Month: March 2025

An interview with Bubble Schmeisis writer/performer Nick Cassenbaum in conversation with Theresa Buchheister, The Brick Artistic Director, 2020-2024.

Theresa Buchheister

Hi Nick! Tell me about your bath house fascination. How did you get into bath house culture and why is it the ideal home for this self-exploratory show?

Nick Cassenbaum

So, I first went to the schvitz with my grandad. For years I would hear about it from the older men in the family. Kind of this mythical place. And when I heard it still existed and that my grandad still went! I jumped at the chance to go. And it truly was a special place. Full of all these old Jewish men at one second shouting and being aggressive and at one moment washing each other and looking after each other. It felt like it was stuck in time. That it could have been in London or the shtetl in Russia in the 1800s.

In terms of why make a show. Well I spent a long time walking around the streets of east London. Kind of like the lower east side. Looking for that authentic Jewish culture and not finding it. When I found it in the baths in such a naked way! I knew this was it. Knew I had to make a show about it.

Oh that is so cool. My grandad would nottttt have taken any of us kids to a bathhouse. Marking this down as another topic for me and my therapist. So, as you have grown more and more into yourself, what kinds of habits or rituals do you do/have – knowingly, unconsciously, carve out time for, daily/weekly/yearly, with others, solo…?

Hahahah I mean. Maybe you got off lightly. Nothing like scrubbing your naked grandfather to bring you down to earth.

I really love going to the barbers. Having my head shaved properly, hot towels. I used to go twice a month! But I can’t really afford to so much. So it’s now a couple of times a year which makes it a bit more special.

Also London in the spring is amazing. A bit of a ritual for me is just walking around the city. Try and find a new bit each time. There is always something to soak up.

Me and my kid bake cakes together too. That’s becoming quite a thing.

Oooooh wonderful. It’s cool that one is a ritual with another person, but a barber, so it is also an exchange of goods and services. And then one is a solo ritual that is different all the time, walking around. And then one is with a loved one, making something together. Do you have any photos of the cakes you make? I am a cake gawker. Probably ever since the 1985 TV version of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The various cakes in that…. mmmmm I close my eyes and see them.
Do you have any obsessions or fascinations that have compelled you over the years as an artist?

Cake pic c/o Nick Cassenbaum & Nick’s child

Have attached one! Bare in mind it was decorated by a three year old with no self control.
Obsessions yes. Fascinations. Yes. In my work I’ve always been fascinated by rhythms. The rhythms peoples speak and tell stories. I love the fact you can almost guide and control the energy of a room through the rhythm of telling a story.

I have also been fascinated by how given the chance and the opportunity audience members can and will do anything and be hilarious. I discovered this as a street performer but also got obsessed with variety shows and game shows where hosts would get the best out of an audience.
I also just love jokes!

Oh my god I LOVE this totally maximalist cake. Ha!

Here’s the YouTube of Alice cutting the cake, in the scene with the Lion (Ernest Borgnine) and the Unicorn (Beau Bridges). And the delicious blue Eat Me cake.

Ok! Riffing off of your obsessions:

1. Do you have a favorite song and/or one that just gets stuck in your head?

2. Is there an audience interaction that truly surprised or upended you in some way?

3. Tell me a joke.

I see what you mean about these cakes. Pretty hypnotising.

1. Any old iron! the Peter Sellers version. I’d say this song is in a constant loop in my head like some London pastiche stereotype.

2. So many to choose from. I spent years as a street performer. Being threatened, told to shut up, leave people alone. Also cracking a smile on the scariest looking men was always something I tried and often succeeded to do. There was this one time where a group of drunks came up to me and kept trying to get me to drop character telling me I was lying to them. I wouldn’t drop. They all went away and then an hour later came back with what looked like king of the drunks. I again didn’t drop the character. He put up his hand and said, leave him alone boys. He’s just doing his job. People are just really funny. Oh there was another time I was doing Bubble Schmeisis and a big group of elderly people came. One of them fell asleep and right at the end of the show and woke up with a jolt and said WHERE AM I? WHAT’S GOING ON? I said to her don’t worry, we’re nearly finished. I live for stuff like that.

3. Joke.

This is great. I love an interview filled with hyperlinks (no, really, I do).

Speaking of audiences, it seems like many different sorts have seen Bubble Schmeisis. When you think of the responses that you have gotten, the people who have seen it and connected to it, who do you think in NY should come see this show? I always encourage people to think more specifically than – EVERYONE. 3rd grade teachers? People that like weird 2nd dates? Bike enthusiasts? Jugglers? Young lawyers?

Yeh, I have taken this show just about everywhere and have always been fascinated by the people it connected with. A very common response I get…I’ll come back with my parents. So bring the whole fam!I would say people who has immigration in their family history, people who aren’t WASPS- I found that a lot of people in the UK who weren’t Jewish but working class really connect to the themes. Left wing Jews, Right wing Jewish boomers and all Jews in between. Klezmer fans and of course people who like a sauna or shvitz!

That is lovely. I dig it.

Last question (because I think we have so much good shit) – Do you hope to do anything else while you are in NY?

What do I hope to do. Eat as much as I can. I’ve never been to Queens so want to go there and chow down. I want to go to the Russian baths in Brighton Beach. I do love Coney Island so plan to go there again as well as catch as many other shows as I can!

Thanks for this back n forth, Nick! I hope you have a wonderful time in The Brick and in New York!

An interview with I’M REPEATING MYSELF writer/creator Chad Kaydo and director Carsen Joenk. In conversation with Ann Marie Dorr, The Brick Interim Producing Artistic Director, 2024-2025.

Ann Marie Dorr

Carsen–Who is Chad?

Carsen Joenk

Oh, my God, that is the hard ball. Who is Chad?

