Coleman revives 'The Neon Man' in one person
show
Provincetown Banner
July 12, 2006
by Ann Wood



Slash Coleman won't let his friend die. The writer-turned-performance
artist plays tribute to Mark Jamison, who was killed after being blown into
a power line while hanging a neon sign, time and time again in his new
show, "The Neon Man and Me." Coleman plays 30 characters in this
sentimental 60-minute piece, which shows at 9pm tonight, Thursday,
and 7pm, Friday at the Provincetown Inn, 1 Commercial St.,
Provincetown. Fringe Festival events are $15 at the door. This show is
making the Fringe Festival circuit in preparation for what Coleman
hopes will become an Off-Broadway run.
"The weird thing is, because you know I kind of struggled with my artist
career forever, and this has been effortless through it so it's kind of
magical that way," Coleman, 38, says by phone from his Richmond, VA
home.

But it wasn't just Jamison's odd untimely death that compelled Coleman
to write and perform the show - there were some weird things surrounding
that event. A month after he died, Jamison's girlfriend found out she was
pregnant ("Nine months later I've got Mark Jamison that arrives as a
baby," Coleman says); the pair played in a jazz band in college and
when Coleman put those recordings on CD, he head Jamison scream on
one song as if he's being electrocuted, after which the gutarist says
"neon"; and Coleman wrote a novel five years after meeting Jamison
which one of the charcters is electrocuted by a power line.

"Those three things, definitely when he died, they trolled around in my
head," he says.
That doesn't mean Coleman started penning the piece right away. Rather, he was collecting letters,
poems, music and newspaper articles to give to Jamison's son.

"So I decided I would write down all these memories of his dad," he says. "When all was said and done I
had 300 pages."

But Coleman wanted to do more than just give the kid a stack of papers- he decided to create a
performance from those pages. With Jamisons' parents' blessing, Coleman worked with 15 writers and
performers to help shape the piece, which was cut down to 27 pages. HE then brought in a director. It took
a year before "The Neon Man and Me" hit the stage. Coleman has since performed the piece about 80 to
10 times.

"When I did the research on the one-person show, they say that you have to tell a story up to about 1,000
times to have it be successful," he says. "It really felt like I could do that."

This show consists of eight stories about Coleman and Jamison and his death, and four songs.

"The stories take place from my meeting Mark in college and Mark opening the neon shop and me
traveling the world," he says, adding that when people hear about the show, they don't understand that it's
not a tragedy. "They think it's this tragic thing about my friend dying, but it's a  lot of funny stories."

The whole experience of writing and performing this show, which Jamison's child was taken to as an
infant, has made Coleman more spiritual, he says.

"His parents have seen the show a couple of times now, and his parents think his spirit is alive when they're
there," he says.
Slash Coleman pays
tribute to his friend in
"The Neon Man and
Me," which shows twice
this week. (Photo: Tania
Barricklo)
© Slash Coleman 2008