"I can't imagine a more entertaining person to hang with for 90 minutes than the absolutely adorable Murphy Funkhouser."

-John Moore, The Denver Post

http://www.denverpost.com/theater/ci_9693911

"Funkhouser herself is an engaging performer... Her writing is pointed and evocative..."

-Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jun/12/a-brave-soul-makes-a-fine-mess-in-bag/

"..humor and engaging stage presence keep the audience involved".-Sonya Ellingboe, Littleton Independent 

http://www.littleton-independent.com/site/tab7.cfm?newsid=19787228&BRD=2713&PAG=461&dept_id=611192&rfi=6

"Baggage takes on higher meaning"

-The Denver Westword

"Murphy has a talent to not only open her crazy bag but hauntingly opens your own as well"

-R.L. Powers to S. D. News

"Murphy is a gifted physical comedienne who performs her solo show Crazy Bag at Vintage Theatre in June"

-John Moore, Denver Post

http://www.denverpost.com/theater/ci_9693911

photo by Litfoto www.litfoto.com

Interviewer Brett Duesing talks with Murphy Funkhouser, writer and performer of the one-woman show, “Crazy Bag.”  The production is touring six cities during 2008. 

BD: In “Crazy Bag” it’s clear that you’re playing yourself. Is it more difficult to be opening up your own box of secrets in front of an audience than playing a character?

MF:  Absolutely.  It’s like being naked on stage.  [laughs]  I think that’s why I created my alter ego characters.  When I started trying to write the script, I was blocked.  I just stared at a blank page for pretty much four months.  I was telling everybody I was writing a play, but I really wasn’t.  It wasn’t until I created my alter egos, the “heathen,” and the “anti-heathen” – very much like the typical literary tools of the angel and the devil on your shoulder – that I started to make progress.  Once they were created, I could blame most of my indiscretions on them.  It was easier to write, and easier to perform, because I became sort of this neutral character, and they got to have all the shenanigans.

BD:  You wrote a script “Crazy Bag”, but haven’t you said it began as an improv exercise?

MF:  That’s right. The initial idea was that I was going to come on stage and be handed a bag of props.  I was going to pull out an object at random and improvise on it as if it were a memento from some fictional life story.  Or we were going to have the audience pick a out a piece to talk about, much like “Whose Line Is It Anyway.”  The theme would be “baggage.” 

As I was developing some sort of outline of the things I could riff on the improv, I found that, naturally, I was drawing on my own experiences.  I could see that my whole life history by unpacking a series of suitcases.  I felt like I had no choice, the story begged me to tell it.  I had to go to the director and say, “I’d like to change the plan. I want to do this story.” 

BD:  What did you expect out of the first production? What was the response?

MF:  We’re always our own harshest critics.  I think the biggest challenge was getting past the worry that my own life story wasn’t going to be entertaining, you know, that it wasn’t going to be interesting to other people.  The ego wants to be told that it’s story is interesting, but when there’s an actual spotlight on it, it sort of shies away.  I was surprised at how many audience members found points of connectivity in my story and their own.  They’d come up to me after the show and say that I had told their story.  I had thought mine was very unique, but it turns out it wasn’t.  That was the biggest surprise in the way it was received. 

BD:  So there’s lot of heathens among theatergoers…

MF:  [laughs] Apparently! 

BD:  A lot of free-spirited blondes who lived out of their car at one point?

MF:  Exactly.  [laughs]  Actually a lot of grey-haired old women, saying that’s how it went down for them.  My director told me something that I found very fascinating, and I will always remember this as I write in the future.  The more specific you make something, the more universal it becomes.  I told my story in very specific terms, and it related to more people, which was surprising to me.  

BD:  I would think that the story would resonate more with women.  Was that the case?

MF:  You would think so, mostly because of the discussion of motherhood in part of it, but everybody has a period of rebellion.  Everybody has a coming of age.  Most everybody has lost somebody they loved.  So those parts of the story are universal.  I’ve had men that it touched just as deeply as women.  Because I’m a woman, obviously, there’s going to be more commonality there with women in the audience, but I’d describe “Crazy Bag” as a universal story, rather than just a show just for women. 

BD:  After the strong response from the premiere, you started a Bag Workshop where people could tell their own stories dramatically, much like you did in “Crazy Bag.”  How did that work?

MF: Doing “Crazy Bag” was so very healing for me, and so positive, so life-changing, you know, so I wanted to give that opportunity to other people. I’ve gotten such positive feedback from the participants.  The finally get to tell their stories and it was very liberating for them.

I’m going to incorporate the workshop into every tour location I go to with “Crazy Bag.” To be honest, my first run with the workshop was a bit too ambitious, so the workshop is getting workshopped.   [laughs]  It’s getting some tweaking and some parameters.  Originally, participates would write a script, then perform it, which I found, was a tall order for one workshop.  

