The Lives of Others

Saw the incredible film, DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN last night with Kersti and Jeremy. Not only were parts of it shot in Kreuzberg, I think, on streets I recognize - not only did a prominent director kill himself early on in the film for not being able to do his work any more, blacklisted by the Stasi - not only did it make me, again, love German arts and artists -

it left all three of us feeling shallow and hopeless for the meaninglessness of our own American artmaking. I almost resolved to abandon my own writing projects.

Actor: I put on costumes and say lines all day…

In the morning, I am less compelled to abandon the projects, but more to learn their political meaning - and to write with the urgency and passion of one who could be killed for doing it, and the gratitude of one who doesn’t have to fear art.

Note’s 08 Season

Successfully moved to my couch-surfing location where I’ll be until 8/13. And very pleasantly surprised to find that I spoke too soon about EYE MOUTH GRAFFITI BODYSHOP not being in the 08 season - it is, and as an off-night with Stadium Devildare! I think this is fantastic… Here’s the 08 season at the best little theater company in Los Angeles, the most avant of the avant garde, Theatre of (who loves you, baby?) NOTE:

2008 Season (2/14 - 3/22)
MAINSTAGE: Stadium Devildare
Producers: Stewart Skelton, Steven Biggs & Rich Werner

OFF-NIGHT - Eyemouth Graffitti Bodyshop (2/26 - 3/26) Multiple characters
Producer: Justin Alston

MAINSTAGE:
He Asked for It by Erik Patterson (4/25 - 6/1) 5Males, 1Female
Producer: David Bickford

LATE NIGHT: Indecent Acts (5/2-5/31)
To include:
Luna by Jason Grote (3 actors)
Room 17C by Roslyn Drexler (2 male, 1 female)
Glancing at the War by Coleman Hough (2F, 1M)
True Love Waits by Boo Killebrew (3F, 1M)

MAINSTAGE: They’re Just Like Us by Boo Killebrew (6/27 - 8/-3) 4F, 5M

OFF NIGHT: This Contract Limits our Liabilities by Joshua Fardon (7/2 - 7-31) 3F, 2M
(off-nite) Producers: Kiff Scholl & Kelsey Wedeem

MAINSTAGE Mantis and Death Collections by Jaqueline Wright (8/29 - 10/5) 4 - 10 Actors
Supporting producers: Jaqueline Wright and Joe Foster

LATE NIGHT: 5 Minute Plays to be composed of submissions by NOTE writers - 1 hr. show (9/5 - 10/4)

Holy Mother of Hadley New York by Barbara Wiechmann (11/7 - 12/14)
Producers: Esther Williams, Lisa Clifton and Julia Prud’homme

JANUARY 2009
FILM by Pat McGowan (multiple roles)

Color me excited.

From the You’re-Not-Going-To-Be-Young-Forever department…

I subscribe to the Sonnet-A-Day email newsletter, but this one continues to be my favorite, because Ted assigned it to me to memorize. God, it was hard to understand at the time. I remember that trying to hold all the twists and turns of its power in my brain made my head explode. It was so hard not to let it all tumble out at “my lovely boy”…I have to remember that the next time I’m glibly giving someone the note to “not play the end at the beginning”

126

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his fickle hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st.
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.

Reminds me, every time, of Ronsard:

Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle,
Assise aupres du feu, devidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous esmerveillant :
Ronsard me celebroit du temps que j’estois belle.

Lors, vous n’aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle,
Desja sous le labeur à demy sommeillant,
Qui au bruit de mon nom ne s’aille resveillant,
Benissant vostre nom de louange immortelle.

Je seray sous la terre et fantaume sans os :
Par les ombres myrteux je prendray mon repos :
Vous serez au fouyer une vieille accroupie,

Regrettant mon amour et vostre fier desdain.
Vivez, si m’en croyez, n’attendez à demain :
Cueillez dés aujourd’huy les roses de la vie.

(Take that, beautiful people who won’t sleep with writers immediately! How dare you!)

The funny thing is, of course, that I think Shakespeare and Ronsard wrote better poems from the heat of the constant rejection than they would have if they’d been accepted.

