I'm a Loser

I have been the worst at updating this blog. First it was vacation and then I got sick... I am just full of excuses!

My big plan was to read Blue Window today and come up with an exhilarating and innovative post. However, I mistakenly purchased a Craig Lucas anthology that did not include that play.

Basically I suck at life.

So instead I shall post some recollections of some plays from the past few days:

Body Image: Old lesbians named Joyce and Phyllis? I could not stop thinking about the L Word for the whole time. That was a problem. I think that I disliked the play for that reason.

Tongues/Savage Love: Hard to read things that are meant to be seen sometimes. Savage Love>Tongues.

Melancholy Play: Love love love loved it. One of my favorites thus far. In the comments on the back of the play, someone, I forget who, said that if they were trapped on a desert island they'd want Sarah Ruhl there to tell them stories. I kind of agree.

God of Carnage: How does one vomit on stage? I need to ask a techie. Although I'm secretly hoping they auditioned some French chick who can vomit on command. I would be more pissed if someone vomited on my coffee table books. Those things are expensive. Oh yeah, the rest of the plot was okay too.

Flu Season: I honestly don't remember what happened. There were some mentally ill people and I think they didn't fall in love after they did.

Buried Child: Full of dead baby jokes.

Melancholy Play

Three reasons Melancholy Play made me happy.

1) She's got a point that we're sort of a bi-feeling culture. We're either happy or depressed. That doesn't mean that people don't get melancholy, we just don't really know what to do with it anymore.

2) There's a cello player.

3) Once upon a time, when I was younger, I used to write these stories about a group of friends. They weren't for anyone or anything, they were just for fun. The people were sort of based on my friends and people I wished were my friends and how I wished things were sometimes. It helped me a lot when I was in high school. There was a character named Julian who was based on a few people I knew and was one of my favorites to write. His boyfriend, some of the time, was this random, not very well written, Italian named Lorenzo. That fact that there were characters named Julian and Lorenzo and their ending in the play just made me really happy.

The Flu Season

Hello, blog. I'm sorry I've been neglecting you. My life has recently become something out of a Sam Shepard play and it's been rather distracting. But things seem to be clearing up, so I should have more time to think.

I wanted to talk about The Flu Season, even though that was a few days ago. You know how there are pieces of art that come along at certain times in your life that just seem to say everything that you need to hear? You read them and think, "Yes, this is what's wrong. I'm so glad I'm not alone in worrying that I might be turning into an aardvark." This play was one of those pieces for me. I'm so glad it came along at just the right time.

Theatrical Haikus

I haven't updated much. Been on the road as they say. I'm vacationing now so I don't have as much time/as much internet access so the next couple of posts will be brief. I thought perhaps I'd write some haikus. Here we go!

Mother Courage:
Wartime travelling
selling stuff off a wagon
too bad your kids died

Phaedra's Love:
You're all related
Stop having sex together
I'm going to throw up

Suddenly Last Summer

It was very short and read almost like a science-fiction story. I couldn't help but keep thinking that while reading it. Each event, the set, the way the characters spoke were all exaggerated, yet rooted in mysterious realism.

I didn't even think that Sebastian might be gay, which is unusual for me, because I find a way to create subtext where there is none. I thought he just used people to get what he wanted and in the end that didn't work out for him. Karma's a bitch. And the exaggeration and the fantastic imagery mirrored the fantastic life he had created for himself. The plants were wild, untamed, beautiful, and dangerous.

Suddenly!

Suddenly Last Summer is a play that happens suddenly. If you don't pay attention, you might miss it. It felt like as soon as it got started, it ended. The main character is never on stage but is the most three dimensional thing on stage. There could have been separate plays could have been written about each of the other characters, but Williams didn't feel like it, so everyone else is there simply as a vehicle for the main character.

And yet I was kind of charmed by the whole thing. I know that in the movie version, which I haven't seen, Mrs. Venable is played by Katharine Hepburn so I had her voice in my head reading all of those lines, and that was just endlessly entertaining. The set, in my mind, was this magnificent, science fiction inspired land - the love child of George Lucas and Willy Wonka. It all seemed so fantastical.

I think that Sebastian was meant to be closeted and that was the reason he needed Catherine and the reason for his death. It makes sense anyway. But then I think about youth and age, which certainly came up a lot. Sebastian's death, at least the version we are told, is pretty similar to the story about the sea turtles that Mrs. Venable tells. The sea turtles have just hatched and are trying to escape to the sea, leaving the protective shell their mother left for them. In a way, Sebastian tries to do the same thing, and like the baby sea turtles, is devoured.

Or he could be gay and thus cannot survive. The end.

Also, things I've been neglecting to mention

Execution of Justice - kind of dense and weighty but said a lot silently.

Venus - a very cool basket.

Execution of Justice

Usually I'm not a huge fan of courtroom dramas - but I do love Emily Mann.

Her ability to weave narratives from myriad sources and create original "documentary" drama is astounding. Piecing together documentary footage, courtroom transcripts, interviews, news clips and making a piece of art that isn't too confusing or overwhelming is quite a feat. Somehow, Emily Mann manages to do do that.

She also makes very sociologically interesting dramas. Which, of course, piques my interest.

Is Execution of Justice one-sided? Perhaps. Artistically irresponsible? Perhaps. Did I enjoy it because I'm a left-wing lesbian? Perhaps. But I still loved it.