For My Friends Who Have Been Following ...

Our production of RICHARD III opened Friday to a literally packed house (and stage. We ended up placing folding chairs around the fringes of the acting areas. That was interesting ...) On Saturday night not only were all these seats filled, but we sold a fistfull of "standing room only" tickets. So many people filled the theatre that we had to turn on the air conditioning ... in the middle of November.

The other production of RICHARD (being offered by another company in direct competition to ours) was panned by every media critic, and we are now listed under "Best Bets In Entertainment" in the city guide.

Never - NEVER - in the wildest stretches of my imagination would I have envisioned this reaction. I have now been interviewed three times, by serious people, seeking inspired enlightenment.

(And - let me tell you - it's difficult to appear guru-like when you are laughing so hard that it hurts.)


jb

A Ton And A Half Of Ham

RICHARD III opens tomorrow night to the general public, tonight to a select audience.

We've been working on this play since April - planning, building, casting, rehearsing - I don't think the invasion of Normandy had greater preparation.

And it promises to be a pretty good show. Seasoned adult performers and precocious juveniles explore complex characterizations. The drama is intense.

I'm starting to develop a grudging respect for the playwright. Although his work is a tad or two wordy, I think he definitely has potential.

And after combat with managers and producers, the play is being produced the way I envisioned it. Hopefully that will be a good thing. We will know very soon.

In a day or two the reviews will be in.


I'm already in pre-prep for the play I'm directing in the Spring.


jb

Weary ...

It gets that way sometime.

It's again late at night ...

Huh. Not really. It's twenty after eleven. Seems later. Much.

The play opens in six days and suddenly the theatre and others want to make changes. The producer, a woman with dubious talent and the uncanny ability to spout inane pedantic and totally cloying advice, sweetly suggests I count to ten, and then everything will be just fine.

I want to count to one and then kill her. It's the humane thing to do - I want to put her out of my misery.

But I won't. Instead I'll watch my vision pecked by people who do so in order to advance their own agendas ,,, It's happened before, and eventually I dropped away for ... years ... because I wanted something pure and was optimistic enough to think that next time I would get it.

But next time was no different from the last time, or the time before that, or the hundreds of times before that ...

So I will count to ten and tell myself that everything will be just fine because what I really really really really want is to be really really really mediocre.

Are there enough pills or drinks or drugs in the world to allow me to believe that? Dear God, why did you plant in me the desire to create - to reflect something of You - and then surround me with morons?!

Or maybe I'll just drop away again.

For good.

RICHARD III

The Play's The Thing

Last night I didn’t come home wondering why I had ever agreed to direct a production of RICHARD III.

For most of my adult life I’ve been drawn to this play – first as an actor and later as a director. It’s far more fun playing a bad guy than a good one. There are an almost infinite number of ways to express satisfaction bordering on breathing heavy while following even the most simple of inclinations (like taking a sledge hammer to the screaming car radio next to you at the traffic light, or shoving a cell phone somewhere after listening to half of an inane conversation in the elevator.) In any case, when RICHARD says “Off with his head,” (and he says it often), there’s an empathy there. Admit it.

So I wanted to play RICHARD. I even had half a dozen or so words memorized. “Now is the winter of our discontent …” That was good, and made me sound so so cultured. And then there was “since I cannot prove a lover, I’m gonna be the best villain you ever saw in your life…” (or words to that effect.) Honesty here. I respected that.

But when the opportunity came along, I shied away from auditioning for the role. After all, this was Shakespeare. (See? Even his name pops up in italics.) I mean, this was like playing God, and only Morgan Freeman and George Burns played God, and look what happened to them!

Eventually I fell into directing and playwriting. (No fool here. As an actor I played a role. As I director/writer I played ALL the roles.) That’s what I told myself. The truth was, I was never comfortable memorizing lines at the best of times. And. getting older, I found I wasn’t healing as fast as when I was younger, and actors will gladly throw themselves in front of the Avenue C Bus if someone asks them to.)

So I directed stuff – lots and lots (and lots) of stuff. I was most successful in directing comedies and musicals, but I also directed dramas that were considered respectable. Please understand that none of this was ego driven as ego is normally regarded. I like dealing with concepts. When I see that an idea will work, that’s enough, I’m happy. Everything that follows is simply a necessary part of the job. (Frankly, even confiding my thoughts and motivations to you feels uncomfortably close to bragging.)

