This has just not been a good week for me, both at work and more specifically in my relationship to Toronto theatre. I had the mix-up Monday, but even more upsetting was tonight. I had to work until nearly the last minute, hop in the subway and half run over to Ryerson, only to find out they had sold out the show and the wait list was way too long. So I will not get to see two of the Suburban Motel plays, since this was the last weekend of their run.
I argued that they were supposed to have my name on the list from before, and I was even looking at the person from Wed. who was supposed to add my name to the list for Friday. But she pretended she had never seen me before.
I find this so completely inexcusable that I am boycotting Ryerson from here on out. Absolutely no more theatre shows, which I am sure has them quaking in their boots. But if I do start a company or become a producer, and that is increasingly likely, whatever happens on the 20th with the Fringe, then I will not hire any Ryerson grads.
I guess to be consistent I can't send in any material to White Wall Review (Ryerson's literary magazine) either, but I guess a boycott isn't really a boycott unless you give up something that actually means something to you.
In any case, I am pissed off beyond belief. I need to take a break for now and then use this time (where I am not watching the Walker plays as planned) somewhat productively, probably to finish outlining Straying South.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Suburban Motel - first impressions
Edit: I am withdrawing this recommendation and boycotting Ryerson. I will explain in a follow-up post.
I mentioned this on a previous post, but it is worth its own post. Ryerson is doing 5/6 of the Suburban Motel plays, plus Filthy Rich, which is sort of a spoof on The Big Sleep, but here the "detective" is working out of run-down motel. If you go tonight through Sunday, you can still make the whole series. I am going tonight, and I think is should be quite a bit of fun.Details here. Somehow they didn't have my name down on the list Wed., but I managed to pay the rush ticket price ($5), so that was an extra bonus for an entertaining evening.
I tend to forget just how outlandish most of Walker's plots are, particularly when you start paying attention to what the semi-incompetent criminals are up to. (It is a good reminder that, with some exceptions, most criminals are in fact pretty thick or they would find a path through life less likely to end with jail time.) Risk Everything is no exception. Now there is one major change to this play, which I assume Walker approved -- the gambler is not Denise's older sister, it is Denise's mom (since the actors are all at about the same age). This switch makes some of the action in the original much creepier, like when Denise's husband R.J. is quasi-seduced by the mom character. On the other hand, it would have tied together a bit better with Problem Child, where Denise lays much of the blame on her inadequacies as a mother on her own mother. I'm not going to see Problem Child again, but it is an interesting book end where Denise is by far the most "together" person in Risk Everything, whereas she is totally losing it throughout Problem Child, even at the end.
I thought all the actors were quite good, with a bit of haminess in Filthy Rich, though that seemed to be called for in the script. I'm looking forward to tonight, which is Adult Entertainment & Criminal Genius.
After this, I will have seenX 2 of the 6. I am still secretly hoping that Triple Bypass remounts The End of Civilization, though I don't see why they would. In general, I am hoping that some Toronto company in 2 or 3 years will tackle the whole sequence, and I will see it straight through again.
What I am taking from Walker is that I can be a bit more audacious and outrageous in my plots. I tend to write such genteel things and that just doesn't translate all that well to the stage. It is probably because I am also tied to realism (with some exceptions in my shorter pieces), and in my life I would shun those too-large characters who are always veering between hilarity and violence. Still, I think the immigration inspector might serve that kind of role. I'm imagining her as a slightly overdone Inspector Javert character, who hounds Jonathan, partly out of duty, but really out of a sense that she has not had her fair share of sexual conquests that seem to fall to her male colleagues. (Yeah, she is more than a little "bent" -- not that I think this is actually representative of Canada's immigration officer!) The biggest problem is arranging for her to keep showing up in the apartment, whereas it would be easier in the novel for her to keep following Jonathan. Still, I have basically conceptualized how I can cover the key themes in the novel all while keeping it to one set. I just have to finish writing it...