Wishlist 2007

Straw poll from NOTE is in and neither of the two plays I was most passionate about, CURRENT and EYE MOUTH, are in the lineup. Time to plan to do them elsewhere. I thought it’d be fun to start a list of the projects I really want to direct:

FLATLAND (and adapt)
EYE MOUTH GRAFFITI BODYSHOP by Ron Allen
CURRENT by Aaron Henne
UNTITLED W.H. AUDEN BALLAD PROJECT
“Victor was a little boy,
Into this world he came,
His father took him on his knee and said,
Don’t dishonor the family name…”
THE MISANTHROPE (re-translate)
THE WIZARD OF OZ (choral)
OEDIPUS (choral)
All the Greeks, but starting with this one.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
SOMETHING CLOUDY, SOMETHING CLEAR (All I do is rip off Ted)
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (And Jean-Marie Apostolides’ production of this was so amazing - I just love the play so much I’d be ready to go on that journey again…)
L’ILLUSION COMIQUE
THE PHILANDERER
THE REAL THING (for old times’ sake…Elizabeth, Fran, & Gary…)
SUNDIATA PROJECT
BEOWULF (so long in the making, and pre-empted by Taymor, but hell…)
GILGAMESH (Dan and Cindy kind of have a jump on this one)
HAMLET
THE COUNTRY WIFE (very high on the list)
THE SEAGULL (Am I finally growing up into Chekhov?)

I think this is going to have to migrate into a wishlist page.

I don’t know why I’m so damn excited about a choral Oz all of a sudden, except that I always think of that “Follow the yellow brick road…” stychomythia as the perfect example of erfroren - gestaffelt - zusammen development (and I think that means frozen - staggered - together, but obviously, my German’s not what it was and it was never much!)

Follow the yellow brick road…A choral Oz with a cast of like fifty. Obviously in the reality of unemployment, my dreams are as big as they can get.

My Suitcase Weighs Me Down With Memories

Zack and Pam are gone. It was so much fun having them here. I’m letting the sun go down on me as I pack and playing songs that make me sad. Like”When The Night Comes” by Joe Cocker. I remember lying under a blanket senior year and floating away into a sea of self-pity on this music.

To think that he was taken for
A wise man in the Civil War,
A stalwart servant of the King -
Does that all count for anything
Now his brain has all gone poof -
It’s just Tartuffe, Tartuffe, Tartuffe.

My OSF housing is done with Tartuffe being open, but I have two more weeks here before I make my way to SF, and then north. Boy, it’d be cool if I could come back and see how Tony, etc. have grown into it later on in the run… Seattle, help me out here.

Aspirin Doesn’t Work

I woke up early this morning and revised my resume for SHARES meetings with folks from Utah Shakes and San Jose Rep. It was very interesting. I remember finagling my way into a meeting with folks from SJ Rep when I was 22 and not having a clue what to say to them. I think this one went fairly well - there may actually be some synergies between SJ’s education program and this whole improvised choral theater business…I have to make up some real materials on it.

And Utah! Their AD program is only a few years old, and there’s apparently some room for flexibility. They haven’t chosen 08 ADs yet. Fingers crossed.

It’s been a couple days of information-getting: Mara B and David C gave me some rundowns on Chicago and Canadian theater, respectively, which I’ll post here soon.

You’re going to be Tartuffified

Our last rehearsal was short and sweet - about half an hour of notes and a couple quick fixes in the ever-rehearsed Dorine-Orgon-Mariane scene.

Director: Just hold for the laugh, darling.

Actor: When I run out of lines, I’m just going to stop talking.
Actor: That’s what we all try to do here.

I saw AS YOU afterwards and really enjoyed it. It’s such a beautiful play. And I have to say that I thought the setting in the American Depression and the vague shadow of twenties-era mobs was lovely. Charles the Wrestler was so slimy.

If anything, I think the forest of Arden should have perhaps had some kind of public works project going on in it - or more of an equal air of dirt and dust and industry and inter-war. That damn forest kills me every time, just like in Kirsten’s production at Noise Within - it’s so hard to stage. Larissa’s set designer had an interesting take, I remember. My favorite “forest drop” of the year is definitely Rachel Hauck’s in the closed Cherry Orchard.

Then Tartuffe opened last night. I had Jeremy (R&J SM) and his wife Kay, who sings in R&J, sitting to my left, and Zack and Pam to my right. Mallory (director of marketing) and her family were in front of me. I could see Bill and Peter if I peered up and to the right. The Bowmer is such a schmooze-house - you can look up in the mirrors and glance all around the angled seats and see everybody.