I’ve always been an actress, and I had only started writing, so it was my belief that if it’s something I could do, anybody could do it.  Since I was so familiar with the theater, I sort of instinctually put my story into dramatic conventions:  the pacing, the structure of it, things a newcomer to playwriting might not grasp the first time around. There are people out there who have been dying to tell their story, and when you finally open it, it explodes all over the place.  There’s a lot of energy there, which is the important thing.  I think improvisation or brainstorming exercises get into that space just as effectively, while composing a piece that’s appropriate for an audience requires a bit more craft. 

What effects do you see when people put their life history into the framework of a story or a performance?

I think it’s very therapeutic.  Like I said, no one at first thinks his or her life is that interesting.  You know, most people have some disappointment in how their lives have turned out.  Maybe it’s the decisions that they’ve made. Maybe it’s the personal baggage they carry with them.  It’s something they’re not proud of.  Putting it into a story lets you take that negativity and turn that into something valuable that can be shared emotionally with others.  People might cry, they might laugh with you, and you start to realize the stuff you have hidden in your personal closet is not junk. It has worth.  And to be honest, it has entertainment value as well.  One man’s junk is another man’s treasure, as they say.

BD: Most of “Crazy Bag” could be considered a comedy. It’s only when you open up the last box, it’s a secret that makes everything else told make more sense, that you get a very emotional moment. 

MF:  [laughs] Is there a question in there?

BD:  [laughs] How do you think comedy operates in the play? 

MF:  They say that we laugh at what is true.  And to be honest with you, I didn’t initially intend the story to be funny when it was first written. I wanted to tell my story and I wanted to be entertaining, but it was more like “laugh at what I’m saying, because you recognize the truth in it.”  That does establish a bond with the audience, so when you get to revealing the deeper truth, then the audience is right there with you.  The humor allows me to take them along to unexplored territory, because this trust has been established.

BD:  Has there been any controversy to the content of “Crazy Bag?”

MF:  When it premiered at the Colorado Theater Festival, I had to do an abbreviated version of the show, which was only about sixty minutes.  I wasn’t able to delve very deeply into what happened between the time I was single, partying, and living out of my car, and the point where I became a mother.  So it left some in the audience a little confused and perhaps aghast, since they thought I was doing all these wild things with a child in tow.  The show was well received by the judges, but some of the audience members who were at the panel discussion expressed grave concern for the welfare of the child.  [laughs]

Of course, the full length version has the transition where I turn very domestic as a new mother – I never thought it was essential to the heart of the story, but it’s there to make the changes in context clear for the audience.

BD:  Since the set is just suitcases, you don’t have any changes of background to indicate the environment. You have to rely on other cues to illustrate where you are.

MF:  The set of the play I think is a strong point – it won Best Set Design at the Colorado Theater Festival.  The minimalism makes it unique.  The baggage hauled on stage gets treated as different set pieces during the story – a trunk turns into a car seat, or a park bench, or a bar.  Or it’s used as a make-believe alter or a baby cradle.  The world of theatre is always looking for new and different ways to design sets.  Minimalism is very popular right now, because it gives a play a lot more freedom to change locations very quickly.  It just so happens that the minimalism of my show also fits with the theme of baggage in the emotional sense of the term. 

BD:  To take the production on tour, you won’t even need to pack.

MF:  [laughs]  It’s already packed.

It’s funny.  For the tour, I’ve been calling around to U-Haul places for a cargo trailer, and they ask me what I hauling, and I say about 500 pounds of baggage.  [laughs] They got a big kick out of that.

BD:  Baggage is a term that gets thrown around a lot.

MF:  Our societal perception of the term “baggage” has a negative connotation.  In reality, baggage is that its something we take with us to our next destination.  Baggage is exciting because it means you’re going somewhere.  But the negative connotation is that if you have baggage, you’re not going anywhere.  You’re stuck.  You’re stationary.  No one wants to have a relationship with you.  You have an impediment.  Baggage is what’s holding you back. 

I think one thing the play’s doing is trying to shake off that stigma.   If in anyway the play addresses women, it’s in trying to flip over the pejorative connotation to the word, since it’s much more often applied to women than to men.  But the truth is we all have a suitcase or two back in the closet that we’d rather not have.  It was interesting to me while writing the play is that we have so many words that equate emotions as a burden:  “I’m weighed down.”  “This is getting heavy.” 

BD:  “I’m sorry, but I have to unload this on you.”

MF:  Exactly.

BD:  [laughs] “Why you always dumping your crap on me?”

MF:  [laughs] But baggage doesn’t have to be considered that way.  It’s really the fear of what’s in our past is what weighs us down.  We don’t want to look at what’s been stowed away in there.  What “Crazy Bag” and the Bag Workshop says is to look at the embarrassing things in your closet you have hanging in disbelief not as burdens, but more like souvenirs of a life well traveled. 

BD:  Well, I feel like a burden’s been lifted.  Thank you, Murphy Funkhouser.

MF:  [laughs]  No, thank you, Mr. Duesing.