RUMINATIONS ON PORTRAYING THE ROLE OF "JAMES HUMPHREY", ORIGINALLY CREATED BY THE INCOMPARABLE MATT STONE - reporting by Kelly Wells for The Mechanical Division
It’s a fact, to which my friends can attest, that I am a dick. Any evidence to the contrary should be regarded as manipulation, and any muted stirrings of true emotion should probably be assumed to be an aberration, the result of seeing lots of movies that portray what actual people do and how they react when they are, in fact, not assholes.
Among the people I’ve fooled is my good friend Ben Thietje, Artistic Director of The Mechanical Division and maintainer of this website; he has asked me to write this piece in place of the injured Bloggerton, who is at home nursing a torn ACL. Thanks, Ben!
Back in August, Ben, myself, and three other guys I can’t remember right now premiered
LICK!, a comedic dance show written by Ben, at the Minnesota Fringe Festival. It was a victorious return to the stage for me after an inexplicable four year absence; for although Ben apparently decided while writing the show that my character would have no personality, at least the show was popular among oversexed women and people who like really, really stupid shit.
Due to the overwhelming success of the show, we were asked to remount the show perversely late at night on a stage meant for a different show that was running earlier in the evening. Roughly twelve people saw this second edition of
LICK!, and this overwhelming success led to the decision that, to show that The Mechanical Division wasn’t solely about stupid comedy, we would in January mount the harrowingly beautiful Viet Nam war show
Tracers.
But somebody in the area had already secured the rights to it, so we settled on the Midwestern premiere of stupid comedy
Cannibal! The Musical, continuing a trend of doing shows featuring the monumentally overused exclamation point.
I was offered the role of butcher "Frank Miller", who basically hangs around the stage all show long complaining every now and then while the five guys around him make jokes. The charge of creating this role befell Jason McHugh in the film, and eventually went to Andy Baker in our production when the guy playing group spaz James Humphrey died or something. Thanks, Andy!
So I’m basically doing an impression of Matt Stone playing "Humphrey", because there’s really no other way to play the role. And that’s what acting is all about, right? Plus I play this (for some reason, Scottish) Sheriff after "Humphrey" bites it, which is nice because it allows me to swagger—a natural fit for someone as arrogant as I am.
What’s next for The Mechanical Division? There’s another
LICK! show at the Minnesota Fringe Festival, I think, and from there, I know at least a couple of the actors in the company are working on scripts in the meantime. And hey, maybe we’ll eventually do that pesky
Tracers, right? In the meantime, there are eight more chances to catch the honestly funny and popular
Cannibal! The Musical at the St. Paul 4th Street Theatre.
In all seriousness, we love your support, and have a free and peaceful Martin Luther King, Junior day.
Kelly Wells
TMD Company Member/King of the Grammar Rodeo
