Photo Source: Heather Phelps Lipton
Directed by Leigh Silverman, "No Place to Go" recounts what it was like for playwright-songwriter-singer Lipton to lose his permanent part-time job as a copy editor—or as he sardonically dubs it "an information refiner." It’s a story that should have special resonance for performers and writers whose day labor makes their art possible. The music, played by Lipton's three-piece band, is light and easy, while his onstage persona is at once enraged, amused, and self-critical.
"Work is an easy target to make fun of," he remarks. "I've done it, but sometimes we don't appreciate the community, identity, and sense of purpose that work gives us. I also talk about some of the people I worked with and how losing a job is an undignified experience for everyone. I target my country, my company, but also I point a target at myself and the difficulty I've had in negotiating the process. The loss of a job leaves you feeling helpless and grieving and self-pitying. But my central metaphor is that life is often based on a thread of magical thinking, the assumption that tomorrow will be the same as today. The loss of a job cuts that thread." Lipton had his publishing gig for ten years and has been unemployed for several months.
This musical ode to the unemployed was commissioned last spring by Joe's Pub as part of its New York Voices Series, funded by a grant from the National Endowment from the Arts.
Marrying Song and Text
The central challenge in forging this piece was striking the right tone, Lipton recalls. So too was combining script and song. But the most daunting task perhaps was that "No Place to Go" represents a new genre of performance for Lipton.
"I sing regularly with my band, but this is more challenging because of the text," he admits. "It's not another gig. It's an 80-minute theater piece without an intermission. It's a different energy. It has a narrative arc and you have to keep it moving forward. I’ve always had a persona when I sing, but here it is more defined. It's the most personal piece I've ever performed. Also, I play multiple characters here and try to treat each protagonist as an equal."
Fortunately, Lipton has a strong theater background, though growing up in the San Fernando Valley he had his sights set on a career as a psychiatrist. At the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) he was an acting student, majoring in theater, film, and television. But when he wrote his first play as a senior, he had found his true calling. Since that time, he has written eight plays and five have been produced Off-Broadway, regionally, and abroad.
His plays, like his songs, express his interest in the quotidian, he says. "A lot in life is bad news and a lot of my work is about finding the good news in the bad news. And, yes, there are comic elements." As his creative process has evolved, he's found his artistic disciplines informing each other. Song writing and singing loosen him up and make it possible for him to be more forgiving towards his playwriting with its strict structural demands. Simultaneously, the dynamics of storytelling in a play have given his songs a new narrative thrust and cinematic quality he points out.
Thanks to his background as a theater man, he has an appreciation of theatrical absurdity and has incorporated that esthetic in his songs. "I question, 'What is a song?'" he asks rhetorically. "Some songs may last only ten seconds, but there is a kind of dramatic arc in those ten seconds."
At the moment, he's hopeful his piece has emotional resonance. Equally important, now that he is at liberty, he wants to make the most of his free time. "My goal is to invest as much as I can in being an artist and then get another job as needed," he notes. "Hopefully it won't be needed," he notes. "I want to keep making work that I feel connected to. It's great if that pays more of my bills. But the most important thing to me is to keep doing good work."
Spoken like a true artist.
"No Place to Go" starts previews March 14 and runs through April 4 at Joe’s Pub at The Public, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. (212) 967-7555 or www.publictheater.org.
Outtakes
- Has won a NYFA grant and a Drama-Logue Award for playwriting. He has been a Kesselring prize nominee, an O’Neill Conference finalist, a member of the inaugural class of the Emerging Writers Group at the Public; and is currently a Playwright's Realm Fellow.
- Produced four albums and played throughout New York City and beyond.
- As a performer has worked with Laurie Anderson, Cynthia Hopkins, and Elevator Repair Service, among others.
