Couldyou detail a bit of your revolutionary economic theory?
OK.If we want to change the way the world is, we need to start on an economiclevel. There are many examples of people doing things in alternative economics,and traditional economics collapsing and failing, which is exciting to me. I'mnot so much interested in leading an economic revolution as describing theeconomic revolution which is already underway. It seems to involve morecooperation and more of the owners of the means of production producing thingsthemselves and receiving the products of their labor themselves, and so there'snot that division between the classes. Everything happens on a small scale, butbecause of new technologies, it's able to network and connect with andparticipate in very decentralized but global networks.
Howdoes theater fit in?
I think live performance is going to be elevatedover other mediums. This is already happening; bands that tour a lot, that givetheir fans the real experience playing small, intimate venues, are challengingand disrupting the music industry. Theater is just an extension of that. Ithink there are social and historical forces that are combining to advance liveand DIY art in general, and so I'm just going to ride that growth. Ulysses Crewman is going to be even more tour-based than Paint the Town. It's just the two of us, and its shorter.
What's UlyssesCrewmanabout?
I was in a political theory class and the professorused the metaphor of Ulysses tied to the mast to explain Hobbes' position thatyou must sign the covenant and sacrifice all of your autonomy to an authority,any authority; my immediate response was "No no! [laughs] Take the wax outof your ears, hear the sirens, let yourself be smashed against the rocks!"So that's what gave me the impetus to create a work of art that expresses thedesire to have radical autonomy. So where Homer in the Odyssey is saying youshould be reverent to the gods over your short-term rational interests, this issaying "Notake risks! There are no gods to be reverent to."
What's your experience of doing theater in Milwaukee?
There is a lot of theater here, but there's verylittle experimental or politically radical theater. Over the course of 5 yearswe've gone though different ways of trying to promote what were doing andtrying to gain a foothold here, and at this point I think we have given up. Butwe also plan on coming back to Milwaukeevery very frequently, doing shows here.
UlyssesCrewman returns to Milwaukee for one show, Sept. 30 at Stone FlyBrewery