Mike Makes Mush of My My mind.....and more

Earlier title for this entry: How Mike Daisy Failed Me

okay, this one is setting up to be a rant. First all, I've seen three of the five pieces and am, if anybody at all is following any of this at all, have been thus far damned impressed. I relate to this guy, the need to be there,etc., my personal conflict about whether to drop/out/betray/let others catch my ball......Well Im going to sneakily try to get their early ANd HOPE Diana and I will present early and then I'm going to get out of there. That's what I hope

I went up to Jean Michele before the show verify if it was here. I'd found her site, landed on the first essay, about how she's fallen in love with a man twice her size, and it is at once comforting, sexy, etc....AND SHE's a most genuine person, sweet and generous - at least in the framework of the 20 seconds or so I spoke with her.





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To Binge or Not to Binge

I have a really personal connection to this piece, not because I really know the author or the any of the producers, actors, the theatre company, etc., but because I have gained so much weight over the past three years that I've actually wondered if I could be a candidate for weight-loss surgery. So as Mark asked himself those questions, I had to ask myself the same. Although I did not kill my father or any of my stepfathers (hint hint hint, anybody getting the psychological aspect of this?

The truth is I am not a candidate, because there is a very good reason for my weight gain and I can't point to any of the physiological reasons....I drink and eat too much late at night and I don't get enough exercise. And until those issues are tackled, ain no James Prince character gonna give ME no surgery.

What a nice job James did, btw, along with Brad.....and the young new surprise in this group was Rachel Hall - her reads so so natural and believable. When these younger actors get more comfortable in their bodies, this piece will sail.

Daisey Does it Again

I hadn't originally intended to include seeing Nicholas Tesla, I was all typical American, who is THAT guy? Me, I don't know from science. I stopped at 9th grade biology and I faked it in college by taking a nutrition class.

But tonight I'm thinkin Damn, I missed Bertolt Brecht and I'm REALLY pissed that I have an obligation to go to the Column Awards on Monday rather than watch Mike's signature piece.....

but be that as it may, Mike Daisey, for me, has become, in two performances and a few Youtube bits, plus a beautiful online essay by his wife Jean-Michele, a person and artist I am just completely enamored with. He's got a genuinely funny, yet explosive grasp on things artistic.....that American theater has become something about buildings with names on them, and not about the artists who keep the alive. He's not the first person to say that around here, Jac Alder made some beautiful comments in a new mag called "The" awhile back.

The recent opening of the ATT PAC is yet another example.....are these huge "edifice complexes" as Jac coined them, or are they temples, are they churches in which artists can commune, can worship, can create, where audiences can pray and relate and connect what they're seeing with their own lives, with society - which of course, is what theater USED to be, is supposed to be? I don't think we know anymore.

will add to this later after L. Ron this afternoon, very very much looking forward to it.

My Muscles Have No Memory

No, they DO, that's just it. OHHHH, I just worry and worry about modern dance. There was a time, when I was about half the weight I am now, when I went to classes twice a week, at NIGHT no less, after a full day at whatever I was doing then, and I was skinny and energetic and it was all about Martha Graham and Bill Evans (I can still bounce and swoop, yes I can).

I just didn't get it. Maybe I'm too lazy, maybe I want the symbols to just leap up and show themselves to me. But it took most of the 30 minutes for me to figure out what was what. If it hadn't been for the voiced over narrative about the Rubber Room, would I have paid MORE attention? Would I have understood it at ALL? Okay the hands in this position when they are in that formation meant THIS. etc.

The concept, the reality of the Rubber Room seems pretty amazing and interesting and how in the WORLD does this stuff happen on the taxpayer dollar? Does it work as a 30 minute modern dance commentary? My gut says uhm, uhm, uhm....???? And my mind (so constantly full of self-doubt) goes, what's WRONG with me? Why didn't I think this was the most brilliantly artistic piece of performing art this year?

I have this particular thing about modern dance, perhaps because it's something I've had a special attachment to for something like 30 years. And that's because I think the very best modern dancers are very very theatrical. And these ladies, despite their physical prowess, only rarely seemed to 'connect' to the material. To me, and please, shoot me if I'm a bad person here, seemed to be good dancers with no acting training. And if you're going to do a piece of dance THEATRE, then it has to have THEATRE. Was it them or the direction or me or what? I don't know.

