mind blowing theatre part two

Part Two:
(No Snakes) On a Plane
The second outsanding piece I saw on Saturday was a workshop performance of Wickets, an adaptation by Jenny Rogers of Fefu and her Friends (by Maria Irene Fornes) directed by Clove Galilee and Jenny Rogers.

I have to say, I read Fefu in college and wasn't in love with it, so I was trepidatious when I got to P.S. 122 for the performance. My friend Sarah (who was, incidentally, enchantingly zany in the piece) (ew, I sound like a reviewer) had told me it was just a work in progress, that it was no big shakes, but that I would probably enjoy it. So I showed up, and as we hung out in the hallway, two fully dressed stewardesses welcomed us to Wicket Air flight 1971 to Charles DeGaulle Airport.

And they had matching costumes. Which was a surprise to me, for a workshop, a no-big-shakes. But not half as surprising as what awaited us on the other side of the door.
They had built an airplane! And not just a dinky one. They had turned the whole room into an airplane that sat probably 50 people. With a roof, and windows and carpets and recessed lighting! All the stewardesses matched -- not just same color skirt, same skirt. Same gold pumps. Same matching scarf -- except for the first class cabin staff: they had a different one. (this was 1971, after all)

The actresses were strong across the board, with the three women I know, of course, giving the best performances. Sarah K. Lippman was this passionately vapid southern girl with a love of aviation and giggles (Sue), Moira Stone (yes, again) was collected, logical and extremely focused as the oddly non-vicious-but-violent Fefu, and Liza Zapol was beautifully and tenderly bent-but-not-broken as Julia.

And apparently I like descriptions-with-hyphens-in-them.

The rest of the cast included Katie Apicella, Charlotte Cohn, Dawn Eshelman, Jessica Jolly and Emily Lutin.

Working as much as I do at a level of theatre in which too much emphasis on design elements leads to embarrassment, it was extremely refreshing and exciting to see a company (The School for Gifted Children) put so much money into their design.

We were in a fucking plane!!

And what's even better than that was that the crew (the flight crew, that is) were solid actresses giving interesting performances. Sometimes I couldn't see them, and that was a bit of a problem, but for the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed my flight. Keep your eyes out for it when they do a full production. It should be unbelievable!

mind-blowing theatre part one

So, last week, I talked about an outrageous performance in a somewhat middling show. This week, I have the pleasure of discussing several outstanding performances in two outrageous shows.

First off, Grace, written by Shannon Thomason and Sara Thigpen, which is a series of vignettes about, as they call it, "Those who give it. Those who need it. Those who can and cant accept it." What an amazing piece. I, for one, am not generally fond of vignette pieces -- I like to get to know my characters, see the roles they play in the world and watch the way their lives unfold, but somehow this show brought me just the greatest hits, and I felt like I knew everything I needed to know, just in the five minutes I got to see.

My favorite thing about this piece is how it handles something so subtle: grace. I mean, really, what is grace? Whatever it is, it's not simple.

For me, and a few of the characters, it means finding out who you are, and standing by that, no matter what. It means strength and compassion, humanity and friendship, honesty and love. It's so huge, it's like my concept of god (and perhaps grace is god, too) and I can't even begin to wrap my head or words around it. I love it when theatre takes me outside of what I can make sense of, and into my own speechlessness.

And on top of the content, the writing itself was exquisite. The characters were lovable, fallable, human and recognizable. There were no good guys or bad guys (well except maybe for the wife-beating husband. But he never showed up onstage) and the writing left enough space for the performers to breathe.

