NO, MEMPHIS, I DID NOT BUY A 70 INCH TV SET!!

It was a 7 inch tv set.

Okay, so I'm not proud of it, okay?

I mean, just having the dumb thing in the same room simply as background became mind numbing after awhile. I mean, how anybody could be glued to something so lacking in maturity or artistry, hour after hour after ...

I'm sure you get the point.

And it was cool to tell people "I don't own a television set."

But I miss being an observer of world events, no matter how slanted the viewpoint is presented.

I miss politics, the whole business of spin city.

And I miss seeing the very rare true talent in art or literature that is fleetingly portrayed in sound bite filler on dull news days.

And so, Memphis, if you want to come over and watch tv sometime, feel free to do so - even bring along your beer drinking world traveling buddy.

Kick off your shoes and enjoy.

(You'll find the set stored in my sock drawer, along with a few old Playboys and a pack or two of M&M's.


j

TO KILL A MOCKIINGBIRD

Ok, I was done directing plays ... at least for awhile. Was gonna write write write. And then I found out on of my favorite theatres is going to produce TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in March, 2013.

And they put out a call for directors.

And I applied. Why not? If I didn't get the job, I could always write (and claim I really didn't want it in the first place. The Japanese call this bushido, or "death before dishonor.")

If I DID get the job, I would be directing a play guaranteed to be completely sold out. (Based on records of other theatres around the country.)

I found out today I got the job.

Whoop de do-o-o-o ...

Looking Back (part 3)

The dictionary defines burlesque as “a parody, an imitation of a serious work of art or literature for comic effect.” Sitting in the darkened auditorium of the Empire Theatre, I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but I was about to find out, and it would change my life.

The first three Acts – to say the least – had been disappointing. During the last ten minutes Roger had left twice, first to go to the bathroom and then to buy popcorn. Bill kept pointing to his watch and whispering that 180 miles was a long way to drive home late at night when we both had to work in the morning …

For the past three years I had been working weekends as a clerk in the local A&P  Grocery store. For the past year and a half I had also been employed in a regional semi-professional theatre, acting my heart out on Friday and Saturday nights (with party afterwards) and then cutting up frozen chickens in the morning with a complexion as green and wilted as last week’s lettuce (me, not the chickens. With no heads, they had no complexions. On more than one occasion I would have gladly given them mine.) In other words, driving 180 miles didn’t bother me at all. I was accustomed to pain and suffering.

The next act on the program was a comedy sketch, about a man checking himself into a clinic because he was having trouble sleeping. Of course, instead of peace and quiet, he was confronted by the most outlandish collection of noisemaking characters I had ever seen in my life. At first I was mildly interested, and then fascinated. Here was a style of broad comedy I had never seen in my life. As young and inexperienced as I was, I sat there, literally transfixed, marveling at the perfect timing, the interweaving subtexts, and the mature subtlety contained in farce carried to extremes. While others in the audience laughed, I studied.

Later in life I would have the same admiration and respect bordering on awe for the finesse of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, the Marx Brothers, later Benny Hill, Monty Python, Ernie Kovacs, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Jim Henson, Dick Van Dyke, and the varying casts of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE – each different, each unique, yet all cut from the same comedy broadcloth.

At various times over the years I have tried to find the motivating factors behind decisions I have made – why do I write and direct plays, for example. Most of the time my explorations are in murky waters. I simply have no positive insights. My appreciation of comedy, however – what it is and what it should look like - is crystal clear. My love of absurd parody started the night three boys snuck in to a seedy theatre in Indiana to watch (for all the wrong reasons) a dying art form.

Post Script.

Thirty years later I reviewed a production of THIS WAS BURLESQUE that was playing for a short period of time in town. The show was glitzy, slick, professional, and as devoid of subtlety as was possibly for a show to get. I was bored, and so were the bulk of those in attendance. Except … in the middle of the house was a group of perhaps 30 men, all seated together, all at least 80 years old. They hooted and hollered and were so obviously having a good time that they cheered up everyone else.  I studied these men for a long time, and then it occurred to me they were seeing burlesque the way they remembered it.

And then, so was I.

         

Looking Back (part 2)

     I never intended for this to be a multi-part adventure. The premise was simple enough; when I was 16 two friends and I drove 180 miles to bluff our way into what I had been told was the last legitimate burlesque theatre in America. (And I still believe that to be true.) But in the process of cluttering paper with words for this post , so many unexpected thoughts and realizations competed for attention that I was forced to stop and “sound the depth of what I would profess” as Faust worded it.

