Childbirth is painful, other births less...

Chicken wire is murder to sit in for long periods of time.

If somebody asks me: "Do you have a hobby?"  I don't like my answer because "Cutting stuff up into little pieces" comes out sounding mental.  This is why I'd like to express a very big THANK YOU to everyone who came to the Schleiferei last night to eat together and midwife the birth of my characters in the story of Frau Herta Hunderthosen.  Actress and Director Nicolaia Marston read the voices of the characters, Producer Andrew Fernandes cooked the best grub this side of the Ganges and the Salon was organized by the delightful Costume Designer Eva Butzkies.

Everyone said incredibly nice things about my passion for cutting stuff up and thoroughly encouraged me to continue.  It's times like these when having the creative bug, a pair of scissors and a whole heap of poor hungry creative friends is wildly worth it.  And get this: nobody thought I was mental!

Not many people actually ask me if I have a hobby.  I encourage you to ask this question more often.  Repeat after me:

"Hi!  I'm (fill in the blank).  Nice to meet you!  What are your passions?"  Now go ask everyone at the next bus-stop.

Frau Herta Hunderthosen is born.  She is passionate about dresses.  Goodness knows I've got to DO something with her.

Stay tuned...
Yours,
Mrs Crocodile

Custom Search

Take me or leave me...

There is a special place in my Croco heart for the character of Joanne from RENT.  Imagine in a few years, when Joanne and Maureen have smoothed out the first years' jitters of a new relationship, Joanne will be on the boards of directors of almost every organization campaigning for women's rights in New York City and will therefore be very busy, because she makes lists in her sleep.  Meanwhile Maureen will be a very good artist and business woman.  But for now they are still in the "There-will-always-be-women-in-rubber-flirting-with-me" stage of the relationship.

Joanne does defend herself and say to Maureen: "I'm not a theater person" But yes, you are, my dear Jo Ann (different spelling intentional here), you are more theater than most of us.  And we love that!  In Semi-Circle's production of RENT, Joanne will be played by Ariane Wildberger. 

Now if Mom-Won-One and Mom-Tu-Two don't comment on this post, I will disown them,


Yours, I'm dead serious, and it's almost my birthday!!!
Mrs Croco

Custom Search

Maureen rhymes with colleen

There's a little bit of Maureen in all of us, non?  Maureen rhymes with colleen (lower case), cause she playful and a girl (lower case, get it?) and going out with girls and guys and Mark and Joanne can't take it anymore, which is why they dance the tango.  Logic?  No!  Maureen lets it all hang out.  Maureen "will sing native American tribal chants back wards through her vocorder, while accompanying herself on the electric cello-which she has never studied."  And she'll make you "moo"!  Maureen will be played by Denise Lutz in Rent in Basel.

Yours, licking the lips which chowed on the cow that jumped over the moon!
As always, Ms. Maureen Crocodile

Custom Search

Roger that!

Roger plays unplugged because no-one has paid the electricity bill, never mind the RENT.  He is writing one great song before he dies.  All the best Mrs Crocodile readers are doing the same.  Roger will be performed by Daniel Raaflaub.  Now please stop reading my blog and get back to your creative pursuits before I bite you.  That should get you communing with your creative god(dess) within!  Roger that?


Yours, as always,
Mrs Croco

Custom Search

Burning Men, Kissing Priests and Dressing Angels

I love my work and here's why: on Friday, I'm watching a burning man come out on stage at the Theater Basel, last weekend I kissed a priest after Doubt and now for Semi-circle's Rent I get to dress a man in women's clothes.  Introducing Angel. 
Angel is played by Julian David and her character says a lot of wonderful things in Rent, but possibly the one line that jumps out at the costumer in me is said by Maureen, "You'd find an old tablecloth on the street and make a dress--and next year, sure enough-they'd be mass producing them... "  Oh! That never happened to me.


