Last showcase

Walking out of the theatre tonight, someone behind me said they felt traumatized. Someone else answered, "I can't figure out if it was too much or just enough." Tonight's mainstage performances all dealt with death.
1) Paul Budraitis. I liked it, he's definitely a great performer, but while the beginning "speech" made sense on it's own, it didn't connect with the rest of the work for me, which is a shame. It was a solo piece, great staging for it - performer in a large, particle-board box on stage, speaking into a camera, visually projected onto outside of box, other visuals projected both onto box and to back stage wall. Began and ended with him sitting on top of the box, watching the projections on the back wall. Interesting vulnerability in that, almost child-like. (Also, I know someone that the beginning of his second story happened to, turned out differently.)  First of stories, plane crash, human error. Second story, finding out your child died. I wanted to understand how it all fit together, (and I'm not dumb or superficial if I can't see inside someone else's thought processes) I asked the people sitting next to me during intermission. Maybe it represented universal suffering, somebody feeling that, but why suicide? Or is the narrator already dead? But then again, why? And how does that relate to the two middle stories?  Incidently, he taught a class I took this past winter and I wanted to see his performance work, so, basically, he's why I went to all the performances.  (I suppose I could ask him, but I don't think he'll tell me.) 
2) New Animals. Wanted to connect with it, did off and on. Liked the choreography and there were parts of it that were incredibly moving, but enough parts that didn't connect -why the lining up of the solo cups? Interesting visually, but was there more than that?-(blurb, blurb, a little more context, please-for both pieces) that it lost me.
3) bobbevy. Interesting concept, beginning section went on too long before dancers connected, something about the visuals, or the sound tones that went with it kept causing me to black out so I missed a lot of it.  Someone seated near me said they they liked the concept but it could use editing. Also mentioned they would like something to draw audience into the performance put in the program.
4) Satori Group-Ghosts. Says it's a work in progress. Narrator sees ghosts, is called into the land of the ghosts, attempts to save one.  My favorite of the night (yes, that's ironic: there's an affiliation between this group and the one I wrote so much about about a month ago), conceptually well thought out, beautifully performed by ensemble. Definitely want to see more of it. Most redemptive of the four pieces tonight. Along with Josh Martin's piece from last weekend (and Pony World), my favorite from the festival. But impressive work across the board for all the sixteen performances I saw (I missed the installation piece last weekend, and I won't go back tomorrow.) Conceptually interesting (because I can't think of words right now) work, great performances, and kudos for creating new work and putting it out there, for the ideas, for the process, for the work. (I'm banning myself from using the word "conceptual" for at least a week. Get thee here o dictionary or thesaurus.) I think this was the strongest grouping overall and I "enjoyed" the performances, as much as you can say that for performances about death and loss.

Speaking of redemption, I hope I can resurrect my cast-iron frying pan. Housemate pretty much destroyed it this morning (by turning the burner on high and forgetting about it.) I've scrubbed out the ash and covered it in oil, in hopes it won't be all rusted in the morning. Not gonna re-cure it tonight. It's late, bus trip was almost 2 hours coming home, door to door. (I've gotten in the bad habit of not using articles in my sentence structure much anymore. They don't use them in finnish, but we do in english. Are those supposed to be capitalized?)