     I’m not sure I have it all aright yet. However …

     So there we were, 12^th row of the Empire theatre, waiting for the curtain to come up – me, Roger, Bill … (green hair, red hair, sandy yellow hair. We must have looked like a living traffic light.) I had been looking forward to this very moment for over a month, discussing among ourselves even the most minute details every night on the way home from school. This was, of course, a secret far too large to keep, and soon we became the envy of every red-blooded male in the tenth grade. Life just didn’t get any better than that.

     The first act was a woman, 40ish, dressed like a drum majorette, twirling a baton and tap dancing. As one, we leaned forward in breathless anticipation, waiting for something to happen. At one point she threw the baton so far up that it careened off a stage light and shot like a guided missile into the orchestra pit. We supposed that was the end of the act, because she did a buck and wing off stage, and never came back.

     The next performer was a man in a very old-fashioned tux who sang “Ah Sweet Mystery Of Life,” while a half dozen or so overly made up women paraded around the stage in costumes reminiscent of French royalty. In unison, the three of us slumped back in our seats. Already we were mentally preparing the lies we would spread Monday morning on the way to school.

     The next act began with promise. A woman came on stage carrying two enormous feather fans – one in front and the other behind her. She danced and twirled, adroitly shuffling fans to cover what we had shelled out twenty bucks apiece to see.  When she finally fluttered off stage, I was reasonable sure I had seen a pudgy face, thick ankles, red shoes, and enough moldy feathers to outfit the entire Sioux Indian nation.

     This was getting more disappointing by the moment. Tragic. Sad. I had seen better action behind the bleachers following a football game on any given Friday night.

     And for free!

Yeah, there's more to come.

Looking Back (part 1)

I know. It doesn't look like much.

This picture was taken sometime before the first world war. When I first saw this building - my one and only visit - it was a handful or two of years after the Korean war, and the building was in the wane of life, and well aware of it.

This was the Empire Theatre in Indanapolis Indiana, and, to the best of my knowledge, the last legitimate burlesque theatre in America.

We arrived an hour early, parked two blocks away so no one would suspect three 16-year-old boys were trying to sneak a peak at tassles and feathers before they became dusty addendums in local folklore.

Roger had bright red hair, almost strawberry blonde, the color women a generation later would dye for. Bill had sandy brown har, and of the three of us, he was the only one who might have actually passed for 18. Since I was doing a play at the time, my hair had been dyed kelly green, and I had frantically given myself silver sideburns ... yeah, nobody was going to notice us, you bet.

We entered a lobby that was old 50 years earlier. The carpet was largely bare in places, the dry plaster decor chipping color, the ceiling dusky from years of cigar smoke no longer allowed.

The auditorium was cold. And large. Altogether there are perhaps 50 to 60 people scattered in a room that could comfortably seat 300.

The lights dimmed. The orchestra - piano and drums - started playing.

The curtain opened ...

The flowers that bloom in the Spring, tra-la ..

For the record:

Today is March 22, and the temperature is 84 degrees. (Are you kidding me?!) People are out mowing lawns, and flowers are budding everywhere. Trees suddenly have leaves.

I went to my favorite park and just walked around. I was not alone. At some distance I saw a couple hand in hand as they followed the winding trails. Children were playing games on the freshly manicured lawns.

I took pictures of everything that moved – or didn’t. I realized that today was special – a gift. For a fine hour I left writing behind. Today I was a part of something grand, one of many people coming out of the stupor winter creates.

I am still feeling mellow, relaxed. Life is good.

Best Laid Plans ...

      So okay, I admit it – At some things I’m a colossal failure.

      Believe me, I start out with every good intention. I do! I’m gonna decry theatre altogether – devote all my energies to writing – move to a mountain top, live on goat cheese and wild berries, grow a beard, commune daily with raw nature …

     So okay, I grew the beard. Big deal. I stopped shaving.

     So okay, here’s the problem; I am totally free and over the age of consent. (Decently into the age of descent, thank you very much for pointing that out.) BUT … in order to dissent, it becomes necessary to list those particulars from which it is desirable to abstain, and in so doing, create a rhetorical doppelganger of the very system being held up as undesirable …

     Huh? You getting any of this, Bunkie? The harder I try not to conform to one system, the more I seem to gravitate toward another.

     My head hurts.

     Here’s an example. I decided that any writer worth anything should live in a cave. I mean, that’s what serious writers do, don’t they? They live in caves. So I found a cave. It was wet. And cold. And dark. And the bathroom facilities left something to be desired. So I decided that instead of being a part of the angry generation, I could be quite content just being mildly unpleasant. (And beside, the peacock feathers are inspirational – everyone will tell you that.)

     I would show you the upstairs but the bed isn’t made and for the world I would hate for you to get the right impression.

     Now for the unvarnished failure part.