So I never directed a Shakespeare play – until some fool theatre asked me to. Actually the conversation was more along the lines of …

    Me: Richard the Third? You’re doing Richard the Third?! I’ve always wanted to direct that play!

   Theatre Rep: Okay.

That was it. See where blind rhetoric can lead? Let that be a lesson to you.

So here we were – first rehearsal, second, third … Actors approach reverently, eyes lowered (And when was the last time you saw THAT happen?) And I fake them around the stage, and I’m surrounded by living bobble heads thinking I actually have some kind of clue about what I’m doing. (Note to Malmesbury. You’re the only Brit I know. Do you understand this stuff? God, you really do come from a superior race.)

And then we came to last night. At some point the blah blah blah became passionate dialogue – surprised everyone, most of all me. People were caught in the moment of discovery. I could see the excitement. Where did it come from?

The question is, will it be there again tonight?

j

In passing

It's about a quarter to one in the morning. Quiet time. I hear a truck somewhere in the distance going in a southernly direction. It's gone now.

I've taken a couple of pain killers to help me sleep. While I'm waiting for them to kick in, we can chat for a little hour. I've missed you. At the moment you seem like an age ago, a world away.

The play I'm directing has taken over my life. RICHARD III. Shakespeare. This thing has colored my every waking thought for a month now, jealous for attention. I'm not only directing the play, I'm also producing it. Details. Everyone wants attention. Everyone wants.

I'm learning slowly that old Will was an interesting character. He uses words that don't fit easily in the modern mouth. He makes up words. He's a terrible speller. But underneath all the posturing is subtext so beautiful it takes my breath away. Why anyone would feel the need to change this - to have ego so vaulted that thinking alterations would improve even a tiny jot ... I don't see it. I really don't.

I noticed last night that it's getting darker earlier. Evenings are cooler. Right now the weather is perfect - warm during the day and cool at night. I love to take walks at one or two in the morning. Think time. My neighborhood looks different. Even the houses slumber. I will hear a cat or two, they seem to enjoy the darkness as well. There is one who has taken the fancy to sleep in my basement window well during the day. I suspect that, like me, she is drawn to wander under the thick blanket of stars.

I miss living out west. Arizona, New Mexico, parts of California - the sky is so much larger there. You can stretch out a hand and lightly brush a thousand touches of light. I have several friends who live in New York. One in particular wants me to move there. Sometimes I wonder if she's aware that there is a sky?

Okay. Better now - dozier. Funny. I never in my life was drawn to pills of any kind and for any reason. But of late I I've been taking pain killers. They kill pain. All kinds.

G'night. Thanks for hangin' with me.


j  

Remembering Carpathia

Today I was reminded of a dream. Here is where it lives.

Hidden Knowledge

In his book, Mein Kempf, Adolf Hitler states, “If you tell a lie long enough, loud enough, and often enough, the people will believe it.”

Here are two examples demonstrating the accuracy of that statement.

“President Obama was not born in this country,” and “President Obama is not a Christian. He’s a Muslim.”

Frankly, I’m now well past getting weary by all the hyperbole. It bores me, and I’ve seriously started questioning the intensions of the gossip mongers behind the rumors, and the intelligence of their growing number of apparently simple minded followers.

If Barack Obama was not born in this country, isn’t that something that should have been determined before he ran for President? Oh. Excuse me. It was investigated at the time. If he was not born in Hawaii as he claims, there was a truly Machiavellian cover-up involving a number of people, orchestrated by a junior Senator from Illinois, and all before he announced his candidacy. (Perversely, if he’s that good, maybe he should be in office.)

But I want to be fair. For those who allege with confidence that the President was not born in this country, please tell me where he was born, and the proof of your declaration. And please, facts only, no innuendo.

And then there’s the “Is he or isn’t he a Christian” business. Where were the skeptics during the denunciation of his then minister Jeremiah Wright? Remember all that? The then candidate for President went out of his way to separate himself from the church he had attended for years. There are those who would have you believe that – again – a large number of people (The Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago) were willing to hide the fact that Obama was secretly a Muslim. Interestingly, the followers of Islam don’t seem to take kindly to believers who regularly break religious laws. So it would appear that if the President is a closet Muslim, every follower of Allah must be in on it. If this is true, he is deserving of the most awesome respect.

