I knew I couldn't digest avocados. Turns out, can't digest nutella either. So: find out the common ingredient in both of those most-disparate-foods-ever and I am that-intolerant.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Intolerant
I knew I couldn't digest avocados. Turns out, can't digest nutella either. So: find out the common ingredient in both of those most-disparate-foods-ever and I am that-intolerant.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
(Production) Dramaturgy defined: attempt 1
I am waiting1 for a call2 from Libby, the Greasy Joan director of The Misanthrope, to discuss who she thinks the characters in the play are and how they fit into the world that Moliere (see also Jean Baptiste Poquelin) and, more importantly (objection: argumentative!), she is wanting to create. She is wanting to create a futuristic dystopia (google search: futuristic dystopia movies) akin to that found in the film Brazil. I had never seen Brazil. I have now seen Brazil. Some major translation is going to be necessary, and I am not talking the kind that can be resolved with the help of a French-to-English dictionary (n. dictionnaire m.).
1. Consider sharing that lovely bit from the Noah Haidle play in which the old Colonel refers to his book on how to do most everything in order to reteach himself how to wait.
2. "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you." (Alexander Graham Bell, March 10, 1876)
So it seems that now is as good a time as any to try to define what dramaturgy is. For myself as much as anyone. Because I consider myself a dramaturg. I also consider myself a playwright. Soon I might consider myself a literary manager, and eventually I hope to consider myself a scholar and call myself a professor, but not yet. Right now I am a dramaturg and a playwright and as such I hope I can speak to both with the same freedom and frankness that Dave Chappelle uses when he makes black jokes and Jerry Seinfeld makes Jewish jokes and Howard Stern makes asshole jokes.
The old takes-one-to-lampoon-one theory.
Because ultimately the only people who are going to be happy with my theories on Dramaturgy are directors.
Dramaturgy is tricky because dramaturgs are -- while helpful -- ultimately unnecessary. In order to produce a play, one needs a script and actors. (For performance art, even the script is an unnecessary luxury.) In order to have a good production of a play, one needs a director: the voiced manifestation of a consistent understanding and vision as seen from the perspective of the audience. In order to have a smooth production of a play, one needs a stage manager. In order to have a production that is both visually and aurally pleasing, one needs designers and the crew to implement their designs.
And a good smooth visually and aurally pleasing show has often been enough.
The least necessary voice in the room is the playwright. After the first production of the show, after the playwright has lain (laid? I was a writing instructor?) the script to rest, after she has made her vision as clear as she can with the words of her play, after she has kissed it on the forehead and sent it off into the world -- "don't forget to write sweetheart. let me know what you're up to" -- the playwright is no longer in charge. She was before this moment. Of course she was. It was her play. New Play Dramaturgy will be the subject of a later post.
But now it is the director's play: the playwright is dead. And here is why: the play was written with a set of intentions to communicate to an audience in a specific context. And that specific context has dissolved into the recesses of time. It is a new time with an audience with new needs. Theatre is lovely because it is organic and it is organic because it is a collaboration between the past (as it has been captured in the text) and the present (as it is understood by the director). If the playwright dominates the direction of a production, it's growth and applicability is stunted. Literature consists of time capsules, while the theatre is constantly renewing itself.
This is not meant to sound pretentious: I like time capsules. I just don't think theatre should be one (historical fictions and, maybe, documentary dramas excluded).
And none of this is to say that the playwright should not be involved: but her voice shouldn't have any more authority than anyone else in the room, and certainly not more than the director.
The dramaturg is the second most unnecessary voice in the room, which is why many productions do without. There was a directing professor back at school who "didn't believe in dramaturgs" because they simply do the work a good director should be doing for himself.
Well yes and no: it is true that if a dramaturg does the basic research surrounding a play -- production history, contextualization, looking up what a ookpik is -- this frees the director up to concentrate on what is seen and heard on stage. And in a pinch, one cannot argue this is a bad deal.
But to say that a dramaturg is useless is to say that the field of consulting is useless. I used to resist defining dramaturgy as a form of consulting because I did not like the implications associated with comparing art to business. But it is basically comparing research to research. A consultant is one who is hired from outside a company to look inside a company(and at the environment surrounding that company) to tell that company how to improve, usually with the goal of making money. Likewise a dramaturg is brought in (though not hired in my experience as of yet; how to make money as a dramaturg is something I have yet to figure out) to help the director realize his goal: producing the best production of a play as possible under the circumstances given.
This unsatisfying definition is vague, but is has to be; the requirements of every show are going to be different. But I think I can simplify it -- unfortunately without adding much to the explanation -- by saying that a production dramaturg keeps the director honest to his vision. And he can do this in a number of ways: understanding the play, understanding the original context, understanding the playwright, understanding the present social climate, understanding the social climate the director wants to create in the play, understanding the director's vision and helping the director communicate his vision to the actors and designers with your cumulative understanding.
Theatre does not need dramaturgs. There have been brilliant productions without them. But I am guessing that many shows have also been saved by an astute dramaturg. And dramaturgs can add a level of consistency and complexity to a production that would otherwise be absent.
Okay. My head hurts. It feels full and empty simultaneously. I think this is right. It is right for now. Deirdre being a genius once dramaturged a day in her own life (which is a different kind of dramaturg all together: lets call that Creative dramaturgy with a capital C because she is creating a new work through dramaturgy; that said, it probably already has a name; I will have to look that up). I will probably dramaturg this entry later to make sure it is consistent.
