House Lights: A Matter Of Taste
Tastes like contempt for the audience
Tastes like contempt for the audience
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Every artistic community has its own enfant terrible, but Austin's theater scene is blessed with a handful. Perhaps none are as outspoken as the Poison Apple Initiative's Bastion Carboni. Carboni, who's divided his time as a playwright, actor, and director in Austin and New York, and currently appears in A Matter Of Taste (which he also cowrote) as part of FronteraFest's Long Fringe. Although the show's official write-up cautions a laughably long list of people likely to be offended, Decider braved the controversy and spoke with Carboni to find out why his show's about more than just freaking out the squares, how he intends to change people's minds about suicide, and what, if anything, he's rebelling against.
Decider: A Matter Of Taste is supposed to offend pretty much everybody. What's so offensive about it?
Bastion Carboni: The subject matter is pretty offensive. It's a series of short comedies about suicide, cannibalism, and incest—although there were a couple that didn't make it into the show. One was called The Day Sherry Went And Did Something Stupid Again, Like Get Her Stupid Ass Molested. What really interests me is that these are three taboos that people are so automatically on the other side of. I wanted to write "issue" plays that weren't about the issues themselves, that were more about people's visceral, "this is wrong" reactions. And also about how easily people are swayed when they're pandered to.
D: Does that mean people will come out of this suddenly pro-cannibalism?
BC: No, no, no! Well... No. A Matter of Taste is about a woman who walks in on her roommate shaving a dead body's leg, and when she inquires as to why, he says that he's going to eat it. And the way he gets her to come around is he's obviously so incapable in the kitchen that her domestic side kicks in. He thinks that marinades are made with mustard, and he's going to boil it and use the marinade at the same time. There's another piece where a young woman is keeping her roommate from committing suicide until she remembers that she owes him seven dollars. My scope on it is that there's an irony when people call suicide "selfish," because they're trying to keep people there who don't want to be there. It's a knee-jerk reaction.
D: The program is broken up by monologues featuring Jenny Keto. How do those fit in?
BC: There are four proper playlets and two monologues by someone playing the playwright, and during the second monologue, there's something called the "Symbolism Power Minute." The playwright goes off on this extended rant about symbolism and theater in general, and how the B. Iden Payne [Awards] are a bunch of horseshit, and so on. It's this long-winded thing about all of these things I expect from theater, and it's directly a shot at critics. She says, "To make up for the lack of symbolism in the work, here's the 'Symbolism Power Minute,'" and it's just this horrible performance art.
D: So what is your beef with contemporary theater? It sounds like you've got an axe to grind.
BC: Are we talking about a particular sect, or just generally?
D: Which are you rebelling against?
BC: My main gripe is the pandering focus on nostalgia. Nostalgia's huge. People are less concerned about the art and more concerned with longevity. For a young upstart company like Poison Apple, we're kind of torn between that. I find that people are really reticent to genuinely challenge their audiences and call them out, and in more concrete terms—when it comes to the work itself—the lack of structure. Especially in Austin. Some of the stuff I've seen in this town… The Vortex is shit. The first play I saw there was a revision of The Monkey's Paw–what a fucking abortion. An absolute self-important, self-fellating, meandering piece of shit. In Austin there's a lot of opportunity to get your stuff done, but there's not a lot of imperative. There's not a lot of fat-carving here. Pretty much anything goes. And the quality of your work doesn't matter so much.
Bastion Carboni: The subject matter is pretty offensive. It's a series of short comedies about suicide, cannibalism, and incest—although there were a couple that didn't make it into the show. One was called The Day Sherry Went And Did Something Stupid Again, Like Get Her Stupid Ass Molested. What really interests me is that these are three taboos that people are so automatically on the other side of. I wanted to write "issue" plays that weren't about the issues themselves, that were more about people's visceral, "this is wrong" reactions. And also about how easily people are swayed when they're pandered to.
D: Does that mean people will come out of this suddenly pro-cannibalism?
BC: No, no, no! Well... No. A Matter of Taste is about a woman who walks in on her roommate shaving a dead body's leg, and when she inquires as to why, he says that he's going to eat it. And the way he gets her to come around is he's obviously so incapable in the kitchen that her domestic side kicks in. He thinks that marinades are made with mustard, and he's going to boil it and use the marinade at the same time. There's another piece where a young woman is keeping her roommate from committing suicide until she remembers that she owes him seven dollars. My scope on it is that there's an irony when people call suicide "selfish," because they're trying to keep people there who don't want to be there. It's a knee-jerk reaction.
D: The program is broken up by monologues featuring Jenny Keto. How do those fit in?
BC: There are four proper playlets and two monologues by someone playing the playwright, and during the second monologue, there's something called the "Symbolism Power Minute." The playwright goes off on this extended rant about symbolism and theater in general, and how the B. Iden Payne [Awards] are a bunch of horseshit, and so on. It's this long-winded thing about all of these things I expect from theater, and it's directly a shot at critics. She says, "To make up for the lack of symbolism in the work, here's the 'Symbolism Power Minute,'" and it's just this horrible performance art.
D: So what is your beef with contemporary theater? It sounds like you've got an axe to grind.
BC: Are we talking about a particular sect, or just generally?
D: Which are you rebelling against?
BC: My main gripe is the pandering focus on nostalgia. Nostalgia's huge. People are less concerned about the art and more concerned with longevity. For a young upstart company like Poison Apple, we're kind of torn between that. I find that people are really reticent to genuinely challenge their audiences and call them out, and in more concrete terms—when it comes to the work itself—the lack of structure. Especially in Austin. Some of the stuff I've seen in this town… The Vortex is shit. The first play I saw there was a revision of The Monkey's Paw–what a fucking abortion. An absolute self-important, self-fellating, meandering piece of shit. In Austin there's a lot of opportunity to get your stuff done, but there's not a lot of imperative. There's not a lot of fat-carving here. Pretty much anything goes. And the quality of your work doesn't matter so much.