I mentioned this on a previous post, but it is worth its own post. Ryerson is doing 5/6 of the Suburban Motel plays, plus Filthy Rich, which is sort of a spoof on The Big Sleep, but here the "detective" is working out of run-down motel. If you go tonight through Sunday, you can still make the whole series. I am going tonight, and I think is should be quite a bit of fun.
I tend to forget just how outlandish most of Walker's plots are, particularly when you start paying attention to what the semi-incompetent criminals are up to. (It is a good reminder that, with some exceptions, most criminals are in fact pretty thick or they would find a path through life less likely to end with jail time.) Risk Everything is no exception. Now there is one major change to this play, which I assume Walker approved -- the gambler is not Denise's older sister, it is Denise's mom (since the actors are all at about the same age). This switch makes some of the action in the original much creepier, like when Denise's husband R.J. is quasi-seduced by the mom character. On the other hand, it would have tied together a bit better with Problem Child, where Denise lays much of the blame on her inadequacies as a mother on her own mother. I'm not going to see Problem Child again, but it is an interesting book end where Denise is by far the most "together" person in Risk Everything, whereas she is totally losing it throughout Problem Child, even at the end.
I thought all the actors were quite good, with a bit of haminess in Filthy Rich, though that seemed to be called for in the script. I'm looking forward to tonight, which is Adult Entertainment & Criminal Genius.
After this, I will have seen
What I am taking from Walker is that I can be a bit more audacious and outrageous in my plots. I tend to write such genteel things and that just doesn't translate all that well to the stage. It is probably because I am also tied to realism (with some exceptions in my shorter pieces), and in my life I would shun those too-large characters who are always veering between hilarity and violence. Still, I think the immigration inspector might serve that kind of role. I'm imagining her as a slightly overdone Inspector Javert character, who hounds Jonathan, partly out of duty, but really out of a sense that she has not had her fair share of sexual conquests that seem to fall to her male colleagues. (Yeah, she is more than a little "bent" -- not that I think this is actually representative of Canada's immigration officer!) The biggest problem is arranging for her to keep showing up in the apartment, whereas it would be easier in the novel for her to keep following Jonathan. Still, I have basically conceptualized how I can cover the key themes in the novel all while keeping it to one set. I just have to finish writing it...
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Soulpepper 2016
Soulpepper has finally gotten around to announcing their 2016 season. Hopefully this link will work (for now at any rate). Quite a few of the shows are little more than comfort food: The 39 Steps, The Odd Couple and even Twelve Angry Men. I'm really a bit surprised that they would bother, though I suppose they need some shows that will put people in the seats. Somewhere in the middle of the pack,* they are doing Ibsen's A Doll's House and Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding. I saw Blood Wedding just a little while ago at Buddies in Bad Times, and I've seen A Doll's House relatively recently (within the past 5 years).
Unless I am misunderstanding something, they have only cast 4 actors for 7 parts in A Doll's House, so this may be an annoying modern version where they are doing some odd doubling (like that completely bizarre Peter Sellars's A Midsummer's Night's Dream). I'm not opposed to doubling in general, only when it becomes distracting. Frankly, there is far too much doubling in Terrence McNally's A Perfect Ganesh.
I'm on the fence about David French's Jitters, which is surely amusing, but I've seen so many meta-plays about backstage antics or putting on a play in general (David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face is one of the few that truly "justifies its existence"). I'm leaning against going, but I may change my mind.
I'll probably go to Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles -- I've never actually seen it.
The most ambitious is Suzan Lori-Parks's Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts I, II, III. I'll go to support such risk-taking.
As expected, Video Cabaret is doing The Great War, and then in 2017 they are supposed to explode onto the stage, doing 4 or more productions. (I'm just a bit surprised that they didn't try to build on Trudeau-mania II by remounting the productions from last year. Definitely glad I went.)
The other play I am most excited about is Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy. I've never managed to see it. (I think I missed out on seeing a production in Chicago by a month or so.) This is just not staged that often. A View from the Bridge (the other major Miller play I've not seen) is performed infrequently but still far more often than Vichy, so I should get to see it in the next few years.