Until then: fellow dramaturgs and playwrights, if we spirits have offended...it was not my intent.
1. Consider sharing that lovely bit from the Noah Haidle play in which the old Colonel refers to his book on how to do most everything in order to reteach himself how to wait.
2. "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you." (Alexander Graham Bell, March 10, 1876)
So it seems that now is as good a time as any to try to define what dramaturgy is. For myself as much as anyone. Because I consider myself a dramaturg. I also consider myself a playwright. Soon I might consider myself a literary manager, and eventually I hope to consider myself a scholar and call myself a professor, but not yet. Right now I am a dramaturg and a playwright and as such I hope I can speak to both with the same freedom and frankness that Dave Chappelle uses when he makes black jokes and Jerry Seinfeld makes Jewish jokes and Howard Stern makes asshole jokes.
The old takes-one-to-lampoon-one theory.
Because ultimately the only people who are going to be happy with my theories on Dramaturgy are directors.
Dramaturgy is tricky because dramaturgs are -- while helpful -- ultimately unnecessary. In order to produce a play, one needs a script and actors. (For performance art, even the script is an unnecessary luxury.) In order to have a good production of a play, one needs a director: the voiced manifestation of a consistent understanding and vision as seen from the perspective of the audience. In order to have a smooth production of a play, one needs a stage manager. In order to have a production that is both visually and aurally pleasing, one needs designers and the crew to implement their designs.
And a good smooth visually and aurally pleasing show has often been enough.
The least necessary voice in the room is the playwright. After the first production of the show, after the playwright has lain (laid? I was a writing instructor?) the script to rest, after she has made her vision as clear as she can with the words of her play, after she has kissed it on the forehead and sent it off into the world -- "don't forget to write sweetheart. let me know what you're up to" -- the playwright is no longer in charge. She was before this moment. Of course she was. It was her play. New Play Dramaturgy will be the subject of a later post.
But now it is the director's play: the playwright is dead. And here is why: the play was written with a set of intentions to communicate to an audience in a specific context. And that specific context has dissolved into the recesses of time. It is a new time with an audience with new needs. Theatre is lovely because it is organic and it is organic because it is a collaboration between the past (as it has been captured in the text) and the present (as it is understood by the director). If the playwright dominates the direction of a production, it's growth and applicability is stunted. Literature consists of time capsules, while the theatre is constantly renewing itself.
This is not meant to sound pretentious: I like time capsules. I just don't think theatre should be one (historical fictions and, maybe, documentary dramas excluded).
And none of this is to say that the playwright should not be involved: but her voice shouldn't have any more authority than anyone else in the room, and certainly not more than the director.
The dramaturg is the second most unnecessary voice in the room, which is why many productions do without. There was a directing professor back at school who "didn't believe in dramaturgs" because they simply do the work a good director should be doing for himself.
Well yes and no: it is true that if a dramaturg does the basic research surrounding a play -- production history, contextualization, looking up what a ookpik is -- this frees the director up to concentrate on what is seen and heard on stage. And in a pinch, one cannot argue this is a bad deal.
But to say that a dramaturg is useless is to say that the field of consulting is useless. I used to resist defining dramaturgy as a form of consulting because I did not like the implications associated with comparing art to business. But it is basically comparing research to research. A consultant is one who is hired from outside a company to look inside a company(and at the environment surrounding that company) to tell that company how to improve, usually with the goal of making money. Likewise a dramaturg is brought in (though not hired in my experience as of yet; how to make money as a dramaturg is something I have yet to figure out) to help the director realize his goal: producing the best production of a play as possible under the circumstances given.
This unsatisfying definition is vague, but is has to be; the requirements of every show are going to be different. But I think I can simplify it -- unfortunately without adding much to the explanation -- by saying that a production dramaturg keeps the director honest to his vision. And he can do this in a number of ways: understanding the play, understanding the original context, understanding the playwright, understanding the present social climate, understanding the social climate the director wants to create in the play, understanding the director's vision and helping the director communicate his vision to the actors and designers with your cumulative understanding.
Theatre does not need dramaturgs. There have been brilliant productions without them. But I am guessing that many shows have also been saved by an astute dramaturg. And dramaturgs can add a level of consistency and complexity to a production that would otherwise be absent.
Okay. My head hurts. It feels full and empty simultaneously. I think this is right. It is right for now. Deirdre being a genius once dramaturged a day in her own life (which is a different kind of dramaturg all together: lets call that Creative dramaturgy with a capital C because she is creating a new work through dramaturgy; that said, it probably already has a name; I will have to look that up). I will probably dramaturg this entry later to make sure it is consistent.
Until then: fellow dramaturgs and playwrights, if we spirits have offended...it was not my intent.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
His name was (is) Oliver! (See last post)
This image is blurry. There isn't much I can do about it. So oh well. It's kind of like a chuck close painting. Or one of those pictures that you stare at and then you see something else (like a sailboat!) but only if you let your mind go or let your eyes relax or something having to do with relaxation or release.
On Tuesday I found a 30 day pass on the bus much like the one you see above. Only much crisper. It had been started and it is only good until the Halloween, but it is pretty f-ing sweet all the same. It's basically like finding 20 dollars. Or like finding a 20 dollar gift certificate to a store that you like to frequent multiple times a day but only spend 2 dollars at a time. I felt guilty for finding it at first: there are some schools of thought that when you get three wishes, your wishes are granted but at the expense of others and they never turn out quite like you expect them to. The rules of wishes are a bit shaky. But I didn't wish to find someone's lost CTA pass, and what am I going to do? Post a Craigslist ad?
