Idiot Synchronicity

Plane Movies

2010-03-28T01:26:00.001-07:00

I have spent an awful lot of time on planes in the last month. First the trip to Florida for Spring Training. Then the trip to Ireland and England. I'm not complaining, but I've spent at least 24 hours on airplanes in March.

Which, for the most part, means MOVIES. Only one of the flights had the stupid DirecTV - pay us $6 to watch anything system, so for the most part, I got to see a lot of movies I would never otherwise have time to see. And most of them were good. So I figured I'd share my thoughts with the world.

The Blind Side - I hadn't actually heard of this movie before, but it was the only one showing on an overhead screen on the flight from Portland to Minneapolis. It was fantastic. Sandra Bullock shows she has real acting chops, not just silly comedy skills. The actor playing Mike was a firestorm of silent torture and joy at various times. A well made film, and Ms. Bullock deserves the Oscar she won. A friend said that the movie cheapens the book, takes a lot of the depth out. Well, movies can do that, and I haven't read the book. But now I might. When I get the time.

Everybody's Fine - If you have a dad, this will make you cry. DeNiro gives a masterful performance as a regular guy - a former laborer struggling to keep in touch with his adult children eight months after his wife's death. When they all cancel on a family gathering, he sets out via bus to visit each of the four kids in various cities across the US. He discovers their lives aren't exactly as rosy as his late wife pretended. DeNiro is heartbreaking in this role - and Drew Barrymore and Sam Rockwell ain't bad either.

Old Dogs - I've always loved Robin Williams, but I only made it about a half hour into this film before I had to turn it off. And bear in mind, it was the only thing showing.

The Men Who Stare at Goats - Hilarious. Who doesn't want to BE George Clooney, honestly? This was a great film for the first half - unexpected, funny, engaging... Clooney and McGregor have great chemistry. The second half was still fun, but it suffered from a lack of direction - where is this going? What's it about? Still worth watching, but it leaves off feeling like they didn't know how to wrap it up, so they just stopped.

Precious - Well this is a treat for 3 AM on an international flight. Leaves you feeling fresh and cheery. Do note the sarcasm. What a powerhouse. I had said earlier that I thought the Oscar clips looked overdramatic and overacted. Boy was a wrong - put them in context, and you'll be riveted. If DeNiro was heartbreaking, this is heartrending. Be sure to watch a light comedy after.

Couples Retreat - I will watch Vince Vaughn in anything as long as he's being funny. The tasteful answer to Will Farrell. This movie is hilarious, heartwarming and fun. I didn't think I'd like it upon hearing the premise, but knowing the actors involved, I gave it a go. And I was not disappointed. This is what comedy should be, and so often isn't. This is the sort of movie that you could put the wrong actor in and watch it go MILES over the top - but with Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell, it's dead on. Absolutely fantastic performances from relative unknowns Carlos Ponce and Peter Serafinowicz.

Planet 51 - Cute cartoon about a human landing on an alien planet. Lots of references to 50's Sci Fi - great fun after studying that genre for an improv show last year. Great work from some celebrity voices, decent animation and a fun story. Worth watching.

After that I ran out of movies. The only one left on the choose-your-movie thing you get on international flights was New Moon and I just couldn't bring myself to do that. I watched a few episodes of CSI and the new show The Forgotten and called it a day. The Forgotten was pretty good - I may have to check that out online. (Remember, we don't really have a TV...)

So that's my mini-reviews for all the movies I saw on the planes. Rumor is that next month Continental will be showing Avatar. Because that's meant to be shown on those tiny airplane TVs....

I Love You, Phillip Morris

2010-03-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

There is a great movie out there. And you probably won't get to see it.

This movie is called I Love You, Phillip Morris. It stars two very bankable actors, Jim Carrey and Ewan MacGregor. It's receiving rave reviews in the UK, and has done well in France, Taiwan and Estonia.

It had a hard time finding a US distributor, even though it is a very, very funny romantic comedy that will appeal to both men and women. It's even based on a true story, though you wouldn't believe it if they didn't tell you. It is finally going out on a limited release in the US starting April 30, after being re-edited to appease Consolidated Pictures Group. My guess is the release will be so limited you might not hear about it, even though the poster is plastered on damn near every wall in the London Underground.

Why?

Because the romantic part of the romantic comedy is about two MEN.

I Love You, Phillip Morris is a hilarious and touching love story of Steven Jay Russell, possibly the most successful and notorius con man and prison escapist in US history, and his lover, Phillip Morris. It is well-acted and funny. Both Carrey and MacGregor are at the top of their game. The storytelling is refreshing, constantly punking the viewer by changing realities and challenging perceptions - don't read too much about Russell before you see this film, because the story is told in such a way as to allow the audience to be conned right along with everyone else.

Carrey gets a chance to be silly, and though he gets close, he's never over-the-top. And when he plays pathos, he's right on the mark. MacGregor is vulnerable and heartbreaking. The film treats homosexuality as normal, which may be its death knoll in the US.

Don't let US anti-gay prejudice keep you from seeing this film. It comes out April 30 on limited release. Find a theatre near you and see it. Prove to the film companies that this sort of story is exactly what we want to see, and that we're willing to put our money where our mouth is.

I'm putting it in my planner right now - the evening of April 30, I'm going to see it again. If you're in Portland, I invite you to come with me. If you're not, I invite you to plan your own outing.

