Jackanape and The Fingermen by D. Harlan Wilson
D. Harlan Wilson is one of my favorite authors and every I get a new book to read it is exciting. Doesn’t matter what it is. Could be he is writing non-fiction like his book on They Live, Kubrick, or Alfred Bester. Could be genre-defying novels like Dr.Identity or Outre, so odd he and his imprint of Raw Dog Screaming Anti-Oedipus press invented one with Scihz-flow. And now it will be two tales he wrote for the stage.
His first play "The Dark Hypotenuse," was staged in Copenhagen in 2012. That was in an earlier book of stage plays. This book of two plays is his second collection in the form. While I knew DHW had written plays this was my first experience with his work in this medium.
It is not unique to Wilson, there are plenty of surrealists that write fiction that would seem impossible to translate to screen or stage. The thing about Wilson’s absurdist and surreal satires of the form itself is they often translation from page to brain. The process of the DHW book is kind of like this. Wilson’s weird thoughts, he types then, they are edited, readers think what the fuck? and often laugh, all the while trying to get a mental image of something impossible to nail down.
A play has to have a little more solid direction but don’t think for a second the weird has been lost. The first play Jackanape is about a Coatrack and murderous dinner jacket. The second The Fingermen is mostly dialogue centered around a group of characters all missing fingers.
The first play has a few hilarious stage directions but much of the humor comes from subtle but hilarious pokes at murder stories. The sheer number of victims the jacket has is funny enough but each of the victims makes a bit of a statement. Scene 5 with Detective Johnson and Cork was the first laugh-out-loud moment.
“Thirty-nine murders in forty-eight hours. And all of them in this room. It doesn’t add up.[Reflects.] Goddamn it, it doesn’t add up.[Pause.] It doesn’t add up I say.” Or “If you can’t laugh at the dark, you shouldn’t grin like the Sphinx. Understand?
Jackanape is a funny and weird play that has some seasons with long monologues and others that are nothing more than sound effects.
The Fingermen is a more dialogue-heavy satire that uses the concept, set-up, and dialogue to satirize many modern insecurities and self-delusions. There are lots of scenes with whip-sharp dialogue that will have you reading, re-reading passages. It also has characters asking for intermissions, talking to the and breakdowns set to Land of Confusion by Genesis.
My favorite dialogue was “Don’t mind that. That’s just people burning in Hell…I was just kidding about Hell. There’s no goddamn hell. Nobody’s dead either.”
Both of these plays would awesomely uncomfortable audience experiences and challenging for the best of stage actors. I say this as a positive. Like all things by Wilson these plays are delightfully journey to What-the-fuck-a-stan, entry at the border doesn’t take a passport, all you need is a D.Harlan Wilson book in hand.
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