#matthew gasda

[grandhotelabyss]

Two good bad reviews: Valerie Stivers on Wilson's Iliad, Matt Gasda on the plays of Camus. For me, they exemplify the two possible effects of bad reviews, the predictable—Stivers makes me want to avoid Wilson's translation—and the paradoxical—Gasda makes me want to give Camus's plays a try.

[fairest]

If a book is published, it should have been hard to write; but too many books feel like they were easy to write—like someone ordinary learned a trick for filing up 300 pages. Matthew Gasda

[corndoggod]

A Review of Matthew Gasda's "Zoomers"

“Do you know a white rapper named Small Boss?”

“I don’t.” 

“That’s my cousin!”

I overheard this standing in line for the bathroom at Matthew Gasda’s new play Zoomers, which took place dramatically in a Bushwick boys apartment and literally in a north Greenpoint loft called “The Brooklyn Center for Theater Research,” a new LLC. The bathroom line snaked through the kitchen and determined the length of intermission (I held my pee). I was eyeing the $7 Stellas in the fridge when C whispered in my ear, “The playwright’s dressed like Holden Caulfield.” 

It was obvious he was the director/writer from the way he swished around softly commanding attention and obedience. A scarf nuzzled his neck and rimless glasses telescoped his discerning eyes. This was one of the earliest performances and Gasda watched the play a couple seats away, laughing with and without us, piquing my curiosity when he laughed without us.  

Dean Kissick was there with his high cheekbones and ugly Asics seated in front of me. We met one of the actor’s friends in line, they worked together at a sushi restaurant in Williambsurg, and this was his first play in New York. I thought I saw Christian Lorentzen too, but Google suggested this guy with bulging eyes was crowned with too much hair. 

The set, true to its twentysomething adrift tenants, was shaggy and minimalist: nothing more than a couch, bong, cluttered coffee table, TV and Nintendo Switch. The opening action took place in Nintendo’s multiverse as Luigi and Kirby faced off in Super Smash Bros and the two Bushwick Bros bantered, “Kirby’s a bitch.” After a summerlong hiatus I was back on Smash, drumming King K Rool’s belly with war, grief, and eternal life, and it was charming to see the quotidien fabric of life, as useful and smelly as a tube sock, dramatically staged. 

The Switch acted as a far-reaching lighthouse in Gasda’s referential fog of New York life as a recent transplant fresh out of school. The play is crowded with such touchstones: polyamory, food delivery, Venmo requests, ambition softened by the city’s edge and the fear that “taking a break” isn’t catching one’s breath but a tombstone. Amidst this sea of uncertainty, Smash served as a kind of narcotic not just for New York but for everyone everywhere. 

While Gasda was quite skilled at identifying these nodes of tribal identity, he had more trouble making sense of them and the issues those tribes faced. Based on the title and the Switch, I thought it was a pandemic play. But the play was actually a romcom occupied with casual and toxic relationships, the rude reality of life post-Ivy, a feast of anxiety and floundering for deeper connectivity. 

The play made emotional sense but it had no depth. It wasn’t for a lack of trying either, it’s just that the attempts to get there bordered on the cliche, as when the “adult” character, an architect who viewed boundaries as a blueprint for happiness, says to his more-than-a-decade-younger lover something like, “I’m afraid if I dip my toes in this current it’s strong enough to drag me away,” to which she replies, “I’ll sail with you.” But then there were other lines like, “Love is young people growing old together,” which I liked and could probably find on Etsy. 

The writing was strong overall (I’d like to see and read more of Gasda), but the acting was gnarly. I don’t want to be mean so I won’t say more. But I will say it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the play too much. 

I came to Zoomers curious from the hype around Dimes Square that launched Gasda into the headlines. I was ready to be skeptical, but the writing was impressive and so was Gasda’s whole enterprise: the LLC, the workshops, the afterparty, which he seemed to treat as an opportunity for further observation, perhaps fishing around for his next play. I respected that he was actually doing the work. It made me want to convert my apartment into a soiree to show my friend’s art and workshop each other’s work, to host plays choreographed specifically for our sunken lime wash jungle of a living room. I could start a shell company to squirrel away all our hidden artistic treasures and shored up dreams.

