You Should Know Better

Dear Lisa Ling,

Saw your red carpet interview with Kate Winslet last night before the Oscars. Why is it appropriate to ask an actress about her nude scene? I mean that became the focus of the whole interview. You were gushing about it, babe. Kate was gracious and answered your ridiculous question, but how insulting. How objectifying.

Next year, how about this. Interview a male actor about his nude scene. It should go something like this - "so, Brad - what was it like doing that steamy nude scene? Was it hard? Were you, I mean, excuse me, but how could you not have an erection when you were humping so and so? By the way, brilliant performance. Brilliant."

Another Opening/Another Show

Chloe Veltman makes a case for doing away with opening nights. Interesting idea - especially for smaller/nomadic theater companies. Opening night is typically not a true gauge of the show simply because there's a push to paper the crowd, so there's a friendly audience when the critics come. But in my experience this has backfired a few times, a few dismal, half-page in what was then the San Francisco Examiner times.

One of the best reviews I've gotten came when a critic showed up to a show (late in our run) that had an audience of less than twenty (and who knew why those people came?) Incidentally, that review packed the house the following weekend.

While we're on it. There's also a push by venues to make opening nights into some sort of carnival. Like it isn't enough to do a good show, you've got to have a DJ or some other such frou-frou to amuse the crowd post-show as they nibble on goodies and drink wine that your struggling company can't afford to buy.

It's good to mark the event for the cast. But as someone who's questioning how and why she produces theater, this is good food for thought.

Big List of Theater: Fantasy Edition

My blood pressure is down now. I owe it to Gonzo body wisdom and a couple of midwife tricks like drinking lemon juice and cream of tartar (not pleasant) and walking in the swimming pool. Water is key. I'd been having problems keeping up with hydration (at one point I couldn't even drink the stuff without getting sick) and things finally caught up with me. Anyway, the arrival of #3 is imminent. Any day, any moment, any time really. I wonder will I continue to call him #3?

There's lot's of theatre, etc to see, but I'm not seeing it. What follows is a list of things I'd check out if I could and a couple of shows I wish I'd seen. Since I'm not going to be able to see most of it, I'm not confining myself by geography.

The Grey Automobile
Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes
Directed by Claudio Valdés Kuri
Mondavi Center/UC Davis Main Theatre
Davis, CA
February 3, 8 pm

A reinterpretation of Enrique Rosa's 1919 film El Automóvil Gris that mixes documentary footage, benshi (live narration in Spanish, English, and Japanese), and piano accompaniment. Check out a video here.

February 8 - 11 @ 8pm
Theatre of Yugen
San Francisco, CA
Conception/Performace - Shinichi Iova-Koga
Music - Sheila Antonia Bosco
Poetic Action Sources - Cassie Terman
Lighting - Allen Wilner

Shinichi Iova-Koga is one of the most amazing performers in the Bay Area. If you've never seen him, get yourself to the theater and check out this show. Interviews with Iova-Koga here and here.

Odd By Nature II: The Stranger Journeys
Written by Sean Owens
February 8 - 24 @ 8pm
Thursday, Friday, & Saturday
Exit Theatre
San Francisco, CA
More info here (scroll down a bit).

Odd By Nature I was by far one of the funniest shows I saw last year, so I'm sorry I'm going to miss out on this (plus it features a couple of the funniest people I know).



The Rape of the Sabine Women
Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation
IFC Center
NY, NY

Free public screenings through Tuesday, Feb 27 @ 2, 6, & 9:45 pm. More info here.

Plus a 90-minute preview is still on view at the Nasher Museum at Duke University. More info here and here. Watch here (under Video/Slideshows).

Long Day's Journey Into Night
San Jose Repertory Theatre
January 27 - February 25

Because I've only seen the movie with Kathrine Hepburn. I have, however, visited Tao House, O'neill's home in Danville, CA. I stood in the office where he wrote the play. It's like a ship's cabin and is probably best experienced at night when the lights would warm the wood and the small space would feel embracing against the isolation of the darkness. Where else could he have written Long Day’s Journey Into Night? It is perfect place for grappling with demons.

American Suicide
Written & Directed by Mark Jackson (freely adapted from The Suicide by Nikolai Erdman)
February 8- March 11, 2007
The Thick House
San Francisco, CA
More info here.

Hedda Gabler
American Conservatory Theater
February 9 - March 11
San Francisco, CA

Because I've never seen it onstage. Have to admit, I'm pretty tepid about ACT. The best thing I've seen there was Buried Child, which, ironically, was directed by Les Waters. See. That's why I give him the benefit of the doubt. More info here.

Emperor Norton: The Musical
The Shelton Theater
By Kim Ohanneson & Marty Axelrod
Directed by David Stein
Fridays - Sunday
Now through April 1 More info here.

