It's been nice to have quite a bit of good news in a row. First, my piece was selected to be read for the Feb. Sing-for-Your-Supper, and that was a lot of fun. I'm trying to decide if I really can write a new piece for March, but I'm leaning toward doing it. It would be nice to try to build on these connections, as it is by far the most likely avenue to get my scripts produced in Toronto and eventually build a bit more momentum to the point it would be worth talking to an agent.
Second, I got my passport back in the mail, so I can travel again, particularly to the States. (I have a fun trip to NYC planned for March and a boring trip to the States scheduled for late April and we'll see after that.) I was starting to stress out about it, as they changed the photo requirements slightly, and I was worried that my application would be rejected on a technicality.
But most importantly, after a relatively short house hunting period -- 4 or so weeks of checking out open houses and, more importantly, the prices, we found a house we liked. We put in our offer, and it turns out ours was the only bid. We were fully expecting this to be a bidding war, as we were looking in a hot neighbourhood, with good local schools, and many houses here have gone $50-100K over asking (including a tear down!). I think we really lucked out in that the seller listed in January but wanted to close in May. They really would have been better off listing in early March. Also, there is no parking, just permit parking on the street, but we don't have a car, at least at the moment. While we could have gone on and haggled a bit more, I decided I had been prepared to pay considerably more, so we went ahead and gave the sellers their asking price (whereas I am pretty sure they expected to get over asking). Had we decided to play hardball, they probably would have pulled the offer and relisted in March. But who really knows...
I think I'll hold off on going into more details than that about the location and final price, but I am still quite excited and relieved that I don't have to go keep looking at houses, particularly when in so many cases it has been a multiple-offer situation that gets a bit heated. I don't really function that well in those kind of arenas.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
Short takes (for 2015) #1
In addition to working my way through An Ermine in Czernopol (more on that shortly), I am reading a newish translation of the stories that Kafka actually published in his lifetime. It is a considerably thinner volume than the Complete Stories, but certainly some of the key stories were in fact published, including "Metamorphosis" and "In the Penal Colony." What did surprise me is that the earliest volume he published was full of very short stories, often under a page, and extremely reminiscent of Robert Walser (particularly the ones collected in A Schoolboy's Diary (NYRB)). This was a very particular European form known as the feuilleton, though today most people would just call it micro-fiction or flash fiction. Apparently magazines and even newspapers were just filled with these short pieces, and back then there were many competing magazines desperate for copy, and these feuilleton fit the bill. It could also be applied to reportage. This is generally what Joseph Roth wrote when he was writing non-fiction, as collected in What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-1933 and Report from a Parisian Paradise: Essays from France, 1925-1939.
The internet is of course ideal for these short pieces and less so the long-form writing I prefer. Still, I will try to experiment with stringing shorter pieces together and not always feel obligated to write more and pad my posts.
First, I am enjoying An Ermine in Czernopol. The key character is a Major Tildy who is absurdly protective of his wife's half-sister and attempts to get into a number of duels to defend her putative honor. So it is one of those books that accumulates along the way. I'm just under halfway through the book, and, so far, Tildy has not managed to complete a duel. A few more thoughts on the duel in literature can be found here.
There are plenty of odd side-alleys that von Rezzori goes down to enliven what is a fairly simple story. There is even a kind of creepy woman who was forced to watch her husband's suicide, which may be just a bit of a tie-in with Gunther Grass's The Tin Drum, which is another novel that (far less successfully) gets to its great length by piling up episode after episode.
I'm blanking out on the next thing I had planned to write, and the next thing on my mind (self-destructive authors) will be the subject of a longer post.
For now, I will close with a great line I overheard on the subway. This is a bit of a return to the overheard conversation series, though as I said, it was just one line. This is a case where I think hearing where the conversation went might have been interesting. At any rate, this young woman said, "I'm feeling something that I can't articulate." And then was silent for the next couple of stops, when I finally had to exit the train. And now to keep from going on any longer I shall end the post.
The internet is of course ideal for these short pieces and less so the long-form writing I prefer. Still, I will try to experiment with stringing shorter pieces together and not always feel obligated to write more and pad my posts.
First, I am enjoying An Ermine in Czernopol. The key character is a Major Tildy who is absurdly protective of his wife's half-sister and attempts to get into a number of duels to defend her putative honor. So it is one of those books that accumulates along the way. I'm just under halfway through the book, and, so far, Tildy has not managed to complete a duel. A few more thoughts on the duel in literature can be found here.
There are plenty of odd side-alleys that von Rezzori goes down to enliven what is a fairly simple story. There is even a kind of creepy woman who was forced to watch her husband's suicide, which may be just a bit of a tie-in with Gunther Grass's The Tin Drum, which is another novel that (far less successfully) gets to its great length by piling up episode after episode.
I'm blanking out on the next thing I had planned to write, and the next thing on my mind (self-destructive authors) will be the subject of a longer post.
For now, I will close with a great line I overheard on the subway. This is a bit of a return to the overheard conversation series, though as I said, it was just one line. This is a case where I think hearing where the conversation went might have been interesting. At any rate, this young woman said, "I'm feeling something that I can't articulate." And then was silent for the next couple of stops, when I finally had to exit the train. And now to keep from going on any longer I shall end the post.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
They're performing my play(let) -- Feb. 2 @ 955 Bloor St W.
My first curated dramatic piece is going to be staged as part of Red One Collective's Sing for Your Supper - Monday Feb. 2 at 8 pm. I'm so excited! Some details here. It's at the Storefront Theatre @ 955 Bloor Street West, Toronto. If you are an actor looking to do one of the cold readings (they generally do 6 or 7 of these pieces), you should show up at 7.
I would call this my first curated dramatic piece. I've actually set up staged readings of my work, and they went well, but I arranged for everything, even renting the space. I came very close to having another short piece read in Chicago, but it didn't quite make the cut for American Blues Theatre (and ultimately I included it in my staged reading series). But just a bit of external affirmation is so cool. I intentionally made this piece just a bit more raucous, given the audience, and I guess that paid off. I really hope the characters work, since this is actually a chapter that I just wrote that is a midway point in the novel. If it goes over well, I can definitely see this spurring me on to do more. And who knows, perhaps I will turn a later chapter into another short play, if it is another "talky" chapter. The discipline of cutting it down to 9 pages (in performance style which is even shorter than standard text) was very useful. Even if I relax it a little bit and put back in a few lines that I liked but cut for time, it is still a tighter piece of writing than when I started.
I will circle back Tues. or Wed. to give an update on how it went, and also if I made any useful contacts at the event. I'll go ahead and post a link to my play then. For now, I don't want to spoil the surprise.
Edit: I think the reading went quite well. Most of the jokes came across, though it had somewhat serious moments. I think the characters were reasonably believable. Two of the actors said they really liked the script, so that was very cool. I might follow up with a few folks that were there and saw it. Perhaps I should have mingled a bit more afterwards, but it was late (and a school night!). I didn't actually get home until 11 pm. Now the real question is do I keep working on the novel one scene at a time, or only focus on the ones that involve this trio. It probably wouldn't quite rise to the level of doing a play of just the left-over bits and back stage shenanigans of minor characters (aka Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), but there is no question the novel per se follows the male character around. Maybe if I felt up to it, this could focus on the lesbian couple, including times Jonathan is not around. But I can only do that if I think I make them real and not some absurd fantasy projection of what a straight man envisions a lesbian couple to be. But enough of that for now. I need to take care of something else and hopefully get some rest.
I'm currently debating whether I put up only the script that was performed or a slightly expanded script that reflects some of the input I got from going to the reading. Or I could do both, as it wouldn't really take any longer to post the script that I submitted.
I'll decide in the next day or so. One thing that I realized is that the actor playing the male role (Jonathan) had just a twist of (Jack) Lemmon. I think that was a good choice, and I might play that up just a bit if the next piece I submit is a continuation of this scene or at least something else extracted from the novel.
Edit #2: I decided to upload only the slightly expanded version. I added in about half a page of dialogue that sets up some of the later action (i.e. another minute of stage time), but this is for all intents and purposes what was put on at Sing-for-Your-Supper.
I would call this my first curated dramatic piece. I've actually set up staged readings of my work, and they went well, but I arranged for everything, even renting the space. I came very close to having another short piece read in Chicago, but it didn't quite make the cut for American Blues Theatre (and ultimately I included it in my staged reading series). But just a bit of external affirmation is so cool. I intentionally made this piece just a bit more raucous, given the audience, and I guess that paid off. I really hope the characters work, since this is actually a chapter that I just wrote that is a midway point in the novel. If it goes over well, I can definitely see this spurring me on to do more. And who knows, perhaps I will turn a later chapter into another short play, if it is another "talky" chapter. The discipline of cutting it down to 9 pages (in performance style which is even shorter than standard text) was very useful. Even if I relax it a little bit and put back in a few lines that I liked but cut for time, it is still a tighter piece of writing than when I started.
I will circle back Tues. or Wed. to give an update on how it went, and also if I made any useful contacts at the event. I'll go ahead and post a link to my play then. For now, I don't want to spoil the surprise.
Edit: I think the reading went quite well. Most of the jokes came across, though it had somewhat serious moments. I think the characters were reasonably believable. Two of the actors said they really liked the script, so that was very cool. I might follow up with a few folks that were there and saw it. Perhaps I should have mingled a bit more afterwards, but it was late (and a school night!). I didn't actually get home until 11 pm. Now the real question is do I keep working on the novel one scene at a time, or only focus on the ones that involve this trio. It probably wouldn't quite rise to the level of doing a play of just the left-over bits and back stage shenanigans of minor characters (aka Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), but there is no question the novel per se follows the male character around. Maybe if I felt up to it, this could focus on the lesbian couple, including times Jonathan is not around. But I can only do that if I think I make them real and not some absurd fantasy projection of what a straight man envisions a lesbian couple to be. But enough of that for now. I need to take care of something else and hopefully get some rest.
I'm currently debating whether I put up only the script that was performed or a slightly expanded script that reflects some of the input I got from going to the reading. Or I could do both, as it wouldn't really take any longer to post the script that I submitted.
I'll decide in the next day or so. One thing that I realized is that the actor playing the male role (Jonathan) had just a twist of (Jack) Lemmon. I think that was a good choice, and I might play that up just a bit if the next piece I submit is a continuation of this scene or at least something else extracted from the novel.
Edit #2: I decided to upload only the slightly expanded version. I added in about half a page of dialogue that sets up some of the later action (i.e. another minute of stage time), but this is for all intents and purposes what was put on at Sing-for-Your-Supper.
8th Canadian Challenge - 12th Review - Point No Point
Jane Munro's poetry collection Point No Point ends up throwing the reader for quite a loop. I'll get to that when I get to discussing the final poem in the collection "Moving to a Colder Climate."
Up to this point, the first batch of poems are generally uplifting vignettes of Munro's remembrances of growing up. Her father teaches her about life on a camping trip, making sure that she has survival skills. He is definitely a man's man, but that is what makes sense, living in largely rural areas in B.C.
However, with knowledge of what is to come, there are certainly a few warning signs in the first batch of poems in the collection, particularly when Munro sort of casually mentions that her father owned and lost a boatyard. But most achingly in the early going in "Missing Person" when she talks about her brother who has essentially become a loner and then vanished off the grid: "Traced to Edmonton and thin air." This is always the worst case scenario for parents -- that their child will somehow fail to thrive, get into drugs and vanish. Here, Munro must take on the worry and perhaps even a bit of the guilt (though she doesn't discuss that) as both her parents are dead by this point. It's a moving but sad poem.
As an aside, the semi-renowned Chicago photographer Art Shay lost his son at a somewhat younger age (than Munro's brother) while he was out more or less hitchhiking his way around the world, trying to find himself, and sadly eventually running into trouble. It sounds as though this son, Harmon, was simply unlucky and wasn't driven/dragged down by the internal demons that haunt Munro's brother. I'm not sure that makes the pain any less, however. I always break up when I see this image of Harmon in the snow at age 6 or so. I guess I didn't mean to sidetrack this review,* but it is such a beautiful and heart-breaking image.
The poems after this sort of return to a more chronological order, going to Munro's young adulthood when apparently she moved to San Francisco. The poem "Midsummer, After Watching Bullitt" is a catalog of what life was like back in simpler days: "everyone / was thin then, before pasta became popular, living on grapefruit and hard-boiled eggs and celery sticks stuffed with Velveeta..." She recalls other aspects of being poor, like cockroaches in the kitchen and having to sleep on a hide-a-bed in tiny apartments.
Certainly some of her dissatisfaction stems from how the world turned out. The hippies eventually became middle class and voted for Reagan (or Mulroney). "we didn't guess the Selma March would fade, or that McDonald's would spawn millions / the sixties seemed so full -- we didn't imagine always being in a rush, or how our lives would grow more labyrinthine..." But it seems clear she would pretty much drop anything to go back to those days before being burdened with the full weight of adult responsibilities. I know I would. Anyway, this is one of the poems from the collection that really speaks to me.
I also like "Intercourse," though this seems to be tied to economic ties and nothing more intimate. It's actually a poem about a freight train and freight transport more generally, which then leads her into a reverie of her own train travel, including a train ride through Quebec. "Transports / tying a country together. / The slow strip of a whistle uncovers / longing ... / ... The way I longed to / speak French after a trip to Percé. Riding a little train / across the Gaspé..."
The next section of the collection seems to delve into her middle aged life. In the title poem "Point No Point," she discusses the whole move from the city (presumably Vancouver) to Vancouver Island. "We left the city, moving to this coast and its colder climate when I turned fifty and wanted to change my life. What was I expecting?"
What she finds is a more immediate connection with nature as she walks down her driveway into the trails that lead to Point No Point. "Out on the point, cormorants and gulls queue in the gale and stare across the strait at the Olympics. A trawler gurgles by. I think of the smell of coffee and diesel as I step carefully on wet rock, the swell and dip of the deck." This poem is growing on me. It and a few others in this collection put me in mind of the Vermont poet David Budbill. If I ever manage to publish the transportation poetry anthology, I think I would try to include this in the nature walks section, even though it is a bit of a stretch.
I also like "Morning with Cats" where Munro describes how the morning is so magical, mostly because of a very thick fog that has settled around her house, that she decides not to split wood or light the furnace but to put on Mahler's Fourth and watch the cats. "Fog coats the windows with seed pearls. Music loves / the kitchen's plain details. I watch one cat drink rapidly. / We eat a little. What a lush romance to have a life." There is something almost meditative in this poem and a few others in this section. This is a strand of her poetry that becomes stronger in the next collections, but I'll get to them in due course.
The final section contains only a single, long poem, "Moving to a Colder Climate." This ends up seeming very much like Sharon Olds and her confessional poetry, particularly where she delves into her childhood and how her dealings with her parents were fraught with a lot of anxiety and anger. However, she still was deeply affected by their deaths and found that she loved them despite everything. Indeed, "Moving to a Colder Climate" does remind me in certain sections of Olds' The Father generally and "The Race" specifically.
What we find out is that her father had some incredibly bad luck. His business partner in the boatyard apparently embezzled or something, and that was a large part of the reason he had to give that up and become a hired hand of sorts. Her father built a house for himself and Munro's mother, but it caught fire and her mother (foolishly) went back in for something and died in the flames. As one might imagine, he was never quite the same. At the same time, Munro does not shy away from indicating how chauvinist he was towards her, particularly when she was growing up, and what a control freak he was about all kinds of things, including what books she checked out from the library.
He'd urge, To thine own self be true,
then swear, I will make a woman of you,
by which he meant
pleasant, conventional, deferential,
decorative. ...
He also had some strictures about how mothers must subordinate themselves to their children. And was quite racist towards one of Munro's non-white boyfriends (perhaps the one with whom she lived in San Francisco). Munro tries to keep both sides in balance as she evaluates the influence he had over her, which was quite immense to the point that he reappears as a ghost in the living room.
I hadn't really expected such a complicated picture of her father from the poems in the first section which suggested she had a fairly conventional childhood, though in "Moving to a Colder Climate" she really lets quite a bit hang out. Still not quite to the extent that Sharon Olds does, however. What is somewhat intriguing is that Munro seems to retreat from confessional poet mode in her subsequent collections, so this might have been the last she really had to say on the subject of her complex father. It's certainly an interesting poem, but I do like the first two sections of the collection more.
* Edit: While I don't want to SPOIL it, the plot of Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities involves the loss of a brother, and one could definitely say that his unwillingness to live a conventional life led to a pretty bleak fate.
Up to this point, the first batch of poems are generally uplifting vignettes of Munro's remembrances of growing up. Her father teaches her about life on a camping trip, making sure that she has survival skills. He is definitely a man's man, but that is what makes sense, living in largely rural areas in B.C.
However, with knowledge of what is to come, there are certainly a few warning signs in the first batch of poems in the collection, particularly when Munro sort of casually mentions that her father owned and lost a boatyard. But most achingly in the early going in "Missing Person" when she talks about her brother who has essentially become a loner and then vanished off the grid: "Traced to Edmonton and thin air." This is always the worst case scenario for parents -- that their child will somehow fail to thrive, get into drugs and vanish. Here, Munro must take on the worry and perhaps even a bit of the guilt (though she doesn't discuss that) as both her parents are dead by this point. It's a moving but sad poem.
As an aside, the semi-renowned Chicago photographer Art Shay lost his son at a somewhat younger age (than Munro's brother) while he was out more or less hitchhiking his way around the world, trying to find himself, and sadly eventually running into trouble. It sounds as though this son, Harmon, was simply unlucky and wasn't driven/dragged down by the internal demons that haunt Munro's brother. I'm not sure that makes the pain any less, however. I always break up when I see this image of Harmon in the snow at age 6 or so. I guess I didn't mean to sidetrack this review,* but it is such a beautiful and heart-breaking image.
The poems after this sort of return to a more chronological order, going to Munro's young adulthood when apparently she moved to San Francisco. The poem "Midsummer, After Watching Bullitt" is a catalog of what life was like back in simpler days: "everyone / was thin then, before pasta became popular, living on grapefruit and hard-boiled eggs and celery sticks stuffed with Velveeta..." She recalls other aspects of being poor, like cockroaches in the kitchen and having to sleep on a hide-a-bed in tiny apartments.
Certainly some of her dissatisfaction stems from how the world turned out. The hippies eventually became middle class and voted for Reagan (or Mulroney). "we didn't guess the Selma March would fade, or that McDonald's would spawn millions / the sixties seemed so full -- we didn't imagine always being in a rush, or how our lives would grow more labyrinthine..." But it seems clear she would pretty much drop anything to go back to those days before being burdened with the full weight of adult responsibilities. I know I would. Anyway, this is one of the poems from the collection that really speaks to me.
I also like "Intercourse," though this seems to be tied to economic ties and nothing more intimate. It's actually a poem about a freight train and freight transport more generally, which then leads her into a reverie of her own train travel, including a train ride through Quebec. "Transports / tying a country together. / The slow strip of a whistle uncovers / longing ... / ... The way I longed to / speak French after a trip to Percé. Riding a little train / across the Gaspé..."
The next section of the collection seems to delve into her middle aged life. In the title poem "Point No Point," she discusses the whole move from the city (presumably Vancouver) to Vancouver Island. "We left the city, moving to this coast and its colder climate when I turned fifty and wanted to change my life. What was I expecting?"
What she finds is a more immediate connection with nature as she walks down her driveway into the trails that lead to Point No Point. "Out on the point, cormorants and gulls queue in the gale and stare across the strait at the Olympics. A trawler gurgles by. I think of the smell of coffee and diesel as I step carefully on wet rock, the swell and dip of the deck." This poem is growing on me. It and a few others in this collection put me in mind of the Vermont poet David Budbill. If I ever manage to publish the transportation poetry anthology, I think I would try to include this in the nature walks section, even though it is a bit of a stretch.
I also like "Morning with Cats" where Munro describes how the morning is so magical, mostly because of a very thick fog that has settled around her house, that she decides not to split wood or light the furnace but to put on Mahler's Fourth and watch the cats. "Fog coats the windows with seed pearls. Music loves / the kitchen's plain details. I watch one cat drink rapidly. / We eat a little. What a lush romance to have a life." There is something almost meditative in this poem and a few others in this section. This is a strand of her poetry that becomes stronger in the next collections, but I'll get to them in due course.
The final section contains only a single, long poem, "Moving to a Colder Climate." This ends up seeming very much like Sharon Olds and her confessional poetry, particularly where she delves into her childhood and how her dealings with her parents were fraught with a lot of anxiety and anger. However, she still was deeply affected by their deaths and found that she loved them despite everything. Indeed, "Moving to a Colder Climate" does remind me in certain sections of Olds' The Father generally and "The Race" specifically.
What we find out is that her father had some incredibly bad luck. His business partner in the boatyard apparently embezzled or something, and that was a large part of the reason he had to give that up and become a hired hand of sorts. Her father built a house for himself and Munro's mother, but it caught fire and her mother (foolishly) went back in for something and died in the flames. As one might imagine, he was never quite the same. At the same time, Munro does not shy away from indicating how chauvinist he was towards her, particularly when she was growing up, and what a control freak he was about all kinds of things, including what books she checked out from the library.
He'd urge, To thine own self be true,
then swear, I will make a woman of you,
by which he meant
pleasant, conventional, deferential,
decorative. ...
He also had some strictures about how mothers must subordinate themselves to their children. And was quite racist towards one of Munro's non-white boyfriends (perhaps the one with whom she lived in San Francisco). Munro tries to keep both sides in balance as she evaluates the influence he had over her, which was quite immense to the point that he reappears as a ghost in the living room.
I hadn't really expected such a complicated picture of her father from the poems in the first section which suggested she had a fairly conventional childhood, though in "Moving to a Colder Climate" she really lets quite a bit hang out. Still not quite to the extent that Sharon Olds does, however. What is somewhat intriguing is that Munro seems to retreat from confessional poet mode in her subsequent collections, so this might have been the last she really had to say on the subject of her complex father. It's certainly an interesting poem, but I do like the first two sections of the collection more.
* Edit: While I don't want to SPOIL it, the plot of Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities involves the loss of a brother, and one could definitely say that his unwillingness to live a conventional life led to a pretty bleak fate.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Summer dreaming - Stratford and Shaw
This post will actually cover a few other companies that have announced their summer seasons (for 2015) or even their 2015/16 seasons (I believe Canadian Stage is one of the few to be quite so far ahead of the curve*). In many ways, this is simply a continuation of this post where I started tracking things of interest. I'm about halfway through that list, and indeed went to roughly 3/4 of the events through Dec. 2014. So this is a bit of a continuation in a slightly different format, focusing on theatre events happening 5 to 6 months out (when it should be a lot nicer). As it turns out tomorrow is supposedly the last day for general discounts on tickets to Stratford though they extended discount pricing at Shaw by another week (through Feb 8).
I won't list everything that one could see, just the things I actually went ahead and got tickets to (now that I can no longer be scooped...).
Shaw
Caryl Churchill Top Girls
Tony Kushner The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide...
Stratford
Hamlet
Taming of the Shrew
Love's Labour's Lost
Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer
Friedrich Dürrenmatt The Physicists
John Mighton Possible Worlds
I am really tempted to come back and see Jonson's The Alchemist, though I've seen it a couple of times already** and I dropped enough ducats at Stratford for one season. The Alchemist will probably turn up at a UT Hart House production before too long, and that should be sufficient.
Soulpepper (I'm going to break my own rules and list a couple of plays that are worth seeing, but I saw recently so am passing on. I guess eventually it will become clear which I did and didn't go to. Also, a few of these will be shown over the late spring into the summer, so check it out sooner than later if interested.)
Alan Ayckbourn Bedroom Farce
A.R. Gurney The Dining Room (this got rave reviews in Chicago, so I hope this production comes close to matching that)
Sarah Ruhl Eurydice
Michel Tremblay Yours Forever, Marie-Lou
Canadian Stage
Robert LePage Needles and Opium
Shakespeare in High Park - Julius Caesar
Shakespeare in High Park - The Comedy of Errors
So a lot to see and to squeeze into my calendar. There's quite a bit to be excited about, including the changing of the seasons, but I will say that, like Chicagoans, Torontonians do go out and support the arts, even in the dead of winter.
But I must be off now. Go ahead and leave a comment if you end up going to one of these shows. Or if there is some upcoming summer theatre (particularly in the GTA) that excites you.
* Edit: I just recalled that East Side Players have also announced their 2015/16 season here. It turns out that one of them (Wonder of the World by David Lindsay-Abaire) is one of the plays I listed on my want-to-see list, so I should go, even though I borrowed the script and browsed it a bit. I wouldn't say I am in love with the script, but it has its moments, and the company puts on plays fairly close to my home, so I should probably go support them.
In other way-ahead listings, I see that Alumnae Theatre Company plan on doing Lett's August: Osage County in April 2016! There was a very short run of the Broadway touring production that came through Toronto back in Nov. 2009, but this will be the first locally organized production, as far as I know. I will probably encourage others to go. However, I won't go myself. I saw the Steppenwolf production with the original cast, and I just don't think anything else will live up to that. I don't want the different versions getting muddled in my mind.
Now in terms of other want-to-see plays I listed, I thought I would make the trip to the UT-Erindale campus, but it turns out they are only performing Inge's Picnic for a single weekend, and it happens to be this weekend(!), when I am booked solid. The other Picnic is in Scarborough in early March, which may not work out either. It's about a half hour drive, though I'd have to rent a car, and it looks like I could make it in about an hour via transit, assuming most of my connections are ok. That's not so terrible, but I'll just have to see how booked I am in early March. It's quite droll that I am more likely to go to Montreal to see Travesties than to see Picnic just slightly outside of town...
** And one of those times was at Stratford, though back in 1999! (Incidentally we also saw School for Scandal on that visit, which is one I would like to see again.) It is really tempting to go again, and perhaps even see if my son would enjoy it, but I think it will be another couple of years before he could really follow it (he was able to follow most of Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest). So I really need to hang tough and wait for a local performance. However, if somebody gave me tickets I would go for sure. But if Mirvish tries to bring it to town in the fall or in 2016, like they did for Arcadia, I would definitely go.
I won't list everything that one could see, just the things I actually went ahead and got tickets to (now that I can no longer be scooped...).
Shaw
Caryl Churchill Top Girls
Tony Kushner The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide...
Stratford
Hamlet
Taming of the Shrew
Love's Labour's Lost
Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer
Friedrich Dürrenmatt The Physicists
John Mighton Possible Worlds
I am really tempted to come back and see Jonson's The Alchemist, though I've seen it a couple of times already** and I dropped enough ducats at Stratford for one season. The Alchemist will probably turn up at a UT Hart House production before too long, and that should be sufficient.
Soulpepper (I'm going to break my own rules and list a couple of plays that are worth seeing, but I saw recently so am passing on. I guess eventually it will become clear which I did and didn't go to. Also, a few of these will be shown over the late spring into the summer, so check it out sooner than later if interested.)
Alan Ayckbourn Bedroom Farce
A.R. Gurney The Dining Room (this got rave reviews in Chicago, so I hope this production comes close to matching that)
Sarah Ruhl Eurydice
Michel Tremblay Yours Forever, Marie-Lou
Canadian Stage
Robert LePage Needles and Opium
Shakespeare in High Park - Julius Caesar
Shakespeare in High Park - The Comedy of Errors
So a lot to see and to squeeze into my calendar. There's quite a bit to be excited about, including the changing of the seasons, but I will say that, like Chicagoans, Torontonians do go out and support the arts, even in the dead of winter.
But I must be off now. Go ahead and leave a comment if you end up going to one of these shows. Or if there is some upcoming summer theatre (particularly in the GTA) that excites you.
* Edit: I just recalled that East Side Players have also announced their 2015/16 season here. It turns out that one of them (Wonder of the World by David Lindsay-Abaire) is one of the plays I listed on my want-to-see list, so I should go, even though I borrowed the script and browsed it a bit. I wouldn't say I am in love with the script, but it has its moments, and the company puts on plays fairly close to my home, so I should probably go support them.
In other way-ahead listings, I see that Alumnae Theatre Company plan on doing Lett's August: Osage County in April 2016! There was a very short run of the Broadway touring production that came through Toronto back in Nov. 2009, but this will be the first locally organized production, as far as I know. I will probably encourage others to go. However, I won't go myself. I saw the Steppenwolf production with the original cast, and I just don't think anything else will live up to that. I don't want the different versions getting muddled in my mind.
Now in terms of other want-to-see plays I listed, I thought I would make the trip to the UT-Erindale campus, but it turns out they are only performing Inge's Picnic for a single weekend, and it happens to be this weekend(!), when I am booked solid. The other Picnic is in Scarborough in early March, which may not work out either. It's about a half hour drive, though I'd have to rent a car, and it looks like I could make it in about an hour via transit, assuming most of my connections are ok. That's not so terrible, but I'll just have to see how booked I am in early March. It's quite droll that I am more likely to go to Montreal to see Travesties than to see Picnic just slightly outside of town...
** And one of those times was at Stratford, though back in 1999! (Incidentally we also saw School for Scandal on that visit, which is one I would like to see again.) It is really tempting to go again, and perhaps even see if my son would enjoy it, but I think it will be another couple of years before he could really follow it (he was able to follow most of Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest). So I really need to hang tough and wait for a local performance. However, if somebody gave me tickets I would go for sure. But if Mirvish tries to bring it to town in the fall or in 2016, like they did for Arcadia, I would definitely go.
TSO Season 2015/16
So the upcoming TSO season has just been announced. You can start here and eventually click through the season. I'm going to be honest and say it looks ok, but kind of scaled back and not particularly adventurous. In fact, it is basically a very boring season.
I am glad they will be doing Beethoven's 5, and as a Sunday matinee, so I will most likely take the kids to that. They are doing two Shostakovich Symphonies and the Montreal Symphony is coming in with a third. I'll plan on making all those. I did miss out on Second City's Guide to the Symphony, which was apparently terrific, so I'll try to go this year. I did not manage to make it to Dvorak's 9th Symphony (it was when we were on a quick trip to Chicago). They are doing a one-night stand of Dvorak's 8th, but I will probably pass, having seen that done in the previous two years with various symphonies.
I'm a bit torn on the Beethoven Symphony #3 paired with Piano Concerto #3 with Yefim Bronfman. The issue is I've already seen him do the whole Piano Concerto cycle, so it just feels unnecessary, even though I am sure it will be a fine concert. They are also bringing in James Ehnes to do the Elgar Violin Concerto (paired with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring), but I saw Ehnes doing this piece with VSO in 2014 (in a concert line-up that I liked better). I'm sure this will be a great concert, but I feel I've already done it.
I'll be able to put together a subscription package, but there is very little that excites me, aside perhaps for the Shostakovich and Angea Hewitt coming in to play Bach. I guess there is Prokofiev's 5th Symphony, which I do like, but I've seen several times already. I'll go again anyway, since it is paired with Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, which is not played very frequently.
I guess I don't really know what I want. I do like seeing familiar works every couple of years, but there is so little on offer here that is a bit off the beaten path. But when they do have something just a bit unusual, like Strauss's An Alpine Symphony, I find it isn't quite to my taste and I don't go. I'm just a bit fickle and fairly demanding. That's what happens when you live in a place like Chicago and get totally spoiled for choice. I don't even dare look at Chicago's 2015/16 season, as I probably would just get depressed.
I am glad they will be doing Beethoven's 5, and as a Sunday matinee, so I will most likely take the kids to that. They are doing two Shostakovich Symphonies and the Montreal Symphony is coming in with a third. I'll plan on making all those. I did miss out on Second City's Guide to the Symphony, which was apparently terrific, so I'll try to go this year. I did not manage to make it to Dvorak's 9th Symphony (it was when we were on a quick trip to Chicago). They are doing a one-night stand of Dvorak's 8th, but I will probably pass, having seen that done in the previous two years with various symphonies.
I'm a bit torn on the Beethoven Symphony #3 paired with Piano Concerto #3 with Yefim Bronfman. The issue is I've already seen him do the whole Piano Concerto cycle, so it just feels unnecessary, even though I am sure it will be a fine concert. They are also bringing in James Ehnes to do the Elgar Violin Concerto (paired with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring), but I saw Ehnes doing this piece with VSO in 2014 (in a concert line-up that I liked better). I'm sure this will be a great concert, but I feel I've already done it.
I'll be able to put together a subscription package, but there is very little that excites me, aside perhaps for the Shostakovich and Angea Hewitt coming in to play Bach. I guess there is Prokofiev's 5th Symphony, which I do like, but I've seen several times already. I'll go again anyway, since it is paired with Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, which is not played very frequently.
I guess I don't really know what I want. I do like seeing familiar works every couple of years, but there is so little on offer here that is a bit off the beaten path. But when they do have something just a bit unusual, like Strauss's An Alpine Symphony, I find it isn't quite to my taste and I don't go. I'm just a bit fickle and fairly demanding. That's what happens when you live in a place like Chicago and get totally spoiled for choice. I don't even dare look at Chicago's 2015/16 season, as I probably would just get depressed.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Small steps (to get back in shape?)
I am far better about exercising my mind than my body, but I have gone and gotten a 3 month membership to the exercise rooms at the Park District building. It is literally across the street, so I hardly have an excuse, other than their exercise facilities are not great.
I really signed up for the pool, however. The lane swimming times are not great either, but they do work for me a lot better than they did the previous season. They are currently 8-9 PM Monday and Wednesday. And that's pretty much it for the entire week, which I find incredibly lame, but I should be able to make it to one and often both evenings. I did like the fact that they have a medium speed swimming lane, though it didn't appear that it was appreciably slower than the fast lane. Nonetheless, that's probably where I will end up most days.
It's been several months since I was biking regularly, and until the deep freeze lifts, that is how it will remain. I don't think I've swum laps since last May or perhaps the first week or so of June. I think I did reasonably well, given that I am out of practice. I'm still a little sore from Monday, and I'll probably be even more sore on Thurs. But I'm the only one to blame for getting so out of shape. Next week I'll look into using the exercise room a bit more and see if they have weight machines or only free weights.
I even went today (Wed.) and it is often going back the second or third time that is the hardest. I'm sore in some places that I haven't been working on in a long time. I guess that is a good thing. Now I just have to try out the stationary bicycle and the weights on one of the non-swimming days, and we'll see if I can start making some serious progress.
I really signed up for the pool, however. The lane swimming times are not great either, but they do work for me a lot better than they did the previous season. They are currently 8-9 PM Monday and Wednesday. And that's pretty much it for the entire week, which I find incredibly lame, but I should be able to make it to one and often both evenings. I did like the fact that they have a medium speed swimming lane, though it didn't appear that it was appreciably slower than the fast lane. Nonetheless, that's probably where I will end up most days.
It's been several months since I was biking regularly, and until the deep freeze lifts, that is how it will remain. I don't think I've swum laps since last May or perhaps the first week or so of June. I think I did reasonably well, given that I am out of practice. I'm still a little sore from Monday, and I'll probably be even more sore on Thurs. But I'm the only one to blame for getting so out of shape. Next week I'll look into using the exercise room a bit more and see if they have weight machines or only free weights.
I even went today (Wed.) and it is often going back the second or third time that is the hardest. I'm sore in some places that I haven't been working on in a long time. I guess that is a good thing. Now I just have to try out the stationary bicycle and the weights on one of the non-swimming days, and we'll see if I can start making some serious progress.
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