PART 1: TTOTT and PLAY
“Fuck God In The Ass”–Ed Sanders
“If you can’t say FUCK in public, then the terrorists have won.–D. Scott Apel.
Towards the radical abolition of time as history, in favour of a more flexible playtime where 1994 and 1977 (for example) feedback to each other through the porthole of stagecraft. The Strange Intimacy in the dramatic plays of W.B Yeats, partly influenced by Ernest Fenollosa and his contact with the Noh play tradition of Japan. Within, the accumulation of techniques taken in the Poundian’ sense of that phrase. The exploitation of lighting, stage projection, sound effects and costume all-at-once in a Wellesian’ fashion, sharp transitions. Ritualistic and ceremonial jams with space for improvisation and embellishment, yes. The fair and rare scientific language of higher states of consciousness, further clarified and made new by actors and stage magix, singing, dancing, shouting.
The process of time and humans gathered together: actors, props, lights, sound, projections, choreography, costume, writing, production, promotion, not to mention food travel shelter and personal hygiene. All this, ALL THIS came together in a unique intersection point, or series of intersection points, to lean on a phrase from Burroughs. The words and the lights and the sounds and the ears hearts minds and bodies of both performers and co-conspirators, the audience co-mingled, wrestled together with a Robert Anton Wilson Universe.
Often times i felt the words jump of the script and into the walls, or the mouth or face of another. Letters are OFF the wall. Language of poetry thrown up onto the stage, balls and all. Total transformation of mind and ALL that resembles it. The sheer rush of hearing the wise words of RAW, and many of his cohorts projected into the air with such finesse, attention to inflection, cadence, the swing of the word, amped-up expressive decoration and embroidery.
Cosmic Trigger Play, in my humble opinion, and to curve your ear a little, might have been to the delight of RAWs tribe. I mean to say, RAWs unfinished great work ‘The Tale Of The Tribe‘ criss-crosses with Cosmic Trigger Play in that TTOTT players William Butler Yeats, Marshall McLuhan, Orson Welles, and Perhaps Joyce and Pound may have enjoyed the stage play IMHO…Bruno, Vico, Nietzsche, Fenollosa, Shannon and Bucky too (google em’ & git bck. to me with yr/ thoughts) I’m getting at, or digging into an idea about the hermetic nature of theatre, the multi-media of it ALL, and how the new play satisfies many of the quality critters that Robert Anton Wilson invoked in his last great unfinished work TTOTT. At least TTOTT represents the direction i would like you, dear reader, to ramble into. Please excuse my using it as a playful spring board to get into reviewing the play itself.
RAW would have been moved and inspired if he were around to see the Cosmic Trigger Play. He would have loved it. Sorry to invoke a cliche’ yet i think it important to consider RAWs position on current events, and not just political and or metaphysical but concerning the creative arts and new media, to attempt to reconsider some of his critical thoughts on the art and culture, social psychology and a further refined focus on theatre. Makes sense right? (you can find all the details about the who to the what now if you type ‘Cosmic Trigger Play’ into any search engine. But wait.
Okay, maybe the best way to push onwards is git’ the 23K (x4) and do it all again. Cosmic Trigger pulling remains an open game, the new Universe sits gleaming in the moonlight. Sparkling, full of stars orbiting planet word. A Cosmic Trigger Play pulled off and etched into the mind-body-speech of a sleepless crew of initiates. A crew ready to roll. Let’s go get em’. (Already feeling terribly confined here in word-world, trying to talk a bit about Bob and the TTOTT and the play and ALL).
Tom Robbins once stated words to the effect that if roughly 15% of the population were reading and acting upon the works of Robert Anton Wilson we might see a new enlightenment/renaissance, or something equally epic and encyclopedic. Of course i agree, and you can find loads of my writings across the web echoing this sentiment. READ HIM. Go to the source.
The tale of the tribe brings together a dozen innovators from history, reaching back to Giordano Bruno (16th century) and into the 21st Century (Claude Shannon). A current of renaissance men, who share a part to play in both the gestation of ideas and influences upon Robert Anton Wilson, and upon Internet. Yes, INTERNET. RAW seemed to be a BIG fan of Internet. I feel he would have supported Wikileaks, Snowdon, EFF, Open Source Projects, Chaos Computer Club meetings, Anonymous, Aaron Swartz, Jacob Applebaum, Cory Doctorow and most Internet rights activists. And i think he would find facebook an amusing distraction from his hologrammic prose.
Lets co-create a new Universe or theatre of the mind, where each and everyone of us can think and act in multiple dimensions, working on many levels, in synchrony, considering set and setting, speech and place-time. Making the invisible visible. Let’s do it again to the gates of eternity.