[settledthingsstrange]

Regimes of biosurveillance, integrated into culture, destroy culture from within. I feel the way about many bookstores that I do about theaters. At least in New York, where I live, they have lost their magic, and are no longer worth lingering in. Covid gave cultural institutions license to act like institutions, to exercise control for the sake of control over whoever comes through the doors, charging more, providing less. As Ivan Illich wrote, institutions “shape not only our preferences but actually our sense of possibilities”—and institutions today seem committed to suggesting that very little is possible beyond a certain narrow conception of life. To those who think there’s nothing wrong with continuing to take precautions, I would say that Covid protocols have accelerated a process that was already underway, one in which our shared sense of possibility is sharply limited by bureaucratic rule-making. Fear of litigation or protest is at war with the spirit by which the great works of drama, music, and dance reach the soul.

Matthew Gasda, “The Slow Suffocation of the Performing Arts”

[666tchort666]

You’re Invited to an Online Screenwriting Workshop, Taught by Matthew Gasda and Nick Newman, Beginning Next Week

http://dlvr.it/TBdV0T

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: ‘Zoomers’ Review: Just Don’t Kill the Vibes by Brittani Samuel

By Brittani Samuel Gen Z’s reputation for conflict avoidance, and the way digital media abets it, is a recurring theme in the latest by the “Dimes Square” playwright Matthew Gasda. Published: January 26, 2024 at 05:01AM from NYT Theater https://ift.tt/wyY1pfF via IFTTT

[gnatswatting]

• My memory is not comprehensive and neither is my way of thinking. I only know myself through the little clues that I leave behind within. —Matthew Gasda

Novalis – Substack Novalis – Substack (at Internet Archive)

[adultfilmnyc]

George Olesky is playing Silva Vicarro in THE GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY from Tennessee Williams. George is an actor, writer, and educator based in New York City. He’s most recently appeared in Matthew Gasda’s Ardor, Dover, Messages, Still Life, Minotaur & All the Mournful Voices. He has worked with Roundabout, Trinity Rep, Bedlam, Rattlestick, People's Light, SpeakEasy Stage, Epic Theater Ensemble, Dixon Place, Bay Street Theater, & A Noise Within. TV credits include Blue Bloods, Madam Secretary, Little Voice, Halston, Gravesend, & Allen Gregory. Film credits include Delivery Girl (Sundance 2019) and Micks Out. From 2010 to 2013 George served as a writer's assistant to screenwriter Jonathan Roberts. Olesky earned an MFA in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep and BA from Hampshire College. He was a 2015 recipient of The Brown in the World Grant for a research fellowship in Berlin. He is a member of ADULT FILM, a Bushwick-based theater & film collective, with which he premiered his solo work Joan. George has been an Actor in Residence at Media Workshops + College since 2018 and is a founding member of The Brooklyn Center for Theater Research in Greenpoint, where he teaches acting.

IG: @georgeolesky linktr.ee/georgeolesky

[biglisbonnews]

