Shock and ...ha?

13 August 2003—Every time I design a poster for Impact Theatre, I wonder, Is this the time I’m finally going too far? Sure, I’ve been pulled back from the brink with a couple of designs, most notably that one with the cigar-chomping mouse. But this time it was a question of not whether we’d get sued but whether I’d crossed a line of appropriateness.

We’ve done five productions of Impact Briefs in our seven-year history. Each Briefs is a fairly loose collection of brand-new short plays (and songs, when we can get the fantastic Steven Klems to pull up a chair on stage). Some of the titles of the productions have been racier than others: the third was called Ménage à Briefs; the fourth Impact Smackdown! When we decided on Shock and Awe for this one, we thought it was a good play on the phrase, as we’d decided to do kind of a best-of show, with new plays thrown in for good measure (I wrote one of the new ones, a sequel to the play I had in the last one). Sometimes our short plays can be shocking in their irreverence and political incorrectness (though the sight of Pete’s penis onstage has, by now, surely lost its shock value — I mean, they talked about it in a local newspaper, for fuck’s sake). But almost always they leave people breathless with laughter. Shock, awe, shock and awe. Perfect.

But I’m not sure we’d fully considered the ramifications of the title until I presented ideas for the poster.

There’s a grand tradition of using tighty-whiteys in the poster, whether it’s three naked people wrapped together in the same giant underpants or several people standing inside a subway train wearing next to nothing.

We like to say we do kickass theater. So one of my ideas was to have a row of people in their underwear on their hands and knees, getting kicked in the ass by someone in an army uniform, boots and all. It would have been illustrated in a sort of Pink Floyd The Wall style. But the company felt that that definitely had crossed the line.

Sarah suggested that we do bombs with underwear on them. I loved the idea — the briefs-adorned bombs represented the plays (no, not bomb as in Heaven’s Gate or Ishtar or Gigli), a barrage of short bursts of extremely potent humor. The general concept passed, so I called Julie, a friend of mine who’s a kickass designer, illustrator, and now sculptor as well. I can do some illustration, but when I need serious work done, I turn to Julie. I wasn’t doing a very good job describing it to her, though, so I sat down to do a mockup. This is what came out:

I was actually pretty pleased with the effort. By working from mechanical drawings of WWII-era bombs, I was able to make one that looked kind of realistic. Then, after a search on the web that took far too long, I found a good picture of briefs at a decent size that I could borrow for my nefarious purposes. When I was done, it was pretty close to the image I’d had in my head, and that’s always gratifying, even when the image isn’t approved.

Julie liked the concept, but the company was a little divided. A few people were afraid that we’d be seen as making light of the recent war. That’s the problem with humor — sometimes, in order to be funny, you have to show people something they’re familiar with but make them see it in a different way, and in doing so you sometimes find yourself walking a fine line. I wasn’t trying to make light of the war in the least; instead, I was trying to reconfigure a horrible military term. It might be a shocking poster to some people, but there it was in the title. I felt that our audience would see the biting humor for what it was.

Fortunately, the rest of the company agreed. So Julie cranked out a new bomb for me, one more cartoonish so there was no question that what we were aiming for was meant to be funny. This is what we ended up with (click image for a larger version):

Briefs 6: Shock and Awe officially opens next Friday, 22 August (a pay-what-you-can preview plays the night before). In addition to the plays, Steve Klems will perform on selected nights, and we’re having another special guest as well, local comic Dave Erwin. For a complete schedule, check Impact’s website. I’m working the box office the first two nights (my play is performed every other night, starting Thursday, if that makes a difference to you, though all the plays are great).

Hey, here’s a deal you can’t pass up: If you come one of those nights and introduce yourself, I’ll buy you a beer. You can drink it during the show. In fact, we recommend it.