Kudos go to all the actors, and the director, Melanie Ashley. I'd link to all their pages, but links aren't working all that well for me today, and I can't find everyone, so I'll just list them instead.
Kathleen Brown, Jennifer Leigh Jones, Beth Ann Leone, John Long, Marcella Anise Smith and Brit Whittle were all exceptional, but I have to give special credit to a performer I've seen in various productions, who was both heartbreaking and outrageously funny in this one: Karen Sternberg (www.karensternberg.info) Karen is one of those actors who is so strong in so many fields, you wonder why she isn't a superstar, why she isn't on Off-Broadway, let alone Broadway. And then you remember that the business side of acting doesn't want people who can do a million things well, it wants people who can do one thing a million times in a row. But if I were an agent, Karen would be working year round.

And Grace would have a full scale run in a full scale theatre, for a long, long time.

I'm off to an audition, but will report on the second show when I get back.

a pick-up line guaranteed to fail

I went to a benefit last night for Sweet Tea Creek's production of Grace, in this year's Fringe Festival. The drinks were flowing, the folks were friendly, and even a few ladies' wallets were won during the raffle.

But by far the highlight of the evening was the extremely unsuccessful attempt by a guy whose name I can't even remember (even though he gave me his card... which I promptly gave away to someone else) to pick me up.

I was standing in a group, talking to some friends (both of whom were guys) and I had my hands on my hips (not wildly unlike I do in my picture). This guy walks right into my elbow. And then strikes up a conversation. He asks us each where we grew up, and then other random questions like what our favorite colors were or what we thought about elephants. At one point, one of my friends points out that WeirdoMan has started addressing his questions exclusively to me, and I, in my eloquence, say, "well, I am the only one here with tits."

And this is where the guy lost all points for all men for all eternity.

"Eh, your tits are only as big as mine."

Dear Men of the World,
THIS LINE WILL NEVER GET YOU LAID. If my tits are small, I don't want you to point that out. If my tits are large, then that means yours are larger, and no self-respecting woman wants to go out with a guy whose tits are larger than hers (especially not if her tits are my size).
I wish I had kept his card, if for no other reason than to seriously deride him publicly here, and use the Single Woman Amber Alert System to warn my single sisters to run in the other direction should they come across this fine specimen of masculinity in a bar.

wanna see my bubos?

I have the plague.

Much like my friend Christina, who had some weird creepy crawly disease, I look like I have the bubonic plague. Although, after the "routine" spraying in Brooklyn, more likely, the west nile virus. (great)

I innocently went out to a bar on Tuesday night and sat msyelf at a wobbly-but-comfortable table outdoors, and unbeknownst to me, I apparently opened up an all-night mosquito eatery (mesquitery?):

I have no fewer than 23 mosquito bites on my legs alone.

I feel so used. (and itchy)

tribute to an outstanding performer

You know how every once in a while you go to a show, expecting it to be fine (but not mind blowing -- you are a jaded New York actor, afterall), and the show will turn out middling at best, but one performer will just jump out at you and stay with you for hours and hours afterwards?
That happened to me this weekend with the Brick Theater's production of Greed: A Musical Love $tory and one colossal performance from Moira Stone.

I've been friends with Moira for a few years, and I saw her play Amalia in She Loves Me at Hofstra a while ago, and she was terrific. But in Greed, she's outstanding. The show itself made little to no sense to me, the songs and lyrics were extremely odd, and while there were moments that were very entertaining, what I would go back to see is the way Moira can sing lines that make no sense without even looking like she's acting. It's unreal. And her voice is outrageous.

In one scene, her character is sitting on a subway car with a microphone in front of her in which to voice her inner thoughts. They generally don't make anything resembling sense (I wish I could quote one here to show you, but I can't remember any of them), but Moira pulls off these monolouges with such skill that you begin to believe that that's precisely what the accountant in the suit sitting across from you on the ride home is thinking. These mumbly, rambling passages that often have just syllables masquerading as words make all the sense in the world to her, and you begin to buy it, too.