Matt Weinberger Wants to Take Your Photo for PAPER's 'Fresh Pressed' This is Fresh Pressed, in which photographer Matt Weinberger takes us inside some of the rawest moments happening in NYC and beyond. Fresh Pressed is all about encountering the juicy ideas, aesthetics and people shaping culture through the lens of the city's many creative scenes.Playdate at Paul's @ Paul's Baby Grand (1/25/23)Every Wednesday, Paul's Baby Grand — which has a reputation for one of the toughest doors in NYC — is overtaken by seasoned nightlife personalities for "Playdate at Paul's," organized by Orson Childress. This Wednesday started off with Nina Tarr on the DJ deck, with Orson hopping on for the party's crescendo. Once the disco ball was up and turning, that’s when you knew it was time to turn up, grab your French 75, and dance, dance, dance. Around 1 AM the staff brings around platters with a surprise snack. This week they served an assortment of macaroons.Beepy Bella x doublesoul @ The Gutter NYC (1/25/23)What do you get when you jiggle a magical frog and make a wish for a fairy-goth quirky-queen bowling alley sock-filled extravaganza? Beepy Bella is Isabella Lalonde’s brainchild of fun designs geared toward the cool kids of the future and loving loners. Isabella partnered up with doublesoul, an up-and-coming cult-favorite brand, started by Ben Rosenbaum and Allison Strumeyer, known for making really comfortable unisex socks.Lunar New Year Rave (1/20/23)Alice Longyu Gao's annual Lunar New Year Rave was the most hyper-electric way to welcome in the Year of the Rabbit. The party was planned by Alice The Club, Gao's club night brand, alongside Charlie Yates and Maisy Kind Swords of party collective Grapenut brunch Club. The night was filled with an eccentric flow of scene regulars and newcomers hopping around the crowded space. DJs included Number1fairytale, Harry Teardrop, Angel Emoji, Lulu.Wav, Milkfish, TheLimitDoesNotExist and Gao herself. A portion of the proceeds went to Project Reach.Club Eat's "Bubblegum" Single Release Party @ Mehenata Bulgarian Bar (1/20/23)A sweet mess of refreshing goodness — the kind of party one can only wish there were more of. The crowd chewed up the good energy and the DJs spit out banger after banger. Ren of Club Eat performed a few songs, including their new single "Bubblegum" — a performance somewhat stifled by a garbled audio system. But the crowd ate it up anyway. No one seemed to mind the audio problems because, well, Club Eat is awesome and the energy was on a major good vibrancy mode. Jaxon Demme's "Celestial Cues" Opening @ No Gallery (1/20/23)A bustling crowd burst out the doors of No Gallery and onto Henry Street for the opening of Jaxon Demme's solo exhibition. The show consisted of a number of paintings and drawings encircled by a flurry of 96 concrete butterflies, creating an immersive space, breaking the boundaries of the canvas. Viewers fluttered through the gallery space, exchanging hugs and chattering as they took part in the ritual Friday night gallery hop. The show dealt with themes of reincarnation, corporeality and a refute of specificity of form. As the night ended, like butterflies, the many attendees migrated off in search of something new. The popular spot seemed to be Mr. Fongs, where the unofficial after party was to take place.The Dare's Freakquencies Party @ Home Sweet Home (1/19/23)Harrison Patrick Smith's ("The Dare") Freakquencies Party is back on a sporadic basis, and the comeback night was a special one. The dance floor was squeaky as the room boogied into the night. The air was thick and the sweat was sticky but the grooving never died down. Now all we can do is sit tight and look forward to The Dare's next single."Afters," A Play by Matthew Gasda, First Reading @ Beckett Rosset's Loft (1/18/23)The first reading of Afters, a sequel to Matthew Gasda's hit Dimes Square, took place at Beckett Rosset's West Village loft space and featured an all-star cast including Christian Lorentzen, Cassidy Grady, Anika Jade Levy and Vishwam Velandy. Gasda’s writing is sharp and witty, exploring the emotional nuance and all-too-common irreverent discourse often apparent in the daily interactions of city-dwelling millennials.Hot Blue Subway Fashion Show and After Party @ Deluxxe Fluxx (1/14/23)Aa night of multidisciplinary entertainment filled with two runway shows, live music, drag performances, great DJ sets, and a crowd that was starving to get their boogie on. All heaven broke loose. Music blasted and the night was filled with cheers and whistles - a sprint of great performances. DJ sets by Jackson Walker Lewis, Abby Kuskin, yesterdayneverhappened, and Velvette Blue were interspersed by live performances by Atom Vegas, Alexis Jae, Localhotdad, and Paid Victim with a second runway show of the night hopping into the mix showcasing a new line by Goodsport, designed by Madison Calderon. The audience was also treated to a few hyper-fun drag performances by Fin Argus aka Pig Milk, Prince Dyonne, and Lucia Fuchsia. The crowd was eating it all up — a genuine twelve-course dinner of talent goodness. I imagine most anyone who attended left feeling satisfyingly full, with stomachs, minds, and hearts filled with the joy of seeing some of what the many talented treats of NYC have to offer. Cheers, swig, smile, an abundance of style. Pom Poms, dyed hair, neon lights.Perfectly Imperfect x Forever Magazine Party @ Baby's All Right (1/13/23)I like that Ezra, who is a popular writer/journalist, is getting out there hopping on the DJ deck (everyone loves a multidisciplinary renaissance man). Alice put on an absolutely electric set as she bounced around the stage like an enchanted ball of pent-up hyperpop energy. At one point she threw on The Dare's beloved single “Girls,” which roused the crowd into a state of a jovial glitch-nirvana frenzy. Angel Prost, another scene favorite, who makes up one half of the on-the-rise band The Frost Children alongside her sister Lulu Prost, did nothing less than perform greatness. She is the quintessential good DJ: awe-inspiring, aspirational and other-worldly, all while playing music that makes it impossible not to dance.At one point, Lulu hopped up on stage with Angel and, like the Avengers assembling or the Power Rangers turning into a Megazord (or whatever it is they do), a new strength and power was unleashed, and the venue turned into a burning-hot frost puddle of boiling enthusiasm. Lulu’s cameo on stage was definitely a top moment of the night, adding to what was already a great mesh of some of NYC’s favorite cultural personalities. The night ended with Ren from Club Eat performing a low-key set in the front room of the venue as things wound down.Chrissie Miller's Party @ Jeans (1/12/23)Chrissie Miller's Party @ Jeans (1/12/23)An interesting mix of the most recent old guard and the new, with the general crowd being a bit older than myself (people in their 30s, 40s). I got the sense that a lot of the older crowd had been a part of the cool kid NYC scene back in the '90s and 2000s. I heard that one of the co-hosts, Chrissie Miller, was married to Leo Fitzpatrick, who played Telly in Larry Clark’s seminal film Kids (1995). Some faces of note included Sabrina Fuentes of Sicky Sab (who I first saw perform when I was in high school), Rex DeTiger (who has a great business card), Zak from Lucien (who I finally let borrow a roll of film from me), Reza Nader aka The Arab Parrot (who may be my new favorite doorman in NYC) and Quinn Elin Mora (who is a fantastic model). Smiles, hugs, furs and leather. Sheer tops, booty drops, three chains and a room filled with potential fame. https://www.papermag.com/fresh-pressed-january-2023-2659270688.html

