A funny thing happened about a month and a half ago. The Vortex Theatre, where I am a board member, cancelled its upcoming production of Death of a Salesman due to the director being unable to cast the show. I was slated to direct a much different play called Bug in February, and the board asked if I would move my show up to the September slot. Having not done any real favors to The Vortex all year, I said "yes." Suddenly, I knew what I would occupy much of the time until the week after Labor Day.

First off, the auditions were scant. I had four people audition for a five-character show. Yeesh. That's when I got on the phone, called in a couple favors, and got the show cast. Barely. Once you have a cast, however, you know you can make everything else happen.

Let me tell you something about the play Bug itself. It is not your mother's type of theatre. Strong language, drug use (smoking crack), nudity, gore & violence are all required to pull the show off. I needed designers. Set, lights, sound, costumes, props master, fight choreographer, make up. When you direct a show at The Vortex, you are also very much a producer. The theatre will give you a budget, but it is up to you make it all happen. The budget was $350, and I spent around $600. To make up for the difference, I donated my $200 directing fee to the production. Even if you want to make a weird play, it ends up being community theatre style for no money.

Bug was written by Tracy Letts, an up and coming American playwright. The play was made into a low budget psychological horror film earlier this year starring Ashley Judd. Not a great a flick, but not awful either. It did seem like a play on screen (minimal scene changes, only five characters, no movie magic, etc.).

Here's the plot summary: Set in a seedy Oklahoma City motel room, the play centers on the meeting between Agnes, a divorced waitress with a fondness for cocaine & isolation, and Peter, a soft spoken Gulf War drifter. At first she lets Peter sleep platonically on her floor, but not long after promotes him to the bed. Matters become more complicated as her ex-husband returns, expecting to resume their relationship. On top of that, there's a hidden bug infestation problem that has both Agnes and Peter dealing with scathing welts & festering sores, which has Peter believing this is the result of experiments conducted on him during his stay at an army hospital. Their fears soon escalate to paranoia, conspiracy theories & twisted psychological motives.

Woof.

It was the hardest I've ever worked to put up a show. There was always another element to work and improve. Most of the time, a director can sit back and tell his actors their emotions and movements and so forth, and I did plenty of that. I also had to figure out the set, buy costumes, solve issues with blood and cleaning blood out of clothes and sheets, tweak the lighting during the naked scene between the leads, and obtaining props galore. Even as we speak, I am washing clothes and sheets for tonight's performance.

So why bother? Why put in all this effort to direct a weird play you don't even get paid to do? Well, I'm a theatre guy. I discovered its joys seven years ago, and I haven't stopped since. This is the fifth play I've directed, and I've acted in about a dozen. It's a glorified hobby, but it still challenges and excites me when other people my age are settling into a easy & comforting routine.

In the case of Bug, I knew I was the only director in Albuquerque who would even try to pull it off, and I really wanted to see it done. I was in another Tracy Letts play five years ago called Killer Joe. I played the doomed son Chris, who eventually is ganged up on by the other four cast members and killed at the end of the play. Without going into detail, it was probably my favorite production I've been a part of ever.

There's something about these bold plays. They keep you interested and focused on the story. Bug runs an hour thirty-five plus intermission. Anything that is less than two hours in the theatre world is a good start in my book. With each progressive scene in Bug, the story gets weirder, more bizarre and drastic. By the time you get to the self-immolation of the lead characters at the end of the play, the audience is outright stunned, and I like that.

The four-weekend run of Bug has just begun, but as a director, I am pretty much finished. I am now more of a cheerleader/launderer. In five weeks time, I took a black box theatre and filled it with quality acting and theatre magic. It took pretty much every ounce of effort I could summon, but now I get to sit back and watch my creation through September.

I'm very tired, but I'm smiling.

Chris Jungle has befriended bugs of all kinds lately.