Morning Milking Evening Milking, Mach I (Spring: 2000)

(Morning Milking Evening Milking opened at Theater For The New City in spring 2000)

A bird flew through a strange puff of smoke and was forever altered. It stayed a bird, yes, but all of a sudden it used to be a cat that had tried to chase it for years. So needless to say this bird was confused.

And ain't they all, fellas? Ain't all beautiful birds that flew through magic smoke confused? I've met a few myself and I know you have too. They say one thing and then pretty soon they're doing everything opposite from that. You try to expect the unexpected but what winds up happening is you lose your ability to foresee even the slightest of futures.

So what do you do then, huh? Do you fold yourself up into a tiny little origami swan? Or do you do like that real bird did and keep flying on, remembering your new history, experiencing anew your own desire to catch and eat yourself alive?

I don't know. I'm hungry.

There I was in New York City, thrown into a world created by Jim Farmer called "Morning Milking Evening Milking". I might as well have been the imaginary bird I just planted in your brain for all I knew.

His words are alive and they don't allow you any of your bullshit. If you think you're gonna get out of it unscathed you better think again because Farmer that little imp has other destinies in mind for you.

His loft hovered somewhere in Tribeca and would later be covered in dust that flew out from the falling towers. This was still over a year away by the time I saw it for the first time and I knew I was in for a magical ride the moment I read the first word.

All traditional description of rehearsal and production do not apply here. Suffice it to say that we were captured by the images in Farmer's brain. They brought us to a strange Tennessee Williams world where the normal interactions defined by pixie dust and mint juleps ceased to fully apply. We were on our own in that velvet jungle and the sweating palm fronds that slapped against the greenhouse of his imagination gave our fictional selves license to dream our own internal fun house magic shows.

Disorientation is art.

So is a stick of gum chewed and placed directly under your windshield wiper.

So is your cute little panties sticking out from underneath that skirt with the rabbits on it.

And when you showed up soaking wet on that sunny day I knew there was no turning back, that any and all references would be encircled by you, that you eclipsed the idea of you, that I had no alternative but to shatter my own misconceptions and replace them with utter faith and disbelief.

See I get violent when I am challenged and this ol' world isn't big enough to contain my rage. So that baby growing in your stomach that might or might not be mine and might or might not be yours is just another call to arms, one more slight to be endured while I shiver and shake with the never ending lust you've planted in my heart like a weed.

Oh baby. Come sit on my lap with your big pregnant belly and tell me everything gon' be alright in spite of what your daddy says. And don't even bring up yer Ma coz I swear to God I'll pull the roof down and build a dollhouse with it in which I'll torture every damn Barbie you ever owned. I know that's anachronistic and shit but you think I care? DO YOU THINK I CARE?

You know I do, baby doll. You know I do.

And there goes that bird again, back through the smoke that brought about the unspeakable change. Would the reversal of the action take the cat-past-life out of its birdbrain and restore it to some sort of virginal purity?

Course not, darlin'. Life don't work that way.

(Morning Milking Evening Milking opened at Theater For The New City in spring 2000)