As we reported, James Franco took part in Performa 11, which strives to create new performances for the twenty-first century, earlier this month in NYC. For his Performa Project, he teamed up with Laurel Nakadate to create a three-part project based around Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.
One of our contributors, Denise, was in the audience for the performance and sent us all report with photos which you can check out below!
I went to Laurel Nakadate’s and James Franco’s Performa 11 Glass Menagerie performance at The Abrons Art Center. I thought it was pretty good. He definitely put his weird spin on things so that kept it interesting. It started out with a séance to talk to Tennessee Williams. Laurel, James, and 2 séance leaders sat in a semi-circle on the floor with a bigger semi-circle (about 15 people) sitting behind them. They had a large candle in the middle with 2 little glass unicorn figurines on the floor. They included the audience by having us put our feet flat on the ground and our palms face up. At first I thought it was just meant to feed James’ ego because the 2 people conducting and communicating with Tennessee were saying how Tennessee sees James as an “ascended master” and Tennessee says he hasn’t seen that since Brando! Also, how he is continuing with Tennessee’s energy and that “ideas outside the box are magical.” But, after a while, I felt like the séance was meant to inspire us because they kept saying things like “do what you feel” and “act on an impulse that feels good” and “we are all experiencing this for a purpose and we should take what we need from it.” In my opinion the whole purpose of the séance was to justify James and his odd projects and at the same time inspire people to think creatively and to see the odd things in a positive light.
The second act was various actresses auditioned for the part of Laura in The Glass Menagerie. There was a video projection of James acting one part and women would come out and read the lines on the screen and act with the “video James” as James and Laurel watched from the sidelines giving directions to them.
In the third act various men would come out and read a part from the play, just by themselves into a mic. About 5 or 6 guys did this. One actor called James & Laurel to come out and help him get through the scene by blowing on his face because he felt like the scene took place on a windy day. That was some comic relief! Also, James’ frequent collaborator, Kalup Linzy (pictured in wig and green dress), also made a surprise appearance during this act when he came out and read the same scene in his typical soap opera dramatic style.
After the show ended, James came out to sign autographs and pose for pictures. I had him sign the Flaunt magazine cover of his butt cheeks (it’s the last photo and a little NSFW). I had a silver sharpie, but James was concerned that it wouldn’t be the best one to use since it wouldn’t show up well, so he asked people there if anyone had a different marker. I thought that was really nice of him to be so concerned! He was really good to the fans and took a lot of time to sign.
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