Description: In a series of eight monologues, Chris Harcum goes in the minds of several men and looks at life in relation to two icons, his grandmother and Batman.

First Produced: 2003
Date Added: 6/15/2011
Content Advisory: Adult language and strong content
Keywords: Comedy  Death and the afterlife  Pop culture  Religion and spirituality  Superheroes  Characters are mostly married/with families  Families  Memoirs  Movies/film/TV  Single Set  Solo Play  True stories  Naturalism/Realism  Mostly Male Characters  Large Cast Size 
1 Act, 60 Minutes
0 Females, 8 Males

From the Playwright:

What right or authority do I have to say anything about anything? It’s a question that gives me hesitation before starting on a new piece or even putting a post on my blog. Sometimes it takes something much bigger than my resistance to push me beyond that.

In May 2001, I witnessed my grandmother passing away. Maybe it was a trick of my mind hit hard with grief but I experienced my grandmother’s energy leaving the room. It felt like an invisible vehicle came by to pick up her spirit and whisk it out the double doors of the balcony to somewhere far away. There was emptiness in the atmosphere of the room after that. This turned me inward and made me think for the first time about what was of value and what I believed separate from what I’d been taught. This is what I began putting on the page. Up to that point, I’d been an actor who dabbled in writing but this was the first time I wrote like a writer.

I performed the first version of this piece six weeks after that event. Doing this helped me get through a time when life made little sense. I thought I was going out on a limb with this piece but reading it now there’s a gentleness to it that seems to permeate it.

Through these characters, I was able to voice ideas in a way I hadn’t previously. The Canadian character Alex expressed my constant feeling of almost (but never quite) belonging. Manny, the older man in line at McDonalds waiting to get two senior coffees, looks at the past and present. Dr. Astrov, the rocker on the comeback trail, shows how mean we can be as consumers.  Jungle Jim is innocence that will be crushed. Dog is all of the messages I got from guys who are too scared to let themselves just be themselves. Arthur the Almanac represents the wisdom most people ignore. Blindfold is my attempt at redefining spirituality separate from church and dogma.

One image that kept coming to mind as I wrote this was the American flag. I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why. I thought about how in my youth it was hanging everywhere. In comparing the World War II generation and Gen X, I thought reverence for certain things made the biggest difference. After the Vietnam War and through the 1980s, it seemed the flag was something to cause suspicion rather than elicit respect.

A couple weeks after I finished the first run of this piece, the attacks on the World Trade Center Towers happened on 9/11. Suddenly, people were looking deeply at one another and seeing the everyday value of each other in a way I think was viewed as uncool in the ‘90s. And there were flags everywhere.  For a brief time, people started talking about what it meant to be an American and what makes a hero.

Creating this piece that summer made me more prepared for the shock of those events than I would have been otherwise. My period of mourning expanded to include people I didn’t know. My puzzlement about the way the world worked and why things happen for no good reason grew exponentially.

I remounted this piece for three brief runs in 2003, ending with the Fringe Festival in New York. Performing this in Virginia pre-9/11 was one experience. In downtown Manhattan after 9/11 was another. For this run, I centered more on the themes and images elicited by Batman, my first childhood superhero, and how he compared with my everyday hero Gammy. I think the reason we had so many superhero movies in the last decade is that they are necessary in a terrifying world during war. Their place has shifted in a time when the flag is looked at with both suspicion and respect.

Two small things. Gammy used to say, “You’ll miss me when I’m gone” all the time.  And I do. Also, this script was written before Christian Bale played Batman. The script was not changed to reflect this because I still have the same opinion of who was the best  Batman ever.

NOTE: Gotham Standards is fully protected by copyright law and is subject to royalty. All inquiries concerning production, publication, reprinting or use of this play in any form should be addressed to Rochelle at rd@indietheaternow.com.

Original Production Information

Gotham Standards was first presented by Lt. Clark's Theatre, as part of the New York International Fringe Festival in 2003 at Under St. Marks, with the following cast and credits:

Written and performed by Chris Harcum
Director and costume design: Janine Marie McCabe
Set design: Jenny Sawyers
Lighting design and board op: Sean Crowley
Stage manager and board op: Shana Albery
Sound design: Chris Harcum

Review by Seth Duerr

Writer/performer Chris Harcum’s Gotham Standards is about the places we escape to so that we can live, when it seems the world around us is dying. At once, powerful and insightful, Harcum’s show is a 75-minute solo tour-de-force that is something to be seen. The characters that the actor embodies here include an elderly European man waiting in a deli line, a little boy who triumphantly declares that he thinks he’s lost his virginity because he’s kissed a girl, a failing rock star, as well as Harcum himself.

The story is one of attachments, loss, and how to deal with the harshness in between by constantly re-focusing your perspective to see something more positive. The writer’s playground is a dramatic wonderland of the severest contradictions—imagination vs. reality and life vs. death. Harcum is at his best when letting us know that if we can find solace in our imaginations, then perhaps there is hope we can find it in reality.

As an actor, Harcum vibrantly expresses his themes through eight extremely entertaining character studies. These are not just cardboard cut-outs, though at times Harcum seems a little held back by Janine Marie McCabe’s direction, and the work feels a bit contrived at certain moments because of that. However, Harcum never loosens his grasp on his own imagination, constantly searching, questioning, re-thinking. There is a fine line between a strong metaphor and something that sounds like writing, and Harcum’s pen avoids the latter most of the time, offering the audience variety and depth. Harcum’s own sound design is effective, and Sean Crowley’s lighting design is surprisingly potent, again offering up attention to detail and strong storytelling.

All in all, this is an engaging story, one that is obviously important to the storyteller, and ultimately one worth telling…go see this show.

reviewed at the 2003 New York International Fringe Festival

Excerpt from Gotham Standards

My name is Arthur, by the way. (slight pause) Well, it’s nice to meet you.

My friends call me Arthur the Almanac on account I remember a lot of stuff. Like did you know in the old Batman TV series that two different actors played the Riddler and threee played Catwoman? It’s true. My friends all say, “Gosh Arthur, how do you remember all that stuff.” And I say, “I just do.” (pause)

It’s funny that they call it a pilot ‘cause you aren’t flying at all. You just set in same place that you were in when you started. People look real important with their pilots and their phones. Hey, have you seen that gizmo that you stick in your ear and then you talk out loud and the other person on the phone can hear you? (slight pause) You have one of those? Wow. I bet you’re going someplace important. (slight pause) Oh, to see your family, huh? How come you aren’t flying? Too inconvenient, huh?

I’m going up to visit some relatives I haven’t ever met before. (pause) Sure is hot enough, isn’t it? I’d go get a co-cola but all they have are Coke products and I prefer Pepsi. I like the taste of Coke better but they support apartheid and the burning of the rainforest in South America. I know that apartheid isn’t around anymore but South Africa is.

You know, this is my first real vacation where I’m goin’ somewhere. I go fishin’ sometimes. And I took a long time off because of my operation awhile back but this is the first time I really went somewhere else. I shouldn’t be scared though, right? (pause) Well don’t you worry, they say that trains are safer than planes and I heard that more people die every year from donkeys than they do from planes.