It
was in a shared dressing room that I first met Phil Johnson during an
actors' festival. These one-ring circus's bring out the
giddiness in actors and occasionally a generosity. Mr. Johnson
displayed both. While listening to his work via intercom, it was obvious he drew
from a deep well of technique and impeccable comic timing. Where
actors played one piece, he ambitiously played two pieces both of which he
co-wrote. The
audience was putty in his hands.
Now in his adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles he mashes-up Victoriana and mayhem playing all
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters. Here is a glimpse of Mr.
Johnson's monomaniacal creativity.
TV:
How did you end up in San Diego?
PH:
I was doing a lot of touring shows and on the road, Les Miz in New
York, Miss Saigon, Sunset Blvd., and I came to know that I really
wanted to do comedy, not that I didn't love those shows all about
“dead people and guns,” but I wanted the cheap tasteless
theatrics of LA comedy. I did a lot of sketch comedy with a great
place there, ACME Comedy Theatre. I was there for three years. So,
LA was where I started first and I began splitting the time between
here and there. Steve Gunderson's replacement in Forever Plaid was my
first job here.
|
Don't Dress for Dinner, NCR |
When
did you know you wanted to become an actor?
Yikes.
Maybe when I started making puppet shows out of refrigerator boxes,
last year. No! That's when I was seven, I think. I learned so much
from the great old 30's & 40's black and white movies they used
to show when I got home from school and TV shows: Carol Burnett, Flip
Wilson, remember him?
“The
devil mad me do it.”
Sonny
and Cher--all those great comics from those days-- those great lines,
Burnett as Scarlet wearing the drapes, “I saw it in the window and
I just had to have it.”
What
took you to the next discipline of writing sketch comedy and
playwriting?
My
days at ACME Comedy Theatre taught me a lot about what works in
comedy, how to write fast. I started doing a one-man show that I
debuted at Actors Art Theatre in LA with my great acting teacher
Jolene Adams. It was, strangely enough, about a singer/ actor who was
auditioning for the latest mega-musical, but with a crazed maniac at
the helm, loosely based on Nicolas Hytner, our director on Saigon. He
was fascinating. I wanted to do shows that were loose and
conversational and there weren't many I liked, so I had to write
(them).
|
The Hound of Baskerville, NCR |
Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote during Queen Victoria's reign as did
Dickens. Do you see a similarity in their work?
There
was this wonderful morbid fascination with death and freak shows at
the time, those wonderfully suppressed people did the most amusing
act-out things! There was something called memento
mori, I
believe photographs were fairly new then, and people would photograph
pictures of themselves with newly dead loved ones, really. They would
make these little vignettes, with the live people, like the dead
people weren't even dead; like painting their eyelids, or sticking
their arms and hands up with pins. Fun. Sometimes it was the only a
photo people had taken of themselves. Brrrrr.
Doyle
wrote over 50 short stories. Why Hound Of The Baskervilles?
It's
probably the most popular, everyone has a recollection of it. It's
common to a lot of people. You can't imagine the different things
people have done to the story over the years! It's an adventure
story- I love that about it.
Doyle
practiced Spiritualism. Does the metaphysical figure into Hound?
Yes!
The MGM movie with (Basil) Rathbone added a séance that isn't in the
book, and people loved it so much, it's been in every version since
then. This was another of those weird wonderful Victorian delights,
séances. It's a big climax for me in my play. It heightens the
anxiety so well! People love to be scared. Strange, isn't it?
Sounds
intriguing. Do you have superstitions when in the theatre? Ever see a
theatre ghost?
Not
really. My insane friend Eileen Bowman seems to see ghosts coming out
of every broom closet in theatres, but I have not joined that
particular club. I don't say the “M word” though. Should I?
|
Little Shop of Horrors, Cygnet Theatre |
The other side of Phil may ask you dispel the curse; exit the dressing room and turn around three times. You received a $15,700 San Diego Foundation Creative
Catalyst Grant for Hound. Congratulations. Was the competition tough?
What was your response on hearing the news?
I
was overjoyed. It was wonderful to have that support for something
you think is good and someone else does as well- that's the best.
I've always wanted to be able to write a one-man show that was
elegant and well-produced and could
tour.
This is a very big dream of mine and that's what this is. I believe
the competition was quite tough. I couldn't believe what prestigious
organizations didn't get picked and I did. Does that mean a mistake
(was made) somewhere?
How
did your collaboration with your director Cynthia Stokes come about?
We
had worked together on a very funny comedy Mike Sears and I wrote a
few years back called Nemesis, and we were lucky enough to get this
big S.D. Opera director, Cynthia. It was a real laugh-riot, the
funniest thing I've ever worked on.
She
suggested the project to me at that time and I didn't give it much
thought, but what a wonderful experience it's turned out to be. She
is a great “actor's director.”
Is
it difficult to incorporate cuts and changes?
No.
I think that's the easiest. I know my own rhythms so well and when I
write, almost everything is written the way I would say it playing
that character. A 76-page solo show though is quite another matter.
Playing
multiple roles in a one-person show is an audacious endeavor. What
does it take to synthesize research, writing and performance?
You
just stew with the story for a while, read everything. Watch some
movies, look for inspiration and something will start bubbling up,
that's what happened for me. I started saying “Here's this very
famous classic that I am going to destroy. How can I possibly start
(writing)?” But I did and I let myself off the hook about the whole
thing. Hopefully Mr. Doyle hasn't noticed.
Comedy
is one of your fortes. What are your three rules of comedy?
Location,
location, location. I think comedy is about averages, like baseball?
People try so hard, but what makes you a comic really, I think, is
your always present “intent to amuse” and a love of people. When
your intent is unwavering, you will be funny and hopefully not
annoying more often than not.
And
not ignoring the reality, maybe pushing it a little. Oy.
Who
would you like to be seated next to on a flight to newark?
Newark?
Don Rickles? Alan Rickman? Maggie smith? The President maybe? Can you
arrange that?
I’ll
get back to you on that. How would you finish this sentence: New work
in the theatre is _____.
Essential.
You have to keep putting your voice out there somehow. And hopefully
retelling old stories well is included in there too.
Are
merde and “break your legs” still terms of good luck backstage?
You
better believe it. I'm buying a full body cast right now.
Hound
of The Baskervilles