[grandhotelabyss]

Alice Gribbin on the prejudices of the institutional left above, Matthew Gasda on the prejudices of the anti-institutional right below. You shall know them by their theories of art. If they think art flows directly out of political power, then they think the inmost recesses of humanity can and should be rationalized and operated by the same power. "Left" and "right," in this case at least, are entirely irrelevant. The sociology of art is inherently a totalitarian prospect.

[fairest]

The roots of a great love, if deep enough, can retain water and prevent the desertification of the heart.

— Matthew Gasda

[planetary-wolf]

You ever go through old acting photos just for the hell of it Gods, I do not look good on camera. I’m rotund as fuck

First Oswego show I was in was in 2015, the most recent one was spring 2019. I miss performing

Shows, all done by SUNY Oswego:

The Bacchae (as written by Matthew Gasda) The (Space) Pirates of (Planet) Penzance  The Stone Age Fun Home

[saggingmeniscus]

A Little Excerpt from Matthew Gasda’s Orchid Elegy

Matthew Gasda’s Orchid Elegy is a hard poem to excerpt, because it is already cut up into little, hard atoms with their own identities, yet each is radically incomplete without the whole.  But experiencing the yearning loneliness of those fragments is one of the beauties of the work, so here is one, almost randomly chosen page spread from the book:

[thevitalist-blog]

How to Be a Russian Novelist

I suspect that one of the reasons that Latin American fiction was so good during the mid-20th century--the years known as “The Boom”--was that the societal and political conditions that surrounded life for Latin American writers and intellectuals then (and now) were such that fiction could draw equally and paradoxically on both optimism and despair for its energy--as well as look towards Europe for cultural inspiration.

The conditions of life for the “Boom” writers (Cortázar, Márquez, Llosa, Fuentes among others)  closely resembled that of the great the 19th century Russian writers (Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov). Politically, spiritually, economically both 20th century Latin America and 19th century Russia were intensely, feverishly revolutionary; the literature which comes out of those times, even if not even not literally about the events of the day, reflects the dynamic intellectual atmosphere of the times.

I am not trying to imply that there is some absolute sociological law which dooms or guarantees the production of literature (Marlowe couldn’t write like Shakespeare despite drawing on the same cultural energy, et al) but that there are patterns in literary boom times that indicate the heuristic importance of certain cultural habits and the irrelevance of others. The paradoxical embrace of despair and optimism in other words, the existence of which--as I’ve pointed out--was a feature of two periods of classic writing, should therefore be considered important to any culture that wants to cultivate its own great works.