That's just dumb.
It couldn't have come at a better time. It has been a busy week with two callbacks for the two shows I am turging. I continue to define what a dramaturg's* role actually should be and to whom a dramaturg's allegiance should be: the director or the playwright. His allegiance should ultimately be to the play but what the hell does that mean? Whose play is it? I had a...debate about it tonight with a dear playwright friend...she says our friendship will continue, but we will have to wait and see.
*Dramaturg in the context of this entry is shorthand for research dramaturg and not new play dramaturg; new play dramaturg's are clearly present for the sole support of the PW. **
**I realize that most of you*** really don't care.
***Screw you.
Dramaturgs help playwrights kill babies. -Old Aztec Saying
Saturday, October 20, 2007
glimpsed memories
I started work on two shows today with two different companies that open the same week in March.
A long time in high school -- which it is safe to say was a long time ago because a) I just turned 26 (jesus) and b) I have very few actual memories of high school; I do have echoes of memories that have been distorted and colored from bouncing off the walls of my brain for the better part of a decade (jesus), but all specificity of those years has been bumped by more recent memories and more recent relationships; I once had a girlfriend who told me that people fill momentary moments in other people's lives, and once they are gone let them go. I guess I remember that. -- I used to do too many things.
I don't remember why.
I played drums in a garage band with my closest friends, but I never practiced -- to their chagrin -- because I was busied by Spring Musical rehearsals when I wasn't at practice for soccer (first waterpolo: those pictures have thankfully been burned), or tennis. I think at various times I was associated with various other associations: the art club (I think I was VP? Maybe? I don't think we did anything.), the environmental club (I think I joined for the babes? I don't think we did anything), that one club that met in the morning before school (I have no idea what that was or what we did), NHS (we didn't do anything), and yearbook (which wasn't a club, but a class, but we still had to do stuff after school...didn't we...).
They were social gatherings that had names that reflected well on college applications. If you are going to hang out with your friends anyway, call it a club (was I in chess club too? did we have a chess club? maybe it was math league...but only for that one competition because they needed a substitute...) I think I genuinely enjoyed most of them...some of them.
In college I slowed down. Didn't I? Wow: it's already getting blurry. Scents and senses. Shapes and feelings. I can hear Andy's voice but not what he's saying. I can tell you the configuration of my Freshman dorm room but not what Freshman year was like. Good, right? Art classes. Shopping carts. Andy. Mike. Kim. My first martini. Acting I. The Spring Musical. Jami Ake's Shakespeare class. Sophomore year: Andy. McNiell driving to crack church in his gas guzzler. 9/11. Stacking our furniture to have stadium seating in our common room. Dauten. Jacob. All Student Theatre. Medal of Honor. Blueberry Hill. Junior Year. Andy. McNiell painting his room in our apartment blood red. Jon the Mormon. My closet sunroom of a room. School work. Never having time for Andy. No cell phone: talked to Rachel long distance from land lines and free phones at school. Woodcarving. England. Amy. England. Five weeks around Italy and France and Spain. Alone and lonely. The 40 year old Californian lesbian from Ireland who told me I had an old soul in Barcelona (what is the Spanish word for old soul?) Angel. Ginny. Chaucer. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Sussex library. That one friend I made...what was his name...from Emory...what was his name...Amsterdam. Senior year. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Carter. Playwriting. Jon. Ginny. Andy. Julia. Stephanie until Travis came back (bastard). Cruddy cheap off-campus housing. Playwriting. Blueberry Hill. Andy knocking on my window to get me to hang out, me ignoring him because I had work to do. A thesis to finish.
It comes in a rush, and I see so many holes that were filled with school work rather than friends. Studying rather than conversations. At the graduation party, Andy's folks came up to me and said I was a good influence on their son, getting him to focus more on his school work.
My papers were good, and I remember none of them. All my time in the library blends together into one peaceful memory. But that night when we taped Mike to a chair and pushed him to Schnucks in a shopping cart where we were stopped by a rent-a-cop ("not a cop; hate cops")...the night in Steph and Julia's apartment watching 24 (one of the decent seasons) when I told Pedro his girlfriend was incredibly attractive moments before she walked in the door behind him...walking through the gated neighborhood with Andy and getting told we were not allowed to be walking through the gated neighborhood...
You call old friends to catch up, but it's never like it was and every conversation reminds you of that. Every conversation is an exercise in interactive nostalgia. Once they are gone let them go.
This was an entry about beginnings and it turned into an entry about loss. My apologies. I started work on two shows today with two different companies that open the same week in March. New projects. New associates. New friends.
But I miss you guys. For the first time, I wish I wasn't allergic to cameras.
I want to say his name was Doug. The guy from Emory. He wanted to be a writer.
A long time in high school -- which it is safe to say was a long time ago because a) I just turned 26 (jesus) and b) I have very few actual memories of high school; I do have echoes of memories that have been distorted and colored from bouncing off the walls of my brain for the better part of a decade (jesus), but all specificity of those years has been bumped by more recent memories and more recent relationships; I once had a girlfriend who told me that people fill momentary moments in other people's lives, and once they are gone let them go. I guess I remember that. -- I used to do too many things.
I don't remember why.
