By Aurelio Sanchez /
Journal Staff Writer
David Garver finds America's obsession with celebrity “interesting and extremely annoying.”
Getting our latest fix of Britney's baby blues or seeing how our own favorite celebrity is faring on “Dancing With the Stars” is causing Americans to experience a “great disconnect” from themselves, nature and the rest of the world, Garver said.
“We're using the TV as an educational device, in the wrong way,” Garver said. “We're inundated with imagery and empty slogans that are becoming a part of our vernacular. We're losing a part of our spirituality, we're lacking in soul, and this piece really comments on that.”
Garver is a one-man show in the stage producton of Eric Bogosian's “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee,” produced by Greg Serano at his The Studio: an actor's space in northwest Albuquerque.
The play is a series of monologues by 14 characters commenting on politics, religion, hypocrisy, chaos and the alienation of everyday life, Garver said.
“Pop culture has become the voice of Western civilization,” he said. “Bogosian writes brave, honest, poignant, passionate and hysterically funny characters — warped and wild, beautiful and sad.”
There's Satan as a life coach, a benign Eastern guru turned capitalist, a Hollywood producer trying to exploit his own airplane crash, an actor making his way to Los Angeles.
“I love Bogosian,” Garver said of the 50-something social commentator and writer of “Drinking in America, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead.”
Garver observed that Bogosian seems to have mellowed with age; he's less ranting and more reflective.
“His characters are more like mirrors, reflecting that we have become very isolated,” Garver said. “The slogan ‘We are the Greatest Country in the World' has become an empty slogan. Our culture is in decay.”
“Wake Up and Smell the Coffee” is a directive expressed with side-splitting humor, Garver said, citing his best audience so far as a recent one at the Cell Theatre, composed of people over 60.
“They were so intelligent, so smart, and they laughed so hard it was easy to see that they got it,” Garver said. “But they also were really (angry) and they want some changes.”
Garver, a member of The Working Class Theater of Taos, has appeared the ABC Family production “Wildfire” and will be seen in the upcoming USA/NBC production of “In Plain Sight.”
“Wake Up and Smell the Coffee” is Serano's first live stage production. The Studio: an actors space is a black box theater where Serano coaches and prepares local actors for future stage productions.
“Wake Up and Smell the Coffee”
WHEN: 7:30 tonight and Saturday, May 3
WHERE: The Studio: an actor's space, 10131 Coors NW.
HOW MUCH: For ticket information, call 771-0417, or e-mail anactorsspace@thestudios.biz
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