[joe-frank-list] Synopsis: Joe Frank Live May 15 in LA

Marek Telgarsky marek at telgarsky.com
Sun May 16 14:51:57 PDT 2004


Hello,

I went to the show in LA yesterday. This is my first time seeing Joe 
Frank live. I have heard probably about  200 of his shows, and most of 
the monologues multiple times. As much as I enjoy the work with actors 
and appreciate those shows for their difference, the monologues are my 
favorites.

The show was amazing, combining a number of visual elements that would 
have been imagined had he been on the air. Tara (can't recall last name) 
the dancer was wonderful, personal, sensual, beautiful. The 
movie/monologue was also fantastic.

The synopsis below was in the body of an email to a friend who is also a 
fan and I thought I would share it with the list. Joe Frank's segment 
seemed a lot longer than 30 minutes, BTW.

NOTE: I left after the penultimate act and did not see Cut Chemist, so 
if there was more afterwards, I missed it.

If anyone else from the list was there and would like to correct my 
(poorly remembered) order or add details that I misremembered or forgot, 
please do so. And if you would like to rewrite this synopsis using 
better English, please also feel free. This is very rough.

Marek

---- quasi synopsis follows ----

The music started up, and you knew you were not in the real world.

He began with an argument with an ex-girlfriend with whom he was getting 
back together. He admitted his fault of going after younger women, but 
announced that after years of therapy that he was cured. He also 
admitted that he loved only her, and those other relationship, couplings 
meant nothing.

At this point a dancer in a provocative almost ill fitting red dress 
came out and proceeded to dance. This was a modern extremely sensual and 
personal dance. It was not lewd, and the woman, a tall very sexy blonde 
with kind of rumpled hair that reached her neck, loved, disparaged, and 
gave herself away in this dance. She did not say a single word, and 
during her performance, neither did Joe. Not once did she look at Joe, 
although he did look at her.

I get a little hazy on the order of the parts. He took a piece from one 
of his existing shows where he extolls the virtues of women in various 
occupations ("Oh Nurse..." "Oh streetwalker..."). At some point the 
dancer came out again, this time in a different outfit. Just a beautiful 
and entrancing as before. Again not looking at Joe once, just being 
alone with herself.

Following that was an argument Joe had with the manifestation of his 
feminine side, which he did in a screechy annoying voice. Funny and 
thought provoking.

Next Joe started talking, and a film was shown. He spoke as he always 
does, except the action was not imagined, but visible. He told the story 
of how he stopped at the side of the road because am unknown but 
beautiful woman was waiting there with a piece of luggage. She did not 
accept his offer of a ride, so he doubled back, parked out of sight, and 
walked up the opposite hill to spy on her. She waited there for another 
9 or 10 hours, always turning down the rides. He followed her home and 
rented a room at the hotel opposite her apartment. After buying a pair 
of field glasses at the gift shop he settled into the hotel room to 
watch her. He watches her walk around her apartment in her panties and 
sit down at her computer. He knows, somehow, what she is writing. She 
catalogues the number of cars that stopped to try and pick her up, as if 
she were conducting some kind of experiment. She mentions in her report 
that she knows he followed her home, at which point a cigarette butt 
hits Joe in the back of the head as he is leaning out the window to look 
at her through the field glasses. He realizes that he is not the only 
one so intrigued by her but every other room has a man with binoculars, 
telephoto lense, or telescope to look at her. She finishes writing, and 
walks over to an exploder and Wile E. Coyote like, pulls up the handle 
and pushes down. The hotel in which Joe is explodes. He stumbles out of 
the charred wreckage and realizes what he was doing driving in the first 
place before she distracted him. He was going to his wedding and now he 
is very very late. The last image is of him banging on the door of the 
already closed church...

All this is happening on-screen and you are imagining it too because he 
is doing a monologue! This was such a treat to a fan like myself. Amazing.

The last piece was about love. About how it is so troublesome and how 
you seek it out over and over. There were other sections of the 
monologue prior to this about love, but I can't place them temporally. 
The whole thing was so fluid.

At the end of this, Tara (as she was listed in the credits), the dancer, 
came out again in yet a different outfit, and proceeded to dance. I 
could see Joe bobbing his head slightly with the music. Before this, she 
was separate from Joe, but now she turned to him, and he walked out from 
behind the podium, arm outstretched to touch her. She dances, retreats. 
He follows. She dances off the stage and at the last moment you see her 
allow Joe to take her hand.

The applause was enormous.



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