I should probably just get a 4 show subscription and call it a day.
* I suppose both of these shows are indeed challenging, depending on how they are staged, but they seem overly familiar to me. Strindberg is produced far less than Ibsen for example. Because the plot of Blood Wedding is so predictable, you really need to make it resonate with the force of Greek tragedy. I've probably already mentioned that I focus extensively, though not exclusively, on plot, so it is very rare for me to see a play a second time around. I'm definitely going to pass on Blood Wedding this season.
Unless I am misunderstanding something, they have only cast 4 actors for 7 parts in A Doll's House, so this may be an annoying modern version where they are doing some odd doubling (like that completely bizarre Peter Sellars's A Midsummer's Night's Dream). I'm not opposed to doubling in general, only when it becomes distracting. Frankly, there is far too much doubling in Terrence McNally's A Perfect Ganesh.
I'm on the fence about David French's Jitters, which is surely amusing, but I've seen so many meta-plays about backstage antics or putting on a play in general (David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face is one of the few that truly "justifies its existence"). I'm leaning against going, but I may change my mind.
I'll probably go to Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles -- I've never actually seen it.
The most ambitious is Suzan Lori-Parks's Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts I, II, III. I'll go to support such risk-taking.
As expected, Video Cabaret is doing The Great War, and then in 2017 they are supposed to explode onto the stage, doing 4 or more productions. (I'm just a bit surprised that they didn't try to build on Trudeau-mania II by remounting the productions from last year. Definitely glad I went.)
The other play I am most excited about is Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy. I've never managed to see it. (I think I missed out on seeing a production in Chicago by a month or so.) This is just not staged that often. A View from the Bridge (the other major Miller play I've not seen) is performed infrequently but still far more often than Vichy, so I should get to see it in the next few years.
I should probably just get a 4 show subscription and call it a day.
* I suppose both of these shows are indeed challenging, depending on how they are staged, but they seem overly familiar to me. Strindberg is produced far less than Ibsen for example. Because the plot of Blood Wedding is so predictable, you really need to make it resonate with the force of Greek tragedy. I've probably already mentioned that I focus extensively, though not exclusively, on plot, so it is very rare for me to see a play a second time around. I'm definitely going to pass on Blood Wedding this season.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Change of plans
Well, I am so incredibly frustrated tonight that I am very close to breaking my no flouncing rule. It turns out that Red One/Storefront only sometimes updates the Red One Facebook page and more accurate information is on their Storefront page. Also, the moderator of Sing-for-Your-Supper has shifted to a new email address, so my previous messages were not read, and thus, I was not tipped off that the date had changed to next Tuesday (obviously quite a shift from first Monday of the month!). I honestly don't know when this was announced, but I think just a few days ago, and I have plans for that Tuesday (going to see The River at Coal Mine). I try really hard to stay on top of these things. I think I'm better than anyone I know for staying up on the theatre scene, and these people have screwed me over three or four times now with their last-minute changes and sporadic news distribution systems.
Since I can't make it, there is no point in resubmitting my script, though I guess I'll leave it in just in case he finally sees it his old email in-box. I'll just try to write the piece that I wanted to write for Dec. As I said, I have no idea if I will see the actors I want to track down, but I guess I might as well wait until Dec. (after the Fringe Lottery party). That way I will know if I need to assemble a cast right away or it is more of a slow-build thing for down the road. I can't afford to completely cut ties, since I think this is where I will find the actors most willing to take a chance on putting on my work. So a couple deep breaths and I guess I can move on. (Maybe I will finally get around to watching 8 1/2 tonight...)
