by Logan Berry
The title page of a brand new play called SMUT-MAKER.
SMUT-MAKER, an explosive 72-act play written by Mike Corrao & designed by John Trefry, is due from Inside the Castle any day now. Runaways’ Logan Berry interviewed Corrao via email about this strange new work, among other hot topics, including vomit and pandemic art.
A couple excerpts SMUT-MAKER and then the interview:
ACT 2 in full from SMUT-MAKER
& ACT 54 of SMUT-MAKER
LB: What's your relationship with theater? At what juncture in the writing process did you decide this would be a play?
MC: It's a primarily text-based relationship, I think. I've participated in and collaborated on performance art with folks in the past--either writing the narration for a piece or in one I think I writhed on the ground violently to Sun Ra's Nuclear War haha. But SMUT-MAKER is the first full length performance-text that I've put together. The base formatting is inspired by Roberto Bolaño's Antwerp. It has these segments written like: "text" ... "text" ... "text" ... etc. Which I really liked. I've always had this fascination with disembodied voices. I think it kind of removes them from that immediate human source and converts them into this environmental component. It gives them this physical presence. And it felt really natural when taking that form to utilize it as this impossible performance. With one actor alone on stage, mouth ajar, summoning everything.
LB: It's interesting you mention an actor alone. I was curious about what aspects of typical western dramatic texts you decided to include and exclude. SMUT-MAKER is organized into 72 numbered, labeled Acts, most of which feature speech-fragments (I'd be remiss to call them "lines" or "soliloquies", since they're not assigned to any particular character or origin) in amoebic masses. There's no dramatic personae listed in the text, tho it should be said that the very first fragment in Act 1, assuming the reader's eye starts at the top left of the page, is "Three boys." To what extend were you imagining concrete figures and situations for your disembodied reverberations?
MC: I think of SMUT-MAKER as a text performing itself. In which each fragment is the actor performing their lines, and each shape on the page is part of the set-dressing / mise-en-scene. The book is set in 8.5" x 9" and each act is presented as a two-page spread--partially in an attempt to mimic the appearance of a stage. We (John from Inside the Castle and I) wanted to present each act all at once. As this chaotic cacophony of utterance. It's hard for me to imagine this play as something concrete / beyond the page. I approach every new project with the assumption that the book is an object and the page is a surface. From there, it's a matter of trying to figure out what interesting ways we can utilize that surface. In the case of SMUT-MAKER, it was turning it into this performance space.
All of that being said, there is still a narrative thread obscured within the chaos. This series of sexually unfulfilling encounters with the 'Three boys.' And there are still performance instructions for those who want to attempt it--with the lone actor sitting mouth ajar as everything spews from them. Maybe thinking of them as this Greek Chorus, evoking the muses. Letting narrative and language flow through them.
LB: A cliché theater directors will sometimes tell actors to do is to, "raise the stakes," as in, "add some urgency" or "make a riskier emotional choice." I think the way narration, stage direction, and dialogue blend together and become characters/mise-en-scene/set-dressing, etc. in SMUT-MAKER is affective. Unlike most play-texts or screenplays which function as a blueprint for performance, this text is alive and occurring as you read it. The stakes are already there! Good luck, corny directors.
You, "Mike Corrao," are also in the play, implicating yourself in the textual barrage. You're referred to as a "narrator-fool," someone who "can't write erotically," who coughs into garbage cans and rearranges their limbs into "new experimental orientations." Assuming these are sincere confessionals, I'm wondering how you see shame operating in SMUT-MAKER and in your life as a writer in general.
MC: I am yea... The narrator-fool / smut-maker. I think in a lot of literature, the author is seen as this kind of divinated figure. The master who puppets the text and contorts it into whatever shape they please. But I don't feel like that's the relationship that I've had with my work. It often feels like something foreign being expelled from my body or some element of my unconscious taking shape on the page. I don't think that the author / playwright should be this venerated figure outside of the text. As I wrote it, SMUT-MAKER became this incredibly personal project, trying to work through my own interior dilemmas (sexuality, interpersonal relationships, making art, etc). Shame in this piece I think can be viewed two-fold. First, as the subversion of that holy authorial position, instead rendering the author just as grotesque as their surroundings / creations. And second, as me trying uncover these aspects of myself within the confines of the text-surface--with no pretense of having power or control over what I wrote.