And, yes, this show features yet another of the funniest people I know (and my mint julep buddy).

To The Lighthouse
Adapted by Adele Edling Shank
Original Score by Paul Dresher
Directed by Les Waters
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
February 25 - March 27

Can you believe it? I want to give Berkeley Rep and Les Waters another chance? I'm a big Virginia Woolf fan and am curious about this show. Curious enough to bite it and pay out the big bucks, yep.

Hotel Cassiopeia
Directed by Anne Bogart
Written by Charles Mee
SITI Company

April 28
Arizona State University
Galvin Playhouse
Tempe, AZ
More info here.

I have family who live nearby in Mesa, so this isn't such a stretch for me (although I may not be ready to travel with #3 by that point). A gal can dream 'coz it's always nice to see my Siti pals.

Woyzeck
by Georg Büchner (new translation by Rob Melrose)
The Cutting Ball
Directed by Adriana Baer
Exit Theatre
March 9 – April 7
More info here (scroll down a bit).

When She Was Bad...

Here's a ten-minute play contest that I think I can get behind. Stage Left in Chicago is sponsoring the DrekFest - a search for the worst ten-minute play. It's meant as an exercise in fun and to poke fun at the play development process. Details here.

Recommended Viewing

The Rape of the Sabine Women
Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation




Premieres tonight at the IFC Center, 323 6th Avenue @ West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village. Free public screenings begin tomorrow and run through next Tuesday, Feb 27 @ 2, 6, & 9:45 pm. More info here, here, and here.

Thanks to JW for the nudge.

Intensive Care: Theater During Wartime

Here's an interesting article about a theater production that is currently playing in Baghdad.

And here's to commitment to their rehearsal process:

The cast held most of the rehearsals for "Intensive Care Unit" in the blackened shell of another theater that was looted and burned in the days after Saddam's fall, said actor Haidar Joma'a. "It was the only place where we could meet."

Rehearsals stopped for about five months early last year when the bombing of a Shiite shrine set off sectarian reprisal killings. Several members of the original cast fled Iraq, and others stopped showing up for rehearsals.

"But we finally became serious about rehearsals," said Joma'a, who plays a young man scorned by the woman he loves. "We realized that death lurks in the street just as it does at home, that death is really everywhere."

Go make theater, people.

Google Books

Google is in the process of digitizing entire libraries of books. Read about it here. It basically works like this - type in a phrase - the example the New Yorker article gives is Captain Ahab. Your search gives you back a series of options to check out. I typed in Ariane Mnouchkine and am currently reading an interview (truncated) conducted by Josette Feral that appears in the book Re:direction - A theoretical and Practical Guide (which is on my Amazon wish list if you're looking for that perfect birthday gift for me). Run your own search by going here.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Help me to work! To really do the things I have in mind. To write-write-write. A novel for next year? A play? A serious book? Help me to see the way and follow it. Whatever else may come or go this is my clear straight path...to work. What needs now is to place things. Keep my mind clear and my heart strong! Pour in-pour in-give me more and more of the great stream of life. Let me feel it and give it out in all the ways I know. This means health and power and all good.

Popular Theater

It is time to defy Broadway and the universities. It is time to attack consumerism, chauvinism, and egoism, to expose irrelevance and faddish theatre gimmicks. It is time to leave the lights and the high tech and the bloated budgets for sets. It is time to abandon the cultural practices - the Guthries, the ACT's, the Juillards, the cozy university/professional comforts, to abandon the provinciality of New York's avant garde. - Douglas Paterson, We are Strong: A Guide to Popular Theare Across the Americas. 1983.

Strangely Yellow, Part 2

I keep hearing you're concerned about my happiness.
All that thought you're giving me is conscience, I guess.
If I were walking in your shoes, I wouldn't worry none.
While you and your friends are worrying 'bout me, I'm having lots of fun.

Counting flowers on the wall,
That don't bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,
With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now, don't tell me I've nothing to do.

Last night I dressed in tails, pretended I was on the town.
As long as I can dream, it's hard to slow this swinger down.
So please don't give a thought to me, I'm really doing fine.
You can always find me here, having quite a time.

Counting flowers on the wall,
That don't bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,
With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now, don't tell me I've nothing to do.

Well, it's good to see you, I must go, I know I look a fright.
Anyway my eyes are not accustomed to this light.
And my shoes are not accustomed to this hard concrete.
So I must go back to my room and make my day complete.

Counting flowers on the wall,
That don't bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,
With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.

Now, counting flowers on the wall,
That don't bother me at all.
Playing Solitaire till dawn,
With a deck of fifty-one.
Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
Now, don't tell me I've nothing to do.

Don't tell me I've nothing to do.

(in case Meredith Viera is reading this, I'm not really smoking. )