Saturday

Found this one-act, two-person play, that I want to do.  Strong writing, interesting characters.  Haven't a clue how to go about doing it anywhere without a company.  I did start a conversation about it with someone that runs a small company/space.  I need to follow-up with him.  A friend offered to shoot head shots...I need to follow-up with that as well.

Saw two shows today, left early from the second one because I felt like I was getting a sinus infection.  Lots of chaos on the streets as I was trying to get home.  (Took almost two hours to get home, suppose I could've actually stayed for the second show at later venue.)  Not sure what was up with that.  At one point I asked a man who was restraining a woman (really was for her own good, she was totally off her rocker and throwing kicks and punches and racial epithets at people, as well as running screaming into traffic) if she was alright, he replied something about her going to prison.  He must have meant jail: apparently she decked someone.  Maybe they just ended up taking her to detox.

Earlier in the day I'd gone to see Seattle Shakespeare's Othello.  It's a play I'm not crazy about (have seen some very dull, drawn out productions of it), had thought about trying to see if I could exchange the tickets for a different show (I'd won two gift certificates at a Freehold faculty event).  In the end, I'm glad I went.  Fantastic.  Super strong cast, bold directing choices (John Langs), and a hard-driving story line, all of which made it engaging.  Darragh Kennan as Iago was probably the best role I've seen him in, the man nails both the character and the language.  Sean Phillips as Othello, Quinn Franzen as Cassio, Trick Danneker as Roderigo, and Keiko Green as Bianca (for her brief time in that role) were all excellent.  Hillary Clemens as Desdemona and Alexandra Tavares as Emilia just kicked it up in the second half, for the first, I was wondering how she deals emotionally (as an actress, I wondered about that with Ryan Higgins in Live from the Last Night of My Life, as well) with what was asked of her (from the bath to her final breath) and the latter moved me to tears throughout the last act with her impassioned pleas to Othello and loyalty to Desdemona.

From the opening wedding ritual full of a sense of peace and love and all being right in the world, to the final scene and the bodies of the four main characters strewn on the stage, the lean story telling (carried through the schemes and words of Iago) narrowed all possibilities until there was only one inevitable destructive end.

So well done.

Friday

After all the structure and tunnel vision of the past year, July was pleasantly chaotic, everything changing at the last minute, moving in unexpected directions, leading to curious consequences.  Creativity growing from that as well as it does from strict form.  Knowing what the norm was and then breaking it.

Lying in the dry grass, attempting to read and dozing more often, the sky has gone from clear blue to completely overcast.  The wind shakes the magnolia leaves, and it sounds like rain drops.  Engines roar overhead, reverberating against the bricks. Anywhere else, I go for cover, here I fall asleep again.  Context is everything.

Went to a night of one acts at ACT, and while there were things I liked about each play, I wasn't crazy about the line-up in general.  With Steve Martin's "Patter for the Floating Lady," I thought there was some beautiful imagery in the language, but not sure that the best vehicle for showcasing that was a play.  The second one was Woody Allen's "Riverside Drive," and much against my will because of my dislike of him, it was my favorite play of the night. It had the most coherent story, and the best dialogue of the three.  It was funny.  But I fell asleep.  At intermission, I was telling that to some friends and one of them also fell asleep, she was thinking it might be the modulation of the voice, how it didn't change, but kinda' droned on and on at the same level, tempo, and tone.  Someone walking past us, was also mentioning that they fell asleep.

The third one was Sam Shepard's "The Unseen Hand," it's just strange, a mish-mash of cowboy and alien. Hanna Lass as the alien "Willie" was fun to watch, the way she moved, spoke, used her face, etc, and the acting was good, but I wasn't crazy about the play.  Great tech on it though: set, lighting, sound, etc, really nice work.  I guess it has to do with free will and self-limitation, and I suppose I can see that, but, eh.  And why did the other actress (who wasn't in this play) skip across the back of the stage during the part where Willie's mind is set free and hail falls from the sky?  Maybe it's in the script, but it seemed very random and unnecessary.

We were curious (and reviews I've read have also questioned) why these plays?  Shepard's is from 1969, Allen's from around 2003, unsure of Martin's.  They probably had a programming reason, but since I don't know it, I'll agree with a review I read, that there was a lack of diversity in the choices: are there no women or writer's of color writing one acts, right now?  It's fine, they are good writers, but, curious as to why that was the programming choice.

Control

Woke up at 4 am, panicking that I had spent all of my money on clothes and couldn't pay rent; took a while to remember that the clothes buying was actually in a dream and not real.  Thinking about it now, they were like Italian clown outfits...interesting.  If I'm going to be up this early, I should start meditating again; has fallen by the wayside as of late.

