You're fine. No, it makes sense. Quotes
• 1:05:27
  from John Semper Jr., who was the first of all,
• 1:05:30
  I could talk at length about John Semper Jr.
• 1:05:32
  He was a black showrunner in the 90s for the
• 1:05:36
  Spider -Man TV show. And that was crazy unheard
• 1:05:39
  of. Marvel trusted him with a lot of authority.
• 1:05:42
  Yeah. But at the same time, the point of the
• 1:05:44
  quote I'm getting to is the authority he wasn't
• 1:05:46
  trusted with, which was he talks at length about
• 1:05:49
  how, yeah, they sort of Marvel sort of told us
• 1:05:53
  what like the toy companies wanted to make as
• 1:05:55
  toys and then made us make TV show episodes around
• 1:06:01
  that so like he like he would get pulled into
• 1:06:04
  into Creative meetings and they would like show
• 1:06:07
  him the action figure that they want to sell
• 1:06:10
  for the spider slayer Robot and they're like
• 1:06:14
  so so put that in an episode. Yeah Yeah, you
• 1:06:17
  know what and and going back to the DC Marvel
• 1:06:19
  of it all I could get why you were into Marvel
• 1:06:23
  before you became more of a DC hat and and please
• 1:06:26
  please tell me why you switched be because my
• 1:06:29
  theory of it is, you can tell me if I'm wrong,
• 1:06:32
  Marvel has such a deep bench of imagination when
• 1:06:36
  it comes to their superheroes, and I feel like
• 1:06:38
  the quantity is much bigger. Like, people think
• 1:06:41
  of DC, they think, oh, Superman, Batman, Wonder
• 1:06:44
  Woman, Flash, like, essentially the Justice League.
• 1:06:48
  Yeah. Marvel, it's just like, oh my God, like
• 1:06:51
  where do you start? Iron Man, Ant -Man, the Hulk.
• 1:06:55
  I mean, just like these varied Spider -Man, just
• 1:06:59
  like these, Stan Lee did something right when
• 1:07:01
  he just had a hand in creating. these very, I
• 1:07:06
  don't know, eccentric, quirky, unique ideas for
• 1:07:09
  superheroes. Like, I feel like it was a little
• 1:07:11
  bit more straightforward on the DC end. Like,
• 1:07:13
  oh yeah, here's the man that has all the superpowers,
• 1:07:16
  Superman. Here's the man that likes to be at
• 1:07:18
  night, Batman. And then with Marvel, it's like,
• 1:07:21
  who would think of creating, oh, Ant -Man. Oh,
• 1:07:25
  this guy that turns green and becomes muscular
• 1:07:28
  when he's angry, the Incredible Hulk. I mean,
• 1:07:31
  am I wrong? Is that why Marvel? It absolutely,
• 1:07:35
  I mean like Marvel had, Marvel sort of came in
• 1:07:40
  as almost the, I don't want to call them the
• 1:07:42
  new kid on the block, but sort of the way that
• 1:07:45
  they made their name I feel like was being like,
• 1:07:49
  Stanley comes in and starts doing things that...
• 1:07:52
  you wouldn't traditionally see in the superhero
• 1:07:55
  genre of comic books. Like, I think, again, to
• 1:07:58
  go back to Spider -Man, man, maybe I should have
• 1:08:00
  said Spider -Man was my pop culture. I go back
• 1:08:05
  to Spider -Man and I'm like, what propelled that
• 1:08:09
  to its success was that no one had ever seen,
• 1:08:13
  like, a teenage... character super he was like
• 1:08:18
  he was a he was a nerdy teen kid who was who
• 1:08:22
  was a superhero and like that's that's the kind
• 1:08:25
  of character that if anything was maybe reserved
• 1:08:28
  for like a sidekick role uh that's like that's
• 1:08:32
  like a robin or an aqua lad but spider -man comes
• 1:08:37
  out and who who would have thunk it all of these
• 1:08:43
  young nerdy kids who had been consuming this
• 1:08:49
  content of like 30, 40 year old strong male super
• 1:08:54
  characters see this young nerdy kid as a superhero
• 1:08:58
  and they decide, Whoa, I love that. I'm going
• 1:09:02
  to buy that. Cause that could be me. That could
• 1:09:06
  be me. That's I'm seeing me in this character.