Um, okay… Well, yeah, actually, I’m kind of like…I was feeling like I should maybe think of some sort of like a poetic textual answer, but I’m going to say that Chad is Chad Kaydo who’s living in New York City and is a Hunter grad writing interesting, beautiful plays. And that includes this one, in which there are many more Chads.

And I think that’s as much investigating as I feel like I can do for just the “who is Chad?” on this one?

Chad Kaydo

So boring, so factual.

Yeah, the facts, I’m going with the facts of what I know, what I know is true, versus all the inside stuff I might feel.

Cast of *I’M REPEATING MYSELF*
Photo: Maria Baranova

AMD

Okay, so Chad – who is Chad REALLY? Who REALLY is Chad?

I mean, oh, I guess the real answer is, if I knew, I wouldn’t have written this play! But Chad is Alma Cuervo

and Matthew Antoci and Jon Norman Schneider

and Enette Fremont

and Frankie Placidi.

That’s what the play kind of is, that I don’t know that we know who we are sometimes, or we think we do, and that idea can get in the way.

AMD

Yes, especially when you’re a playwright, I think. When you’re like, let me mine the depths and corners of the brain and the soul and try to put something on paper.

Yeah, which perhaps I will never do again, but we’ll see. I mean, never something that feels so blatantly like, yeah, like, you know, beat to beat, life to stage.

AMD

You won’t have a sequel then?

“I’m Still Repeating Myself,” yeah, “I’m Repeating Myself Again,” yeah.

AMD

Oh, this is a sneaky, fun question I actually thought of in the shower, and then I forgot to write it down. When you repeat yourself, what are the words that you most often feel that you repeat, or sounds, or like syntaxical lexical things that you repeat the most?

I was with my cousin, who’s mentioned in the play, actually, this summer, and she and her daughter kept making fun of me, because—there’s probably a word for them, but someone’s talking, and you go, “mmmmm.” And they kept saying I sounded like Michael Barbaro on The Daily, To me, those sounds are just, saying to someone, I’m listening, I’m interested. And I think it comes from interviewing people on the phone in my past life as a journalist where, like you want don’t want people to stop talking, you want them to know you’re interested and you’re listening. So you go, yeah, mmmm.

Wow.

Active listening, listening. Yes.

How do you repeat yourself, Carsen?

I certainly have phrases that I say a lot, and I go through phases of saying certain phrases a lot. I have been saying the word “totally” a lot recently, and then to myself, I’ll have, like, I’ve newly started to investigate some repetitive mantras of like, calming or soothing or getting excited about something. I don’t know if they work yet, but I’m trying to, like, actively repeat things to myself now in a new way, but all of the classic, like, Midwestern active listening phrases, “no worries.” Or like, when people—what’s that when people say “no problem” in sort of different ways, or, “sorry.”

I do “totally,” totally, totally, totally.

Yes, so much now, and I cannot get myself to stop saying it. I need a little jar.

AMD

You could put a “totally” jar in the rehearsal room?

Yeah, totally we have an “aunt” jar. Everyone in the Midwest says, aunt like “ant.”

AMD

So what is the hottest, sexiest, horniest part of this play…right now?

I mean, there are many conversations about porn, and some of them, some of them take unexpected swerves, hopefully that starts sending to other places. But yeah, probably the first one.

I’m gonna say there’s a part in one of those porn sections that talks about what happens if you actually were like into something that would be like, good for your life. And then there’s a scene in the play called “Test.” And I actually think that is, in some ways, like the hottest part, in some way, because it’s so, like, beautiful and so supportive that there’s something that is very hot in a loving way about this section.

I love that. Like that act of care is hot in its own way.

Your mantras reminded me that I decided my one word—like instead of a New Year’s resolution, I picked a word to focus on: care. Not like self care, not like bubble baths, but like truly what are you doing? That are you doing to yourself, that is like actually helping yourself? And then also for others. And I feel like this play is very much about caring for others in some way.

AMD

But the others are all Chad.

Well… there are other people in the play. Everyone who plays me plays several other people as well.

AMD

Yeah, your whole family! And beyond!

Just because Peter wanted to ask it. And now I’m curious, what is the most boring moment in the play right now?

I always think all my plays are boring, but I love that. I mean, that’s my intention. I think the boring moments of life carry everything in them. Like the minutia is what our entire lives are. So, yeah, I used to be afraid of it. Now I’m like, no, that’s just what it is. I don’t truly think this play is boring, but I’m okay with like — there’s an early conversation in the play with Chad and Chad’s mother, and they’re trying to work out the semantics of if someone lives across the street or down the street, and it’s like a page, and Christine Scarfuto, the dramaturg keeps trying to make me trim it. And I was like, no, it’s funny. And it’s real to me that it goes for that long. I trust Christine implicitly, except on that page.

AMD

That’s the baby that can’t die.

I just want that moment to feel as long as it would in real life. And yeah, there are moments that need to move, but that I feel like we can sit in for a minute. But yeah, so far, what’s the most boring? I think that’s a good answer.

I think that it’s kind of part of experiencing the play, is thinking about what’s real. So I think there is a little bit of “to each their own” in terms of what they’re looking for from a story. And so, yeah, I think different people will have a different experience of what they need or crave from the story. And so it’s like, kind of a weak answer, like, I don’t know, some people might be uninterested in the real, and some people might be incredibly interested in the real. And I think that’s kind of part of the experiment, a little bit too, is, yeah, understanding how the real, even if there are quote, unquote boring parts, affect you as a whole.

So I do think that there’s a good answer.

Totally.

AMD

That’s the name of the sequel, Repeating Myself:

ALL

Totally.

The Brick

NICK CASSENBAUM IN CONVERSATION

Chad Kaydo & Carsen Joenk in Conversation