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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/6749066.htmlDaniel Johnston's eccentricities comes to life on Catastrophic Theatre's stage
By EVERETT EVANS Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Dec. 2, 2009, 11:36AM
Jason Nodler knew he wanted to build another theater piece around the life and music of indie-rock cult figure Daniel Johnston — especially after 2006's Speeding Motorcycle, his Johnston-inspired rock opera, played to sold-out houses here and in Austin and drew national attention.
“Daniel is so prolific and his body of work so remarkable that I feel I could make 10 of these things,” Nodler says.
Life Is Happy and Sad, Nodler's follow-up to Speeding Motorcycle, opens tonight at DiverseWorks. Nodler directs this production by his company, the Catastrophic Theatre.
Motorcycle was a freewheeling, shape-shifting fantasia. Life is a more tightly focused “play with songs” about Johnston's early days in Austin, after moving there from West Virginia in the 1980s.
“Act 1 is the content of a taped letter Daniel made in a practice room at UT and sent to his best friend David Thornberry in West Virginia,” Nodler says. “Act 2 is a fantasy concert, songs and scenes relating to themes on the tape. It's about his preoccupations at that time. He hadn't made any connections in Austin yet, and had had the first of several nervous breakdowns that made him feel even more alienated.”
Despite Johnston's reputation as an eccentric, Nodler feels his sense of alienation lends universality.
“Everyone has struggled with feelings of not fitting in,” Nodler says. “He's just felt that in more intensified form. What I'm trying to convey is how his sensitivity makes him similar to the rest of us – not how it makes him different.”
Johnston, who now lives in Waller, has struggled for years with manic-depression. Inevitably, Nodler says, that aspect is part of any show about him. Otherwise, Life will have a spirit, style and format quite unlike those of Speeding Motorcycle.
“That show was about the mythology around Daniel and dealt with unrequited love. This one is about creativity and friendship. It's about how lonely he feels; also, about how special David is to him, the importance of their friendship and how important it is to Daniel to create. He refuses to give that up and he and David (a poet) support each other in their creative goals.”
The spark for Life Is Happy and Sad dropped into Nodler's lap. It happened when he cast Kathy McCarty (Thornberry's wife and Johnston's ex-girlfriend) as herself in the Austin production of Speeding Motorcycle.
“Her band Glass Eye was one of the hottest Austin bands in the era we're depicting and Daniel got his first break opening for them,” Nodler says. “When she was in Speeding Motorcycle, David came to see it, and after the show he gave me the taped letter Daniel had sent him in 1984. The makers of The Devil and Daniel Johnston (the 2006 documentary about Johnston) hadn't known about it. No one had heard it except for David and Kathy. Listening to it in my car, I thought: ‘Wow! This is the basis for a show.”
“The material is 100 percent from Daniel,” Nodler says. “I constructed it, but it's all his words and music.” Nodler created the show during his residency at New Hampshire's prestigious MacDowell Colony.
Nodler then faced the challenge of finding a distinctive talent to portray Johnston. He cast Matt Brownlie, frontman for the band Bring Back the Guns — a rock musician making his acting debut.
“This is practically a one-man show,” Nodler says. “It's a gigantic project for one guy, especially for his first job as an actor. I knew Matt was a strong performer, that he plays piano, that he looks enough like Daniel did at this time. But Matt has turned out to be this remarkable, natural actor.”
Brownlie never considered acting until Nodler offered this role. Though the two have discussed other possible Johnston-related projects, Brownlie has no plans for further acting after this run.
“It doesn't feel like a debut,” Brownlie says. “More like this crazy, awesome anomalous thing that dropped into my life and may well drop back out when the show's done. It's a huge challenge. Memorizing 25 pages of monologue has been one of the toughest parts, he says. But Johnston's music has been a joy to learn and perform.
“I'm proud to be portraying a songwriter of this magnitude. Previously, I was a casual fan. Since working on the play, I've grown to be awed by his songwriting talent, as a songwriter myself.”
For the uninitiated, Brownlie says, the way to appreciate Johnston is to immerse yourself in his music.
“Even though he writes these very immediate, beautiful pop songs, there are barriers to really getting into his music: the extreme low-fidelity of his early tapes, the weird voice, the strange references. It's like any artist with an uncompromisingly idiosyncratic and hugely personal style. I think that's why musicians love to cover his songs. Once you've worked your way past those barriers and can hear the unbelievably personal and beautiful stuff going on, you want to get others closer to his work. I've grown to love Daniel the person, even though I've never met him. I think anyone who spends any time with his art will feel the same.”
LIFE IS HAPPY AND SAD
• When: Opens today. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays through Dec. 19
• Where: Catastrophic Theatre at DiverseWorks, 1117 East Freeway
• Tickets: Pay-what-you-can; 713-522-2723
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