I played drums in a garage band with my closest friends, but I never practiced -- to their chagrin -- because I was busied by Spring Musical rehearsals when I wasn't at practice for soccer (first waterpolo: those pictures have thankfully been burned), or tennis. I think at various times I was associated with various other associations: the art club (I think I was VP? Maybe? I don't think we did anything.), the environmental club (I think I joined for the babes? I don't think we did anything), that one club that met in the morning before school (I have no idea what that was or what we did), NHS (we didn't do anything), and yearbook (which wasn't a club, but a class, but we still had to do stuff after school...didn't we...).
They were social gatherings that had names that reflected well on college applications. If you are going to hang out with your friends anyway, call it a club (was I in chess club too? did we have a chess club? maybe it was math league...but only for that one competition because they needed a substitute...) I think I genuinely enjoyed most of them...some of them.
In college I slowed down. Didn't I? Wow: it's already getting blurry. Scents and senses. Shapes and feelings. I can hear Andy's voice but not what he's saying. I can tell you the configuration of my Freshman dorm room but not what Freshman year was like. Good, right? Art classes. Shopping carts. Andy. Mike. Kim. My first martini. Acting I. The Spring Musical. Jami Ake's Shakespeare class. Sophomore year: Andy. McNiell driving to crack church in his gas guzzler. 9/11. Stacking our furniture to have stadium seating in our common room. Dauten. Jacob. All Student Theatre. Medal of Honor. Blueberry Hill. Junior Year. Andy. McNiell painting his room in our apartment blood red. Jon the Mormon. My closet sunroom of a room. School work. Never having time for Andy. No cell phone: talked to Rachel long distance from land lines and free phones at school. Woodcarving. England. Amy. England. Five weeks around Italy and France and Spain. Alone and lonely. The 40 year old Californian lesbian from Ireland who told me I had an old soul in Barcelona (what is the Spanish word for old soul?) Angel. Ginny. Chaucer. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Sussex library. That one friend I made...what was his name...from Emory...what was his name...Amsterdam. Senior year. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Carter. Playwriting. Jon. Ginny. Andy. Julia. Stephanie until Travis came back (bastard). Cruddy cheap off-campus housing. Playwriting. Blueberry Hill. Andy knocking on my window to get me to hang out, me ignoring him because I had work to do. A thesis to finish.
It comes in a rush, and I see so many holes that were filled with school work rather than friends. Studying rather than conversations. At the graduation party, Andy's folks came up to me and said I was a good influence on their son, getting him to focus more on his school work.
My papers were good, and I remember none of them. All my time in the library blends together into one peaceful memory. But that night when we taped Mike to a chair and pushed him to Schnucks in a shopping cart where we were stopped by a rent-a-cop ("not a cop; hate cops")...the night in Steph and Julia's apartment watching 24 (one of the decent seasons) when I told Pedro his girlfriend was incredibly attractive moments before she walked in the door behind him...walking through the gated neighborhood with Andy and getting told we were not allowed to be walking through the gated neighborhood...
You call old friends to catch up, but it's never like it was and every conversation reminds you of that. Every conversation is an exercise in interactive nostalgia. Once they are gone let them go.
This was an entry about beginnings and it turned into an entry about loss. My apologies. I started work on two shows today with two different companies that open the same week in March. New projects. New associates. New friends.
But I miss you guys. For the first time, I wish I wasn't allergic to cameras.
I want to say his name was Doug. The guy from Emory. He wanted to be a writer.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Quick Sand Glass Houses
There is dust in my pocket watch. Maybe it is sand: sand from glass rubbing up against the metal frame...oh wait. Sand doesn't come from glass.
I am sitting at auditions for The Boys are Coming Home. More accurately: I am sitting outside the hallway outside the auditions for The Boys are Coming Home checking in eager actors awaiting an open call. It is a lot like hosting back at Blueberry Hill except the patrons are nicer. They have to be nicer. They don't know if I am taking notes. I am of course, not that anyone can read them:
An actress asks me about the call-back procedure. Another asks me which accompanist is in which audition room. Another asks me, "what are they looking for." Eventually I explain, I'm the literary intern. I spend most of my days reading scripts. I have no idea. I'm here because they needed bodies. I do not detail how I will spend the remainder of my day completely reorganizing the Goodman's library. Logging in a series of plays from the '50s, none of which I have heard of (save Auntie Mame). Questioning the need for our Encyclopedia set in light of that merry little innovation, the Internet. Lamenting the boxes full of random photos from random productions and wondering what the hell to do with them.
I went biking in the rain yesterday. Not wise considering I was fighting off some bug; I am fighting off that bug a little harder today. Low-grade fever. Head full of fuzz. No fun. I hate being sick. Usually I can wrap my mind around it; come to terms with it on an intellectual level; level with it; see it eye to enzyme. But for some reason this one is blocking me. It won't let me in, and so it persists.
There is thunder outside? Fireworks? Sounds kind of like a soft bombing of a not-so-far-away city, but that is probably because I can barely hear it over the Journey that is coming from Rachel's computer. I wonder if that kind of war will ever come here. Liz brought her Venezuelan friend to our taco & tequila party Friday night. Conversations turned politely political. She explained how Venezuelans take an interest in their neighbors -- ten points if you can name one of them -- and their leaders. "Do you know who the Prime Minister of Canada is?" she asks. "Mexico's President?"
I know it was Fox...
