November 17, 2006
Talk About Your Mixed Marriages...
And then I went to see 'Little Building' at Galapagos
By Stephen Bailey

The Little Building

There we were. The masses corralled into the massive Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn (70 N. 6th St). I thought this big room we were milling about in was where the play would take place. Instead we then funneled into the smaller back room. It occurred to me that they may have over-sold the night as we all scrambled to find that choice folding chair. But I could be wrong. I chose to sit in the back of the room.

The show started abruptly and humorously with the owner of the building we were in looking to sell to a potential buyer. “See these?” he asked pointing to the curtains, “they’re 100% curtain!” His wife had just passed away. She worked for 75 years mopping up beer and vomit. A lot of memories in this place were making it hard for the man to sell.

The owner would only sell to someone who promised to keep the space going as a place for the arts. Plays, music, etc. should continue to live here. To close the deal the buyer agrees but confesses to his daughter that they’ll put on one show and then build something people give a shit about; like condominiums. That one play would be based on the old owner’s obsession with the building describing it in the opening number as two parts real estate, one part love.

Yes, this is a musical. A musical with a set made almost entirely of cardboard. There is a disclaimer on the program warning that set degradation is inevitable over the course of the performances. And though that sounded cheesy to me when I first read it, this rock-operatic tale of corruption in development and the love between a building and the man who built her is brilliant.

The songs rock, the jokes spark and you actually believe that these buildings are alive. Our female lead is Little Building. She’s a 28 story tall New York City structure, young and in love. Her love interest is a real estate developer named Ralph; a man who has a girlfriend of his own. Little Building’s best friend is a smoke-bellowing glue factory being converted to luxury lofts. Words of wisdom come from The Airport who, “rarely visits midtown.”

When Ralph goes to Alaska for business, Little Building learns that the girlfriend is about to break it off and move away. Worried that this will mean Ralph would have no reason to return, she writes love letters posing as the girl. Later she finds a way to visit him in Alaska. Yes, the building goes to Alaska. She’s met by Ralph’s surly log cabin pissed at being just a vacation home.

When Ralph and his business partner see the building standing alone in the open wilderness of Alaska, they first think they are hallucinating. Ralph’s next reaction is a profession of love, but not what Little Building expected. She was to be his Monolithic Tower of Muskrat Falls. Soon his obsessive greed kicks in and he invites other tall buildings from New York City to come and help him create Newer York City. It would be the same as New York City, but "much less old." This leads to many problems from zoning issues to environmental concerns to the buildings themselves growing uneasy and frustrated.

Eventually Ralph gives in to his love for Little Building and in song proclaims, “It’s not something you buy. It’s not something you sell. It’s something in between.” Sadly as the whole plan falls to pieces, so does Ralph’s sanity. Without giving away the ending, I’ll just say that he has tried plans A, B, C, D, etc. to make this Newer York City work and to resolve the issues with the EPA and their regulations. Now it was time for plan Z.

Despite the heavy themes of greed, corruption, love and loss this is a clever comedy. It’s not an easy task to make such a fantastical tale seem real. Even less so when made it’s of cardboard. But this is a very well constructed satirical look at out-of-control development in American cities written from the viewpoint of writer and licensed real estate agent Nick Jones. The talented ensemble of musicians and actors along with the music of Benjamin Ickies completed the landscape.

The play was only slated for three performances at Galapagos as part of the EVOLVE theater series. However, from the looks of the turnout and audience reaction, I hope to see it revived soon. Of course I could do without that one idiot yelling, “Encore! Encore!” at the end. You don’t yell for an encore at a play. Did they expect them to come out and do the last scene again? I think she meant to yell, “Author! Author!” or perhaps, “Bravo!” and those are sentiments I could go along with.

Links:
Galapagos Art Space
The Little Building
Stephen Bailey

. . . And then what happened?