Surrealism Is Alive and Well in Hollywood

Artist Shelley Abraham was casting about for fresh ideas when her actor husband was slipped an underground copy of “the breakdowns,” the industry’s best-known listing of open film and TV roles. Posted for subscribers on the Internet by Los Angeles-based Breakdown Services, the bulletin has totemic status among actors thanks to its inside track on studio projects; its inaccessibility (only qualified agents and managers may subscribe); and, last but not least, the often bizarre character descriptions Breakdown writers compose from a script or the directives of studio casting personnel.

Galvanized, Abraham, 35, turned out a dozen portraits based on the sheet’s most absurd character entries, including Heidi (“a sexy coroner who cannot control her hunger for donuts and whose grasp of forensic science is noticeably shaky”); “Maintenance Man Dan” (“a nerdy yet attractive oddball who might just be evil”); “Tammi Look-Alike” (“this older, heavier and ‘sluttier’ Tammi look-alike appears in Tammi’s fantasy, laughing maniacally as she blows away Dwight’s Grandmother”); “Ron Solo” (“raised by religious fundamentalist parents, Ron trolls the nightclubs looking for love in all the wrong places. Hates his life, hates himself; glasses a plus”); and “Mr. Chili Dog” (“a male Caucasian, he could be tall and lean to match the shape of a Chili Dog, but we are open to all types, as long as he looks like a hot dog”).

Showings in Studio City, at an art festival and at the Soho Gallery, have sold eight to 10 of the folk art-style acrylics on wood, garnering admirers such as Breakdown Services president Gary Marsh, whose company’s in-house “Board of Shame” highlights the more preposterous breakdowns. Marsh purchased Abraham’s rendering of “Mario Orsini” (“an overweight, blind Italian opera singer,”), which now resides in the Breakdown writers’ office.

Abraham, a former set designer/painter for low-budget films (“some of it was more like porn, actually”) admits that her off-kilter sense of humor has not always been well received. “When I was a fine-arts student at Ohio State,” she says, “my professors would admonish me for not being angst-ridden enough.” Abraham sees the paintings, which sell for about $600 to $1,000, as an antidote to the absurdities of life in Hollywood. “It helps reconcile my Midwestern self to Los Angeles and relieves the stress of being an actor’s wife. If you take it all too seriously, you’ll shoot yourself.” Abraham’s latest portrait? That would be “Peeka” (“transvestite, a tall, bulky, menacing man in drag. He is a wannabe performance artist who goes into a vicious rage because someone has stolen his Fruit Loops”).

Watching late-night TV some weeks back, Abraham spotted Mr. Chili Dog on a commercial. “Unlike my [painting], he wasn’t wearing a pimp’s fur coat. He was wrapped in a Styrofoam hot dog bun, running through some grass. I called my husband to [come] see, but by the time he got there, Mr. Chili Dog had just exploded.”