The reason behind this discourse is a concern for the reasons behind these subjective slurs. Obviously attacks on policy aren’t enough. There is an apparent need to demean the character of the man we elected as President. The ancient Greeks had a word that may apply, The word is “Gnostic,” and means “hidden knowledge.” Those who possessed this supposed information considered themselves superior to those who did not.

Maybe they still do.


j

Lucy, I'm home!

I discovered YouTube. I watched stuff. And more stuff. And more stuff. I glutted on stuff. Wow. Sam? I'm disappointed you didn't tell me. Is there anything else out there I should know about?

Julie, my often writing partner, showed me a book about tiny houses on wheels, so for the past while I’ve been mentally touring Europe, stealing chickens from rich people, and watching sad-eyed women dancing around the evening camp fire. Sometimes I think I was born about 400 years too late.

I discovered comments from you were no longer coming to my email, but were now being stored in an inane section of my blog called “comments.” I published everything I read, and sent Blogger a few comments of my own in the best tradition of Mel Gibson. (Speaking of which, Kari, you are absolutely correct. I wasn’t trying to excuse anything, just pointing out that we love to rush to judgment. Malmesbury, you constantly enrich my blog with your visits. I’m humbled by your astute observations.)

And I’ve been busy with what is supposedly my vocation/avocation (depending on who’s paying at the moment.)

My play on commission is finished. I hate parts of it with a genuine purple passion, but in re-write I’ll improve the work and annoy actors at the same time. It’s a win-win situation.

The other play I’m writing is going much slower. This is a work of love, so I’m purposely caressing it, sometimes with one single word nestled carefully behind another.

For those who tuned in late, I’ve been hired to direct a production of RICHARD III for a local theatre in November. Rehearsals will start in a few weeks, and already a number of performers have started breathing heavy. (It’s going to be a truly scary play – several of the characters carry real daggers. Hopefully they will only stab each other or themselves, and not anyone who paid to see the show.)

This same theatre has now asked me to direct two other plays. The first is called ZACK, scheduled for production in May of 2011, and – to my surprise – one of my own plays, to follow in August of 2011. Okay …
And that’s about all for now. I feel greatly unburdened. Thank you so very much for hanging in there with me.


j

THE TIGER

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the starts threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

                      William Blake

Toot, Toot, Tootsie! - Al Jolson

Leaving on a jet plane- peter, paul and mary

The Right To Judge

I’ve been watching with a growing (if somewhat jaded) interest in the case against Mel Gibson that is being theatrically played out in the court of public opinion.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve heard the tapes. They are reprehensible, vile, evil to the point of being demonic. Okay? These rants are the product of a deranged mind.

(And responses have been equally vehement. Note to would-be judges – if you are going to condemn Mr. Gibson’s choices of words, please don’t use the same words yourself. It confuses me.)

And – have you noticed – these tapes (5 so far) would not have had quite the emotional impact if they had been released all at once. Instead, release for each tape has been separated by a few days, allowing the press to instigate the same call for torches and pitchforks several times in a row.

It bothers me that we don’t know how old these tapes are. It bothers me that they are being released right at the time when Mel Gibson’s child custody case is starting. I find it difficult to believe this is a coincidence. In any case, the date when the tapes are released does not make Mel Gibson less guilty. On the other hand, it appears to make Oksana Grigorieva less innocent. Why didn’t she call the police after recording the first tirade? Or the second one? Or the third one? Or … why now?

Both Whoopi Goldberg and Jody Foster have been castigated for suggesting positive aspects to Mel Gibson’s character based on their personal experiences. Since we won’t tolerate any grey areas of actual knowledge here, they are dismissed as naive or stupid - guilty by association.

Nobody has answered this question – why is he mad? What started him down an emotional hill so steep that he literally has difficulty breathing? Is he truly a monster, or is he sick? If we judge without an answer to this question, what does that say about us?

And that is what concerns me the most. We don’t really care what Mel Gibson has or has not done. He's a token. We are content with one side of the story, which allows us to anoint him king of everything despicable in the male psyche. To give our passions proper heat we cling to conclusions based on other people’s calculated sensationalism and a decided lust for witch hunting.

Innocent until proven guilty only applies to people we like.

So, in case you feel I am defending Mel Gibson, I am not. In his condemnation of others he condemns himself.

But - I wonder - are we doing the same thing?

 
j

July 4, 2010