• 1:09:09
  And to talk to it a little bit about where the
• 1:09:13
  difference lies, I do think, yeah, there is this
• 1:09:18
  breadth of Marvel content. But I do feel like
• 1:09:24
  DC has some depth on their characters and depth
• 1:09:29
  on their stories in the way that sometimes it
• 1:09:31
  feels like Marvel hasn't. And that's, I think,
• 1:09:35
  what I've grown to appreciate more over over
• 1:09:39
  the years. Aside from Spider -Man, who I could
• 1:09:43
  tell you every plot point from the last 80 years
• 1:09:48
  about, some of the other characters are more,
• 1:09:55
  I don't want to say shallower, but more... There's...
• 1:10:01
  There's this feeling of comic bookiness from
• 1:10:04
  Marvel characters and and I feel like like I
• 1:10:08
  to go back to Batman the animated series There's
• 1:10:11
  this feeling of depth to this character of Batman,
• 1:10:14
  you know, like when I was a kid I thought about
• 1:10:16
  Superman is like this. Oh, he's like he's kind
• 1:10:19
  of like a boring like oh do good superhero I've
• 1:10:24
  sort of grown to appreciate the stories that
• 1:10:27
  have been told over the years of Superman being
• 1:10:31
  this stranger in a strange land. This person
• 1:10:37
  who comes to a world that could so easily hate
• 1:10:42
  and fear him. And yet he's become this symbol
• 1:10:46
  of justice, this symbol of strength to them.
• 1:10:51
  the way that he always has to sort of watch himself
• 1:10:55
  to make sure he's not becoming this monster that
• 1:10:59
  a character like Lex Luthor thinks he is, you
• 1:11:03
  know? I've seen analysis of Superman where it's
• 1:11:07
  been related to like the immigration story, you
• 1:11:09
  know what I mean? Like just this feeling of coming
• 1:11:11
  into, like you said, this strange place that's
• 1:11:13
  not your home planet, your home territory, trying
• 1:11:17
  to figure out how you fit in the alter ego, Clark
• 1:11:21
  Kent Superman, like him being insecure and not
• 1:11:23
  sure if people are going to accept him as he
• 1:11:25
  really is. But along the way, like still being
• 1:11:28
  well intentioned and doing good and all that
• 1:11:31
  stuff. So yeah, there's a lot of that. And then
• 1:11:34
  Batman. I mean, certainly a big theme is unresolved
• 1:11:37
  trauma. Yeah. Unresolved trauma. And then as
• 1:11:42
  time goes on, passing that down through the generations,
• 1:11:46
  right? You talk about the Bat Fam, you talk about
• 1:11:48
  the Robins, you talk about the other sidekicks
• 1:11:52
  he's had, the Bat Girls. I forgot about that.
• 1:11:54
  Yeah. Because Bruce Wayne, obviously we know
• 1:11:57
  the backstory of Bruce Wayne. His parents just
• 1:12:00
  get murdered in cold blood by... Take your pick.
• 1:12:05
  It depends on what part of the comic universe
• 1:12:07
  you're reading. One part, it could have like,
• 1:12:09
  oh, it was the Joker, the person who becomes
• 1:12:11
  the Joker that kills his parents. It's an unidentified
• 1:12:13
  assassin. Like it's just, it's all over the place.
• 1:12:16
  But regardless, Bruce Wayne, his parents get
• 1:12:18
  murdered in cold bloody when he's a kid. And
• 1:12:20
  that leads him to just have this lifelong grudge
• 1:12:23
  of revenge for anything having to do with evil
• 1:12:26
  in Gotham city. And yeah, I forgot. Like he sort
• 1:12:31
  of passed that down to like most well -known
• 1:12:33
  sidekick Robin, Dick Grayson, whose parents also
• 1:12:37
  died. Now, Batman, the animated series, they
• 1:12:39
  had, I think it's, is it the same all across
• 1:12:43
  from the comic books to where, like, Dick Grayson's
• 1:12:45
  parents, they die in, like, sort of this sort
• 1:12:47
  of aerobatic accident? Like, they're on a...
• 1:12:49
  Yeah, that's, I think that's generally pretty
• 1:12:50
  consistent. It's, they're the flying Grayson's,
• 1:12:54
  and there's some kind of accident in the air
• 1:12:58
  that kills them. What, you know... They're back
• 1:13:01
  and forth, I think, in some continuities on whether
• 1:13:04
  that was just an accident or whether it was like
• 1:13:07
  a mob hit or something. Right, right. But it's
• 1:13:09
  pretty it's pretty consistent. They're up in
• 1:13:11
  the air. Something happens. Orphan Dick Grayson.