One super interesting thing is that it turns out Ryerson is doing Walker's Suburban Motel (or rather 5/6 of it and they have substituted Filthy Rich for The End of Civilization). Some details here, though oddly enough not the actual ticket prices. I have no idea how good or bad they will be, but I am leaning towards going to the A and B shows. If there were in fact doing all 6 shows, I would probably go to all, but I just saw Problem Child (in a solid performance that I would rather not blur). As it happens, the play paired with it on C nights is Featuring Loretta, which is apparently one of the weaker plays. Sadly, I somehow missed The End of Civilization back in March. An interesting troupe called Triple Bypass put this on. I came very close to seeing them at the Fringe doing Eric Bogosian's Skunkweed. I should have just gone, but my family was getting ready to leave for Chicago and I thought I ought to spend a bit more time with them. (I know, where were my priorities?) I do hope to see Triple Bypass one of these days, and certainly The End of Civilization as well (again, one of the "tougher" Suburban Motel plays to stage well).
Still, usually things don't come back around, which is why I do try to go when they are first announced. However, the Bennett Talking Heads show did return, and interestingly enough Three Men in a Boat, which I saw with my son not long after we moved to Toronto. It's going to be remounted at Factory Theatre in January. That's really not far from where I work, so I shall try to bring some co-workers along and my friend from my grad. school days.
Since I can't make it, there is no point in resubmitting my script, though I guess I'll leave it in just in case he finally sees it his old email in-box. I'll just try to write the piece that I wanted to write for Dec. As I said, I have no idea if I will see the actors I want to track down, but I guess I might as well wait until Dec. (after the Fringe Lottery party). That way I will know if I need to assemble a cast right away or it is more of a slow-build thing for down the road. I can't afford to completely cut ties, since I think this is where I will find the actors most willing to take a chance on putting on my work. So a couple deep breaths and I guess I can move on. (Maybe I will finally get around to watching 8 1/2 tonight...)
One super interesting thing is that it turns out Ryerson is doing Walker's Suburban Motel (or rather 5/6 of it and they have substituted Filthy Rich for The End of Civilization). Some details here, though oddly enough not the actual ticket prices. I have no idea how good or bad they will be, but I am leaning towards going to the A and B shows. If there were in fact doing all 6 shows, I would probably go to all, but I just saw Problem Child (in a solid performance that I would rather not blur). As it happens, the play paired with it on C nights is Featuring Loretta, which is apparently one of the weaker plays. Sadly, I somehow missed The End of Civilization back in March. An interesting troupe called Triple Bypass put this on. I came very close to seeing them at the Fringe doing Eric Bogosian's Skunkweed. I should have just gone, but my family was getting ready to leave for Chicago and I thought I ought to spend a bit more time with them. (I know, where were my priorities?) I do hope to see Triple Bypass one of these days, and certainly The End of Civilization as well (again, one of the "tougher" Suburban Motel plays to stage well).
Still, usually things don't come back around, which is why I do try to go when they are first announced. However, the Bennett Talking Heads show did return, and interestingly enough Three Men in a Boat, which I saw with my son not long after we moved to Toronto. It's going to be remounted at Factory Theatre in January. That's really not far from where I work, so I shall try to bring some co-workers along and my friend from my grad. school days.
Try Your Luck (Toronto Fringe)
So it has been an extremely interesting (and busy) weekend.
It's just too late to go into details, but I saw The House of Poe at Red Sandcastle, which was pretty unsettling, I have to say. (I actually caught the special late night show on Halloween night.) It is a mash-up of The House at Pooh Corner with a few of Edgar Allen Poe's more gruesome tales with a seasoning of H.P. Lovecraft's existential dread. It runs one more weekend. A more thorough review here.
I also saw Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband at Alumnae Theatre today (having to bike into a massive headwind the whole way). The play is actually put on by the Toronto Irish Players, and it also runs for another week. If you decide to go, calling ahead and making reservations is highly recommended. I went as a last minute thing and was on a wait list for a while, though I ultimately made it in. (And a sold out house with essentially no advertising or reviews at all!)
Now that I have seen it, I have mixed feelings. I thought the cast did a good job overall, but some of the characters are a bit overwrought, particularly Lady Chiltern. I also thought that the play expects us to forgive too much. It is certainly one thing to wish to engage in a bit of Bunburying (that is quite forgivable) and another to want to whitewash a pretty serious scandal from one's past. Maybe if The Importance of Being Earnest hadn't been so incredibly well-wrought, then I would be a bit more forgiving of An Ideal Husband, but it just really struck me as a second-rate play (though second-rate Wilde is still quite good). I am hoping that Lady Windermere's Fan falls somewhere between the two, but closer to Earnest. I go see that in about 3 weeks.
