Extravaganza
So, I’ve fallen down in terms of updating this blog, but I’ve yet been busy seeing shows and thought I’d just summarize what’s been going on.
Went and saw Valparaiso at convergence. It was great. I was talking with Clyde about the show and he remarked how much the main character’s identity was defined by those around him and the malleable nature of this particular character (as a sort of ‘new’ Everyman). With this in mind I watched the show carefully and indeed picked up on the commentary that Delillo was making on how empty and soulless some people nowadays can be with their lust for fame and desire for sycophants to cuddle their knees. In this show the main character becomes famous after getting on a flight for Valparaiso, Indiana and ending up in Valparaiso, Chile. The fame is unearned. Through endless re-telling of a vapid tale, the character mythologizes himself (in an empty myth). The character becomes whatever those around him want him to be. His wife cheats on him. And in the end we learn that he was actually attempting to kill himself in the airplane bathroom on the flight to Valparaiso. (An act which can variously be seen as the ultimate narcissistic action or the greatest act of self-nullification.) There was section of talkshow and audience interaction which I enjoyed, especially as my own show Patterns at CPT used the talkshow as a vehicle for both character and audience engagement.
Next I saw Fever Dream at CPT. I wasn’t that crazy about the script that Sheila Callaghan put out there and was much more impressed with Crumble (Lay me down Justin Timberlake). I think it was likely a very difficult play to adapt from the original, with which I am only familiar by having read about. There were moments in the play that were truly absurd and with a high-potential for strangeness; and then there were other sections where the impulse to create this naturalistic, highly elaborate plot-driven hulking thing took over that bogged the rest of the strangeness down. I thought Beth Wood did a fantastic job mixing the tempo, especially with the sections of Callaghan’s script that sort of lumbered along. The choreographed sections were wonderful and the design of the set was stunning and something to see. Beth clearly encouraged the actors to play with what was possible in the space and move freely, actively, and daringly around it (given some of the things that individuals did). Despite the periodic clunkiness of the script, I had a fine time at the show.
The Excavation at Theatre Ninjas was the highlight of the shows that I saw. All around this show I heard from other playwrights, and even my wife who infrequently gets to theatre, that The Excavation is what theater should be. It was the vanguard of non-linear storytelling, with each “scene” offering up 1) 3 individual scenes from which you could select and 2) having time enough to see two of the individual scenes before the “scene” shifted and the play moved forward. This fact alone created a possibility for seeing the same play but experiencing it in dozens of different combinations each time. The play, additionally, highly encouraged inquiry and self-directed engagement (a la museum). I regret, of course, only seeing it one time as clearly there were many, many different ways of seeing this play and many, many different experiences that could be had. The play was highly interactive, on all fronts. From the obvious breaking of the fourth wall and potential for direct engagement with the audience/actor; to very direct engagement during the Roman orgy, in which everyone in the space is encouraged to join in and dance, raise hell, drink beer, and so on; to various experiments and “excavations” that are occurring throughout. In one sequence a “little girl” took myself and another theater-goer to a strange, small space where we had to hide from giants, eat snacks, draw with crayons, and generally “pretend.” This is something I’m used to, having kids at home, but for those who do not this side trip had to be a blast back to a time when we used our own mind for entertainment and relied much less on the gadgets and devices that seem to clutter our lives nowadays. Hats off to Jeremy Paul on this piece, because it was fantastic.
After The Excavation my wife and I went to the Vaudevillian Throwdown at Speakeasy, which was another piece of glory in a wonderful Cleveland night. The two performances were by Pinch and Squeal, doing their very droll burlesque skits and routines (see photo above); followed by Sabrina Chap, who is a magnificent talent and whose music I immediately purchased of iTunes and have been enjoying since.
I even got to meet her and buy her a drink, which was quite an honor as far as I’m concerned. I also picked up her book, Live Through This: on Creativity and Self-Destruction, which I’m looking forward to digging into soon.
In the mean time, I’ve started writing again and have a few pieces in the hopper. I’ve started helping out with the CPT slush pile. And finally I’ve got a meeting coming up next week to explore a new direction that I hope to go with some others that should be quite exciting!
One prominent notion in Patterns is the character’s act of writing a play as she is acting the play. It is quite self-reflexive and for a large part dominated the content of the play. As the drafts have progressed, this element has been cut way back as it became somewhat apparent that the self-reflexiveness often as not came off as self-indulgent. There was an additional problem of the self-reflexivity being greatly redundant and, being interpreted by some, as insulting to the audience (even though that was not the intention).