• 1:13:15
  Yeah. And then, yeah, and, you know, and Jason
• 1:13:19
  Todd comes on to replace him. Jason Todd gets
• 1:13:23
  straight up beat to death with a crowbar by the
• 1:13:27
  Joker, which, by the way, by a vote of DC fans.
• 1:13:33
  They polled, Robin gets kidnapped. The comics
• 1:13:37
  polled their audience and they're like, does
• 1:13:40
  Robin survive? Does he not? And the audience,
• 1:13:45
  we, not we because I wasn't reading comic books
• 1:13:48
  in the 80s or whenever that came out. But the
• 1:13:54
  comic book audience was like, yeah. kill that
• 1:13:57
  kid. Yeah, I guess they just had a hate for Jason
• 1:13:59
  Todd. I don't know. I remember reading that specific
• 1:14:02
  comic where he gets beat to death by the Joker,
• 1:14:04
  middle school, high school, whatever. And I think
• 1:14:06
  even then I was just like, Oh my God, this is
• 1:14:09
  this is a lot. What are we doing here? Oh, my
• 1:14:14
  God. But Dick Grayson never returns to become
• 1:14:16
  Robin. He becomes Nightwing, and... Yes. Yeah.
• 1:14:19
  That's also... I'm so interested in where the
• 1:14:22
  various Robins go after their Robinhood. Dick
• 1:14:25
  Grayson goes on to be Nightwing in Bloodhaven.
• 1:14:30
  Jason Todd comes back from the dead with the
• 1:14:33
  Lazarus Pit. Becomes the red hood this this the
• 1:14:38
  the character who runs around avenging crime
• 1:14:40
  with guns Batman's one rule And I don't I guess
• 1:14:47
  I guess Tim Drake also goes on to be something
• 1:14:50
  else. I feel bad for Tim Drake. I feel like Dick
• 1:14:58
  Grayson is so definitive. He's the first. Everybody
• 1:15:01
  loves him. He's there. Jason Todd has this very
• 1:15:04
  iconic arc of his death in the comics and his
• 1:15:09
  resurrection as the Red Hood. You pass Tim Drake
• 1:15:12
  onto Damian Wayne and you're like, wow, Bruce
• 1:15:15
  Wayne's actual son raised as an assassin by Taliyah
• 1:15:20
  al Ghul. Oh, my lord. And you come back to Tim
• 1:15:25
  Drake and you're like, well, he's not Robin anymore,
• 1:15:28
  but he's not really, I think in the comics now
• 1:15:30
  he's like Red Robin or something. I feel I wish
• 1:15:35
  he'd gotten a little more definitive because
• 1:15:37
  I do like I do like the concept of his character
• 1:15:40
  of like of the of the Robins, you know Dick Grayson
• 1:15:45
  was the best Robin. Jason Todd was the most brutal
• 1:15:51
  fighter. Tim Drake was the best detective representing
• 1:15:56
  that sort of edge of Batman. He becomes Robin
• 1:16:00
  because he discovers who Batman is. Jason Todd
• 1:16:05
  ironically went out the same way he fought. He
• 1:16:09
  went out the same way. He died doing what he
• 1:16:13
  loved. Wasn't Tim Drake, wasn't he the Robin
• 1:16:16
  in the, remember the Teen Titans cartoon on Cartoon
• 1:16:18
  Network? Like back in the, wasn't that Tim Drake?
• 1:16:22
  Yes. They never really defined who that was.
• 1:16:27
  It's the only, I think, I think they get, yeah,
• 1:16:29
  they never really defined who it was. It seemed
• 1:16:31
  like it could have been Tim Drake or it could
• 1:16:33
  have been Dick Grayson. It didn't fit, it was,
• 1:16:36
  it was pre Damien Wayne. Okay. And it didn't
• 1:16:41
  feel like a Jason Todd. Damien Wayne sounds so
• 1:16:44
  close to Damien Wayans. Every time. Oh my God.
