Saturday, June 25, 2005

 

Exhaustion + Coffee = Poor Spelling

Goodness me, that's a train wreck down below, but indicative of my frame of mind.

I'm not hung-over anymore, but I'm still a wreck. The reading is tomorrow, and I have that sensation that my skin is on fire. My new friends here are very supportive in that they mock me with smiles on their faces.

I honestly don't even know if the play is any good any more. My wife liked it -- and no, she doesn't like everything I do -- but I'm at that point where I've forgotten what I liked about it. All I hear are creaks and scrapes, I can't hear the life.

But I did go back to the glacier. A lovely couple invited me and Australian dramatist Lynda Ng up to their homestead. The husband's built the entire thing himself, and it's interesting to note that the system of land development used a hundred years ago is still at work here. It means there's still room in the world.

I fired a paintball gun into a pickup truck. We took pictures of the Australian with the gun, so she can show her friends what America taught her.

I saw the inside of a glacier.

It's been a trip.

Wish me luck tomorrow.

posted by Dan 2:27 AM
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Friday, June 24, 2005

 

Fantasyland

I was up until 2:00 am dancing last night, dancing, drinking and watching karaoke. This morning I got up at 7:15 am for an 8:00 am rehearsal.

Um...I'm thirty-three? Why am I suddenly twenty again? I think its partially the light. There's something about having the sun out all the fargin time that just keeps the body clock ticking.

Still, I know this will catch up with me. This place is Disneyland for theare weenies, but eventually I'll have to get back on the L train.

posted by Dan 12:09 PM
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Wednesday, June 22, 2005

 

The Further Adventures

Apologies for no post yesterday. The panels were some of the best I've had so far, which is not so much an excuse as it is a lame excuse. Kate Snodgrass -- who teaches at my BFA alma mater -- led a terrific discussion on subtext. It was like a bunch of mechanics discussing the merits of a socket wrench: boring to all outsiders, but endlessly fascinating to practitioners. Included in the price of admission was a short adaptation of Hills Like White Elephants by Hemingway, which was the jumping off-point for the discussion.

I also attended "Playwriting with Stage Design in Mind," led by Steve Hunt, Gregory Pulver and Aoise Stratford. Part of this was just the designers discussing decisions that they'd made in previous productions, but the designer's mind is so foreign to mine that I could listen to them talk for hours. If my production needs a chair, my first question isn't, "What should the chair look like?" It's, "Where's the closest chair that I can take without getting into a brawl?"

There was a bonfire last night by Mineral Creek, I wish I took pictures. I arrived, Van Halen was blaring out of a truck stereo, and someone handed me a Henry's. It was suddenly 1985 again, only I wasn't wearing glasses with a strap.

We have the morning off, and I'm going on a hike. Look for those pictures. Then it's Lynda Ng's Koda, then Meron Langsner's B'Shalom, and a one-man Clurman show tonight. Pray for me today, as I walk among the grizzly bears and other dangers of this land.

posted by Dan 12:23 PM
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Monday, June 20, 2005

 

Violent Reactions

Last night: Perseverance Theatre presented columbinus, a theatre piece based on research into the Columbine school shooting and interviews with high school students across the United States. Audience response was very split, but it inspired a huge amount of after-show discussion, which is a point in the piece’s favor.

I personally appreciate the ensemble, non-narrative, open-theatre approach, and I say this as a story guy. I should correct myself. The piece did have a narrative. It had three movements, really: the first act, which essentially shows how the two boys become the Trenchcoat Mafia, but which is mostly about the social world of high school, based on the interviews the company did. The piece weaved interior monologues and rhythmic verbal paintings with real details from Columbine. I think it’s very hard for writers, sitting at their desks, to think and create in this manner. Scenes blend into one another, they often substitute theme for dramatic action, non-realistic digressions are the norm.

This was the bone of contention for some, but other attendees were bothered by the way the first act indicated that the creation of the murderers was entirely due to the John-Hughes pressure cooker of high school society. Does that belittle the forces involved in creating a massacre of this nature?

The second act contradicted much of what the first act posited, and the clash was interesting. The first half was a long scene between the two killers shortly before they execute their plan, and the second half was an Emily-Mann series of testimonies about the day of the shooting. The first act had set us up to sympathize with these two boys, and two understand that they were reacting primarily to persecution at school; but the second scene implied that there were different forces at work, mostly self-generated. The boys persecution seems distant, almost imagined. By the time we reach the day of the killings, the Nazi slogans they shout come as a surprise, and the racial epithets they shout at one victim take us by surprise. They are -- needless to say -- much less sympathetic.

The tough nugget for any piece about school shootings is that everyone wants the piece to answer the question, “Why did this happen?” When I was in high school, the violence was all gang-related or racially motivated. There was a political order (in the case of Crips vs. Bloods) or a sociological reason (clash of cultures and historical oppression). With the school shootings of more recent years, everyone has a theory but none have satisfied a majority. This was the crux of the problem for one playwright I discussed this with extensively: because the killings are so recent, any analysis feels like the polemic of the artist, if their answer does not satisfy.

But, as the playwright also added, the play had people talking, and that’s no small feat, though many had low enthusiasm.

This morning, Jason Grote’s The Tale of Yaha Al-Husayni Among the Dead, and much more. I’ll put up more pictures, as soon as I can get a decent shot of the mountains.

posted by Dan 12:35 PM
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Sunday, June 19, 2005

 

Internet Sausage (Not Pattie But)

Check out San Diego theatre feller Spearbearer Down Left's May 28th comments on DVD and TiVo's responsibility for declines in movie theatre revenues (no permalink, scroll down). I've been in the discussion about technology's influence on keeping people home before. I will say that I think DVD and TiVO are a life-saver here in Valdez, Alaska. I just saw Schatzie Schaefers' comedy The TiVo Tribe last night, which takes place here. The implication was that when the snow falls and things shut down, there's nothing to do but hole up. Home Entertainment might be a big sanity boost. In her play, it tames two cavemen who wandered out of the wilderness.

posted by Dan 12:21 PM
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