I had really gone back and forth on whether to go see The Baby at Storefront Theatre. I knew it was basically just a campy, shlock-fest, but I am hoping at some point to cast one of the actors in a part in Straying South, and going to see them in their work is usually the best way of buttering them up. But I knew I wasn't really going to like it. I actually have a pretty low tolerance for camp, as well as plays that go for shock value, particularly when the twists are telegraphed a mile away. (Storefront has just done The House of Yes, which I considered a pretty terrible movie and had absolutely no intention of seeing a live version of this.)
Why is this so relevant all of a sudden? Because unlike a few other opportunities I just missed out on, there is one more day to enter the Toronto Fringe lottery. I pondered it for a while, but went ahead and put in my entry form.
I suppose it is completely crazy to want to do this, with a script only 20% done and three actors I would tentatively cast in parts, but no director and no stage manager. But most of all, no actual working company. But you know, these are kind of pesky details. Winning the lottery means that you suddenly find a lot of people interested in working with you, since you have a guaranteed slot...
Ultimately, I decided to go see Wilde rather than The Baby, but I will go off to Sing-for-Your-Supper tomorrow regardless of whether my piece is accepted. (I generally would assume it was not, though I didn't hear either way!) I'll take down a few more names and see if there are people I would want to work with in the future (whether the ball bounces my way or not).
I still didn't quite wrap up my piece set at the 7-Eleven, so I will shoot for December. I actually polished up another piece and sent in the introductory monologue and the first scene of the second act. I call this Blue-Grass Mash, mostly because the full thing (not the fragment I submitted) is a quest that leads to Kentucky. The piece is actually a bit of a homage to Kushner's Homebody-Kabul, though I don't think anyone has gotten the connection unless I told them... The video artist who kicks things off is somewhat based on my mental picture of a very crass version of Bill Viola (not that I have ever met the man). You can read the script in its truncated form here. I suppose if there is a huge outcry for more, I might eventually post the whole thing. First, I would have to see how well it stands up in the cold light of day, as they say.
Ok, it's been a long and busy weekend, and I think I've done enough for now.
It's just too late to go into details, but I saw The House of Poe at Red Sandcastle, which was pretty unsettling, I have to say. (I actually caught the special late night show on Halloween night.) It is a mash-up of The House at Pooh Corner with a few of Edgar Allen Poe's more gruesome tales with a seasoning of H.P. Lovecraft's existential dread. It runs one more weekend. A more thorough review here.
I also saw Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband at Alumnae Theatre today (having to bike into a massive headwind the whole way). The play is actually put on by the Toronto Irish Players, and it also runs for another week. If you decide to go, calling ahead and making reservations is highly recommended. I went as a last minute thing and was on a wait list for a while, though I ultimately made it in. (And a sold out house with essentially no advertising or reviews at all!)
Now that I have seen it, I have mixed feelings. I thought the cast did a good job overall, but some of the characters are a bit overwrought, particularly Lady Chiltern. I also thought that the play expects us to forgive too much. It is certainly one thing to wish to engage in a bit of Bunburying (that is quite forgivable) and another to want to whitewash a pretty serious scandal from one's past. Maybe if The Importance of Being Earnest hadn't been so incredibly well-wrought, then I would be a bit more forgiving of An Ideal Husband, but it just really struck me as a second-rate play (though second-rate Wilde is still quite good). I am hoping that Lady Windermere's Fan falls somewhere between the two, but closer to Earnest. I go see that in about 3 weeks.