LB: The number "three" appears fifteen times throughout the play. Exorcists perform archaic rituals. How do the occult and/or numerology factor into your writing process?
MC: Truthfully I don't have an incredible familiarity with any prominent occult texts. I've read excerpts from the Desert Fathers, and books about Hekate, numerology, bibliomancy. I think popular depictions of magic and the occult have given people the impression that it is this kind of set arrangement of spells, books and practices. But I don't think that's the case. I'm drawn towards the unknowability of the occult. It's the refusal of the answer. It's not about understanding why mixing A and B together will cause them to do something, or knowing why each step in the ritual will summon X. It's this, I guess, technology of the self. A tool for gaining control over the operations of the mind and body. In SMUT-MAKER, and much of my other work, I try my best to utilize it as this text-source. Another means of utterance. A means for pulling new language from the unconscious / unknown. If that makes any sense.
LB: That makes complete sense. There's no cause & effect logic in SMUT-MAKER that one might find in a linear, American play or in a book of hexes. The play itself is a kind of mesmerizing spell. It does not demand constant attention or solving. It's satisfying to look at, leave, and get lost in later. What's your composition process like?
MC: Thank you. I'm glad that kind of textual-object quality is coming through. I like idea of a text where the reader is interacting rather than strictly reading--the book as something that you encounter / engage with. The composition process was largely done by John Trefry who is an incredible architect and designer. He did the layout for every act of the play. The only pages that I personally did were the instructions and the acknowledgement (which I wanted to take on this kind of curtain quality. Opening and closing the performance). Before he started we talked a lot about what we wanted the project to look like, and he did a few test layouts. A lot of the set-dressings are inspired by structures he found in these Greek archaeological folios. So for me, the composition process was a bit detached. I just watched as John made these beautiful tableaus, and gave feedback along the way on what I thought did and didn't work.
LB: The balance between the conceptual/formal with the personal is remarkable; SMUT-MAKER blends them together such that the surface is—clearly, viscerally—the substance. How did you decide on the vibrant (violent) technicolor scheme? Was that something you knew you wanted to begin with or something that came later?
MC: This piece began as a pretty straight forward looking book. Each act was presented as this linear progression of quotes (that "text" ... "text" ... "text" form). When Inside the Castle picked it up, we started talking about ways that we could really play with the form of the project. John Trefry, who runs the press, proposed that we do the book in color. Which I was completely on board for. He made a trailer that utilized this dull neon color palette that I was really drawn to. It has this vibrance that's both beautiful and overwhelming. I felt that it really fit the chaotic qualities / potentialities of the language.
LB: "You are a witness to a vomiting." There is a lot of vomiting in the book. Literal vomiting—on the floor, on bedsheets, etc.—as well as vomiting as a description for the artistic process, drawing parallels between the two. Vomit "stained on pale surfaces" made me think of the page itself. It's an involuntary, bodily "byproduct of nerves and diet." What's your impetus for writing? Or, if that's too broad, what got you started with SMUT-MAKER?
MC: It's a very vomit heavy book yea haha. It's funny because all of this just kind of spews forth from me. Thinking back to that idea of evoking the muses. I don't always feel like I have control over my work or process. It's this thing inside me that I need to expel or exorcise. I think the incipit of everything I've made has been this need to take these ideas out of myself and put them somewhere else. That act of removal. With SMUT-MAKER the process was very manic. I wrote it in about five days. I just sat at my desk at home and typed it out until I was done. I did that and I said that I wouldn't ever do it again. Then, when Inside the Castle accepted the book, I asked John if I could rewrite it. He said yes, and I rewrote the whole thing again in five days. A lot of the ideas embedded in this project are coming from my attempts to work through my own sexuality / desires / body dysmorphia, trying to make them concrete, or at least visible.