I got some advice on how to drop into the situation before entering (it's been a problem.)  I'll try finding a quiet space I guess, nerves and noise have preventing me from focusing (she suggested going out on the stairwell.)  The nerves and distractions will always be there, and when I'm better at this, hopefully, I'll be able to block them out enough, but I'm not there yet.  Meditation would probably help, too (at being able to hold a focus regardless of what else is happening, before entering.)  And I think that why my set up didn't work last night was that even though the situation I created wasn't exactly true, it was too close to a memory for me.  I also realize that I didn't think out far enough what I knew for certain about my partner.  It was there, but I hadn't thought about what it meant, and I needed to; the task and the relationship with my partner/what I knew about him/our past were definitely at odds emotionally. 

And I need to figure out what this emotional lid is all about, not only am I not reacting strongly (and trusting the ability to be able to say whatever came up-and I knew absolutely there was no barrier or lack of safety with three of the partners because I'd worked with them so much; and very little in the way with the other two, mostly that I hadn't worked enough with them to read what was going on.)  But it's not even coming up into the realm of possibility to say those things, or feel them...why is there a lid on having them affect me?  I was only able to really let one of my partners affect me deeply (I couldn't stop laughing, which was a spontaneous reaction, which is what we are going for), two others had moments, and two were really hard.  And those were emotional states, not words...words just aren't coming up.  I should do more exercises just using noises, super uncomfortable place for me.  A lot of it has to do with control and a fear of what happens when all hell breaks loose (and my immediate memory is of a lot of scary shit happening-and I've had my share, instinctively, I just don't want anymore, and that's getting in the way), but creativity also happens there; and trying to control the outcome also blocks the creativity.  Again, this is the safest place I'm ever gonna have to let go of the need to control...and again, easier said then done.  A very old habit.  Nothing progresses without an element of chaos.  And fear of the shit that happened in my past is shutting me down from acting/reacting to what's really going on now.

Insomnia

Have given up trying to fall back asleep.  Woke up at 4 am again, partially the tea I drank last night, partially, I'm thinking too much.  My nerves get the best of me, and I can't drop into the circumstances, so again, didn't work.  She said to fantasize like a 5-year old, to ask a lot of questions.  I think I know what I want to do next, and I'm gonna spend more time journalling and thinking about the person at the center of it, make it really solid, see if that helps.  I still don't know how to drop into the circumstances, and it's one off the main reasons I chose to do this program, everyone else seems to be able to walk into the room in some sorta' emotional state, I don't know how.  I'll have to ask again, otherwise, I'm just getting left behind.  And some of the fantasy stuff just gets so absurd (which might be the point of thinking like a 5-year old) that I don't have a clue how I would pull it off, much less come up with it.

What makes some people get so under your skin while others never do?  I could go for revenge or affection (with several people, actually.)  I've got some trepidation of working with my partner as well, and that's also kept me awake.  Even though the likelihood of him physically hurting me is close to nil, I'm afraid of it anyway.  Both the relationship set-up and the added circumstance (person in the room knows, absolutely, something about the person entering) could make it really volatile.  And whether it should or not, that scares the shit out of me.  In class, it'll be okay, she'll call "no physical contact."  Emotionally, for me though, a really terrifying place to go.  Still, I can't avoid it if I want to act, it's all over the place.  Maybe it will be therapeutic.  Still, I'm afraid.  It's the chaos.

While last night's partner and I were still debriefing, everyone dove into the food I made (task was to throw a dinner party for my sister to celebrate her having her world music book published.)  Thankfully, I don't think that's what gave me food poisoning, I ate some when I got home, and I feel okay.  I'm glad it got eaten, I didn't need to eat nine eggs. (It was a take on a Spanish tortilla, bread, chocolate...I hadn't gotten to the rest of it.)  I should have thought more about our given relationship, it was too wishy-washy in my head, and it made me closed off to him during the exercise.  She later said that I shouldn't have let him in the door.  Good to know that's an option.  (Ex-lover who dumped me but wanted to still be close, last moment was that he came to my birthday party but left early to go see another woman, and now he's showing up at my door.  I hadn't wanted to break up.  And now he's in my house demanding my attention while I'm trying to get ready for a party.)  All in repetition, no "I" statements, having to put everything back on the other person.  In hindsight, "you make me want to tell you to leave," is perfectly legitimate; or if I wanted to fight to get him back, "you make me want to throw you down on the couch right now."  But what I was feeling was, "how dare you come to my house now and demand my attention after blowing me off for some other woman."  Which in the end was too ambiguous, and should have resulted in my not letting him in the house in the first place.  Have to stop being "gracious," no need for it on stage.  Doesn't serve the work.

Chaos and transformation

The chaos is all from the realization of my own brokenness, and I'm letting everything fall apart now because I'm hitting up against walls in my life and I want to be on the other side of them. I'll figure out what to keep when I get there.

So many people are going through this right now. I initiated the change for myself, but it's a little crazy.

And speaking of chaos, there's no excuse for your hatred to cause the suffering of the innocent. Sending out love to everyone.