I had really gone back and forth on whether to go see The Baby at Storefront Theatre. I knew it was basically just a campy, shlock-fest, but I am hoping at some point to cast one of the actors in a part in Straying South, and going to see them in their work is usually the best way of buttering them up. But I knew I wasn't really going to like it. I actually have a pretty low tolerance for camp, as well as plays that go for shock value, particularly when the twists are telegraphed a mile away. (Storefront has just done The House of Yes, which I considered a pretty terrible movie and had absolutely no intention of seeing a live version of this.)
Why is this so relevant all of a sudden? Because unlike a few other opportunities I just missed out on, there is one more day to enter the Toronto Fringe lottery. I pondered it for a while, but went ahead and put in my entry form.
I suppose it is completely crazy to want to do this, with a script only 20% done and three actors I would tentatively cast in parts, but no director and no stage manager. But most of all, no actual working company. But you know, these are kind of pesky details. Winning the lottery means that you suddenly find a lot of people interested in working with you, since you have a guaranteed slot...
Ultimately, I decided to go see Wilde rather than The Baby, but I will go off to Sing-for-Your-Supper tomorrow regardless of whether my piece is accepted. (I generally would assume it was not, though I didn't hear either way!) I'll take down a few more names and see if there are people I would want to work with in the future (whether the ball bounces my way or not).
I still didn't quite wrap up my piece set at the 7-Eleven, so I will shoot for December. I actually polished up another piece and sent in the introductory monologue and the first scene of the second act. I call this Blue-Grass Mash, mostly because the full thing (not the fragment I submitted) is a quest that leads to Kentucky. The piece is actually a bit of a homage to Kushner's Homebody-Kabul, though I don't think anyone has gotten the connection unless I told them... The video artist who kicks things off is somewhat based on my mental picture of a very crass version of Bill Viola (not that I have ever met the man). You can read the script in its truncated form here. I suppose if there is a huge outcry for more, I might eventually post the whole thing. First, I would have to see how well it stands up in the cold light of day, as they say.
Ok, it's been a long and busy weekend, and I think I've done enough for now.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Bad Beckett
Maybe I am (still) just in a bad mood, but I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about Lisa Dwan's Beckett Trilogy. It got some awards in London and rave reviews here (see here and especially here).
I had to rush over to the theatre, since I was working late yet again. Naturally, they held the theatre for a solid 15 minutes, which I thought was pretty inexcusable, especially as I don't think anyone entered during that time, though perhaps up in the balcony. I don't think it started in earnest until 20 minutes after the hour. Then they were so, so serious, putting the entire theatre into a complete blackout for the entire show (not even the exit signs were lit). That is generally a marker that you are taking yourself just a bit too seriously...
I agree that Not I is a bit of a tour de force where Dwan has managed to get through the speech 25% faster than anybody before her. That may have been Beckett's intention, but I was only moderately interested in the piece the way it was presented. And frankly that was the highlight of the show.
I hate to say it but I saw a much better production of Footfalls in Ann Arbor 25 years ago. It wasn't a student production but it was basically an amateur production. (Interestingly, I see that that summer (1990) they did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I'm not quite sure why I didn't go,* since that would have been right up my alley. I didn't see the show until I was in grad. school at Northwestern.) I think my beef is partly with the text, which is completely obscure on why the young woman is called May in one section and Amy in the other (unless one of them (Amy?) is a daughter that grows old and becomes the old woman with a daughter named May?). But beyond that, Dwan still had some annoying vocal ticks left over from Not I that spoiled the flow of the text for me. I thought it was completely unnecessary. And quite a lot of the dialog was carried by Dwan's recorded voice. I know Beckett does this frequently, but honestly, I think there is a lot to be said for having an actual person offstage as the disembodied voice rather than working to a recording.
And this is the crux of the problem with Rockaby: 95% of the text is just a recording with Dwan sitting in the chair rocking and saying "More." Frankly, not that impressive. I have to admit I missed the subtle shifts in the way the text repeats and doesn't exactly repeat. It was only in the 4th go-around that I really noticed the differences. While this is on me, there was a parody of Rockaby that totally took the piss out of it. I saw this twice in Chicago. The set up is almost the same where a woman in a rocking chair says "More" very weakly, and then they played Croce's "Time in a Bottle." The entire song. Then they did this again and again. I think the audience made it through 5, maybe even 6 times before they started throwing crumpled up programs and such to make it stop. Good times.