LB: If you could, would you rewrite it again?
MC: No way! I don't think I could go through that gauntlet again haha. At least not for a third time with the same project. I'd be interested to remixes of the surfaces themselves tho. Thinking about how each act could mutate with time. How the actors / excerpts might change arrangements. I know there is that book Tristano where the passages are always shuffled every time a new copy is printed. I've been thinking of exploring that with a project in the future. Not with SMUT-MAKER tho. I don't think I could ever top what John did with it here.
LB: It feels full realized yet full of potential if theater-makers wanted to try and perform it. You have another book, Andromedusa, coming out this year from Plays Inverse Press. What's that about? Also, are you working on anything new?
MC: I would love to see what kind of performances theater-makers create using SMUT-MAKER.
Andromedusa looks a lot more like a play, although not without its challenges for potential performers. The play is about the resurrection of Andromeda and Medusa, the fusing of their bodies, and the changes that they go through as they expand into a giant amalgamation of flesh. The first act takes the form of a massive monologue performed by multiple mouths, while the latter two acts shift into increasingly abstract spaces. Being published by Plays Inverse, it fits under this moniker of the 'impossible to perform play.' It features fluctuating theater architecture, planetary destruction, and shapeshifting actors. It's been really exciting watching that one come together. I've wanted to work with P.I. for a while now. I think they do really incredible work.
Right now I'm finishing up a novel that explores the yet-to-be-created field of Ovidian Dynamics (a contested study of the metamorphic potentials of the body). It's told across these short almost aphoristic segments and includes enigmatic diagrams.
LB: Those sound fascinating. Plays Inverse does great work, and more companies should try and stage their stuff! What's the Theater of Impotence?
MC: The term came up when John Trefry and I were trying to come up with taglines for [SMUT-MAKER]. I think of the Theater of Impotence as one that acts counter to the Theater of Cruelty, where instead of assaulting the sense of the audience--at least exclusively--the alienation reflects back onto the actor. With SMUT-MAKER, thinking of the author's destabilization. How 'Mike Corrao' is mocked and rearranged throughout the text.
LB: What's a question you haven't been asked about SMUT-MAKER that you'd like to be asked? How would you respond?
MC: I'm not sure... Maybe something about the concept of the schizopastoral. This landscape of mouths / utterance. It shows up I think about halfway through. Almost as this new appendage of the text trying to describe itself. I originally came up with it while doing the rewrites for SMUT-MAKER, but it's really stuck in my head since then. I've even written a few pieces specifically about it (here and here). I think it's a good encapsulation of a lot of my work. This exploration of the disembodied voice, and its position within the book-object.
LB: We're writing to each other during a pandemic. Do you have any predictions or hopes for art during this plague-time?
MC: It's hard to say, especially in these early stages when we don't really know yet what's to come. I think that we'll potentially see art exploring online / digital environments a lot more. Specifically dealing with our habitation of the internet and other virtual spaces (such as video games or various work programs). There's been a lot of work recently exploring these ideas, but I think now that more artists are confined to their homes and spending more time online, we'll see them taking up this mantle as well. I've already seen a lot of online readings starting up, which is great. I think now is a really important time to stay connected with people. To remember that this is a community and that we should be trying to support each other.
Thanks for chatting with me, Mike! A final excerpt from SMUT-MAKER below:
ACT 66 of SMUT-MAKER
Mike Corrao is the author of three books, Man, Oh Man (Orson’s Publishing), Two Novels (Orson’s Publishing) and Gut Text (11:11 Press), one chapbook, Avian Funeral March (Self-Fuck), and many short films. Along with earning multiple Best of the Net nominations, Mike’s work has been featured in publications such as 3:AM, Collagist, Always Crashing, and The Portland Review. He lives in Minneapolis.