alacartoona

An Interview With the Creators of The Oil Boiler

by Rachel Murphy

featured in KCFreePress.com

This Friday in the Crossroads, artist Tyson Schroeder will be painting with a different brush as The Oil Boiler, his first one-act play, takes the stage in the Living Room at the Pearl Gallery. Located at 1818 McGee, the gallery is transformed into a nightclub, a fitting setting for a conversation between God and hitman Leon Nesrac about freewill. With a Greek chorus of the house band and some puppets on hand, so to speak, the show grew from an inkling to an action when Schroeder was joined by Christian Hankel and Erin McGrane, both of the performance art band, Alacartoona.

KCFP: This play is supposed to be about a hitman talking to God. Where do the puppets fit in?

Tyson Schroeder: They’re really just there as another vehicle for telling the story. One of the initial concepts with the play itself was, I just wanted to make it as messed-up as I could and confuse people as much as possible. Why not throw in puppets?

Christian Hankel: It’s integral to the theme of the show as well.

Erin McGrane: Absolutely, I think that’s been an interesting thing that’s happened during this collaboration, is that Tyson had this original idea and showed it to me and Christian and we were like, this is awesome, there’s something going on here. Each person that has joined the group has said the same thing and added to it. So some elements that might have seemed, not random, but disparate, and suddenly all of them have had added meaning as each person joins and brings something different.

TS: It really has been a large painting with a lot of people.

EM: And the idea with the puppets is that the essence of the conversation is free will. It’s sort of like, do you really serve the devil if it’s all God’s plan? So the idea of is there freewill or is there not freewill, so the puppet theme is pretty right up to the point.

KCFP: This is one of the first theatrical efforts during the art walk. Was this purposeful?

TS: We did want to do it on a First Friday. We knew that there would be so many people down here and with it being such an unknown project, we needed every chance that we can get to get people in here.

EM: Plus, since Tyson is a well-known and brilliant visual artist, we’ll be showing his work down on the first level, so it seemed like absolutely natural hand-in-glove situation.

TS: We’re really trying to make sure that as soon as people walk into the door of the space (of the Pearl) that we’re putting them into the space that they’ll be in up there, and that the stage itself is a visual element.

CH: When somebody starts up those steps, they’re entering the stage in many ways and will be part of the performance. If we do it right, when we get done, at least a few in the audience will go, “Oh, that just happened to me, too.”

That’s always it. I don’t like looking at art, I like being in it. In Alacartoona, we try to take the fourth wall away, but here, we’re saying that the fourth wall is at the back of the room.

KCFP: Why did you choose a one-act structure?

TS: That’s just how the story came out.

CH: It’s technically a five-act play, but each act is only five or so minutes long.

EM: I’ll say from a production point of view, that made it a selling point, because doing such a short, one-bite piece, it’s easy to produce, it’s easy to get everybody involved, it cuts down on the money needed. And I think it’s an easier sell, especially for First Fridays because it’s an hour or less. It’s not a lot of commitment. People aren’t going to say, ‘I don’t want to see some weird play about God or some weird performance art thing for two hours.’ This will be fun and it’ll fly by and the music is so good.

The Oil Boiler is directed by Scott Cordes and features music by Christian Hankel and Jeff Freling. Show times are at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on May 7 and 8, with advance tickets for $12 and door tickets for $15. Sunday is industry night with tickets available on a sliding price scale for artists and service industry workers at 7 p.m. The Pearl is located at 1818 McGee. For more information, visit, www.theoilerboiler.com.