So yeah, I actually do like Beckett a lot, but this just didn't work for me for all kinds of reasons, good and bad.
Anyway, I am taking a bit of a break from work, and now I have to finish hanging up Halloween decorations. Fortunately, we have the candy bought already and the costumes more or less ready. The weather looks like it will cooperate, which is great. We'll probably head out around 6:30, but we expect kids from the neighbourhood dropping by from roughly 6-8. Happy Halloween!
* Now this is very strange, though perhaps only of interest to me. My dusty memory bank is now recalling that I was discussing the Stoppard show with one of my professors (the professor I had for Shakespeare actually) and we were at the Beckett performance. Was I saying something about how I was looking forward to the show, or more likely that I wanted to see it but was going to be gone that summer? I do remember thinking how one might attempt a spectacle on two stages back to back where Hamlet was performed on one side of the stage and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead on the other. The audience would choose which version to see, though might be vaguely aware in the Stoppard play about the action on the other side (maybe a one-way scrim). Most likely the pacing is such that they couldn't be interleaved that way, but I still think it is an awesome idea (in the abstract anyway).
What is even stranger is the faint possibility that I did see the show that summer. I might have a journal entry that would clear it up one way or the other. Nonetheless, I don't think I saw it back then. Many of the plays I saw back then are somewhat burned into my memory, maybe precisely because I was such a novice to theatre and everything was new. Now that I am older and more jaded, the productions from 10-15 years ago are all fighting for room back in the long-term memory. As I said somewhere else, I've probably seen 400 or more plays over the last 30 odd years. Curiously, I've not seen Beckett's Happy Days yet (to bring it back around to him), though I've seen Waiting for Godot and Endgame and now Footfalls twice. The closest Happy Days is playing is Yale Rep next April, but I'm not traveling that far to see it. Hopefully serendipity will strike and it will be playing closer in the coming years, and I can go.
I had to rush over to the theatre, since I was working late yet again. Naturally, they held the theatre for a solid 15 minutes, which I thought was pretty inexcusable, especially as I don't think anyone entered during that time, though perhaps up in the balcony. I don't think it started in earnest until 20 minutes after the hour. Then they were so, so serious, putting the entire theatre into a complete blackout for the entire show (not even the exit signs were lit). That is generally a marker that you are taking yourself just a bit too seriously...
I agree that Not I is a bit of a tour de force where Dwan has managed to get through the speech 25% faster than anybody before her. That may have been Beckett's intention, but I was only moderately interested in the piece the way it was presented. And frankly that was the highlight of the show.
I hate to say it but I saw a much better production of Footfalls in Ann Arbor 25 years ago. It wasn't a student production but it was basically an amateur production. (Interestingly, I see that that summer (1990) they did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I'm not quite sure why I didn't go,* since that would have been right up my alley. I didn't see the show until I was in grad. school at Northwestern.) I think my beef is partly with the text, which is completely obscure on why the young woman is called May in one section and Amy in the other (unless one of them (Amy?) is a daughter that grows old and becomes the old woman with a daughter named May?). But beyond that, Dwan still had some annoying vocal ticks left over from Not I that spoiled the flow of the text for me. I thought it was completely unnecessary. And quite a lot of the dialog was carried by Dwan's recorded voice. I know Beckett does this frequently, but honestly, I think there is a lot to be said for having an actual person offstage as the disembodied voice rather than working to a recording.
And this is the crux of the problem with Rockaby: 95% of the text is just a recording with Dwan sitting in the chair rocking and saying "More." Frankly, not that impressive. I have to admit I missed the subtle shifts in the way the text repeats and doesn't exactly repeat. It was only in the 4th go-around that I really noticed the differences. While this is on me, there was a parody of Rockaby that totally took the piss out of it. I saw this twice in Chicago. The set up is almost the same where a woman in a rocking chair says "More" very weakly, and then they played Croce's "Time in a Bottle." The entire song. Then they did this again and again. I think the audience made it through 5, maybe even 6 times before they started throwing crumpled up programs and such to make it stop. Good times.
