About

For the second time in 1987, Watchface was presented with the opportunity to mount
multiple productions in a repertory format. Oranges/Sardines, a gallery and performance
space operated by Carol Colin and Ted Waltz, invited the group to perform at their
renovated warehouse space for Los Angeles’ Fringe Festival. Oranges/Sardines’ offering as
part of the festival would run for two nights on two consecutive weekends during the month
of September. The group accepted the offer wholeheartedly. It was the first time all seven
would travel together to perform. The thought of bringing Watchface to Southern California
was enticing, especially for the members of the group who had lived in the Los Angeles area
before moving to New York City.

A challenging schedule was set. Two shows were to be presented for each of the four evenings, with none repeated. Of the eight pieces, two had been created for Watchface: The Spring ’87 Collection the previous April, and three were from 1986 and earlier in 1987. The remaining three works were new performances featuring new partnerships – Kurt Fulton and Maggie Siena with Life and Times, Kim X Knowlton and Iris Rose with What’s Your Problem?, and Chazz Dean
and Melanie Monios with MissMister.
Fringe Festival calendar cover and listing
Oranges/Sardines flyer

After being very close friends for several years, Chazz and Melanie had moved east together
in 1982 and were roommates after their arrival in New York City, yet surprisingly, MissMister
was their first and only collaboration. As the other members of the group expected, the two
meshed extremely well; the humor, physicality, and pathos of the piece were enhanced by
the harmony of their working relationship. The show had already begun to percolate in
Chazz’s consciousness before the trip to California was a possibility. Chazz’s partner in the
many club performances of the popular Stereotype, James Siena, was showing signs that his
interest in that ongoing project was beginning to wane. Stereotype had used the Watchface
Remblem (for a description of the techniques in green, see METHOD) technique exclusively
to present a rhythmic and humorous depiction of clichéd characterizations, such as fathers,
art types, cops, and robbers. Chazz considered modifying the style of Stereotype into a new
series of shows with Melanie. The Fringe Festival was the opportunity to put this new concept
on its feet.

The result was MissMister, a performance in five sections; the parts were designed to be
presented together or to stand alone and be performed individually. There were several
distinct differences between Stereotype and MissMister. The biggest change was the
addition of a linear storyline with consistent characters. In this tale of a developing
relationship, Chazz and Melanie portrayed Douglas and Kristen from childhood through
marriage. Both shows used the Remblem as their basic building block. The Emblem, from
which the Remblem evolved, embodied a word or a concept physically and vocally, and
the result was most often an abstract distillation. In contrast, the Remblem‘s chanted phrase
was set to a beat and its complementary movement was more literal, which Chazz and
Melanie considered perfect for telling the story of MissMister. Both the Emblem and the
Remblem were traditionally stationary; they repeated and would frequently appear again
later in the same work. For MissMister, however, a traveling pattern was added to the
Remblem, and each was usually only performed once and did not reappear later, since it
acted as a step in the evolving story.

A voiceover narration preceded each of the five scenes, setting up the passage to come.
introduction narration Chazz and Melanie asked Iris to record this text. In the first section,
Douglas and Kristen meet for the first time as young children and bond over an appreciation
for the same toy. As immature teenagers on a field trip to Disneyland in Teens, the first
glimmer of attraction appears. Depictions of the sights and sounds of the theme park were
included, such as Peter Pan’s line “Come on, everybody. Here we go!” from the Peter Pan’s
Flight ride. Teens Remblem floor pattern After years apart, the two reunite and rekindle their
relationship at a dance club in the third entry. Young Adults script The fourth section finds the
newly married couple blissfully enjoying the start of their life together on a romantic cruise.
However, before the honeymoon is over, there are hints of a rift in their wedded bliss.

Doug:
Kristen, what was the steward doing in our room this afternoon?

Kristen:
Oh Doug, he was just helping me with the porthole, you jealous thing.

Doug:
Before you, I was half a person.

Kristen:
Now you are a whole.

Doug:
Two more Mai Tai’s please.

Kristen:
Oh Doug, Doug – I’ve never known happiness like this.

Doug:
Do you really mean it, Kristen?

Kristen:
Well…

Doug:
Darling, you’re shaking.

Kristen:
I’m cold.

Doug:
Oh.

