Toward a Neo-Cubist Alamkara Movement in a Reality-Programmed Theatre Near You

Abstract

When I first started writing electric and hysteric operettas1 with punk bands down in Austin, Texas, I tried to draw what I thought language could sound like onstage. I came up with the illustration “Back of the Dollar Latin” because I was worried about how the new dollars were getting simplified and clearer and harder to fake. I liked the strange secrets lurking all over the old dollars and the packing in of symbols and overwrought curlicues. And I thought it was possible to banish that horrible sound of actors projecting their voices into abject space and to have other things coursing through the voice, like emotional vibrato and cry pitches3 and raging vampyre fugues,4 and so forth. I thought words could erupt in a kinetic stage combat of dialogue and I proceeded to write madcap barroom brawls5 and martial arts operas6 and black box recordings of classic disasters.7