So yeah, I actually do like Beckett a lot, but this just didn't work for me for all kinds of reasons, good and bad.
Anyway, I am taking a bit of a break from work, and now I have to finish hanging up Halloween decorations. Fortunately, we have the candy bought already and the costumes more or less ready. The weather looks like it will cooperate, which is great. We'll probably head out around 6:30, but we expect kids from the neighbourhood dropping by from roughly 6-8. Happy Halloween!
* Now this is very strange, though perhaps only of interest to me. My dusty memory bank is now recalling that I was discussing the Stoppard show with one of my professors (the professor I had for Shakespeare actually) and we were at the Beckett performance. Was I saying something about how I was looking forward to the show, or more likely that I wanted to see it but was going to be gone that summer? I do remember thinking how one might attempt a spectacle on two stages back to back where Hamlet was performed on one side of the stage and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead on the other. The audience would choose which version to see, though might be vaguely aware in the Stoppard play about the action on the other side (maybe a one-way scrim). Most likely the pacing is such that they couldn't be interleaved that way, but I still think it is an awesome idea (in the abstract anyway).
What is even stranger is the faint possibility that I did see the show that summer. I might have a journal entry that would clear it up one way or the other. Nonetheless, I don't think I saw it back then. Many of the plays I saw back then are somewhat burned into my memory, maybe precisely because I was such a novice to theatre and everything was new. Now that I am older and more jaded, the productions from 10-15 years ago are all fighting for room back in the long-term memory. As I said somewhere else, I've probably seen 400 or more plays over the last 30 odd years. Curiously, I've not seen Beckett's Happy Days yet (to bring it back around to him), though I've seen Waiting for Godot and Endgame and now Footfalls twice. The closest Happy Days is playing is Yale Rep next April, but I'm not traveling that far to see it. Hopefully serendipity will strike and it will be playing closer in the coming years, and I can go.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Overwhelmed
Just far too much going on these days. Pretty much the entire team at work seems to be double and triple booked, and when I try to get to my own work, I have to resolve some other issue for someone else, then there are all these PM responsibilities, which I generally am not able to charge back to a project. So frustrating some times.
Anyway, I just am not able to work through the night the way I used to, though I have been getting up early to get through some of the work. Nonetheless, much suffers this way. I actually had carved out the time yesterday in the early morning to work on Sing-for-your-supper (after I had resolved some internal motivation issues) and we had a power outage that wiped out some of the work. It was clearly not meant to be, and I just went off to work without finishing the piece. I am so close, but I think I'll just have to skip it this month (again) and try to have this ready for December. There are two other things that are more pressing and simply have to get done today. The creative writing gets bumped down again.
I do have a pretty cool picture to post, however. I was pouring myself some diet Coke and it looked like a universe in my cup or at least a galaxy. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the camera in time to capture it when it looked like a spiral galaxy with arms, but then it settled down to this (cropped but otherwise not Photoshopped). So cool.
Anyway, I just am not able to work through the night the way I used to, though I have been getting up early to get through some of the work. Nonetheless, much suffers this way. I actually had carved out the time yesterday in the early morning to work on Sing-for-your-supper (after I had resolved some internal motivation issues) and we had a power outage that wiped out some of the work. It was clearly not meant to be, and I just went off to work without finishing the piece. I am so close, but I think I'll just have to skip it this month (again) and try to have this ready for December. There are two other things that are more pressing and simply have to get done today. The creative writing gets bumped down again.
I do have a pretty cool picture to post, however. I was pouring myself some diet Coke and it looked like a universe in my cup or at least a galaxy. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the camera in time to capture it when it looked like a spiral galaxy with arms, but then it settled down to this (cropped but otherwise not Photoshopped). So cool.
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