The final scene showed Doug and Kristen as antagonist alcoholics bickering publicly at their
high school reunion. The final bittersweet exchange has the couple confessing to each
other, “You’re all I have in the world; you’re all I have in the world.” Married Couple script

Even with this emotionally complex ending, the performance was full of humor, in the writing,
the characterizations, and the performers’ adept skill at physical comedy. Both approached
the project with many ideas, but Melanie in particular wanted the show to be funny. When
there was a message to be conveyed, she was most comfortable presenting it with humor.
The scene in the discotheque included a long dance sequence filled with appropriately
corny dance moves that audiences found hilarious. The disco hit they danced to was 1979’s
“Deputy of Love” by Don Armando, one of many diverse recordings included in the score
compiled from the record collections of Chazz, Melanie, and Melanie’s husband, Pascal
Marand. The honeymoon sequence discarded the structure of the Remblem altogether;
Chazz and Melanie performed their lines while executing a comical pas de deux, complete
with balletic leaps, lifts, and poses. source imagery They danced to a selection from the score
of the film You Only Live Twice by composer John Barry, another eclectic musical choice.

While in California for the Fringe Festival, several members of Watchface visited System M, a
club and performance space in nearby Long Beach. John Traub, the club’s artistic director
and a longtime friend of Kurt’s, invited the group to perform. Several shows from the Fringe
Festival line up were presented, including MissMister. System M flyer

Back in New York City, the performance did not have the club appeal that Chazz had hoped
for. Jody Kurilla, who Chazz knew from Haoui Montaug’s roving revue No Entiendes, booked
MissMister for an evening she was curating weekly at the Pyramid Club, but the experience
was somewhat disappointing. With its story and characters, the show required more
concentration than most other club performances to be fully appreciated.

Montaug, the former door man for the dance club Paradise Garage, had often engaged Stereotype for No Entiendes (Spanish for “you don’t understand”), known for showcasing new, edgy talent, but by the end of 1987 the club scene was changing. As Chazz recalls, “Performance was kind of over in the clubs, and the focus had shifted to the Club Kids.” The Club Kid phenomenon, in which club-goers dressed in outlandish and extreme costumes and makeup, turned the focus away from the performers and onto the patrons themselves.

MissMister was not performed again until the beginning of 1989. Friend and Watchface
collaborator Richard Schachter, who lived in both New York City and Ottawa, Ontario, had a
close affiliation with the gallery/performance space Galerie SAW Gallery in the Canadian
city. Richard organized an engagement for Watchface there in early February. The
commitment was for only one performance on a Saturday night, plus a workshop on the
following Sunday afternoon. The Watchface members utilized the same outline for this
workshop that was used in conjunction with their performance of Sin at the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Los Angeles the year before.
Galerie SAW Gallery program
Galerie SAW Gallery calendar

Using connections from her years at Cornell University, Kim coordinated dates at Ithaca’s First
Street Playhouse in late January, immediately preceding the Canadian engagement.
First Street Playhouse program With Iris and James busy with their newborn son, Joe, the five
other members of Watchface planned their presentation. A five-person version of the
Septophonic sections Structure and Danger were chosen as the opening act and introduction to
the Watchface style. Kim was integrated into Life and Times, originally created by Kurt and
Maggie as a duo, and MissMister was the final piece on the program. The evening was
named, fittingly, 2½ by 5. The visit to Ithaca was a rowdy road trip, with the five staying over
with friends of Kim or supporters of the playhouse. The following week, the five members
flew to Ottawa where, in addition to their weekend obligation, they enjoyed an extended
stay at Richard and his partner Bob’s large home. As they had on other trips, the Watchface
members felt secure enough in their performances to allow plenty of time for exploring and
socializing. For Chazz and Melanie, the trip was particularly rewarding. Compared to the
previous club performances of MissMister, these received a terrific reaction from the
audiences, especially from the receptive Canadian audience.

Several months after the MissMister performances in Canada, representatives from MTV
contacted Chazz. After seeing him perform excerpts from Stereotype with James on multiple
episodes of the Cinemax broadcast The Dangerous Film Club, they wanted to know if he
would be interested in providing new material for MTV’s latest production, The Big ____ Show.
The blank was to be filled by the name of each episode’s host. Chazz pitched MissMister;
MTV accepted and filmed two segments – Chazz and Melanie’s final performances of the
piece. Young Adults was performed on the show hosted by Australian personality Yahoo
Serious, The Big Serious Show; Weird Al Yankovic hosted The Big Al Show, which included
Married Couple. Both pieces were shortened to fit the time allotted and edited for content.
The disco dance was cut completely, the sound was dropped out on a few mildly blue
curses, and instead of Mattel, the toy manufacturing company that Douglas worked for was
renamed Fun Wad. Both episodes of the short-lived MTV show had their initial airings in July
of 1989.