All this information at our fingertips...the problem with being always connected, what do you connect to?...I bookmark Canada's globeandmail online newspaper and Mexico Daily...
Do you think the Internet will ever get full? Or will we simply get sick of information piling on top of information piling on top of information...
I am sitting at auditions for The Boys are Coming Home. More accurately: I am sitting outside the hallway outside the auditions for The Boys are Coming Home checking in eager actors awaiting an open call. It is a lot like hosting back at Blueberry Hill except the patrons are nicer. They have to be nicer. They don't know if I am taking notes. I am of course, not that anyone can read them:
An actress asks me about the call-back procedure. Another asks me which accompanist is in which audition room. Another asks me, "what are they looking for." Eventually I explain, I'm the literary intern. I spend most of my days reading scripts. I have no idea. I'm here because they needed bodies. I do not detail how I will spend the remainder of my day completely reorganizing the Goodman's library. Logging in a series of plays from the '50s, none of which I have heard of (save Auntie Mame). Questioning the need for our Encyclopedia set in light of that merry little innovation, the Internet. Lamenting the boxes full of random photos from random productions and wondering what the hell to do with them.
I went biking in the rain yesterday. Not wise considering I was fighting off some bug; I am fighting off that bug a little harder today. Low-grade fever. Head full of fuzz. No fun. I hate being sick. Usually I can wrap my mind around it; come to terms with it on an intellectual level; level with it; see it eye to enzyme. But for some reason this one is blocking me. It won't let me in, and so it persists.
There is thunder outside? Fireworks? Sounds kind of like a soft bombing of a not-so-far-away city, but that is probably because I can barely hear it over the Journey that is coming from Rachel's computer. I wonder if that kind of war will ever come here. Liz brought her Venezuelan friend to our taco & tequila party Friday night. Conversations turned politely political. She explained how Venezuelans take an interest in their neighbors -- ten points if you can name one of them -- and their leaders. "Do you know who the Prime Minister of Canada is?" she asks. "Mexico's President?"
I know it was Fox...
All this information at our fingertips...the problem with being always connected, what do you connect to?...I bookmark Canada's globeandmail online newspaper and Mexico Daily...
Do you think the Internet will ever get full? Or will we simply get sick of information piling on top of information piling on top of information...
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
wine glasses on an empty table: a quizzical examination
Do critics go straight home?
Do they stop at a bar first? Lube the synapses?
Do they go out with people and talk about the play to confirm their own suspicions, or do they shelter their precious opinions away from the ruckus, the hubbub of chittering little theatre birds who like too much and too often?
How quickly do they process? Do they know the moment the applause stops whether they are moved, whether they will be moved tomorrow afternoon on their drive home from their editor's office? Or do they let it all sink in; marinate?
Seven wine glasses with some cheap cheap red sit on the unused tablecloth covering a thoroughly used table. The stage empties, and the actors are gone. The lights quickly dim, and the glasses are gone too. This moment has been a long time coming; it has been earned, as they say in the biz. But it is over too quickly. The actors speed off. And the wine in the glass has barely settled before the room's gone dark. We want it back.
"This is not a play about dishes, or food, or costume changes, but rather a play about people in a dining room" -- A. R. Gurney, Jr. Preface
Jess in her genius -- or the genius of her artistic team, she will tell you -- simply get rid herself of the dishes and the food. No newspapers. No tea-cups or birthday cakes. But through the soundscape, there they were. Perfectly timed movements to perfectly simple sounds: the snap and shuffle of the morning news, the clinking of china. The groundlings would say, on their commute through the plague-ridden streets, "we are going to hear a play."
Nothing throughout the show, save a table and chairs. No props to lean on or hid behind.
And then these glorious glasses with shining wine. In the final scene, the materialization of a dream: the simplest dream of reality. But so quickly gone. I want them back. Wait. Please. Just a little longer. Hold that cue...
But maybe that is the point: the vignettes of The Dining Room are -- if not straight memory scenes -- always nostalgic. Always about longing. Always about the past. A past we can never get more of. The sands in an hourglass slipping through. The last glance at a wine glass before the rose fades to gray fades to darkness.
I wonder if critics feel regret? Do they think of their reviews like referees think of calls? Snap judgments under pressure; under a deadline? Do they ever go back and look at the feed and say, wow, I really fucked that up. I should have stopped at a bar on my way home.
I hug Jess on the way out of the theatre. I think about mentioning the wine glasses. I wanted more of them, Jess. Just three more seconds alone with that image. Please? But I didn't say that. I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I let it marinate.
Well, Jess. I wish you happy reviews, well-deserved. I smiled at a stranger walking her dog on the walk home from the bus, and for some reason I know it's your fault.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
Day Off
Day Off may be a misleading title as I have Jerome Fellowship applications to review for The Playwright's Center. The problem with not having a 9-5 like job -- one of the few problems with not having a an 9-5 like job -- is that your non-9-5 job follows you home; but I have so far done an alright job at keeping the Goodman out of my home life. Or I was doing an alright job before the New Stages Festival started two weeks ago. Six staged readings of six new plays were what the public saw; but behind the scenes was fifteen hours of rehearsal per play plus the prep work. So it wasn't that the Goodman followed me home so much as I never went home.
But New Stages is over! A fairly successful undertaking, I think. I heard an audience member (some one from the industry) comment that it is telling that the Goodman can fill their smaller Owen Theatre for a reading while some off-loop theatres are struggling to get people in for an actual show. Sad. Very sad considering that three of the six readings were not very good. Well I guess this is more accurate: two were pretty awful, two were unsuccessful but show promise (one more than the other), and two were great.
