SHOOT OUT

Gobsquad's 'Kitchen'

Gob Squad’s Kitchen takes one of Andy Warhol’s films, ‘Kitchen’, as its starting point.
Nothing much happens in the film yet it somehow encapsulates the hedonistic
experimental energy of the swinging sixties. Learning lines was considered ‘old
fashioned’ so the actors just hang around. Sex, drugs and wild parties are referred
to but nothing in particular takes place. As Edie Sedgwick, one of the film’s stars,
says ‘I live my part too – only I can’t figure out what my part is in this movie.’
Gob Squad set themselves the task of reconstructing ‘Kitchen’, despite the fact that
none of them have seen it as the film is unavailable for viewing these days.
How can they get it just right? How do they know if they’re going wrong?
How did people dance in 1965? What did they talk about? Had feminism happened?
Or was it yet to begin?
Gob Squad’s Kitchen becomes a journey back in time and back to the future again.
A quest for the original, the authentic, the here and now, the real me, the real you,
the hidden depths beneath the shiny surfaces of modern life.

“A moving meditation on the nature of self and the unknowability of the past.” The Guardian

http://www.gobsquad.com/currentvideo.php?id_project=34&current=current

Section one

Introduction

John: That's it, that's the one
Carl : Yes...on the canvas ?
Imi : Or on camera...

John: Don’t speak. Just look at the camera.

Carl: I’m making a series of screen tests. I’m looking for The 13 Most
Beautiful Boys and The 13 Most Beautiful Women

(audience member is being filmed)

Lucy steps into space in pose

(Filming turns to stage)

Lucy: I am beautiful Andy. Look at me. I am beautiful. I am…..I am….

Scott steps into space in pose

Scott : I am. I am Andy Warhol

Everyone steps into space in pose.
Quick fire text:

Ravo : I am Andy Warhol
Emily : I am Andy and Valerie Solanas
Emma : I am a factory girl
Jess : I will be Valerie
Imi : I am the cameraman
Dani : I will be smoking
Emily : Me too
Adam: You will be beautiful
Lucy : We’re gonna take you to New York
Scott : We’re gonna take you to Andy Warhols factory
John ; I will be listening to the Velvet Underground
Imi : I'm gonna get hiiiigh
Carl : I'm gonna make a phonecall
Tori : I am gonna write a play
Jess : I'm gonna be drugged up to my eyeballs
Ravo : I've got a 32 calibre stored away in a paper bag
Adam: You will be one of 13 beautiful…
Emma : ..I'm Valerie calling an elevator
Glen : I am Andy
Tori : I am Valerie
Adam: Cut. (filming stops) We are the assassination committee.

Committee are dressed and prepared

Assassination Committee

Emily: Okay we are ready. Take your positions

People get into the shooting position

Tori: There’s the elevator. Please, just take it.

Emily: Stop. We need to re-trace our footsteps

Carl: To yesterday?

Emily: No, further than that

Jess: Last week?

Emily: Further

Carl: 1968

Emily: Yes.

Immy: Okay. It’s 1968, we are in the factory, Warhols factory.

Music starts

(Adam, Jess and Carl step up to mic at back stage, Immy speaks into mic at front of the table)

Immy: It’s hip, it’s hanging out, it’s party time, it’s fast, it’s slow, it’s go man go, it’s drag queens,

Adam: Silk screens
Jess: film scenes,
Carl: amphetamine.

(white coats have to go somehow)

Factory one
Movement sequence – make it more fun, sexy, drugged

At some point Scott steps up to mic at the back

Scott: Introducing Miss Valerie Solanas

Valerie one

Danielle: It is April 9th 1936, and I Valerie Solanas, am born. And it is a glorious moment.

Scott: And Mr Andy Warhol

Carl: Paintings are too hard. The things I want to show are mechanical. Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine, wouldn't you?

Section two

Valerie three
Emma: It’s 1946, my parents have divorced and I’ve moved to Washington DC with my mother.
1949, my mum re-marries, I refuse to go to Catholic school so my grandfather whips me until I agree to go.
1951, I’m living on my own. I’m 15 and tired

(Ravo & Scott stand at microphones at the back, Dani speaks into a microphone at the table at the front, Lucy speaks from centre stage)

Lucy: It’s the Factory. It’s a factory. It’s an assembly line for silk screens. Someone is making a silkscreen. Someone is making film. Someone is making music. Someone is making love. It’s fluid, constant, it’s always new.
Ravo: It’s loud, It’s quiet, it’s free thinking
Scott: It’s Lou Reed, it’s the Velvet Underground
Dani: It’s Bob Dylan
Scott: It’s Mick Jagger
Dani: It’s taking a walk on the wild side
Scott: It mentions you

(Tori, Adam, Jess, Glen, Immy, Scott take it in turns to step up to mics at the back)

Tori: Holly Woodlawn
Adam: Candy Darling
Jess: Jakie Curtis
Glen: Joe Dallesandro
Immy: Joe Campbell

Scott: Aka Sugar Plum Fairy

Factory two

(Scott speaks the lines seriously into mic at back, Tori is centre stage – talking or singing, John is singing and play guitar side stage)

(Everybody – during this everyone has a space on stage an is slowly putting on lipstick)

Scott: Holly came from Miami, F.L.A.
Hitch-hiked her way across the USA
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
She says
Tori: Hey babe
Take a walk on the wild side
Hey honey
Take a walk on the wild side
John: Candy came from out on the Island
In the backroom she was everybody's darlin'
But she never lost her head
Even when she was giving head
She says
Tori: Hey babe, Take a walk on the wild side
I Said, Hey baby
Take a walk on the wild side
John: And the coloured girls go
All: Doo do doo do doo do do doo..


