Cooking With Gas

Thaddeus Phillips returns to Earth with a peak oil parable.

by A.D. Amorosi

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Aug 29, 2007

The texture of a cracked desert floor. A plastic flamingo. The twin tones of gypsy jazz and western pedal-steel guitars. According to Thaddeus Phillips, these are the sounds and images that guide his new Flamingo/Winnebago. In collaboration with Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental and the Albuquerque, N.M., jazz ensemble La Chat Lunatique, Phillips' multimedia theater piece touches on a kitschy past (Vegas gangsters) and a bleak future (peak oil theory, the Earth consumed by gluttonous ruin). Phillips, a Denver, Colo.-born freestyle-skateboarder-turned-performance-artist who lives in Philly (when he's not living in Bogota, Colombia), has touched on the planet's piggish use of its resources in previous stage productions The Earth's Sharp Edge and Henry Five Live. But not with the warmth or wariness Flamingo/Winnebago promises.

City Paper: Not to ruin the surprise, but did your granddad really do PR for the Vegas mob and the Flamingo in its heyday?

Thaddeus Phillips: My grandfather was a guy named Abe Schiller who worked as a publicist for the Flamingo Hotel. All my brother and I knew growing up was that he was once forced to crawl around on his hands and knees at gunpoint by Bugsy Siegel. But this past January I went to Vegas to find out more. Turns out he was a PR man and quite a character himself. He had nicknames like "Mr. Las Vegas" and "The Jewish Cowboy," met with Queen Elizabeth, fished with Cary Grant and wore totally crazy embroidered Western outfits.

CP: Anything particularly nefarious that sent your mind reeling about his Mafia ties? How do you convey that shock or delight in Flamingo/Winnebago?

TP: I knew about Siegel making him crawl around that pool, but it was great to find that a week after Siegel was killed by his own bosses, Abe was hired as the Flamingo publicist. We try to convey this onstage in very odd ways — as if all of this is being solved as a puzzle. There's microfilm involved. That's all I'll say.

CP: How do you see this show in relation to the previous projects?

TP: Vegas is a city that blows up its past to build a future. This is like a huge metaphor for everything we are doing. This project links up to many of the other ones in secret, odd ways. Lost Soles had a part about my grandmother, the vaudeville dancer who had an affair with Abe. The man we find in Flamingo/Winnebago and the themes of oil fit into The Earth's Sharp Edge and Henry Five Live. And it is the second part of our "America's" trilogy, which [2006's] ¡El Conquistador! was the first.

CP: You seem to enjoy putting performance artists in treacherous, uncomfortable situations. What's that say about you?

TP: I am a very curious person. Sometimes that curiosity brings on trouble.

CP: Why tell this story of America via an Indian immigrant protagonist ?

TP: Mr. Ageet is a character set up for the audience to follow — it is in a way through him that the adventure through the U.S. is experienced. It is vital, if we are to look at ourselves objectively, to have someone else do that. The most telling scene about the United States comes from the perspective of a Bulgarian at an RV park. Don't miss his scene. And the drive into Vegas — what video designer Lars Jan did with that is very nice, huge, crazy and happens fast.

CP: This country's abuse of resources drives your story. Do you live green?

TP: The main point we're making regarding energy is the peak oil theory — or that all the oil on the Earth will soon be discovered and because of that, the world as we know it will cease to be. Humanity doesn't have a clue how to deal with this problem — there's no way we can come up with alternative sources to meet our needs. The USA is built as a nation for cars. We won't have stuff to run those cars on. We're presenting the fact that my grandchildren will not know what it is like to fly in a plane. We're sacrificing the future. Me? I'm into Simple Green Toe shoes — and after researching about peak oil — am very conscious about lights being on and hot water. I want to cover our roof in sod and our theater company uses carbon neutral. Since our work, and this show is based on personal events and is conscious of the world around us, it's impossible to separate a position in a theater work to my own personal one.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Aug. 30-Sept. 3, 9:30 p.m.; Sept 6-8, 6 p.m., $20, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St.

 

All reader comments are subject to our Terms of Use. By clicking Post Comment, you acknowledge that you have reviewed and agree to these Terms.

Name	please enter your name
Email (will not be published)	please enter a valid email
Comment	please enter a comment
Enter the security code on the right in the textbox below.
Security Code	please enter the code
	Join the City Paper Mailing List

Fringe Takes On the World
Sticking To It
Global Warming
From Afar
Off Script
Improv (No Lines!)
Exquisite Corpse
Fest Guesses