One of them I spent doodling just to keep awake:
Act I:
Act II:
And one of them I just straight up skipped after sitting through the final run at rehearsal. There are so many great writers out there who are talking about new ideas in new ways, why do we pander to big names? Tanya gets up in front of the audience every night and explains that all of the plays are works that we are excited about or playwrights who we want to start or continue a relationship with. Maybe she is lying? Maybe this is a nice little PR plug? Or maybe this playwright has just not brought his/her best work to this festival? I don't know. I sit in the dark corner of the theatre, writing down the problems in my head as I sketch out my complaints in the code of a doodle. Silently diplomatic.
That is the problem with being an intern: you are there to facilitate the process but not necessarily the work so you are quiet most of the time. You write down notes that you never show anyone and quietly rejoice when the same advice is given an hour later by someone with a voice. You learn from Odysseus: slip in criticisms as compliments or asides. Undoubtedly a good lesson for one who is often too critical: of twenty thoughts you can choose half of one to share on the elevator ride up to the offices. Pick the most important. Pick the one that no one else is likely to see.
Two plays were great though. Naomi Iizuka's Ghostwritten -- a reinterpretation of the Rumpelstiltskin story and the relationship between America, Vietnam, cultural identity, and food -- was playful and poignant. And Mickle Maher's Spirits to Enforce -- in which superheroes telefundraise for a production of The Tempest, which they eventually perform for a house of supervillains -- is one of the smartest and best written plays I have seen/read in a long time.
Day Off. Right. This is why I usually do the title last. The apartment is clean and the dishes are done. I had a Blueberry Hill flashback as I was handling the cleaner: I almost put the 409 down on the floor instead of on the counter because of health code violation. I read Diana's blog to catch updates: "a successful staff party, hirings and firings, wars fought with managers from other staffs." I miss them. I miss the gossip. I wonder who was fired. I wonder what the battle was over and who won. But I guess I'll have to wait until Thanksgiving to find out.
Shit: still have to rent a car.
But New Stages is over! A fairly successful undertaking, I think. I heard an audience member (some one from the industry) comment that it is telling that the Goodman can fill their smaller Owen Theatre for a reading while some off-loop theatres are struggling to get people in for an actual show. Sad. Very sad considering that three of the six readings were not very good. Well I guess this is more accurate: two were pretty awful, two were unsuccessful but show promise (one more than the other), and two were great.
One of them I spent doodling just to keep awake:
Act I:
Act II:
And one of them I just straight up skipped after sitting through the final run at rehearsal. There are so many great writers out there who are talking about new ideas in new ways, why do we pander to big names? Tanya gets up in front of the audience every night and explains that all of the plays are works that we are excited about or playwrights who we want to start or continue a relationship with. Maybe she is lying? Maybe this is a nice little PR plug? Or maybe this playwright has just not brought his/her best work to this festival? I don't know. I sit in the dark corner of the theatre, writing down the problems in my head as I sketch out my complaints in the code of a doodle. Silently diplomatic.That is the problem with being an intern: you are there to facilitate the process but not necessarily the work so you are quiet most of the time. You write down notes that you never show anyone and quietly rejoice when the same advice is given an hour later by someone with a voice. You learn from Odysseus: slip in criticisms as compliments or asides. Undoubtedly a good lesson for one who is often too critical: of twenty thoughts you can choose half of one to share on the elevator ride up to the offices. Pick the most important. Pick the one that no one else is likely to see.
Two plays were great though. Naomi Iizuka's Ghostwritten -- a reinterpretation of the Rumpelstiltskin story and the relationship between America, Vietnam, cultural identity, and food -- was playful and poignant. And Mickle Maher's Spirits to Enforce -- in which superheroes telefundraise for a production of The Tempest, which they eventually perform for a house of supervillains -- is one of the smartest and best written plays I have seen/read in a long time.
Day Off. Right. This is why I usually do the title last. The apartment is clean and the dishes are done. I had a Blueberry Hill flashback as I was handling the cleaner: I almost put the 409 down on the floor instead of on the counter because of health code violation. I read Diana's blog to catch updates: "a successful staff party, hirings and firings, wars fought with managers from other staffs." I miss them. I miss the gossip. I wonder who was fired. I wonder what the battle was over and who won. But I guess I'll have to wait until Thanksgiving to find out.
Shit: still have to rent a car.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Karma
In was thinking about writing this play about two weeks ago now: on a man's bikeride home from work, he is struck by a car door and the entirety of the play happens as he is flying through the air before he dies. The play opened with this interestingly cinematic focus on the biker (sorry, cyclist) as he pedals around the staged and then somehow glides through the air after he is hit. And then he stops in the air. Floats. I have no idea how this would be done. Strings, no doubt. But that is what is lovely about being behind the script: you don't have to figure this shit out.
Of course then I wrote about punching that one patron in the face. And I wrote about the eternal war between bikers and taxicab drivers. I am sure I sinned little sins throughout the week. So I should not have been surprised when a mother of two with a yappy mutt in the back of her SUV swung her door open right into my wrist and handlebar, flipping my bike to the side and sending me sprawling.
