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Voice, Language, Sound

South Hadley, MA 4/25/10

“Lanier taught me to listen to a voice so that every spoken word is a note and sometimes many notes if they're alighted on a musical scale. A good preacher hears the spoken word that way.”

Bill Talen

A vocal style of the televangelist and right-wing demagogue. Quasi-southern. Rhetorical patterns, timing, and inflections of African-American call-and-response.

Song and rhythm = organizing tactics

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Sidamo prayer campaign, Astor Place, NYC, 2/11/07

Mask, Costume, and Character

Portrait sitting with Andres Serrano, NYC, 3/20/09 Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh (CC)

Hairdo = Elvis + Jimmy Swaggart
Costume collar + authentic calling.

“...when we pray, it becomes prayer...you don't do that from a position of parody...'Reverend Billy' is just a way of meet and greet. The parody's over in seconds.”

Bill Talen

What’s the difference between

performing and embodying?
impersonating and becoming?
playing and attempting to overthrow conventions?
wit and seriousness?

Movement: posture, gesture

Blessing of the Water Day, Chelsea, NYC, 3/22/09 Photo by C.S. Muncy (CC)

Dramatic. Iconic. Recognizable.

Text and Improvisation

Is it prophecy and channeling? Scripted performance? Jazz improvisation?

Narrator comes from the same root—gno—as cure.

A number of savvy people in the theatre world describe Talen as writing some of the most evocative, powerful and poetic work on any American stage today

Reverend Billy's notebook. Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh (CC)