Closing Night: A Fine Actor Says Farewell To A Theater

With the Upstairs Gallery closing at the end of the month a lot of folks are bringing back some of their favorite shows or putting up previously undeveloped projects. Tonight Scott put on Closing Night: A Fine Actor Says Farewell To A Theater a show clunky in description but wonderful in execution. The conceit for the show is that Scott as S. Charles Nelson "returns" from his illustrious acting career on one/both coasts to the Upstairs Gallery, in celebration of its closing and as the theater that launched his career, to stage scenes from his most notable productions, of which there are upwards of seventy. He began the evening setting up the character then introduced each scene complete with fictitious director, title, and personal circumstance leading to his involvement. Each scene hit a different genre- musical, after-school-special, family-holiday-drama, avant-garde, gritty-crime, farce etc. I wrote a piece as Scott's long admiring/contentious critic which came at the mid-point and allotted him a breather.

The show was great, one of the best I've seen in months, of course my participation may have colored my impression. The scenes themselves were structured but not written and each built one on the other creating a wonderful flow to the evening. In totality the night was hilarious and absurd, dark and disturbing. Scott in one breath mocks theater and theater types while simultaneously creating a terrific piece of theater. Scott has always been a dynamo but in this particular framework he really shined. As a pretentious stereotypical actor type we love to hate him or wink at each other in superiority and the scenes and monologues themselves were clinics on improv within wildly disparate styles. Truly one of the best shows I've seen at the UG.

I was really surprised and grateful Scott asked me to be a part of the show. I haven't done many shows at the UG, probably less than a dozen. It was a joy to be part of something so fun and creative, felt like a proper send off for me to the space, my offering to that alter of performance. 

Here's a part of the piece I wrote: a series of excerpts from fictitious reviews of Scott's fictitious plays.

His follow up to the mystical exploration Tarot Storm was the simple and pared down jukebox musical The Night Phil Collins Came To Town. The play follows a group of barflys and their unexpected encounter with the rocker, Mr. Nelson was of course in the titular role. From my review “...Never have I been more transported. S. Charles Nelson disappeared into the role of Phil Collins. There was no artifice, there was no acting, there was no performance, there was only Phil Collins. During the course of the production the barflys are all changed by their chance encounter with Collins and I would challenge any audience member who didn't under go a similar metamorphosis. After The Night Phil Collins Came To Town the sun shines brighter, food tastes richer, and love making is more passionate. Seeing Mr. Nelson in this production reminded me how to live. This humble critic abjectly wept during Mr. Nelson’s performance of “In The Air Tonight” which I can unabashedly say is superior to the original. Phil Collins dreams of being S. Charles Nelson and we only pray for the chance to observe his genius in the temple of theater one more time.”