Maybe the body knows when it is going to die and when it is not, and maybe it only entertains the almost-certainly-doomed with that fabled flash of a lifetime in the mere flicker of that last second. Because NOTHING flashed before my eyes. One minute I am up and going 15 miles an hour; the next minute I'm on the ground. There is no in between.
I have recreated what happened from my injuries. The most apparent is the bruised scrape and lack of skin on my left elbow and arm along with a bruise down my left thigh and a scrape on the outside of my left knee: the street. Little indentions and a bruise on my right wrist which aches: where the car door hit me and swung me. A bruise on the inside of my left shin where my bike must have landed on me. A bruise near my right shoulder. Where is that from?
I am on my feet. Checking my wounds. Pushing everything to make sure nothing is broken. I check my bike, which is an old heavy mountain bike: the Volvo of bikes. The woman is freaking out. Cursing. Jesus. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus. Oh shit. Oh shit. Replaying it in her head. I am going to say something nasty -- I feel the need to say something poignant and lasting on behalf of all the cyclists of Chicago who save money, time, and the environment by biking downtown everyday; the cyclists who are closer to the road than any save maybe the taxicab drivers -- but then her two kids get out, and I replay it in my head. Mother in front seat. Sons in back. Sons getting out. Be careful. Wait for mommy. Head turned backwards to make sure they are ok. Dog yapping in her ear. Quick. Need to get out before they run off: boys will be boys.
No time to check the side mirror for bikes.
Sigh. How can one stay angry?
She offers me a drink of all things. My elbow is bleeding pretty freely. I cannot tell yet if my wrist has a hairline fracture or some other thing that I have heard from one of many doctor-oriented television shows. I am fixing my headlight which has popped open. A drink? No, no, I'll be fine. Just some scrapes. I'll just need some bandaids. I have bandaids, she offers. Not big enough for this, I think. But I simply refuse. She walks away.
When you cannot put any weight on your elbow, it makes you realize how god-awful your posture is.
Of course then I wrote about punching that one patron in the face. And I wrote about the eternal war between bikers and taxicab drivers. I am sure I sinned little sins throughout the week. So I should not have been surprised when a mother of two with a yappy mutt in the back of her SUV swung her door open right into my wrist and handlebar, flipping my bike to the side and sending me sprawling.
Maybe the body knows when it is going to die and when it is not, and maybe it only entertains the almost-certainly-doomed with that fabled flash of a lifetime in the mere flicker of that last second. Because NOTHING flashed before my eyes. One minute I am up and going 15 miles an hour; the next minute I'm on the ground. There is no in between.I have recreated what happened from my injuries. The most apparent is the bruised scrape and lack of skin on my left elbow and arm along with a bruise down my left thigh and a scrape on the outside of my left knee: the street. Little indentions and a bruise on my right wrist which aches: where the car door hit me and swung me. A bruise on the inside of my left shin where my bike must have landed on me. A bruise near my right shoulder. Where is that from?
I am on my feet. Checking my wounds. Pushing everything to make sure nothing is broken. I check my bike, which is an old heavy mountain bike: the Volvo of bikes. The woman is freaking out. Cursing. Jesus. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus. Oh shit. Oh shit. Replaying it in her head. I am going to say something nasty -- I feel the need to say something poignant and lasting on behalf of all the cyclists of Chicago who save money, time, and the environment by biking downtown everyday; the cyclists who are closer to the road than any save maybe the taxicab drivers -- but then her two kids get out, and I replay it in my head. Mother in front seat. Sons in back. Sons getting out. Be careful. Wait for mommy. Head turned backwards to make sure they are ok. Dog yapping in her ear. Quick. Need to get out before they run off: boys will be boys.
No time to check the side mirror for bikes.
Sigh. How can one stay angry?
She offers me a drink of all things. My elbow is bleeding pretty freely. I cannot tell yet if my wrist has a hairline fracture or some other thing that I have heard from one of many doctor-oriented television shows. I am fixing my headlight which has popped open. A drink? No, no, I'll be fine. Just some scrapes. I'll just need some bandaids. I have bandaids, she offers. Not big enough for this, I think. But I simply refuse. She walks away.
When you cannot put any weight on your elbow, it makes you realize how god-awful your posture is.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
The resurrection of the ghost of the noble Sir Gawain
Three years ago, I convinced myself that there was a dramatic structure that could house Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Seeing The Mikado in June made me realize that the poem is about the desperation to live; seeing Passion last night made me realize that it revolves around the bedroom and unrequited love and rejected advances. And now, three years later, with absolutely no time, I know what it will look like.
Sir Gawain seems to awake in a lavish lonely room.
Everynight
The same dream.
Everynight.
The slightest of changes
to the smallest of details.
A Christmas festival.
A night of merrymaking,
interrupted.
A giant
all green:
a green knight
enters on a great
green
steed
and presents my king a challenge.
A beheading game.
A Christmas game:
hit for hit
blow for blow
wound for wound.
Head for blessed head.
My king.
Our court.
My sacrifice.
I will keep my words plain
I ask for this battle to be mine.
What is the life of a knight
next to that of a king?
The ax is heavy --
steel and gold.
Lopping off the knight's green head
is easily done.
All done, I think.
The dark deed's done.
The mad dog's down.
And even now
in my dreams
I sigh.
But his green blood
Stains my clothes.
It stains the stones
and the tapestries.
It stains memory.
And then that thunderous laugh.
The deepest laugh of the oldest tree
buried beneath the greenest moss
hidden in the darkest corner
of Britain's most unholy forest.