Without exhaustively cataloging what I might as well call the spiritual bipolarity of certain books, one only need brush up on one’s Dostoyevsky--or Márquez for that matter--to know what I mean: one of the things we love about reading is having our inner highs and lows mapped out for us, and as easy as that might seem, only the rare writer can do it profoundly.

Russians took their inner lives seriously (as least their writers did) and they took the fate of their nation, their national identity as Russians, seriously (very seriously) as well. The exploitation, the dictatorships, the economic volatility, the Catholic history of Latin America (Latin America is a term I’m using very loosely and broadly here) can easily be interpreted to resemble Russian society of the previous century--so too can the huge importance placed on new literature and public intellectuals in both epochs. A new book or article by Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, a new play by Chekhov was a national event, while in Latin America, the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa ran for president of Peru in 1990 and lost a close run-off election.

For a literary writer to hold political office, or to exercise real political, public clout, in the U.S., is almost inconceivable--but my point is not to suggest that writers should run for political office (I would suggest the opposite), but that a society which vaunts its writers on a national scale, is one that loves literature, and one where literature must be flourishing; one where the sense of national fate is somehow tied to the fate of national aesthetics.

For a writer working in the United States, while the actual politics of a nation like 19th century Russia should not be enviable, the sense of event and importance that surrounded the release of new books in my examples should be a source of jealousy.

But more seriously for our writers--the spiritual, political, and aesthetic intensity (generated by the movement between hope and despair) of a great Russian writer, or a great contemporary Chilean or Mexican or Argentine writer, should be something worth emulating. Our writing, and more deeply, our sense of what it means to be a writer, has just become--on a general level at least--too trivial, too flippant. While the next pamphlet by Tolstoy was an event that legitimately could change the course of Russian history, the next novel by Jonathan Franzen is likely only to change the schedule of a book signing in Park Slope.

Writing a novel, a poem, a play, an essay--anything that one intends to publish and not keep private--should not be an act for the sake of itself, or for the sake of self-satisfaction. I don’t know for sure how it is that we can intensify (that is: Russiafy) our literary lives and our literary culture, but I do know that we ought to; that our new writing seems to lack (and this is a collective action problem) a singular conviction and power.

One suggestion, might be that we simply have to take life more seriously, as seriously (and yes that means we dispensing with our reflexive postmodern irony folks) the Russians did, or as the “Boom” writers did. We have to be serious in the sense that we see literature as having force enough to alter its surroundings, and serious in the sense that those surroundings are worth the time it would take to alter them.

MG

[grandhotelabyss]

Above is the heart of the latest Crumplar. It’s characteristically very long and self-involved and I wouldn’t have read the whole thing except that I’m in an airport. Basically it narrates something out of The Trial involving all the people from the Dimes Square scene—a public burning orchestrated by the guy from I Just Want My Pants Back. Remember I Just Want My Pants Back? 

I have no idea if all that happened or if it’s a mix of theory-fiction and publicity, but it baroquely confirms, from a different ideological perspective, what I wrote on Substack last weekend. Through the generosity of the author I was finally able to satisfy my curiosity and read Matthew Gasda’s Dimes Square play—hey, publicity works or nobody would bother—and found something more interesting and ambitious than all the sociology and gossip (but I repeat myself) around it would suggest. My essay is here. An excerpt:

If I were to put Gasda in any new-right context at all, not that I know anything of his practical political commitments, I would consider his play in the light of that movement’s favorite philosopher, René Girard, who posited that modern secular life was marred and would eventually be destroyed by rivalrous social emulation, our desire for what other people want and our desire to be what other people are, desires that, in their this-worldly immanence, lower our aim from higher things.

[...]

Gasda has cited Harold Bloom as an inspiration. Bloom’s model of influence—an intergenerational contest of great writers for imaginative primacy in time rather than sociopolitical or sexual priority in space—overtly recalls Jacob’s wrestling with the angel. Similarly, Girard counsels, instead of the “deviated transcendency” of social envy and rivalry, the true transcendence of a relationship with the divine, or perhaps what we might more ecumenically call the numinous. Gasda, an avowed Rousseauist, might rather speak of nature. Whatever label we attach or tradition we follow, neither true poetry nor true love can exist in the play; but they are implied in the space left by the illusions the play dispels.