• 1:16:50
  Imagine that Google search just getting Bruce
• 1:16:53
  Wayne's son and a member of the Wayans family
• 1:16:55
  confused. Uh, boy. Oh yeah. One last note about
• 1:16:59
  death, because there's just so much to be found
• 1:17:00
  in Batman, the animated series. Uh, the episode
• 1:17:02
  where we get, who's, who's two faces are alter
• 1:17:04
  ego? Harvey? Oh, Harvey Dent. Yes. Yeah, Harvey
• 1:17:07
  Dent. District attorney Harvey Dent. Oh God.
• 1:17:10
  The moment when, uh, Harvey falls into the pit
• 1:17:12
  of chemicals or whatever and gets poisoned and
• 1:17:15
  then Bruce is, is it, was he, was he as Bruce
• 1:17:18
  or was he as Batman in that moment? I forgot.
• 1:17:20
  I think maybe as Batman. Yeah, I think so. Maybe
• 1:17:23
  either way. Speaking to the humanity and the
• 1:17:26
  depth and the emotional pull that show has, I
• 1:17:28
  just remember that moment where the camera closes
• 1:17:31
  in on Bruce slash Batman's face and he's like,
• 1:17:34
  Harvey, no. Like it was a really deep, emotional,
• 1:17:41
  heavy read from Kevin Conroy who voiced Batman.
• 1:17:44
  Um, I just, yeah, moments like that. I just,
• 1:17:46
  I remember, I mean, I obviously can't do it as
• 1:17:48
  well as he did, but like. I don't know, man.
• 1:17:53
  The sort of... subtle, calm, confident, emotional
• 1:17:59
  depth that Kevin Conroy gave Bruce and Batman.
• 1:18:03
  My brother and I, we went to one of those comic
• 1:18:06
  book conventions at the Mohegan Sun Casino in
• 1:18:08
  Connecticut, and he was there. He was at one
• 1:18:11
  of his tables signing stuff for people. And I
• 1:18:14
  took like a sneaky, illegal picture of Kevin
• 1:18:16
  Conroy, but I didn't want to pay like the 50
• 1:18:17
  bucks for it. Yeah, no, it's just the gravitas
• 1:18:22
  that he gave Bruce Wayne and Batman and just
• 1:18:24
  the bizarreness that he's not here with us anymore.
• 1:18:26
  It's just like, yeah, it's insane. I mean, I
• 1:18:30
  love you talk about Bruce Hamill, Mark Hamill,
• 1:18:34
  Joker and Mark Hamill essentially being quoted
• 1:18:37
  as saying, hey, I'll Joker as long as Kevin Conroy
• 1:18:42
  is Batman. Oh, God. It's great. It's great. Because,
• 1:18:45
  you know, I don't know. I think Kevin could have
• 1:18:48
  really like amped it up with the, I don't know,
• 1:18:51
  with the darkness of Batman, kind of like what
• 1:18:54
  Christian Bale did, like that kind of thing.
• 1:18:58
  um or just weird to me exactly exactly but no
• 1:19:02
  he just made it very subtle and moving like with
• 1:19:05
  Bruce Wayne i just remember it being like oh
• 1:19:07
  hey how you doing like it's just like this very
• 1:19:09
  intimate like charming subtle guy and then with
• 1:19:12
  Batman it was the same thing like like he just
• 1:19:15
  lowered the voice just a little bit And I don't
• 1:19:17
  know, did something like Alfred. Like he just,
• 1:19:21
  I don't know, just a slight turn of the dial
• 1:19:24
  from Bruce Wayne to Batman without playing it
• 1:19:26
  too much. That's what I remember from Kevin Conroy's
• 1:19:29
  performance. It was just, it was magical. Truly
• 1:19:31
  incredible to see and he is missed as a performer,
• 1:19:37
  truly. What's a delicious thing that happened
• 1:19:40
  in your life lately, Ian? delicious thing that
• 1:19:44
  happened in my life lately. Oh, I'll talk about
• 1:19:49
  this. I'm so very happy to be getting into crochet.