Sir Gawain seems to awake in a lavish lonely room.Everynight
The same dream.
Everynight.
The slightest of changes
to the smallest of details.
A Christmas festival.
A night of merrymaking,
interrupted.
A giant
all green:
a green knight
enters on a great
green
steed
and presents my king a challenge.
A beheading game.
A Christmas game:
hit for hit
blow for blow
wound for wound.
Head for blessed head.
My king.
Our court.
My sacrifice.
I will keep my words plain
I ask for this battle to be mine.
What is the life of a knight
next to that of a king?
The ax is heavy --
steel and gold.
Lopping off the knight's green head
is easily done.
All done, I think.
The dark deed's done.
The mad dog's down.
And even now
in my dreams
I sigh.
But his green blood
Stains my clothes.
It stains the stones
and the tapestries.
It stains memory.
And then that thunderous laugh.
The deepest laugh of the oldest tree
buried beneath the greenest moss
hidden in the darkest corner
of Britain's most unholy forest.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
On punching the guy next to you, and why it is okay.
I feel my elbow bend and the muscles tense like my cat when she is about to pounce her brother. And then it springs: one swift punch to his temple. I feel his consciousness crack. He's out. I catch his head and quickly balance his chin on his chest. His date doesn't even notice. Thinks he has simply fallen asleep. The play isn't that entertaining, so it is plausible.
It is this plausibility that may be the culprit: the play isn't that entertaining, and the gentleman beside me (seat F2) is letting the surrounding patrons know this with his exaggerated sighs. Exhaling: hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. He has a little bit of mucus in his throat. A little cold maybe. So every third or fourth hhhhhhhhhhh ends in a chunky cough.
Counting the three New Stages staged-readings, this production of Sondheim's Passion -- hhhhhhhhhhhh -- is the sixth show I am seeing in five days. This number is also counting Pat McCurdy's genius set at the Beat Kitchen which he performs almost every Monday night, which might be a little unfair. Pat is on a level all his own. And one can drink beer in the dark back room of a bar while singing along to hilarious songs. But of the five playz: one was great (definition: well-crafted, well-executed, intelligent, pleasing), one was fun (definition: silly, entertaining, maybe would have paid for it if I had to and if tickets were cheap), one was pleasant (definition: glad I saw it; gladder it was free), and two were chores (definition: chores).
Some plays are chores. And you go. And you feel older when you leave. You want those hours of your life back so you can do something more worthwhile such as pretty much anything else you can think of. But, like your mama taught you, your chores need to get done. And your chores are someone else's pleasant experience. Your pleasant experience may be some one else's great. And I found Passion pleasant.
And so I feel my elbow coil and the tension build. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I try to remember that place on the neck that you can karate chop someone so that it knocks their adam's apple just so. hhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I begin to wish I had watched Star Trek so that I would know how to execute the Vulcan pinch. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
But of course I do nothing.
I think maybe people become playwrights because they are too cowardly to enact some of their more socially-unacceptable, morally-ambiguous, physically-improbable fantasies, like walking over to that asshole over there who decided not to turn his cell phone off -- even though he is in a theatre and even though he was reminded by the usher and by the house manager -- and taking said cell phone from his hand and, raising it high like the Spartans lifted their unwanted babies skyward before hurling them off Mount Taygeto, snapping it in half for all to see.
But then maybe that is why people go to the theatre as well.
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. POW! BAM!
It is this plausibility that may be the culprit: the play isn't that entertaining, and the gentleman beside me (seat F2) is letting the surrounding patrons know this with his exaggerated sighs. Exhaling: hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. He has a little bit of mucus in his throat. A little cold maybe. So every third or fourth hhhhhhhhhhh ends in a chunky cough.
Counting the three New Stages staged-readings, this production of Sondheim's Passion -- hhhhhhhhhhhh -- is the sixth show I am seeing in five days. This number is also counting Pat McCurdy's genius set at the Beat Kitchen which he performs almost every Monday night, which might be a little unfair. Pat is on a level all his own. And one can drink beer in the dark back room of a bar while singing along to hilarious songs. But of the five playz: one was great (definition: well-crafted, well-executed, intelligent, pleasing), one was fun (definition: silly, entertaining, maybe would have paid for it if I had to and if tickets were cheap), one was pleasant (definition: glad I saw it; gladder it was free), and two were chores (definition: chores).
Some plays are chores. And you go. And you feel older when you leave. You want those hours of your life back so you can do something more worthwhile such as pretty much anything else you can think of. But, like your mama taught you, your chores need to get done. And your chores are someone else's pleasant experience. Your pleasant experience may be some one else's great. And I found Passion pleasant.
And so I feel my elbow coil and the tension build. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I try to remember that place on the neck that you can karate chop someone so that it knocks their adam's apple just so. hhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I begin to wish I had watched Star Trek so that I would know how to execute the Vulcan pinch. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
But of course I do nothing.
I think maybe people become playwrights because they are too cowardly to enact some of their more socially-unacceptable, morally-ambiguous, physically-improbable fantasies, like walking over to that asshole over there who decided not to turn his cell phone off -- even though he is in a theatre and even though he was reminded by the usher and by the house manager -- and taking said cell phone from his hand and, raising it high like the Spartans lifted their unwanted babies skyward before hurling them off Mount Taygeto, snapping it in half for all to see.
But then maybe that is why people go to the theatre as well.
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. POW! BAM!
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