Work-In-Progress

So I've been thinking about changing over to wordpress for awhile now, but Blogger just bought itself more time by releasing some new customizations. Which I'm still playing around with. Don't mind the mess, it'll sort itself out. How's that for a tag line?

Celebrate World Theatre Day

via World Theatre Day.

What I Saw: Bests of 2009

Three Penny Opera - Shotgun Players, directed by Susannah Martin.

The production lays claim to a punk aesthetic that, for me, affirmed Vivienne Westwood's observation that you "couldn't do punk any more because people have got used to everything;" the irony, rebellion and nihilism of punk have been absorbed and mainstreamed into our culture and sold back to us (which considering all that's gone on in this country since 9/11, this covers an almost negligible portion of what we've gotten used to here). Early punk wasn't meant to age or sustain or endure and probably shouldn't be aesthetically codifiable. Lacking a direct connection to the cultural context that created it and the ways punk has morphed into the present day many-headed beast it is, the danger here is that punk becomes rooted in nostalgia, kind of like those PBS concerts where all the rock or folk groups from 60's and 70's who are either all still alive or still talking to each other gather for one blowout night and we see how everyone's aged and how the music itself is dated and has lost its vitality. If Three Penny Opera were truly punk it would be unwatchable with performances that for good or ill were unrepeatable every night. It would be anti-entertainment (a territory where Brecht never consciously ventures) and would actually be kind of interesting and risky, but probably not for everybody.

Look at it this way: there are many here among us for whom the life force is best represented by the livid twitching of one tortured nerve, or even a full-scale anxiety attack. I do not subscribe to this point of view 100%, but I understand it, have lived it. Thus the shriek, the caterwaul, the chainsaw gnarlgnashing, the yowl and the whizz that decapitates may be reheard by the adventurous or emotionally damaged as mellifluous bursts of unarguable affirmation. Lester Bangs, A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise

At punk's heart lies an idealism that's at odds with the realities of surviving and making a living and this is where the Shotgun production succeeds - showing the various ways TPO's characters respond and rationalize making those necessary compromises. But the best moments are when the show manages to catch punk's impulse by the tail. This happens most often and effectively in the music, under the direction of David Moschler, and in Jeff Wood's performance as MacHeath. At its essence Wood's performance embodies a certain "better to burn out" sensibility that contrasts with MacHeath's own desire to save his hide by trading on his army buddy relationship with Tiger Brown and reaches its ironic apex when the Queen's pardon that saves him from the gallows also confers on him the emasculation of acceptance by making him nobility.

One of the strengths of Susannah Martin's direction is its physical dimensionality. The stage never goes flat physically; actors always seem arranged in such a way that the 3-dimensional integrity of the stage is maintained and highlighted. Erika Shuch's choreography supports this tendency and exploits it to great effect in Pimp's Tango when she claims the floor as playing space with movement that approaches the erotic. Set design by Nina Ball and gestural work by the cast call to attention the ceiling, enlivening the entire space. It's always clear that I'm watching theater, that I'm sitting in a theater and that the entire space has theatrical potential.

This show went by whiz-bang fast driven by a energetic ensemble who embraced the material and directorial structure with menacing glee. Strong performances from El Beh, Daniel Duque-Estrada, Bekka Fink, Dave Garrett, Rebecca Pingree, Josh Pollock, Kelsey Venter, Christopher White, and Jeff Wood. When it was over I wanted to see it again.

Chicagoans: Performance Art/Flash Mob/Donuts = 1st Day of Spring Celebration

Going Nowhere Fast...Together from WBEZ on Vimeo.

Go here to participate.

Tell all your Chicago friends.

In Which Excuses Are Made

I have not forgotten you but I'm -

• studying for my food service exam. No really.
• heading up the costume committee for Willie Wonka at my son's school.
• working on my thesis.
• reading the Cairo trilogy.
  
• being undone by clutter. Went through like 2ft of mail yesterday. Hardly made a dent.
  
• shuttling the kids to dance class and play rehearsal and school.
  
• reading Taxi.
• and Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way.
  
• chasing after a 3 year old.
• finishing those Bests of 2009 blog posts.
• seeing some plays (got shushed in the theater last Sunday - before the show even started. Oh! OH! I have something to say about this!)
  
• celebrating birthdays.
• keeping my eye on the deer.
  
• trying to bathe regularly.
• anticipating Yuri's Night.
• Obsessing about elevators, David Bowman's next novel, and crack pie.
  
• Resting.

Who Am I This Time

I haven't seen this since it originally came out in 1982. It's adapted from a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and features Christopher Walken before he was, you know, Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon, well, hasn't she always been Susan Saradon? Walken plays Harry Nash, a painfully shy hardware store clerk who becomes completely transformed when he's acting in the local community theater productions. Jonathan Demme directs. John Cale composed the film score. Enjoy!













h/t Joshua James

Yet Another Reason to Go to Austin

The David Foster Wallace Archive has been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center.

How the HRC acquired DFW's archive. Kinda creepy how that works.

Inside cover of DFW's annotated copy of Williamson's Borges: A Life.

Dave's dictionary (one of them). Wow. We have exactly one here and Marshall has been carrying it around for the past few months, which gets a variety of reactions considering that he's three.

Goodbye Mark Linkous

5 Things: Barry Hannah

1. 

   Those that don't avert their eyes are the real artists. It is concentration, that's what Dostoevsky said. Concentration is what the artist is about: he can look, and look, and look, and look. He carries no brief. He will tell you everything he sees. This sensibility will overcome every tendency to capsulize or moralize or philosophize; it is why, despite the themes and philosophy announced inbehalf of an author by others, the actual art experience is much more whole. Flannery O'Connor can never be accounted for by her Catholicism. There is something rich and deep and strange in her that just doesn't get on a theorist's page-that just does not explain itself by outlines. It's a special feeling. I know some writers who really are just above making change, but they can tell a story. It has nothing to do with what will show up on an IQ test. They are just gifted in a certain way-even sometimes as an idiot savant. Writers maybe just stare, like a cow-just staring. Most people don't stare. A writer is unembarrassed to just keep looking. - Barry Hannah (RTWT)

2. Paris review interview.
   
3. Perspectives on Barry Hannah.
   
4. Writers Remember Barry Hannah.
   
5. Three Bean Soup.

Bonus:
Audio Interview with Don Swain (Wired for Books.)
Barry Hannah's Long Shadow.