(Not) Another Day
by Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht • Adapted by Rick Burkhardt, Performed by T-Roy Martin, Colm O’Reilly, Vicki Walden, Beau O’Reilly, Jenny Magnus, Jennifer Moniz, Julia Williams, Janet Sayre, Jayita Bhattacharya, Jeffrey Bivens, Raju Bivens, Leo Brün, Cat Jarboe, and Jeff Kowalkowski
An actor on the popular soap opera Another Day is killed off, but he refuses to leave the show. The producers have no choice but to stage his funeral, and when he remains intractable, the funeral goes on, day after day, stuck in the twilight soap opera world of attenuated time and constant drama. The cast of the soap opera begins to become unhinged as they replay the same moments over and over. Like shipwrecked passengers, they turn on each other, breaking down the boundaries of civilized behavior. At the same time, the man, Bobby Jinx, played by Beau O'Reilly, perpetually in his coffin, playing dead, begins to have an after-death experience of the bardos, or in-between places, that are described in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. At the same time, a writer, played by Vicki Walden, who is composing the entire project, is concerned with the formal narrative elements of their story and its themes. Her mind comes to life as a Greek chorus of cheerleading-cop-parents played by Julia Williams, Troy Martin, Brook Celeste and Paul Brennan, who try to goad her into finishing her work.
“It’s a charming bit of absurdism, sung in an intentionally artless vernacular with melodies that often cling to single notes. But Magnus, as is her wont, digs for deeper veins, exploring the debilitating compulsion to press on when no useful ideas or guiding principles are in sight… the material succinctly probes particularly unsettling existential fears.”
“Jenny Magnus—an enormously talented writer, director and performer—hit upon this show’s conceit 10 years ago, but wasn’t sure how to execute it. With its rigorous, usually unrhymed spoken songs buoyed by pulsating swirl of sounds, Not Another Day is classic Magnus. Her metaphors are extended; they become visual, visceral and tactile, and can trigger a deep, almost nonverbal emotional sensation. What makes Not Another Day unique is that usually Magnus is the thick of her crew—their equal despite their embodiment of her words. She remains offstage for this show. No matter: She is clearly still there, while others keep doing that voodoo she does so well.”