theatre of mind, muscle and media
Developed With and Performed By:
The Ensemble 1998
Bonnie Zimering Bottoms, Beth Brooks, Tony Brown, Brently Michael Davis, Kym Longhi, Kari Margolis, Kathleen Sullivan, Michael A. Sward, Veronica Weadock, Alexa Bradley and Peter Hutter.
The Ensemble 1995
Bonnie Zimering Bottoms, Brently Michael Davis, Holly Schramm, Caron Cacciatore, Kym Longhi, James Lloyd, Tony Brown, Kari Margolis, Risa Cohen, Stephan Geras. Jill Heaberlin, Gunnar Danielson,
Sound Design and Original Compositions: Tony Borwn
Costume Design: Kari Margolis and Bil Ingram
Video Engineer/Installation Design/Production Assistant: Jim Peitzman
Masks: Brently M. Davis
Body Puppets: Kym Longhi and Kathleen Sullivan
Stage Managers: Patsy Raynolds and Sean Tonko
Gypsy Music
Dave Douglas-trumpet and original composition, Mark Feldman-violin, Nabila Schwab-accordion and voice, Charles Haynes-arrangements for recorded violin
Video excepts edited by JPProductions
Able to leap entire decades in a single bound, Kari Margolis and Tony Brown play two intense yet hilariously unhinged vampires. Obsessed with eternal youth they are like the celluloid stars of the Hollywood orbit and will never age. After a century of sucking up a host of cinematic and other pop cultural images they fervently continue their bizarre pursuit of the meaning of love and life.
VIDPIRES! featured the world premiere of Margolis and Brown's original vampire songs performed by a live "dead" band.
VIDPIRES! 1998
a steamy, satirical, multimedia extravaganza
Theater Review by Mike Steele, March 24, 1998
Star Tribune Staff Writer
This is a spirited look at popular culture, at the way it sinks its teeth into us; at the way it drains us of the blood of reality until the conventions of TV and the movies become our reality, a sort of national entertainment consciousness stronger than the world around us.
It centers on two vampires, the swooning siren Diphylla (Margolis) and the longing Desmodus (Brown), looking like a silent-movie star wearing tails decayed worse than he is. The essence of the show is their melodramatic attempt to merge with the ethos of pop culture, thus to become immortal and forever in love. In other words, they've been driven batty by overfeeding on TV shows and old movies, never consummating their love because they can't get beyond pop fantasies.
"Vidpires!" is filled with compelling imagery: the notion of capturing death on video so a person's image never dies; a stunning scene in which everything the two touch turns to dust; another in which they pick up a TV set and it turns into so many wires and circuits; a bizarrely effective dance of the coffin-bound in which seven vampires swirl around each other and escape into the night.
It's also filled with incisive technological tricks, magic, stage illusion and imagination. For instance, Brown plays a gypsy violin with a TV screen propped between his neck and shoulder that's showing a video of a violin being played. A sequence of famous Hollywood kisses is projected against two naked bodies as if to test whether the images or the bodies are more sensual or whether they become so entwined they can't be differentiated. During a bombardment of game-show images, Margolis grabs the TV screen, peels off an especially aggravating winner and crumbles him at her feet.
The two vampires even intrude into the screen themselves, becoming images of the silver screen - Valentino, Theda Bara, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. All these episodes are deftly done by the ensemble of nine, which is fully in sync with the kinetic rhythms of the production.
"Vidpires!" ends with the entire company engaged in a perpetual dance of love - spinning through a world where cultural illusion subsumes yearning and desire. It's a little scary when you think about it, but hugely entertaining while watching it.
Lighting Design:
Jeff Bartlett & Stephen Rueff
Scenic Design: Rick Paul
Kari Margolis & Tony Brown
Directed By:
Kari Margolis
Multimedia Imagery:
Tony Brown & Kari Margolis
Conceived By: