Feeling Strangely Yellow

Sorry about the sporadic posting and taking so long to respond to comments. My doctor has prescribed complete bedrest until Friday. I'm two points away from having Pregnancy Induced Hypertension. Woohoo. You'd think I'd have more time to write now, but we really aren't set up for prolonged confinement here. Yet...

Go See This Play

The Forest War
Shotgun Players
Directed and Written by Mark Jackson

I saw The Forest War this past Sunday and I have to say the two little boys (not mine) sitting in the front row were captivated by the show (as was I), although I suspect the boys are going to have some seriously edgy nightmares for weeks to come. There are four more shows left and you should get out to see one of them. Stunning visual imagery and exceptional performances by Reid Davis and Kevin Clarke lift the play above its inspirational sources - Kurosowa's Ran, Mnouchkine's Henry IV, a catalog of Shakespeare plays, and the last ten years or so of Washington politics. Schedule, info and tickets here - I'm making this so easy for you. Go! Go.

Open Letter

Dear Berkeley Rep:

Just wanted to let you know that I didn't walk out of The Pillowman last night because I was offended by the material. I walked out because I was mind-numbingly bored by what should have been a terrifying, surreal, beautifully written, absurdly funny play.

When I did laugh, your-oh-so-righteous-subscribers (All at least 50 years old or older - not to be ageist or anything. But I also noticed that there was no one in the audience my age or younger. I had lot's of time to look around.) shot me cutting glances and frowned and shook their heads at me. I mean-come on. It's clear by looking at me that I am great with child (eight months, thank you). So yeah, I realize that I'm laughing at something that's completely inappropriate. I get that. Oh. I also realize the play is about the artist's place in society and torture and totalitarianism and other heady stuff like that, but, jeezus, do we have to be so precious about it? Does the experience have to be so anesthetized for the PC crowd?

FYI: I drove home and bought the play at my local independent bookstore and finished reading it over soup and dessert at my favorite cafe while I'm sure the rest of you were having your own liberal humanity reaffirmed in the darkness of an otherwise lifeless institution. Sorry I missed out on that. Maybe I'll catch it next time.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth

P.S. I know that I'm in the minority here. I read the reviews and other people's blogs (all of whom work for the rep or are associated with it). So I know it's really just me - my taste and all. I think theater should be alive, not DOA. I find psychologically-based acting styles over-wrought and technically deficient and that was especially the case here (for me, I know, not for the institution or those that support it). Plus, the fact that the actors were playing their subtext left no room for suspense- which is kinda crucial, given the action of the play, don'tcha think?

Which is not to say that the play isn't psychologically complex. But the script does most of the work - simply talking to each other, creating some real, live moments onstage would have gone a long way here. McDonagh admits he was influenced by Tarantino, Scorsese, and Lynch - ever see any of those films? They're kinda verbally and physically violent. People talk really fast and don't justify their actions. Things just kinda happen and often there's no logical, psychological reason for the action. Come to think of it - kinda like Beckett.

Oh, and you know, speaking of violence, that style of theatrical fight choreography where they don't make any attempt at contact or convincing the audience that they're making contact - not the best choice here. Really castrates the sensibility of the play. I know- that's just me. And as I'm becoming all too painfully aware - I'm in a minority here.

Or maybe that's the reason McDonagh quit writing plays. He says he found London theater to be "dull." I don' think anything about this production would have changed his mind.

A Year in a Life

Beaten to the Punch

Laura Axelrod (Gasp!) gives a great list of reasons for not going to the theater. I have to say I agree with all of them and they're why I'm content working solo at the moment (there are more reasons - the least being geographical, but I'll enumerate them later). Ironically, I'm going to the theater this afternoon. Friends say it's a good show. They better be right.

Old News

Although it appears every day around one o'clock, the Paris newspaper Le Monde is dated to the following morning, so that the paper one reads on Monday afternoon is written as though it were already Tuesday, and things that may have happened today appear to have happened yesterday, while what happened last night appears to have happened two days ago. - Adam Gopnick

That is really what the newspaper has to say that everything that has happened has happened on that day but really this is not true because everything that happened on that day on the newspaper day has really happened the day before and that makes all the trouble that there is with the newspaper as it is and in every way they try to destroy this day the day between the day before and the day the newspaper day. Of course by day I naturally mean night too but the newspaper does not know and so it cannot really say that there is really any difference between the night and the day. That is another of the difficulties they have in face of the real trouble that the newspaper day is always the day before the newspaper day and yet that is what they really have to say that the newspaper day is the day it is, which of course it is not.

And so everything in the newspaper begins with its not being so and that like everything complicates and makes difficult telling and listening, it may complicate and the newspaper does by making it too easy, so much do they have to deceive the reader into feeling that yesterday is to-day that they have to make it too easy and in making it too easy they do do something they had not intended to do they make it no longer an exciting thing to do because they have commenced to do too well what if they did have it to do it would be impossible to do.

Do you see what I mean.

It is very interesting.

And it has an awful lot to do with everything. - Gertrude Stein

A Week Behind

I've been tagged for a meme by Ms. Lemoult. So here goes.

1) Find the nearest book
2) Open to page 123
3) Type lines 6-8 of said book
4) Tag three others.

Cyberculture by Pierre Lévy.
Ok.

lines 6-8
producer of raw material, transformer, author, interpreter, and listner
in an unstable and self-organized circuit of cooperative creation and
concurrent appreciation. This process of collective musical intelligence

Tag 3 people: Aww shucks folks. I'm going to do it the same way I did before - okay, I'll change it up a little. If you read this, you must do it. If you're in a cafe, let the person sitting to your left know that you've done it. If you're a blogger or would otherwise do this electronically - the next time you go to a cafe, give the information to the first person you meet. Blog about the reaction. Sorry - I'd buy you coffee but we'd have to do it through paypal.

Life. Wonder. Joy.

In the blackout, the sound of a soda can opening and pouring into a glass of ice. A voiceover commercial begins and runs simultaneously with Ruth’s monologue. The voiceover commercial is warped and subliminal and quite easily mistaken for a host of angels. Ruth is wearing a black ski mask.

V/O Commercial.

*You can see a billboard for Sprite and think: Tom Hanks drinks Sprite, Grant Hill drinks Sprite, Marisa Tomei drinks Sprite. Just think you can drink Sprite too. Sprite is Sprite and no matter how rich you are, you can’t get a better one than the one the homeless woman on the corner is drinking. All Sprites are the same. And all the Sprites are good. Tom Hanks knows it. Grant Hill knows it. Marisa Tomei knows it. The homeless woman on the corner knows it, and you know it too.

Ruth

*I don’t believe in the American Dream. There is not one small place. Not one small place. Not even in your heart. There is no small place where freedom rings and doesn’t sound like a cash register. That shiny red car with the leather appointments doesn’t buy you freedom even with the monthly lease option. We live in an occupied country. Freedom is manufactured, mediated, and massaged for your guilty pleasure on a Hollywood soundstage starring people who are prettier and thinner than you. Wake up buttercup! You’re not retired. You’re not on medicare. Forget about Social Security. Forget Security. You don’t contribute to the GNP, the GOP, or the DNC. You’re not a member of the CFR. You don’t dance naked at midnight with George Shultz and the rest of the Bohemian Club. You’ll never attend the opening of the Opera, sleep in the Lincoln bedroom or guest star on Letterman. You’re part of the grid. You’ll always be a part of the grid. You’ll never exist outside of it. Please stay seated while the planet is in motion. Earth: (she removes her mask) heavingpleadingringring ringingrebellingpleading therearethoseofusandourlegionaremany living underbridgeswhereendsnevermeet canIgetawitness?sellsell selling buy!buy!buy!buy!buy!more!youcanberichtoo! Hey! Hey. Who works the remote?

Scott

The Iraqis must have released about six million barrels of oil into the Gulf before they set the refineries on fire. The Persian Gulf covers 90,000 square miles. That’s about the size of New York State and Pennsylvania combined. The oil formed a slick 30 miles long and 8 miles wide. Ad Daffi Bay and Abu Ali Island were hit hardest. The entire shoreline around the bay was covered in oil and balls of tar. They say three to four million barrels of oil burned each day. For some perspective: the United States imports close to 6 million barrels of oil a day. The Exxon Valdez spill was “only” two hundred and thirty thousand barrels. Sixty-seven million tons of oil burned all told. A black, greasy acid rain fell on Saudi Arabia and Iran. There was black snow in Kashmir. About fifteen hundred plus miles away. We breathed oil smoke for 30-days. I never knew exactly where I was. The smoke obscured everything. The last day we were in Kuwait, the sky was so full of smoke I couldn't see the sun. The skies were always black. Our faces and noses were covered with this black resin. I spit up black chunks of grit. I would shower, clean it off, and the moment I set foot outside it’d be all over me again. Oil spewing out of wells streaming across the desert. Lakes of oil. Birds: Cormorants, grebes and auks died. About thirty thousand of them. Their feathers were coated with oil. There was so much oil the ground couldn’t absorb it all. It collected in little pools and still more birds became trapped and died in those. Have you ever seen something struggle for life? One day we watched this bird suffocate to death. Beautiful white bird. Tried to lift itself out of the muck. Heart beat like a son-of-a-bitch. Its body would shudder. It’d get tired and lay its head down. We bet on how long it would last. By the end of the day, it had this defeated look. I remember. I remember that moment. The look in its eyes that instant it gave up. I won. I won that bet don’t cha know. Yes, sir. Survival is the greatest thing in the world.

Spider

The meek shall inherit the earth. When this glorious planet is plundered, when the greed that ravages it daily has run its race; the meek will inherit the irredeemable, God-forsaken husk of Paradise. It amazes me that more people don’t believe that! Don’t believe it! In their bones, in their meat, in their heart! The fabric of society is shredded. Life is corrupted by pavement, pollution, and mind-numbing media-brainwash-face-play. Fix it or ignore it? Which do you choose? Those who would destroy the earth for profit can easily be defeated- if you're ready to embrace the struggle. Now the world is complicated. The world is complex. I’ll not deny it. Does anyone give a rat’s ass if a bomb goes off? Fifty calls come in. I did it I did it I did it No! I did it No! I did it No. I did it. I did it. I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it and I’m not sorry. I did it and I'm not sorry. We are all accountable. But all by virtue of our existence, we are accountable. There's a reckoning coming. There is going to be a reckoning.

Clay

Dogs won’t shit or piss where they sleep. That’s how you house-train them. Give them only enough room to sleep. Increase their space in increments. They get only as much space as they can be responsible for. That’s good policy. Except not all species have the same qualms about soiling their nests. This is where I plug in my statistics. We’ve lost 70% of our ground water. 70% of our topsoil. We have thirty years. Thirty years to turn this ship around. Can we do it? I have no doubt. Will we? Connect the dots, brothers and sisters. We’re dead.

5 Things To Consider

1. Best Picture Ever (or current thing most likely to make me smile - besides my kids).
2. On (not thinking about) Acting.
3. Re-Orientation.
4. Reverend Billy's New Year's Resolutions.
5. On Art and Philosophy.
   

4 Quotes

Here are four quotes from the January issue of Esquire. They (like many quotes on this blog) don't necessarily reflect my opinions, they merely speak in some way about my interests.

Penn Jillette: When someone comes up after a show and says, "I'll tell you honestly what I think about what you're doing," I go, "No, you already have. I wanted you to be one one thousandth of this audience tonight and that's exactly what you were." You don't get to stuff the ballot box because you're willing to come up to me afterward. I don't want any opinion about our show from anyone I'm not paying. If you're a friend of mine and I go to see your play, I'm not thinking of how you put it together. I'm thinking, Oh, my friend's onstage. If the play gets boring, maybe I'll hold hands with my wife, maybe I'll look at some girl's ass up ahead. And then you come back and say, "What about the middle section? Was it boring?" I wasn't bored. I had other stuff to do. "How can the middle section be fixed?" That's not my problem. I don't know what you're trying to do. But if you hire me, I will sit there and think about nothing except how you can do it better.

Alan Arkin: I don't know if acting was a calling for me. I feel like it came out of a lot of emotional needs - the same old actor bullshit: I need attention. I need love. Blah, blah, blah. And the truth is, being an actor doesn't help with that at all. The approval's not really the kind of approval you need, anyway. What someone like that needs is one-on-one, personal caring. The anonymity of show-business caring doesn't help. Like my manager tells me all the time: "They love you." Finally I said, " I don't want to hear that word anymore. They don't love me. Maybe they like my work a little bit. But they don't love me. They don't even know me. If they never saw me again, it wouldn't make any difference. If we were both drowning, they would shove me under to get on the raft."

Peter O'Toole: When we were drama students, we imitated John Gielgud, we imitated Richard Burton. we imitated Michael Redgrave, we imitated Larry Olivier. It's language. For my generation, drama, the theater, plays, they are human speech as an art form. To turn up for material that exists and say "No, I'm superior to that material" is a very strange attitude. I'd be very careful if I were you.

O'Toole cont'd: If you go to the West End theaters now, it's a graveyard. Lots of musicals, they're cheerful. But the plays? God almighty.

Meme Time

I have no choice. I must. Because he told me to. Curses.

So I must:

1. Find the nearest book
2. Open to page 123
3. Type lines 6 - 8 of said book
4. Tag three others.

From Thirty Years of Treason

America. A very strange statement from a man who earns upwards of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, who owns a great deal of Los
Angeles and Hollywood real estate. It is rather difficult to reconcile that. He

If you read this, then you are tagged. You must do it. It really is the only way. Reply in comments or on your own blog or email me if you have the goods.

Welcome 2007.