     I told you I was done with theatre, right? Done. Finished. Kaput. Gonna write. Theatre just gets in the way. Not gonna direct any more plays. Not not not.

     Yesterday I was offered the opportunity to direct the stage version of “To Kill A Mockingbird.”

     I said yes. And meant it.

      I have all the resolve of spilled buttermilk.     

The writers prompt

     At our last writers group meeting, we were asked to provide answers to a prompt. To be honest, I’ve never much cared for prompts – generally I find them restrictive. But this one was pretty good. So I present it to you – along with my responses – in the hope that it will invoke a similar posting from you.

     Question: Name ten things you have always wanted to do, and why you have not done them.

      1. I have always wanted to visit all 50 of the United States. I have ten to go. Along the same lines, I’ve always wanted to visit Prince Edward Island. It’s only a few clicks north of a state on my “to do” list, so why not?

     2. I have always wanted to ride an elephant. I had a chance some years ago, but my (then) wife thought it would be undignified. She is now history. Anybody know where I can find a really big saddle? (And of course … an elephant?)

     3. I have always wanted to fly a plane. Seriously. I took lessons until a physical exam revealed that I was cataleptic (translate: had fainting spells). At the time “they” decided that fainting was not a positive image thing for pilots. But that was years ago. Time, I think, to give it another shot. What’s the worst that can happen?

     4. I want to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature. I have accumulated a plethora of dust collectors over the years. It would be nice to win something that actually amounts to something. (The secret here is to write something that fits that criteria.)

     5. I want to visit Volgograd in Russia. The Russians I have known (not a true sampling, to be sure) have been both charming and melancholy in nature. As a student of history, the battle of Volgograd was the turning point of World War II. I would like the opportunity to study both, firsthand.

     6. I want to go into space – to travel from here to breakfast in a weightless condition – to suck globules of Tang as they drift by my snack plate, and watch the earth rise behind the moon.

     7. I want to spend more time with children. Their perception of life is refreshingly less jaded than my own. Along with that, I want to spend more time with the people I love and who love me right back. Along with that, I want to meet new people. I need fresh material.

     8. I want to ride in a rodeo parade again – to be a part of a mounted caravan, to smell polished leather and see the glint of silver roundels on traces. Later I want to take my favorite horse and wander deep into the desert in late Spring – one more time.

     9. I want to be an ex-president of the United States. Ex-presidents appear to garner respect simply by having survived being president. (My only desire to be a president would be because - as I understand it - the kitchen is open 24 hours a day, and I could have a hot fudge sundae at 3:30 in the morning if I wanted to, and that probably isn’t a good enough reason to want to be the president.)

     10. I want to love more, to cry more, to laugh more, to taste, touch, see and smell more, to become far more intimate with God and His imaginative creations.

j.

    

Today I Got My First Hate Mail

      For those who came in late, I was hired to direct AIDA for one theatre later this summer and ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA for another theatre organization in the fall. Since I had a long break between the last show and the next one (always a dangerous time for me), one dark and stormy night I got an epiphany. It went something like this;

      (1)  Directing plays is not the grand fun it used to be. Directing plays is becoming 

more like work with only occasional satisfactions, usually if or when an actor “gets it.”

     (2)  Directing plays is becoming more a form of escape. For a few hours each night I get to yell at actors. And, while there is a marked degree of satisfaction in doing this, these are actors after all, and not real people.

     (3)  Directing plays has become an excuse for not writing. I wish I could make some cute or caustic comment to blunt the truth of this statement, but I can’t. It is what it is.

     (4)  I should avoid any epiphany I get on a dark and stormy night. I just know it’s never gonna be fun.

     So. In December I contacted both theatre groups, informing them that I would not be available to direct for them this season after all, citing with deep regret that, because of personal problems, I could not give these two shows the attention they deserved.    

      Everything I had said was true and certainly heartfelt. These two plays had become very dear to me, and I was saddened with the knowledge that the visions I had created in my mind would never see the light of day. Still, after almost literally casting off this mantle, I felt a great sense of relief. I could actually go about my day and NOT think of blocking, abstract set designs, and spectacular lighting effects. My emails dropped instantly from 60 a day down to a quite delightful 4. (I was being shunned.)

      And now, my friend, we are up to date – or at least up to this morning.

     “I spent a year preparing for this play,” the email began, “a YEAR! I set everything aside, my whole life, just to play this role.”

     At this rather dramatic point in the narrative, I must point out that I only vaguely know the person who sent me the email. And, although I am not at all opposed to pre-casting, I really prefer it to be known before auditions, and determined by me, rather than by the person who is auditioning, or is thinking of auditioning, or is planning to secure the role in question by other and hopefully aesthetically pleasing means.