A successful opening, though not as ebullient as the second preview - that audience had helium tubes in their armrests or something. Richard Howard had some fantastic new takes out front that I’d never seen before - he was cracking me, Jeremy, and Kay up.

Afterwards, we had a champagne toast backstage, with Libby passing the baton, and then all went to Martino’s. Zack, as usual, put his finger right on the problem with the script - why does Orgon take Tartuffe in so easily and so completely?

Drinks with Peter, Frank, Tony and his wife Robin, Zack and Pam. Frank and Zack got into a discussion about cities and Borges and labyrinths. It was really cool, if by “cool” you mean “deeply surreal.” My brother is talking to Frank Galati about architecture and the human heart and Murakami. My two worlds are one.

Spent today packing and sleeping off a hangover.

Family Has Landed

Zack and Pam are in town, after an adventure getting lost on the way to the Oregon Caves. They ended up on a series of roads maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (read dirt, not paved) but made it to Ashland safely.

They’re seeing Romeo & Juliet, the opening night of Tartuffe, and On The Razzle over the next three days. We did Martino’s and Zoey’s last night, so they’ve had the essential food. It’s really, really good to have them here.

Photo review this morning, and then second preview this afternoon. Kimberley sent me an email saying, “You’re almost finished rehearsing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival!” I can’t believe it’s been four months.

Director: Does anyone else have any notes for me?
SM: Is now when we can discuss changing the name of the show to Tartuffie?

It’s Never Too Late…

to get out of rehearsal two hours early.

The last director I was working with never would have ended a rehearsal so early, especially not the one before second preview. Which may have been good, and may have been bad.

Our preview last night relaxed the entire group, if only because Moliere saved us. His unornamented speeches, unadorned by any production conceits, were what got the biggest reactions. Dorine talking about horny angry old women, Tartuffe’s pious lust and Jansenist seduction…”Hardly anything’s taboo…” were most successful.

So I guess I can’t blame us for ending early. With a play like this…
“With us, Madame, you can’t go wrong.”
you’re almost guaranteed success.

Notes session was much less acrimonious. Sense of relief.
Because a) the preview was good,
and b) we typed out the notes so people could glance at them as we went through them - so no one was surprised verbally and felt defensive.

This director gives everyone everybody’s notes. Interesting.

Actor: I fucked up my monologue.
Director: To your credit, we’ve never worked it in the hall - I think it’s time.

We are so underrehearsed from a text point of view.

Director: I don’t know if it makes a lot of sense from the inside, but from the outside it looks just fine.

Le scandale du monde est ce qui fait l’offense.
It’s scandal that creates the sin.
If there’s no scandal, there’s no sin.
If there’s no sandal, there’s no skin…

We end early, having again polished Tartuffe-Elmire to perfection, given short shrift to Valere-Mariane, and for my money there are still huge pace problems in the first act.

But the director is a more relaxed artist than I am, and I think he may have something to teach me. The actors were so happy to get out early. I wonder if I don’t trust plays enough. He certainly has a great degree of trust in this one.

The stage manager told me that pace problems would iron out over the first two weeks of the run. It’s so strange working here, when you feel like throwing away the first 2 weeks. Anywhere else, that’s half your run, if you’re lucky.

From the Rehearsal-Before-First-Preview-Dept.

Director: The fourth wall is a very tender membrane, and if you punch through it too abruptly, it’s not going to feel good from the other side.

Lazzi #784: Pulling on someone’s cape string makes them burp. Doesn’t make it into the production, but it has a remarkable tenacity in my head. This and the banana.

Dramaturg: This is the big entrance.
Actor: Just from an actor’s point of view, it doesn’t help to know that this is the big entrance. All I can do is walk on stage. That’s all I signed up to do.

Discussion about if Tartuffe sees Dorine at his entrance, and if so, how he reacts. Moliere has “apercevant Dorine.” We’re trying to get a window into his pre-seeing-Dorine psyche.

Lots of talk about what Moliere would have done.

A: We’re getting Stanley dressed.
B: You’re giving Stanley a rest?
A: We’re getting Stanley dressed.
C: Stanley’s under arrest?

It’s never too late (although this is rather eleventh-hour) to discover word choices, weights, motivations…

Who will believe thee, Isabelle?