PART 2: THANKS TO ALL THE COSMIC CREW
Thanks to those wise beings who donated food to the backstage area and those who were kind enough to buy a cast or crew member a well deserved drink. Greg and Wolfy and the Liverpool crew. Mario Dimaggio of Immersive Dome Theaters, and Toby Philpott who helped manage the Maybe Logic Dome at the Find The Others Festival, and all the other performers and exhibitors. The London Film crew who set up at lost, the random helping hands all over the place, the Cosmic Trigger Band, optimistic ideas from Harvey Webb, music and good vibes from Youth, and the phalanx of other musicians and DJs who performed at the ‘Find The Others’ festival, and those who played in London. My friends Emily, Scott Groves and Kev Lane for showing up. Lisa Lovebucket and crafts, Beccy Strong photography, Jonathan Greet photography. And on…
All the strong willed ones who helped transport the entire set and many of the crew back and forth to locations in Liverpool, and in London.Special thanks to John Sinclair, Caleb Selah, CHU and all those who supported the crowd fund launch party and donated time, services, equipment and money to the whole trigger pulling process. Alan Moore for continued support. All the supportive video clips from Douglas Rushkoff, Nina Conti, Irving Rappaport, Alan Moore, Jamie Reid, Bill Nye, John Higgs and those i forgot. To Jack Sarfatti for agreeing to meet with Nic Alderton for an interview in S.F. Special thanks to Rick Rasa, Sandhya Sanjana, Michael Ray, Matt Black, Youth, Tim Eggmond, Dominick Clementson, Caleb Selah and all the voices of the cast for all the musical contributions.
A standing ovation for the hundreds of cuddly crowd-funders and thousands of supporters across the planet who re-tweeted, forwarded by email or better yet spread the word-by-mouth of the impossible play made possible. Big up. And a nice one to the reviewers and those who published in support of the project, in particular the Liverpool Confidential and the Independent. And, finally, to those who did not get a mention, it really sits with you now, so thanks in anticipation. I feel fortunate to have had such a schooling process collaborating with the following sleepless crew:
Actors
Oliver Senton – Robert Anton Wilson
Kate Alderton – Arlen /Jano Watts / Miss Portinari
Dixie Mcdervitt – Luna / Ensemble
Lee Ravitz – Kerry Thornley / Simon Moon / George Dorn
Andrew Mackbean – Dr Timothy Leary / Hagbard Celine
Josh Darcy – Ken Campbell / Gary Kerstein / Greg Hill / Ensemble
Tom Baker – Aleister Crowley / Robert Shea / Ensemble
Daisy Campbell – Mavis / Prunella Gee
Claudia Egypt Bolton – Eris / Ensemble
Robert Wells – Slim / Goat Boy / Ensemble
Katy-Anne Hellis – Karuna Wilson / Angel / Paula / Ensemble
Larry Sidorczuk – Albert Hoffman / Ensemble
Nick Helweg Larson – Postman
Irving Rappaport – Jaques Vallee / George Harvey Webb / Ensemble
Peter Wilson – William Burroughs
Nick Marcq – Alan Watts
Michele Watson – Lead Ensemble
Amanda Maye Steele – Ishtar (wed/thu/sat mat)
Elizabeth Sandford-Richardson – Ishtar (fri)
Katy Claire – Ishtar (sat)
Robert K.G Temple – As himself (sat)
Team
Daisy Eris Campbell – Writer and Director
Michelle Watson – Conferestival Director
Dominic Search – General Manager & Webtech
Nadia Luijten – Stage Manager & Social Media
Claudia Boulton – Production and Popery
Nic Alderton – Production, perks and Film
Polly Wilkinson – Graphic Art & Merchandise
Scott McPherson – Projections and Virals
Steve Fly – Music Director
Chris Farncombe – Lighting Design
Sadie Spencer – Lighting Desk
Padrigo Brown – Scenery & Props Maester
Dominick Clementson – Sound Desk (wed/thur)
Josh Chedwin Evans – Sound Desk (fri/sat)
Credits
Christian Wach – Website Design
Jonathan Greet – Stills Photography
Andrew Ab – Stills Photography
Adam Clark – Stills Photography
Bobby Campbell – Initial Artwork
CHU – Illuminatus Set Painting
Gary Acord – Initial website hosting
Lee Isserow – Camera Liverpool
Michelle Olly – Promotions & Vibes
PART 3: RE:VERSE-RIGGER
thus was it in time
here with discordian sounds
of Sun Ra and Tim Leary
in my head 1973 1993 to infinity
time has come ready
1950s & 1990s mixed with
Nixon era cointelpro paranoia
3 stooges of interplay
on many levels
Bogart and Saul Goodman
totally Orson unhinged
gates of eternity
hyperreal investigation
trigger pulled
lasagna launched
comets and interstellar
regions crossed
acid Crowley Lilly love scene
timespace and speechspaces
reshaped to travel-time
the eternal nowness of
Robert Anton Wilson
Universe breathing
chanting enochian
captured and shored by
Daisy Eris and her pirate ship
of initiates bound for planet mu
mu unbound from the page to
the stage pulling it all
off
blowing minds out of time
into-starseed-spaces
light body voice speech
enactments towards
decohere…
cosmic trigger
with claritas humanitas
and hilaritas
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| Black Mass Scene – Visual Projections and Photo by Hagbard Celine |
PART 4: SOURCES AND RESOURCES
http://cosmictriggerplay.com/
http://www.rawillumination.net/2014/11/cosmic-trigger-play-news-roundup.html
http://maybelogic.blogspot.nl/2014/11/cosmic-event-in-london.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/03/17/raws-the-cosmic-trigger-as-a.html
http://maybelogic.blogspot.nl/2014/09/cosmic-trigger-re-play.html
https://www.flickr.com/search?text=cosmic%20trigger%20play&sort=relevance
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| Steve Fly at the drums – Photo by Jonathan Greet |