     I will spare you the more terse (and colorful) portions of the missive in question. In essence I was informed that she considered my unexpected withdrawal as an attack on her personally, that as a result I may have permanently damaged the relationship between her and her family (no kidding, she said that.), that I most certainly must be evil incarnate, and – if she has anything to say about it – I would no longer be welcome in any theatre anywhere in the known world.    

      And I must tell you, friend, I was singularly impressed. Although she was juvenile in the extreme, it didn’t negate the fact that she was thorough. She didn’t actually invoke the wrath of God, but she certainly pointed out that He had screwed up the day I was born.

     As for me, I consider this as just another milestone in my life, and points to the fact that I made the correct decision in stepping aside for awhile. I have not a doubt in the world that should I direct a play at some point in the future in which she is interested, all of the present rancor will simply be a fading and unimportant memory …

     … to her.

     j   

It's Done!

 

               I am no longer a theatre director.   

     Honestly, I look at those words and still get a chill. Directing plays for a number of theatres in middle America has not only been my main source of income for years, but has also provided warm enjoyment in the form of both identity and tact authority. In only two weeks my emails have dropped from sixty a day to four.      

     Pretty drastic, that. I feel like I have purposely thrown myself off the edge of the earth. And perhaps I have.

     But I had to do it. I consider myself a writer, but the last play of mine to be produced was two years ago. And it was one I had written twenty years before …  

     “Are you going to go see it,” my agent asked.

     “I’ve seen it a gazillion times,” I replied.

     “There’s an extra couple of hundred in it for us if you attend on opening night.” Note the word US.

     “Okay, I’ll think about it,” I replied. In the back of my mind I hear, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends …”

     “Is it a long drive,” I ask.

     “It’s in Glasgow, Scotland.”

     “That’s a long drive,” I concede. I live in Ohio. I can’t even SEE Scotland from here.

     So. I am out of the directing business and back into writing. I have a play in progress that I think will be the best thing I have written. It has been sitting twenty pages from completion for over a year now.

j

     And I have taken a perverse enjoyment in watching the piranha-like fight over the two plays from which I have walked away. I will miss you, my friends – miss you dearly. My consolation will be that I will be no longer directing what I should be writing.

    

For the people I care about, far and near.

Transitions

     I am being called again ...

     I look over the past few years and realize with a growing clarity that I have missed my mark. I don't know how it happened. My goals certainly were clear enough, and for a period of time I was meeting them on a regular basis.

     Perhaps that was the problem. I never had a real struggle - doors always opened for me, and I had a lust for achievement that sent me down a number of most interesting paths.

     And I still lean heavily toward those activities in my life that have always been enjoyable, notably, directing stage plays. I joke - and it's true - that the best therapy in the world is to yell at people and constantly tell them where to go ... and they thank me for it. Apparently I have skill to some degree. I have one room filled with awards, certificates, engraved commendations, and on and on and on. Nice, but constantly in need of dusting.

     Would you like to know my secret? I'll tell you my secret - actually three secrets.  And I will give them to you - no charge.

     When you cast a show, bring in the very best people you can find, and then have the good sense to stay out of their way while they do what they are supposed to be good at.

     In herding actors around the stage, make pretty pictures with people.

     Never ever ever ever bore your audience. Pace a play fast, so that the people watching your production will still have time for a drink or two after the show.

     That's it. All my secrets. Now go out there and direct something!

     ... because I won't. Maybe I'm finally growing up. I went to see a show the other night that had several talented friends in it. I couldn't wait for it to end so I could leave and ... and ...

     Ah, the mark I missed. I am directing plays I should be writing. I have a number of works in progress, inching painfully forward. It occurs to me that since I bill myself as a writer, perhaps I should actually take some time and write something.

     And there is a chance that I will.

     j
     

ANNIE, OVER AND OUT.

Okay, so ANNIE opened this weekend. In the span of less than a week it went from being still dismally God awful to marginally acceptable. Like an elephant in a tutu it lumbered around the stage for two hours pretending to be Tinker Bell. The dozens of stage mothers were entranced. Their small unwashed spastic and tone deaf  children had been magically transformed into small unwashed spastic and tone deaf stars of the stage. With the exception of a few seats available on opening night, the entire run is sold out! The theatre is making a $1,500 profit per performance.

It's not fair. It's just not fair.

Rotten orphans.

I'd love to give you more details, but I've been nursing a cold now for a week, lovingly given to me by a chemical weapon in pigtails.

j

ANNIE

I'm acting as an unofficial coach (for want of a better word) on a production of ANNIE. I figure that if I have to suffer thru this, you should too.