Eliot Fisher ’05 is a man of many talents, several of which go on display this week in the form of a play: “The Outlaw Barber of Living Proof, or, A Shave Too Close.” Written and directed by Fisher, the show is an old-fashioned melodrama with several songs. It is one of three he has written in the genre, replete with winsome heroines and dastardly villains. The film major, composer, musical director and Wesleyan Spirit took time out of his busy schedule to talk with me- one of his actors- about marshmallows, opera, and a certain “Bandit Queen”.
LIZ THALER: How did you first get interested in melodrama?
ELIOT FISHER: My composition teacher at home, who helped me work on the musical I wrote senior year [of high school], worked out in Madrid, New Mexico, this funny little ex-mining town south of Sante Fe where I live, at this theatre—The Madrid Melodrama’s Engine House Theater—that puts on only melodramas. I started working as a pianist out there.
LT: And now you actually write scripts for them. They did “Outlaw Barber” this past summer—why did you decide to produce it again at Wes?
EF: I’d been toying with the idea since I came to school. This is a type of theater not a lot people have seen: it’s not very common and it seems like it should be. Also they’re often frontier themed, they’re very western—coming from the west to the east, and experiencing a little culture shock, I was inspired to bring something here that was from my place. Wesleyan has helped me write these, too, because I’d taken Westerns with Richard Slotkin freshman year. I based so much off of the class—the shows that I have written have been more like Western movies than like the classic nineteenth-century melodramas. Growing up in New Mexico…for me taking Westerns was a cure for homesickness. I’d go in and see these landscapes that looked like home. I remember visiting the town and the building where Billy the Kid was shot. I feel like, growing up there, that part of American history is my part.
LT: It must be interesting reproducing the show here, especially since you didn’t direct it in Madrid.
EF: The cast and crew are a really creative and unusual group of people, and I think all of our irregularities add to the show. For example, I had the heroine, Annie, break down and cry a couple times, because the heroine is traditionally subject to horrid twists of fate. Anyway, we discovered that Dana [Raviv ’06]’s crying is the most ridiculous thing to watch ever, and everyone realized just how big all of the acting can be in this kind of theater.
LT: Give me a quote on marshmallows to attract people to our show.
EF: Here’s the spiel that Cliff [at the Madrid Melodrama] does that I’ll probably repeat: the best part of the show is that every audience member is outfitted with a six shooter of anti-villain ballistic missiles (marshmallows, they’re marshmallows)—
LT: (Thanks.)
EF: —for when their hearts are so outraged at the villain that they need to throw something. Is that good enough for marshmallows?
LT: Yeah. I think people will really like the marshmallow-throwing.
EF: It’s really funny, the first marshmallow determines so much. Once that first marshmallow is thrown people feel like they have the license. The marshmallow has broken the fourth wall—people can comment on the action and give advice to the actors and it becomes a really fun game.
LT: Are you nervous—okay, I’m gonna ask because I’m nervous—about people being inappropriate in their interactions with the cast?
EF: That’s something that you always have to deal with in this kind of show. Because you’re saying ‘You have to participate, audience,’ you’re gonna get a number of hecklers who are trying to throw the actors. And I think there’s a place for that too in this kind of show. In my mind it’ll just keep the actors on their toes, and if they are on their toes they’ll be able to respond and not be thrown. In terms of people being inappropriate, I think it’s other audience members who keep them in check. If someone’s an asshole people don’t like that. If the actors aren’t thrown and the audience doesn’t respect the asshole then I don’t see that as a problem.
LT: Fortunately you have excellent amazing talented actors.
EF: [A perhaps skeptical pause.] Exactly. All the actors I have (especially the lead actress)—
LT: Aw.
EF: —are so über-talented that they won’t let that serve as a challenge, any heckler who wants to make them mess up.
LT: The title makes me think of “The Barber of Seville.” Was that intentional, or am I just a dork?
EF: Semi-intentional. I wasn’t thinking directly of “Barber of Seville,” but generally, yes—also Sweeney Todd, “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” I’m sure those were both floating in my head somewhere as I came up with the title.
LT: So I’m a semi-dork.
EF: Right.
LT: I ask because I know you’ve been involved a lot with opera at Wesleyan. Do you think there’s much overlap between opera and melodrama?
EF: I’d say that opera is considered high art and melodrama the opposite. What we’re doing is the bastard child of opera if any relation. Structurally there are similarities: you might relate the difference between arias and recitatives to asides and dialogue. Stylistically, they both have a very presentational quality.
LT: And it’s fun to play—I mean, my character is a retired outlaw disguised as a man, you don’t get more fun than that—but the great thing about melodrama is that you throw in these absurd obstacles that, to the characters, are really serious. So the audience cares enough to root for us.
EF: And Hollywood follows all the same formulas, it’s just a little subtler. I think that ultimately it really is just entertainment. It’s fun. It really doesn’t seem like work when we get together to rehearse as much as playing a really fun game.
LT: That’s definitely how it feels from my end.
EF: And hopefully, the audience will come ready to play along with us.
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