Yours, cutting up flags, Santa suits and curtains again,
Mrs Crocodile

Custom Search

Mimi Marquez has not paid Rent for a year

This character in RENT incorporates a feeling which many expats are plagued by: "If I hadn't left my homeland for the fair and gray beaches of Switzerland, I might have ended up a recovering drug addict, HIV positive, who fell in love with a Roger, because he has the same baggage as mine.  And I would NOT have lived happily ever after in New York."   Instead, many an American woman married a Swiss man named Roger, switched her name to Meier and called it a day.   By the way, her smile reminds me of someone.  In Semi-circle's upcoming production of RENT, she's being played by Sarah Kappeler.  I hope Mimi speaks to you as she speaks to me.  Dearest Readers she is known to be, "clad only in bubble wrap", which sets my little costume mind going.  She also has no physical baggage, which is good, because I wouldn't want her to choose a crocodile skinned bag.

Yours,
Mimi Crocodile

Custom Search

Awash with "Doubt"s and Mr Zog's Sex Wax...

There has always been something reassuring about being as old as Mr. Zog's Sex Wax.  Originating from similar nether geographic regions fills me with pride.  But then, sometimes I think my ideas are weird, uncertainty sets in and there is no going back to being certain.

This is why I would like to illustrate the connection between the beautifully crafted writing of the play Doubt by John Patrick Shanley and surfing.  You thought the play was all about a Catholic school and two nuns who suspect a priest of mishandling a pupil, but you could say it's about finally getting to stand up on your surfboard after waiting in the water all morning.  You are up.  You're feeling good.  Mr. Zog provides a great grip for your feet, you feel confident and exhilarated, which is an absolutely wonderful position to be in.  You look down at the rocks zipping by through the glassy water underneath your board.  They look closer than they are.  Doubt, as is surfing, is the dawning on you, that although this ride is great, you could fall and crash into the rocks.  You lean forward and feel that you are about to lose your balance.  You steady yourself again and enjoy the ride.  Still standing feels great.  (Out of nowhere you hear the words of Doubt's Father Flynn: "Even if you feel certainty, it is an emotion, not a fact"). Quite suddenly, you don't know where you are.  You are underwater looking for the way up.  You burst your head out into the air again.  You take your first breath as if you've just been born.  You've just wiped out.  This may involve getting sand under your eye-lids and in other unspeakable places.
Oh dear readers, I have been awash with "Doubt".  I have not written because I have been busy, not surfing but something almost as good: making costumes for a well-written piece.  You can see Upstart Entertainment's version of it when it opens on the 18th of March at the Schönes Haus in Basel, in English, with Stephanie Németh-Parker, Meredith Buser, Frédérique Anklin and Sharon Harris, directed by Andy Tobler.
Check out the web-site: Upstart Entertainment
This crocodile has all her own teeth.  That much I know.
Yours,
Mrs Crocodile

Custom Search

Keep Your Friends Forever, Seal Them in Plastic, Part One

"Keep your friends forever, seal them in plastic" was the saying in the fortune cookie.  There must have been something lost in the translation, but as usual I understand things in my own way, don't you?  Since none of my really good friends or worst enemies for that matter, have consented to me laminating them and hanging them from my walls, here's my secondary interpretation of "seal them in plastic", and an idea for an art project.  You can see one of the creations in the picture.  It is made of four scarves that I wore at very different times in my life and that I bought or acquired in four different countries, spanning almost 18 years: London, Venice, Paris and Basel.  The silk on two of them had been worn down so much that it was beginning to be shredded scarf.  So I cut away the bits that were falling apart, ruffled them up and voilà a fancy top!  Well maybe they won't last forever, but I'm glad I can wear these 'friends' again for some special event I like to think I'll think up.

So, you want to do it, too?  Here's the idea of an art project that will also fuel ideas and stories for this blog:

Step One:  Find an item in your closet that is dear to you, a representation of enormous sentimental value or something that for some reason, you just can't give away.  Be it a hand-bag, a pair of heels, a dress, a scarf, an old t-shirt, old jeans, whatever.  It would be easier for me to transform it, if it was once a piece of clothing since I know where to begin with textiles.  Stiff materials like wood and metal are more difficult, but you could challenge me.  Keep in mind that you don't wear the item anymore because it's too small, too big, too worn out, too smelly, not your style anymore and after I get through with it, you may not recognize it. Step Two: You give the item to me along with a story, written or oral, about the item to be transformed.  Step Three: We photograph the new item it has become and I hope and pray that you actually like it. Step Four:  we collect our new stuff made out of old garb and organize the event I'm thinking I'll like to organize.

Accepting sentimental stuff now!
Yours, with seam ripper at the ready!
Mrs Crocodile