Fringe Festival 2017!

Vonnegut Comes to Sacred Fools
by TRAC EY PALEO (@G ia M e d ia 3)
Ben Rock (Blair Witch Project, Alien
Raiders, Baal, Occupation, Taste) laying
out his Sirens of Titan Show & Tell –
script, program, tattered teen tome and
set design specs – was like discovering
ancient artifacts that were going to
change the course of human history.
“I brought some visual aids to show you.
One of them is the original script that I got
from the Chicago Public Library archives.
This adaptation that we’re doing, was
done in 1975 by the Organic Theatre in
Chicago. Stuart did the adaptation with
Vonnegut back then. Stuart also gave
me the original program from 1977.
Look at who was in it. Dennis Franz, Joe
Mantegna, and Keith Szarabajka. Keith
played Stony Stevenson in the original
version. He’s probably going to do the
voice for us. And by the way, Caroline
who played Beatrice, that’s Stuart’s wife.”
Kurt Vonnegut’s original Hugo Awardnominated
novel The Sirens of Titan
revolves around a Martian invasion of
Earth, and addresses issues of free will,
omniscience and the overall purpose of
human history.
“Keith, just had amazing stories about
his whole experience. When I told him
we had the script, he was like, ‘We had a
script? I thought we just all had a copy of
the book marked up with crayons.’”
It was also a beast to cast. The search for
talent who embodied each character’s
specificities was as oc described it
“like choosing from a murderer’s row of
amazing actors”.
But then, the Theater-Film-Television-
Producer-Director-Writer-Production
Designer, hyphenate, seems to have a
penchant for the weird and remote, and
a knack for bringing it to life.
Rock’s alternate-universe directing is
partnered with genre master Stuart
Gordon (Re-Animator, Honey I Shrunk
The Kids, Taste) for Sacred Fools Theatre
Company’s 2017 Mainstage season
finale to recreate the early script as a
fresh (epic) theatrical experience.
You’ve been in love with Vonnegut since
you’ve been a teenager. Why?
Late in adolescence, I read
Slaughterhouse Five. It was one of those
books that gave you permission to be
who you are. It set me off on an all-youcan-eat
buffet of Vonnegut. The Sirens of
Titan was one of my favorites.
Vonnegut’s books always went down like
a sweet, sweet milkshake. He was just
funny and punk rock and throwing out
traditional structure, so I thought. You
have these extremely crude characters
cursing and swearing and having sex and
wet dreams and stuff, that eighteen-yearold
me was able to relate to.
When I re-read Slaughterhouse Five
recently, I realized it’s a very classically
structured book. Vonnegut merely
appears to play with structure. You
recognize it’s all about him dealing with
PTSD. It’s a terribly sad, confessional story
about how the worst things that happen
to you, turn you into who you are; that
we’re all used in various ways without
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