Their First Time

Choreography is not a word I'd usually apply ('blocking' would be more to the point) but this show was pretty damn well CHOReographed. I mean, you gotta do SOMEthing to make four people sitting on stools for 90 minutes talking about their sex lives - interesting.

So there's this Web site that invites people to submit their stories about the first time they had sex. I just now went there. They're about to hit 50,000 stories, and although it's clear some have been deleted, still.....I tried to hit a couple numbers I THOUGHT I remembered from the show, but no. Number One is pretty funny, and as I wondered why it wasn't in the show I realized there were literally tens of thousands that couldn't.

You know what? Not once during this entertaining piece did I think about my own 'first time' ... rather, I empathized with the stories, I got all involved with the counterplay of humor and reality and sometimes really tragic circumstances that accompanies sex 'the first time'.....the weight that sex, the act, the meaning, the circumstances, all of it. My own 'first time' didn't seem all that - sexy.

"Some guy's bunk bed" was, yes, mine.

Everyone was very very good; Jessica Cavanagh was simply amazing. there was maybe a bit of 'sameness' in the group's repeated breathless Oh.My.God.This.Was.So.I.Can't. Believe.It.Awesome.Ness. but ehhh, who cares, in the long run, it worked.

Starbucks Two Times in Two Days

I have this new actor backup gig, the on site part located in Addison just a jog away from WaterTower. Which means if I'm going to the theatre I'm suddenly homeless at 5:30. An actor with two and a half hours to kill. Will probably hang out at the theater more next week, but tonight, the woman you see in the farthest parking place in the farthest parking lot with curlers in her hair trying to change clothes in the front seat. Is me. Tonight is My First Time and, if I can manage it, the late night show....

March 4, POST-Daisey Does Delicious

This guy is pretty amazing. First of all he seems to come from where normal people come from. The regions. That he said theater in Seattle sucks was pretty amazing. Over recent years, theater people all over have scuttled about to other regions thinking, oh Seattle is where the work is, Dallas is where the work is, Chicago is where the work is, and even I used to think theater opportunities MUST ABOUND in Seattle. But in recent months I'm hearing theaters there are shutting down left and right. So I guess I won't move to the West Coast; we seem to be doing better than other parts of the country, knock on wood and prayers sent up.

Okay, Mike Daisey. A great one man presentation, at once spontaneous, seemingly extemporaneous, and yet exquisitely well controlled, except when he deliberately let go. He worked from a few hand-scribbled pages,using PT Barnum as a leaping off point, then with each turn of that familiar striped yellow paper, took off into his own life experiences: hilarious, complex, sometimes scary, sometimes almost uncomfortably sexual, which virtually always, always tied us right back to the PT Barnum story. And it's not just that he went back to the Barnum story, but that each of his personal stories seem to somehow reflect the lie, the hoax, the humbug, the trick, the SUCKING in of audiences into the performers world. It always wrapped up.

His performance style was addictive. I'd heard it was almost completely
extemporaneous....so when he began with something that seemed more stylized, more presentational, I started to wonder....but I realized it was his way of grabbing our attention. I think he controls and times steadies himself with his use of fingers and forearms. Was that directed or is that what he does to create beats, moments, arcs for himself within the (un)script?

I'm always so impressed with those actor/performers who can so completely relax with an audience, just BE there with them. Does the fourth wall exist for them or not? Are they just having a big one-sided conversation with a couple hundred (or in the larger cases of, you know, Robin Williams, Eddie Izzard, a couple THOUSand?) people? How do they DO that?

And educational! Who knew that PT Barnum contributed so much to the growth of the arts in the U.S.? Is Granbury Opera House there because of PT?

Am looking forward to more. More commentary on theater, more of his effortless (albeit the sweaty forehead wipes, would that the rest of us could do THAT in the middle of a show) expounding on who we are, us Americans, what draws us in, what makes us tingle, what makes us want more.