Saturday

Arrggh.  I want to talk about this show with someone.  "The Salesman is Dean and Gone" by Splinter Group, at the Richard Hugo House.  First off, I liked it a lot.  The director, Paul Budraitis, mentioned that while he'd been thinking about it for three (I think) years, they've only been actively putting it together (on it's feet) over the past month (though it was work-shopped two years ago.)  He also mentioned that he had added a character a couple of weeks ago, I can make a guess at which one, but it was all pretty seamless, and all seemed essential.  It was mostly performed in a cloth-walled room on stage (there were things that happened just outside the door to the room as well), which I think must be purgatory, and even though there was a cloth wall between the audience and the performers, it somehow served to make me feel like I was more in the world of the play than I normally would.  The soundscape, a constant drone or buzz, served that as well, when the actor playing Willy covered his ears to try to block out the buzzing, the sound softened for us too.  His interaction with his wife was interesting; there was a distance even with the physical contact, she felt like a memory he couldn't connect to, whereas with the son there was an aggression played out, but the contact felt present.  I need to read the play, I think.  I have some sense of those relationships, but not deep enough, as to why it might play out that way in an afterlife. 

This is the blurb from their kickstarter campaign page (The Salesman is Dead and Gone, raising money to pay the artists):

SPLINTER GROUP's production begins where the original play leaves off, with the car crash that ends Willy's life. He finds himself in an indeterminate place where time is irrelevant, and where a second, miniature house that closely resembles his home receives audio transmissions that cause him to re-experience moments from his life. Through these transmissions, he grapples with the ramifications of his choices, trying to make sense of his life and his place in the universe.

Why did the buzzing stop?  Whose skeleton?  Which was the added character? (all seemed essential.) Among others.  I've never read "Death of a Salesman" and there were a couple of references in the show (the skeleton, the buzzer) that might have come from it, so maybe if I read it I'll understand it a little more.  Only gripe is my usual one: put a blurb about the show in the program, give a scaffolding.  Sell your work to the audience, invite the audience in, give yourself credit, let us know why you did the work.  Honor the work, be proud of it.  It's good.  And it's awesome to put something new out in the world.

Off to go make some sorta Christmas swag, and then decorate cookies at a friend's house, and then to sing at the Finnish Independence Day dinner. 

Close to having text memorized.  Still no task.

Ciao.