Alcohol.
Alcohol leads to drunken hook-ups. And passing out in bushes. And Nobel Prize winning novels. And, for Neo-Futurist Steve Mosqueda, hanging on a wooden beam in the back of T’s Bar and Restaurant .
“So here I am,” said Mosqueda, dangling from the ceiling. “Hanging around.”
His mug of beer rests on a high table next to a black desk lamp which serves as a makeshift spotlight, illuminating both him and the skeleton Halloween decoration hanging next to him.
This scene of the Neo-Futurists’ newest show, “Drinking & Writing,” is not about drinking and writing. Rather, it is an anecdote sandwiched between the facts about the effects of drinking and quotes from Nobel Prize winning writer-drunks.
For the Neo-Futurists, drinking and writing go together like ballet and eating disorders. And they wrote and produced a 75-minute play dedicated to honoring the significance of alcohol, complete with a refill break.
“Drinking & Writing,” the brainchild of writer-performers Mosqueda, Sean Benjamin and Diana Slickman, resembles a warped seventh grade health class enjoying cocktails in a library. Sure, drinking too much can give you a hangover and destroy your brain cells, but it is fun … and look how it benefited Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski.
“Writers drink for the same reason that everyone else drinks: because it does something to your nervous system,” says one character in the play. “You don’t want your hairdresser, dentist or brother-in-law to drink, but drinking as a writer is both acceptable and romantic.”
Writing and drinking have been in cahoots long before the Nobel Prize winning novel. According to the playwrights, writing emerged to keep track of the amount of beer each person consumed during a celebration, so that old-fashioned partiers were not getting cheated on the booze.
Mosqueda said the idea for “Drinking & Writing” originated last December as a case study of his favorite writer, Bukowski.
“Sean and I were drinking in a bar and thought it would be fun to do a play about writers who drank,” he said, sipping his beer.
According to Slickman, over the next few months, the play evolved from a silly holiday show, like “A Bukowski Christmas,” to a general exploration of writers who drank. The play focuses on alcohol’s effects, but this central idea keeps getting interrupted by readings to either illustrate or contradict the player’s previous point.
The three Neo-Futurists did a lot of research to find the sources they quoted from.
“We would sit in bars and bring in material things that we were reading or things that were interesting to us,” said Slickman. “All of the books used have been read by one of us or more than one of us.”
Benjamin said they did not choose the writers. Rather, “the writers chose (them)” by generally fitting the mold of Nobel Prize winning author who drank.
F. Scott Fitzgerald drank gin, and Jack London preferred whiskey. Benjamin said he drank two or three bottles of Miller Light throughout the course of Friday night’s show. Slickman imbibed Scotch whisky.
“I don’t really have any amusing anecdotes about Scotch, except that I like it,” Slickman said. “Good Scotch, though, not the cheap kind my parents drank.”
Slickman said they decided to perform their play in a bar instead of their regular theater because of the atmosphere.
“Neo-Futurists don’t try to suspend the audience’s disbelief,” she said. “It makes more sense to do it in a bar instead of creating a bar on stage.”
She said the show was written in a give-and-take manner that mirrored the conversations tipsy people have in bars with strangers.
Audience members were invited to drink along with the cast.
Mosqueda bet an audience member a shot that he would not make a mistake. The actor lost.
“Who’d a thunk it? A show where (the actors) drink in the show,” Mosqueda said. “We’re fucking geniuses.” nyou
