Blame It on the Fool

Performance artist and composer Rinde Eckert brings his one-person show, ‘An Idiot Divine,’ to Hightstown.

By: Susan Van Dongen

"My

"My father would refer to me as an idiot when he was displeased," says performance artist Rinde Eckert, who performs his show An Idiot Divine at the Peddie School May 10.


   The mythology of the "idiot" is an endlessly rich mine to explore. From classical literature to various and sundry Jerry Lewis movies, the archetypal fool has entertained mankind through the ages.
   Performance artist and composer Rinde Eckert’s fascination with the idiot was something that came out of a dysfunctional relationship with his father. The elder Eckert called his son an idiot so many times the young man took it to heart — even enrolling himself in a fifth-grade remedial reading class, thinking he was mentally challenged.
   "My father would refer to me as an idiot when he was displeased," says Mr. Eckert, speaking by phone from temporary quarters in San Francisco. "He didn’t understand that I took it quite literally. They threw me out of remedial reading immediately, of course, but I developed a whole set of metaphors."
   Mr. Eckert used the experience to create An Idiot Divine, a one-person performance piece with music, to be staged at the Peddie School in Hightstown May 10.
   The production, which premiered in New York to critical acclaim, combines two of Mr. Eckert’s previous works, The Idiot Variations and Dry Land Divine.
   The latter piece has to do with the biblical story of Cain and Abel. In Dry Land Divine, a man who is a water dowser by trade is sent to prison for killing his brother. He’s visited by an eccentric angel bearing a red accordion who tells him that his redemption can only be earned by learning a series of old tunes on the instrument.
   "It’s essentially a story about redemption through art," Mr. Eckert says.
   Dry Land Divine is also about wholeness, striking a balance between unhealthy extremes.
   "When we look at the two brothers, one is too pious and the other is too profane," he says. "But they need each other — together they make a whole. By learning to play the accordion, the one brother creates a harmony within himself."
   Music plays a large part in The Idiot Variations, as well. In fact, Mr. Eckert chose the instruments in the piece before he wrote the monologue. Instead of the instruments being background noise for the idiot character, they’re musical metaphors for the human condition.
   "I collected a series of instruments," Mr. Eckert says. "I had to learn how to play accordion, baritone horn and this very strange guitar I play with a spoon and a slide. I put them in my living room, and as I looked at them they seemed to belong to the same world. They complemented each other and they had the same emotional quality. Once I had this collection, I began to develop the songs for them.
   "I ended up with a series of monologues generated after the music was written," he continues. "They’re all somewhat marginal. The accordion, for example, is basically a street instrument. One doesn’t think of the baritone horn as a traditional classical instrument either. It’s not the trombone, it’s not the tuba, it doesn’t have its own section in the orchestra. Also, it’s a marching-band instrument, so it’s designed to be played while wandering."
   To bring the instruments to life, Mr. Eckert drew from memories of various street musicians he stumbled across in his home base of New York, as well as Berkeley, San Francisco and Seattle. Anyone who has ever lived in a large city has encountered the excessively earnest amateur musician and can probably relate to Mr. Eckert’s recollections.
   "I remembered an accordion player I knew who was also a philosopher," Mr. Eckert says. "Then there was a trumpet player I knew in Seattle who was very often out of tune but played with a lot of power. All these street musicians shared a certain integrity. There was a commitment to the music that I found engaging."
   This ties in with the idea of the wise fool, the idiot who feels a certain connection to spirit, which may manifest itself in ravings that don’t make sense to anyone except the individual shouting them, or music that sounds horrible to everyone except the person playing it.
   "There’s a whole tradition in religion, from the holy fool to the coyote in Native American spirituality," Mr. Eckert says. "The coyote figure can be the trickster in disguise. There are also masquerading tricksters in Zen teachings as well as in Islam."
   Although marginalized, the archetypal idiot often carries a status in society. Like the mentally ill in certain parts of Africa, roving lunatics are protected by the belief that they are directly linked to the spirit world and to harm them would bring bad luck. In medieval times, the fool or jester was the only one in the royal court who could insult the king and get away with it. Even today, comedians poke fun at high-level public figures in ways that aren’t permitted to others.
   All of this fascinated Mr. Eckert, who has woven rich, complex subject matter into acclaimed works such as And God Created Great Whales, about a composer trying to finish an opera based on Moby Dick. The internationally renowned writer, director, singer, composer, actor and movement artist has been compared to Laurie Anderson for his versatility and imagination.
   Known for his remarkably flexible and inventive singing voice, Mr. Eckert has long been celebrated for his performances in multimedia theater pieces with the Paul Dresher Ensemble and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Throughout the ’90s, Mr. Eckert collaborated on three CDs with producer Lee Townsend. His Story In, Story Out (Intuition, 1997), features two audio plays in which Mr. Eckert sings, plays and speaks. One of them, "Four Songs Lost In A Wall," was originally produced for the "New American Radio Series" on American Public Radio.
   Physical descriptions mention Mr. Eckert’s Mr. Clean-style pate, dock worker’s build and choirboy face. His movements on stage are said to be akin to a tai chi master on steroids.
   He uses this manic energy to bring The Idiot Variations to a climax, as the idiot character gains enough self-awareness to realize he is, indeed, doomed to be an outsider.
   "It’s through the solo on the Boy Scout field drum — which frightens him at first — that he realizes his full relationship to society," Mr. Eckert says. "Through the drum solo and its martial energies, the character realizes the powers set against him. He’s attacking himself at this point and desperately attempts to recover his innocence."
   Thus, the performance piece comes full circle. The idiot is again left out in the rain, but this time with the awareness of his vulnerability.
   Reflecting on another memory, Mr. Eckert remarks on sophistication versus innocence.
   "I was waiting for a ferry, watching this group of people on the beach throwing stones into the water," he says. "There was this one kid throwing stones. He stood out, not just because he was mentally challenged, but because he had a way of throwing stones that had more integrity to it than anyone else on the beach. The others were competing, or trying to imitate baseball players. This kid was the only one who was just throwing stones.
   "I was reminded of the Zen concept of the stone garden. The way this kid threw the stones came close to that in its integrity. It resembled something totally earnest. There’s purity in certain iterations of the idiot that I’m enamoured of. They all share a certain innocent honesty that I find fertile."
Rinde Eckert performs An Idiot Divine at the Mount-Burke Theater at the Peddie School, South Main Street, Hightstown, May 10, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $20. For information, call (609) 490-7550. On the Web: www.peddie.org/capps