"I want to take it off, take it all off, really show you everything I can be, which isn't much I know... I've never really been a likable person, in fact I'm kind of an unlikable person, maybe you're a likable person, so you feel superior to me because you're easy to get along with -- I really don't care what you think." So begins the soon-to-be released recording of Eric Bogosian's fifth solo show "Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead."
Bogosian, probably best known for his lead role in Oliver Stone's "Talk Radio" and as the train-riding cyber-baddie in "Under Siege 2," has aptly named the show after his somewhat abrasive form of theatrical delivery. In the performance notes to "The Essential Bogosian," a volume that includes the original "Talk Radio" script as well many more monologues, he points out that "the idea is to perform athletically. Jump around. Scream and shout." This he does.
The wonderful thing about Bogosian's style is that, rather than debasing his words with simple yelling and screaming, Bogosian is able to provide an added intensity. There is much more than "in your face" going on here and it's wonderful and rare to see immediacy matched with such grace. More than anything, Bogosian wants to make a point.
This, of course, doesn't mean he has to yell and scream to do it. One of the recordings finest moments comes when Bogosian transforms into a very caring doctor, who proceeds to outline the potential side effects (lactic intolerance, massive hair loss, large bleeding scabs, blindness and incontinence) of a very costly medication that "may not do anything, but on the other hand it can't hurt either."
If the potential patient lives, he may find himself much like another of Bogosian's creations: a subway-jockeying bum, who, speaking to the other passengers, is somewhat cavalier in revealing what bodily functions he has performed in who's seat. Throughout all these portrayals, however grim they may get, Bogosian makes sure that things stay grounded in the present. These are not gross exaggerations, these are people in America; from the wide range of voices and speaking styles employed, you'd think the performer is almost allowing others to talk through him.
And in the face of all these problems, Bogosian looks to our sources of help, parodying a self-help guru who implores others to find their "inner babies," and a "recovering male," who has finally reached detente with his manhood. "I respect him and he respects me," he says, pausing to add, "Or maybe I should say 'she' respects me."
In the show's intro, just before Bogosian begins rifting on drugs, suicide, masturbation, starving Africans and the whole glass is full or empty thing, he looks into the audience and admits that deep inside: "I don't want to rock the boat. I want to help row."
Don't buy it for a second, Bogosian will continue to force America to view itself.
