Inspirations
Leo Gene Peters has been Inspired by many things in the creation of his work. Here he shares some of those influences
Excerpts of this article originally appeared 06/11/2016 in Pantograph Punch column Loose Canons. Copied here for educational purposes
Excerpts of this article originally appeared 06/11/2016 in Pantograph Punch column Loose Canons. Copied here for educational purposes
THE MIGHTY BOOSH
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There are a few things. Like The Mighty Boosh Live – not even really the show, but just the patter and game playing with the audience at the beginning. All of those qualities are part of something that we’re trying to do.
And some of The Mighty Boosh TV show too. Like ‘The Crack Fox’ is sort of this amazing thing that is this collision of absolutely weirdly terrifying and hilariousness at the same time. It’s irreverent, and dodgy, and cheeky. And it speaks to a lot about how horrible life is without being horrible. |
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ROBERT LEPAGE
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"His company Ex Machina was a huge part of my master’s thesis. His work (especially Seven Streams and Far Side of the Moon) is risky and personal. It’s also transformational. It’s often like a dream – a strange composition where he uses design and various theatrical languages to create these beautiful non-realistic moments that express the enormity of the feeling rather than rationally telling the story.
So much of his work I love. It’s so relaxed & magical & epic & ordinary & funny & spiritual & contemporary at the same time. It’s also been great in later years to see a couple of shows of his that I really didn’t like, and to feel like I’m guiding my own vision now rather than trying to emulate his." |
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KELLY LINK
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I’m not typically a short story fan. Generally I like more time to sit in a world, or with people, but I really enjoy Kelly Link's work. It’s often fantasy, mixed with deeply aching and very real, everyday, ordinary feelings. There’s a very urban quality, even when she’s playing with a fairy-tale world. Her blending of those things feels sophisticated and alive.
I emailed her site once and sort of half-heartedly asked about collaborating on a stage version of Magic For Beginners. Her agent very promptly and business-like emailed me back to ask about audience numbers and context and working out a royalty for adapting the work. I sheepishly backed out, making some excuse. I wasn’t interested in just getting the rights – all of her work is a great source for inspiration without ever discernibly being a part of any show I’ve made. I had a vague fantasy that she’d email me and be like, ‘that sounds really cool, we should hang-out and make something…’ And then we’d become great friends and make a completely new thing together. But I wasn’t bold enough to persist. Her work, however, continues to be a great inspiration. |
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RED BASTARD
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There are a couple of interviews where he talks about his role as entertainer and the training that he’s done. Red bastard is part entertainment whore – he just wants to please, and part spiritual provocateur. And that is his game and his relationship to the audience. But that is hugely inspiring for us to think about what we can take from that. And he’s a great example of ‘the fool’. The fool can be honest, he can say anything, get away with anything. ‘The fool’ can tell the king that he’s fucked up, and get away with is because he’s funny. And the notion of that is similar to what we’re doing.
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HARUKI MURAKAMI
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Murakami is my favourite author. I especially love The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and Wild Sheep Chase. Those two works changed my life and work more profoundly than anything else (with the exception of a couple of teachers and a couple of break-ups). They are both so urban & cool & contemporary & strangely magical but almost mundane in their extreme domesticity (insert 5 page scene about cooking dinner here). They’re very risky & personal & fragile & awkward & a bit exposing. But they're both very funny and very entertaining.
They’re strange mystery stories. He captures how surreal and weird life can feel. And then how that surreal feeling can also be completely normal. These books really capture his everyday feelings of loneliness, anxiety, fear of wasting his life and lack of purpose. I think the purpose of art is that we can sit together with our loneliness and our uncertainty and our fears. We can celebrate and laugh at how fucked up we all are and how we’re all pretending that we’re ‘normal’ even though there’s no such thing as ‘normal’. These two works do that for me. |
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14e ARRONDISSEMENT (Paris, je t’aime)
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This is such a beautiful short film (this piece specifically). I grew up with many people that I recognise in this woman (myself included) and Margo Martindale is such a generous and easy actor to watch. She’s gorgeous in this, especially. She’s such a quaint character. Very genuine and with huge feelings but not practiced at expressing them.
The form of the report for her French class is genius. We can laugh at her but we do it generously and with a kind of sympathy and empathy. She’s very ‘middle-America’ (a part of my culture that often makes me cringe). She idolises the style and fashion of Paris while she wanders around in her fanny pack with the occasional food stain on her clothes. She’s learned French to go to Paris to look for something, maybe romance or some experience. And she’s jet-lagged and probably kind of disappointed but keeps moving and visiting all these places and then has this amazing experience. I feel like we often overlook people like this. We’re trained to be so ‘youth’ and ‘fashion’ and ‘fit’ obsessed that we miss actually seeing most people. I feel like I spend a stupid amount of my life trying to be cool and look like I know what I’m doing. I am disproportionately concerned with ‘style’ and ‘relevance’ and how I’m failing at those things… I feel like I’m constantly missing this immense beauty that’s right there all the time. But my own anxiety and loss and sense of fading youth and feeling that I’m failing at life crowds my thoughts and completely blocks out what actually exists. Watch the film when you need or have some space to sit with it. It’s pretty stunning. |
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