But the moment in the show that refuses to leave my head comes when Moira's character, Lydie Bloom (I think), goes to a Chinese restaurant by herself and eats dinner. The scene goes on about five minutes, during which nothing more happens than the pianist plays The Rose, and Moira eats Chinese food alone. The pathos, the overwhelming loneliness and isolation of the scene is soul-crushing, and not once do you ever feel like Moira is even acting.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

Please, casting people of the world, discover Moira. She is an undeniable talent that I would watch in marathon readings of the phone book.

heard recently in my neighborhood

So I filed a noise complaint this morning.

No, surprisingly, not against the door-slamming neighbors. (I just growl and yell at them every time the door slams, from the within the safety of my own apartment. I have yet to figure out what to actually do about them.) No, this morning's noise complaint was filed against my landlord. And no, not for the construction, either.

It's about their new puppy.

The old dog was old, and I think had to be sent to doggie heaven for health reasons. It smelled funny and wasn't an especially pretty dog, but boy do I miss him now.

His replacement is cute, and I think it's a little german shepherd or a baby rotweiler or something. I can't tell, I don't ever see it very much, but it's black and brown and REALLY FUCKING NOISY. I hate it. And I'm not a hater. I love animals. I grew up with cats. I dated a guy with a dog and just adored him (well, who wouldn't? see below) Felix (above) is adorable, and a bit of a barker, which is fine. Occasional barking, especially if I'm already awake, is no big deal. (and Felix didn't generally get up before me.) But this dog? Early riser = early whiner.

I loathe it. I wake up every morning wanting to fling poison-laced peanut butter out my window. I want to accidentally drop an anvil off the fire escape. I want to stick small beans up its nose so it can't WHINE so loudly, so consistently, so irritatingly, every morning at 6:15.

Yeah, 6:15. What time does my alarm go off? Usually at 8. That's an hour and forty five minutes of whining that I don't want to hear every day. That's 12 hours and fifteen minutes each week. That's SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN hours of whining every year (which is close to a month, straight)-- assuming, of course, that I don't sleep in on weekends, which I do!

Someone had to put a stop to this, and it might as well be the only one in the building who has her bedroom in the back. Near the backyard. Where the stupid fucking dog is whining. (everyone else, apparently, wants to have a big-ass bedroom and a beensy-weensy, no-windows living room. Which is just stupid. I mean, let me ask you: where do you keep your eyes open more, the living room, or the bedroom?)

We'll see if 311 really delivers, or if this was all a charade designed to mollify me without any actual change in the whining status.

Oh, and the other thing I heard in my neighborhood recently? I was walking down the street the other night and some guy came out of a store and I could have sworn he said to me, "Hey, do you have a husband? Or a goat?"

subconsciously lost

So last night, I was wandering around my home town naked, and I realized that some kids were looking at me, so when I reached the bottom of the hill, I grabbed the grubby, old, powder blue towel that had been discarded on the side of the road so long ago it was now stiff. I wrapped it around myself and went up the other side of the hill. When I got to the top, I went into one of the new apartments (which was apparently a theatre) and found a room full of shoes.

"I'm naked," I thought, "I can use some shoes." And I proceeded to put on a really cool pair of pink sneakers with sparkley shoe laces, when Merry Friend (a real person from high school) spoke up from the next room, essentially saying that the shoes were for poor people, and I could have them.

Then I was at the roadside bar with my big biker friend (who doesn't exist in real life, alas) and I realized that I was lost. Or really, that I wasn't where I was supposed to be. And I was in sneakers and a towel. So I woke up.

And the night before, I was on a smallish sailboat in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of a storm, with one of my coworkers (two of the other people on the boat, the ones that actually knew how to sail, had left the boat earlier, at the port, maybe?) and we lost power. I looked at Myka; she was just sitting at a desk, kind of laid back.

"Do you know how to sail?" I asked.

"No."

"Are you going to freak out about this?"

"No."

"Then I don't think I'm going to freak out about it either."

(pause)

"Myka, are you going to be sick?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Good, then I won't freak out about that either."

Luckily, the coast guard came to rescue us because our beacon had gone off when we lost power on the boat. I think I woke up before they actually got there, though.