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    Holy Mackerel, Theater of the Absurder
    Holy Mackerel, Theater of the Absurder
    Holy Mackerel, Theater of the Absurder
    Ebook84 pages41 minutes

    Holy Mackerel, Theater of the Absurder

    By David Press

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    About this ebook

    Two 30-minute absurd comedies for radio or stage. In The Last Remake of King Kong, Kong has evolved into something very close to a human, and, holy mackerel!, along with Ann Darrow, he acts out his angst-ridden, heroic quest to get back to Skull Island. In Channel Zer-0, Benny Bupkis kvetches and tinkers with 1950s TVs in hopes of finding a frequency of an alternate reality. Oy vey is mir!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Press
    Release dateApr 22, 2013
    ISBN9781301707140
    Holy Mackerel, Theater of the Absurder
    Author

    David Press

    As a mild mannered reporter, David Press lives in Milwaukee where he has taught, run an educational publishing company, sold battery-operated Santa Clauses, and authored six young-adult nonfiction books on abolitionists, music, and sports. But it is his super alter hero-ego, the Imp of the Perverse, you read here. The Imp fights a never-ending battle for genre-busting smoke and mirrors, innovative shuck and jive. In addition to these strange plays, the Imp writes overlapping, contradictory, non-linear micro-episodic fictions. An ebook collection of these fictions, Narrow Escapes, soon will be available as an ebook. Press lives with his wife, Petra, an art teacher, print maker and book artist whose works are exhibited nationally. They sometimes collaborate on unique word/design projects. Follow me on Twitter @docdeepy

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      Book preview

      Holy Mackerel, Theater of the Absurder - David Press

      Holy Mackerel

      Theater of the Absurder

      David P. Press

      Copyright © 2013 David P. Press

      Smashwords Edition

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

      For performance permissions, contact,

      David P. Press,

      docdeepy@yahoo.com.

      Table of Contents

      Author’s Preface

      The Last Remake of King Kong

      Channel Zer-0

      About the Author

      Author’s Preface

      Let’s call my two plays here, The Last Remake of King Kong and Channel Zer-0, comedies of the absurd. I am not sure what that label means, but they may be absurder than that. These plays stand close to Ionesco and Groucho Marx; not so close to the very talented John Logan and Katori Hall. Close to Elmer Rice, but outside the shadow of all but the most experimental parts of the most experimental plays of the triumvirate of the American stage, O’Neill, Williams, and Miller, all playwrights who knock my socks off. Sockless, I find myself writing something very different.

      The Last Remake of King Kong and Channel Zer-0 are not realistic comedies about family or groups of friends, not the well-made plays of living room dramas that blueprint so much of the American stage. One is about secret television transmissions, the other about the iconic characters from the legend of King Kong. There is much broad humor, some jokes that are so inside maybe no one will get them, the innate humor of language, and the clown comedy of stage antics. There are also moments that choke off the laughter. Writing is an act of discovery, and as I wrote and read these plays, I discovered some interesting and disturbing things going on about roles and identities, about the subjectivity of a sarcastic reality, about popular culture, and about acting and not acting.

      Each play is about 30 minutes long. This makes either or both well suited to a production that showcases an evening of three or more one-act plays. (The Last Remake of King Kong is actually a two-acter with two scenes each, but it still runs 30 minutes). The plays also serve well for staged readings, and for classroom performances to illustrate experimental theater.

      Both The Last Remake of King Kong and Channel Zer-0 require only two actors and an off-stage voice. Stage props and set design may be as minimal or as complex as you wish. A well-provisioned set designer so inclined could make fairly elaborate sets, but the plays lean toward a world of paper moons and cardboard seas. In Milwaukee, the plays were performed with televisions and Empire State Buildings made of cardboard boxes.

      The plays contain some specific and unique references to Milwaukee

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