Coroner report

(not sure what everyone is doing through this – Michael might have some ideas if he here you read it)
L/E/I: Andy Warhol
Lucy: Arrives by ambulance at the emergency room of Columbus Hospital
Emma: became well known in the New York underground film community for his minimalist films.

Immy: sent photographs to a commercial silkscreen shop to have the photographic images transferred to silkscreens
Emma: his
Immy: At the shop,
E & I: black and white
Emma: 16mm films
Immy: or high-contrast colour photographs

Emma: had a unique visual vocabulary

Immy: were projected onto sheer silk fabric stretched over a frame
Lucy: he arrives on a
L/I: Stretcher/stretched
Lucy: At 4.15 he is pronounce clinically dead
Emma: his early films were rarely edited
Immy: A light-sensitive emulsion hardened in the areas where it was exposed to light. The emulsion that was not exposed to light did not harden and was then rinsed off leaving clear fabric.
Lucy: The doctors cut open his chest and massage his heart.
Immy: Using a rubber blade the paint was pushed across the screen’s surface
Emma: ‘strobe cutting.’ His one editing trademark technique

Immy: The rubber blade forced the paint through the screen,
Lucy: the bullet went through his lung

Immy: but only in the unblocked areas. tiny dots of paint
Lucy: ricocheted through / Immy: squeeze through
Lucy: his oesophagus,
Immy: the woven threads
Emma: Chance
Immy: creating the printed image
Emma: Film
Lucy: gall bladder
Emma: Splice
Lucy: liver, spleen, and intestines before exiting his left side, leaving a large hole. He is dead for 1 1/2 minutes before they revive him. They operate for
Emma: His film Empire is
Lucy: five and a half
Emma: eight
L/E: hours
Emma: Long
Lucy: removing his spleen.
Emma: the filming itself took six hours
Lucy: He is in critical condition, but survives.
John: It hurt so much, I wished I was dead.

Factory three

(Everybody – during this is slowly putting on mascara. John is playing and singing, Immy is singing)

John: Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New York City's the place where they say,
Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said, Hey Joe
Take a walk on the wild side

Immy: Sugar Plum Fairy came and hit the streets
Lookin' for soul food and a place to eat
Went to the Apollo
You should've seen em go go go
They said, Hey shuga Take a walk on the wild side
I Said, Hey babe
Take a walk on the wild side



Valerie four

Emily: It’s 1952 and I am studying at the University of Maryland.
1953, I work as a prostitute to pay my way through my studies.
1956, I finally graduate
1960, I’m writing
1961, I’m writing
1962, I’m writing
My manifesto, my SCUM manifesto

(SCUM text here)

Company images

Lone Twin


Pigeon Theatre


Uninvited Guests

Research help

Contemporary Performance Companies

Recent-ish

Lone Twin
Knee High Theatre
Desperate Optimists
Uninvited Guests
Bodies in Flight
Pigeon theatre
Action Hero
Third Angel
Zoo Indigo
Michael Pinchbeck
Vincent dance
These Horses
Imitating the Dog
Gob squad

Slightly older

Pina Bausch
Robert Wilson
Robert Le Page
Forced Entertainment
Reckless Sleepers
Station House Opera

Even older

The People Show
IOU
Welfare State International
Red Ladder


Approaches/techniques we have used

Fragmented theatre
Non-linear narrative
Chance technique – (Merce Cunningham)
Gesture Choreography
Performing as self
Addressing the audience
Stepping between acting ‘self’ and ‘performance persona’
Using live film feed to highlight action
Ensemble performance
Creating text from improvisation
Sourcing text from pre-written material i.e. film, script, fact, websites etc
Cutting up/re-appropriating found text.
Layering different texts

hello :)

this is the first script i have for the scene where we just CANNOT remember the order! So this is it from now :)

John : That's it, that's the one
Carl : Yes...on the canvas ?
Imi : Or on camera...

Scott : I am Andy Warhol
Ravo : I am Andy Warhol
Emily : I am Andy and Valerie
Emma : I am a factory girl
Jess : I will be Valerie
Imi : I am the cameraman
Dani : I will be smoking
Emily : Me too
Lucy : We're gonna take you to New York
Scott : Alice Cooper has been signed to Frank Zappa's label?
John ; I will be listening to the Velvet Underground
Imi : I'm gonna get hiiiigh
Carl : I'm gonna make a phonecall
Tori : I am a playwright
Jess : I'm gonna be drugged up to my eyeballs
Ravo : I've got a 32 calibre stored away in a paper bag
Emma : I'm Valerie
Adam : We are the assassination committee
Glen : I am Andy
Tori : I am Valerie

Riiight, this is it. my only query is Scott's line about Alice Cooper is a bit random? Cos it doesnt say what he'll be doing in the show, like everyone else's?

Love yooous nerds. xx