| ERIC
BOGOSIAN is an American male who inhabits
other American males. At least he acts
out characters which begin as
stereotypical personality types and grow
– when fully fleshed out and laid
end to end (so to speak) during
Bogosian's stage show – into an
examination of Americans and Americanism,
machismo, fear, power, the human
condition, eggs over easy and a lot more
besides. "The
American persona is well known throughout
the world through TV and movies,"
Eric Bogosian explains to me. I don't
think the characters I do are what
average Americans are like but I'm
playing around with the stereotypes we're
all familiar with.
"Americans spend a
lot of time watching themselves and
dwelling on who they are. They're so
media involved that they find it hard to
be anything without at the same time
keeping in mind the media image of what
they are. Americans do live their lives
that way in their little burrows.
"I always look for
characters which are both specific and
general at the same time. I've a
character who's a Texan industrial
ceramic tile salesman – that's
specific but on the other hand he's a
salesman, very American and macho. I
don't do camp stuff like taking off JR or
something like that."
10 years ago, Bogosian
arrived in New York as a bright-eyed
hopeful to attend acting school. He soon
grew tired of "head shots and trying
to get parts in commercials – there
was very little acting ". All very
un-FAME. Instead he fell in with friends
on the performance art scene even though
he didn't understand the theories behind
it (who does?).
To continue reading
this article and to discover many more (over 140,000 words-worth!),
purchase Mick
Sinclair’s Adjusting
the Stars: Music journalism from post-punk London.
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