PASADENA, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 31: Kevin Bacon of the television show 'City on a Hill' speaks during ... [+]
Getty ImagesYard Work is like Tremors with plants - Kevin Bacon
If you’ve ever felt assaulted by weeds growing in your yard or garden and maybe taken it too personally and pulled out the flamethrower, then the new Audible Original Yard Work, written by David Koepp and performed by Kevin Bacon might be for you.
In this one hour and 54-minute story, our protagonist, an 88-year old retired judge, has just buried his wife and decides to live out the remainder of his days at the lake house they purchased together many years ago. The only problem is, it’s completely overgrown by monster vines that seem to grow bigger by the minute, and the judge takes it personally and devotes himself to taking back his property in the ultimate battle of man vs nature.
No matter how much he attacks the vile abominations they just seem to grow larger and more menacing. So the judge makes frequent retreats to the hardware store consulting with the pot-head clerk on bigger and bigger pieces of equipment while his daughter tries to pull him away from this Don Quixote like task.
It’s a ripper of a yarn that brings to mind the best of prime Stephen King tales where the bulk of the story takes places inside the head of one man talking to himself and while he’s battling external forces, it feels like a metaphor for how our greatest enemy is often ourselves.
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AudibleThe genesis of the story for writer David Koepp came last summer when a property of his was filled with invasive vines blown in from Hurricane Sandy. He set to work attacking them with clippers and heavy gloves and it became an obsession for him. One day as he was carrying the vines out of the trees he started thinking “what if when I’m pulling these weeds down I discover there’s a mouth at the end of it?”
David was first introduced to Kevin Bacon when he directed Stir of Echoes and the two became friends and stayed in touch, occasionally discussing how they should work together again. Eventually, Kevin suggested they make a horror film together on the subject of marriage which became the thriller that premiered earlier this year, You Should Leave. It was during the end of their work together on the project that David started writing what would become Yard Work.
“I find that ideas tend to rattle around in my head for about a year,” David says, “and while writing it I thought of Audible because the audio format presents a limitless world for storytellers.”
David says he wrote the story all in one old man’s head as a way to walk a line where it wasn’t clear if the more fantastical elements were actually happening or if it was the judge’s brain giving him fits.
And all those elements are expertly read by veteran actor Kevin Bacon who gives a sense of calm to the increasingly bizarre proceedings. “Narrating is an interesting skill,” Kevin says, “because as an actor you typically don't just rely on your voice; you use your body and your expressions, and a billion other things.”
Kevin hasn’t done narration work very often and he says that limiting himself to just words, opened him up creatively and was really satisfying.
And while Kevin Bacon may be a famous Hollywood actor, he’s no stranger to rolling his sleeves up and losing himself in an impossible task in his house or yard.
“If I put my mind to getting something done,” he says. “I'll get it done. It might end with me cursing and bleeding and sweating, but I’ll finish it.” That attitude helped him relate to a character that’s otherwise a lot different than he is.
While listening to Kevin Bacon narrate a story about a man whose life is threatened by ravenous plants, I couldn’t help but think of the echoes to one of his most famous roles about a repairman whose life is threatened by giant worms in the ground.
“Is Yard Work like Tremors with plants?” I asked him. “Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like Tremors with plants.” He says that one of the reasons he thinks Tremors is remembered so fondly is because “it's a movie about ordinary men, dealing with extraordinary circumstances.”
And that too is what draws the listener in to this story, the judge is an ordinary man with very relatable circumstances and in his struggles we find our own fears.
But it wasn’t the judge’s relatability that drew Kevin to the role. It was the fact that he was very different from him. Kevin says he looks for roles where he feels something that he hasn’t explored before, which explains why he plays an even mix of heroes and villains.
“I want something that is complex,” he says. “I want to walk in another person's shoes. The judge is quite a bit older than me and from a completely different walk of life. I could never have made it through law school, let alone become a judge. The fact that he’s far afield from me makes it more interesting than playing some version of myself.”
Yard Work is a meditation on grief that manages to be profound, funny and scary all at the same time and is a perfect little audio-movie for the two-hour entertainment hole in your life whenever it’s needed.
It’s available now for $14.95 or you can listen to Yard Work and thousands of other titles on Audible Plus for $7.95 a month.
The Link LonkSeptember 01, 2020 at 10:38AM
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Kevin Bacon Battles Nature In The New Audible Original ‘Yard Work’ - Forbes
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