Talk To Me
| Series | |
|---|---|
| Somewhere Out There | |
| Original Broadcast Date | |
| 6/7/1997 | |
| Cast | |
| Arthur Miller, Maude Davis, Joe Frank | |
| Format | |
| Improv Actors, 56 minutes | |
| Preceded by: | Fat Man Down |
| Followed by: | Joe Frank Live - Women Police Officers |
Um, how long has this been going on, in the next room?
Talk To Me is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Somewhere Out There. It was originally broadcast on June 7, 1997.
Synopsis
Sound of police sirens, people making love.
Joe interviews famous mime Bertram Fields (Arthur Miller) in a hotel room. Joe, concerned about the couple next door's loud passionate love-making, bangs on the wall.[1]
(The first 15 minutes is an edited-down version of the first 20:40 of Either Or (Part 1))
15:00: A woman talks to a mime, apparently absent: 'Do you still lean against walls? Are you still fighting the wind? Have you gotten out of that box yet?' No one responds. She sounds as if she expects no response. Women's voices ask the same questions in French and Spanish. She pleads for him to talk to her: 'Talk to me!' The questions repeat.
21:50: Joe remembers walking on the shore of Lake Geneva with a mandolin, thinking of Esmeralda, the woman he loved, describes how intimately he wanted to know her: 'I loved Esmeralda so much that I wanted to pull her inside out and caress her pancreas and kiss her heart and run my tongue over her alimentary canal and hug to my breast her lower intestines and trace my fingers to the villi of her lungs and swim through her vascular system.'
22:40: Joe remembers his past studying nostalgia in a Croatian hamlet, all the things he didn't do.
23:10: Joe describes what he's wearing, sitting poolside.
23:50: Joe asks god where he is, what he's doing, speculates on the possibilities.
26:00: Joe returns to the interview, asks about performing in different venues, especially stadiums. Fields expatiates on the power of subtlety, that even slight gestures, well-rendered, can have a great effect.[1]
28:40: Joe asks him what he would have done had he not become a mime. Fields says that he would have been a registered nurse, describes in detail how he would have practiced nursing. We hear the passionate couple next door and someone pounding on their door, yelling.[2]
31:10: Joe asks for a taste of his upcoming performance. Fields performs 'Nothing happened', a favorite from the Decroux[3] days.[2]
32:10: Fields recalls a wonderful day in early autumn, lying in Elizabeth's lap after a picnic. He sleeps and dreams. His happiness is spoiled by the thought of her brother, Heinrich, an artist with a mangled hand who comes between them.[2]
41:10: Joe tells us why he's always hated mime, calls out its clichés. He mentions the 'mime defense' against conviction, cites the case of a fellow who murdered his family after watching 2 performances in a row.[2]
43:50: The phone rings. Fields answers it. We hear his half of a discussion of - a performance?[2]
45:10: Joe tells us he wants what we've just heard to stay with us: under our skin, in our veins and kidneys. He wants us to write a paper about it, submit a detailed medical history, a cashier's check...[2]
46:50: Joe's disconcerted by the passionate couple next door again, asks Fields to call the desk. He calls again.[2]
47:50: The couple next door gets a solo.[1]
48:30: Joe talks about the lovers next door.[2]
49:50: A woman talks to a mime, apparently absent: 'Do you still lean against walls? Are you still fighting the wind? Have you gotten out of that box yet?' No one responds. She sounds as if she expects no response. Women's voices ask the same questions in French and Spanish. She pleads for him to just talk to her: 'Talk to me!' The questions repeat.[4]
Interview with mime while sexual moans come from adjacent room (From Either/Or) Sound collage with woman "why don't you talk to me" Joe talks about Esmerala and a trip and rambling stuff. Joe talks about the moaning.
Music
This is an incomplete record of the music in this program. If you can add more information, please do.
- "Man + Woman = Infinity" - Dimitri From Paris (from Source Lab 2, 1996) | YouTube [15:00]
- "Into Dust" - Mazzy Star (from So Tonight That I Might See, 1993) | YouTube [37:48]
Commentary
Most of this show is taken from Either/Or parts 1 and 2. The 11 minutes beginning at minute 15 is new. The last 7 minutes repeats the collage of women's voices that started at minute 15.