• 1:19:57
  And it was, I think that my boyfriend sort of
• 1:20:00
  tried to get me into crochet a little while ago
• 1:20:01
  and it didn't really stick, but what did get
• 1:20:03
  me was doing rhinoceros. We had little crochet
• 1:20:09
  stitching sessions backstage in the... I was
• 1:20:12
  going to ask what crochet was, but it's a sort
• 1:20:15
  of... Yeah, it's the textile thing. It's like
• 1:20:20
  knitting, but you do it with that one little
• 1:20:22
  hooked tool. And it is what me and Max and Sophia
• 1:20:27
  were doing backstage, pretty much every break
• 1:20:31
  we had during the run of the show. And that,
• 1:20:35
  like, that seriously, I... I think, like... Doing
• 1:20:40
  something with my hands like that is very it's
• 1:20:43
  very satisfying. It's very like fulfilling. It's
• 1:20:45
  very like And then like getting to see something
• 1:20:48
  start as almost nothing and and build out into
• 1:20:51
  what it's finally gonna be I'm just rapping at
• 1:20:54
  my final prod or not my final my first real big
• 1:20:58
  crocheted project in the other room It's a little
• 1:21:02
  it's it's a tiny little stuffed animal ladybug
• 1:21:05
  I just getting into crochet has been so fun and
• 1:21:11
  so beautiful, and I can't wait to do it more,
• 1:21:14
  and I'm so thankful for the cast of Rhinoceros
• 1:21:17
  that kind of re -sparks that flame for me recently.
• 1:21:20
  I love that. Yeah, yeah. Hearing about an activity
• 1:21:23
  like Crochet and seeing it done, because I have
• 1:21:26
  a friend, Elizabeth, who also does something
• 1:21:27
  like that, it just always seems like a very peaceful...
• 1:21:31
  uh, thought provoking activity. I liken it to
• 1:21:35
  like when people do like crossword puzzles, you
• 1:21:37
  know what I mean? Like there's just something
• 1:21:39
  where it's like, you can settle down and have
• 1:21:43
  some sort of active therapy by, by doing, by
• 1:21:47
  doing an activity like that. Like it gets your
• 1:21:49
  brain going, but it's also, there's, there's
• 1:21:51
  a relaxing quality to it where if you had a bad
• 1:21:55
  day or if you had a frantic day and you need
• 1:21:57
  some quiet, but you also just need to keep going.
• 1:22:00
  in your mind and your brain and whatnot. It just
• 1:22:03
  seems like crocheting, crossword puzzles, like
• 1:22:05
  those kind of activities. It seems like those
• 1:22:07
  kind of fit that. Yeah, I can definitely just
• 1:22:09
  like quietly zone in, just like... Yeah. Stitch,
• 1:22:13
  stitch, stitch, stitch, stitch. I love that,
• 1:22:15
  I love that. It's like a form of meditation,
• 1:22:16
  I think. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Oh my God, that's
• 1:22:20
  great. Well, Ian, this was a great, great time.
• 1:22:23
  For anybody who wants to follow you and what
• 1:22:26
  you're doing, give us the socials website, anything
• 1:22:28
  you want to promote. Yeah, you can follow me,
• 1:22:30
  wowitsian, wow underscore its underscore Ian,
• 1:22:35
  mostly on TikTok. I post elsewhere very infrequently.
• 1:22:40
  But that's where you can find me. You can find
• 1:22:42
  me on another podcast slash live stream over
• 1:22:47
  on Lan - Light Adventures. We do a pre -recorded
• 1:22:50
  podcast as well as a live stream of some TTRPGs,
• 1:22:55
  tabletop role -playing games like Dungeons and
• 1:22:57
  Dragons. That stream on... I love that. Great.
• 1:23:06
  And as always, listen to The Delicious Culture
• 1:23:08
  wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify,
• 1:23:10
  iHeart, Amazon, SiriusXM, et cetera. We are on
• 1:23:13
  video on Spotify and YouTube. Check us out there.
• 1:23:16
  Speaking of Spotify, leave us a five -star rating.
• 1:23:18
  If you like what you're hearing and watching,
• 1:23:21
  it really helps. If you're listening on Apple,
• 1:23:24
  then write us a review. It helps the algorithm.
• 1:23:26
  Yay. about questions, comments, concerns, feedback,
• 1:23:32
  whatever. TheDeliciousCulture at gmail .com.
• 1:23:35
  We're on social media at The Delicious Culture,
• 1:23:37
  Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. Follow, subscribe,
• 1:23:39
  comment, like, share at The Delicious Culture.
• 1:23:43
  Ian, we got to do this again. Thank you so much
• 1:23:44
  again for coming on. Thank you for having me.
• 1:23:47
  I would love to do this again. Wonderful. And
• 1:23:50
  for all of you listening and watching, let deliciousness
• 1:23:53
  ring.