Meanwhile, check out a review:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5908016.ece

What You Take With You

2010-03-24T16:34:00.000-07:00

Today was a lovely day, if an easy one.

We met Erin's friend Matthew for lunch. We went to a movie (for free!) called I Love You, Phillip Morris, a movie everyone should see when it comes out in the US in April. In fact, I think I'll write a blog about it.

Then we went up to Marine Ices, possibly my favorite restaurant in all the world, and a treat w'd held off til the last minute. Their pastas are fantastic. Their hot fudge is made in house, and is absolutely exqusite. And you know how Erin is about dessert. It was a great night.

And an early one. An 11:00 flight out of Heathrow means leaving here by 7:00 AM. I'm already up too late.

With the time change tomorrow is a 31 hour day. But we'll see Portland tomorrow.

Endings are always hard for me - from the time I was a child and cried when the Sesame Street Christmas Special was over, through now, when the end of every show pains me. I hate endings. (So I chose a profession with NO stability. Clever.) I'm sad to leave tomorrow. I'll miss hanging out with Thierry, I'll miss London and all the memories it brought back. I'll miss the freedom of only working 2 hours a night instead of 16.

But what makes it not-so-bad is that I get to bring the best part of it home with me. I don't have to leave Erin behind, and that makes all the difference.

Nuts

2010-03-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

Things were going along just fine, wonderful in fact, and then.... nuts!

We've been having a great time stomping around London. Spent Sunday night checking out all the famous sites (South Bank of the Thames, Leicester Square, Picadilly, Covent Garden, Trafalgar...) and she said she was happy to have a guide that knew the area. I suppose it would take a bit longer if you were navigating by map...

Monday we had lunch with an old friend of hers, then went up to North London so I could show her around the area I used to live. We had a great time shopping in Camden Market, which is so much better to explore on a weekday when the crowds are less insane. The view from Primrose Hill is stunning, even in the rain. We'd meant to eat at my favorite London Restaurant, Marine Ices that night, but we got tickets to Billy Elliot, and with a late lunch, we just didn't have time to eat. We'll catch it on Wednesday.

Billy Elliot was great. We'd debated what show to see, but a London original, and a dance show at that, available at the half-price booth settled it pretty quickly. We both really enjoyed it, and are trying to figure out how soon we can direct/choreograph the show in Portland. We had a nice wander down by Big Ben on the way home, before hitting the tube.

Today, it seemed like everything was going wrong. We got up in time to go see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. They only do this a few times a week, and today was our only chance to see it. We got there in time, despite a slow tube with many delays, made our way through the massive crowds of school groups and tour groups, found a decent spot where we could see.... and five minutes before they were due to start, the funny little policeman in the hut by the fence put out a sign that said "No Guard Changing Ceremony Today." Nuts.

We went for a walk. I showed Erin the Royal Stables, where they have other Royal Guards on duty that you can get even closer to. We took some pictures. We wandered up to Oxford Circus to meet my friend Nick, who I used to play baseball with back in the day. Erin and I had "get a traditional London Curry" on our list of things to do, so Nick took us to a local spot.

The food was great. But... both the starter and the curry that Erin ordered had nuts in them. And if you know Erin, you know she has a very severe allergy to nuts (and seafood). It didn't taste like nuts (it was mostly in a marinade) so she didn't realize right away. But after a bit, she interrupted with the news that her throat was closing up. We hailed the waitress, who said "Oh, yes, lots of nuts" and ran to get the manager, who showed us a little laminated card with their policy that they accept no responsibility for allergy reactions. Hilarious. Maybe that should be on the menu, if you took the time to laminate it. But he was very nice, and brought her a non-nut-infested curry. By that time, she had gone off to the druggists to get some Benadryl. She made it through the meal, but didn't touch the new curry.

After saying goodbye to Nick, we headed back to Thierry and Bob's. Erin took another pill, rested, took a nap, and felt much better when she woke up. Crisis averted. She is fine - please do not worry. The hives have all but disappeared, she's breathing fine. Nothing to worry about. All the same, I'm going to insist that her Epi Pen be surgically attached to her somewhere.

We ended up having a truly lovely dinner at a restaurant that Thierry and Bob suggested. These two guys have made this half of the trip so lovely. Getting us at the airport, opening their home to us, taking us to the markets, inviting us to do our laundry here, suggesting places to go, being the best hosts possible. Thierry was the one true friend I took out of my time here in London six years ago, and as crap as I am at keeping in touch, it's been lovely to reconnect. So thanks to them for making this trip so much easier, and so much better. There's nothing like old friends.

One day left!

No frills

2010-03-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Ryanair, you are dead to me.

I forgave you after you stranded me in Sandefjord, Norway overnight six years ago, mostly because it led to one of the most memorable adventures of my life.

But this time you've gone too far.

Ok. It wasn't your fault that my carryon bag broke. The zipper just gave out. That bag was a gift from my ex. So I suppose I can blame it on her.

And I don't mind the not having an assigned seat. We scored exit row, so that was great. And I don't mind (much) you not even offering me a drink of water on the flight. It's just an hour long anyway. I'll live.

But the whole baggage restriction thing is ludicrous. Every other airline allows a carryon AND a personal item. Except you. Every other airline has sensible weight restrictions. 50 lbs for a checked bag, for example. But you limit us to 15 Kg per checked bag. That's only 33 lbs. And then you limit the two carryons to 10 Kg, or 22 lbs. Suddenly our two carryons and one checked bag are ALL overweight. We had to repack right there in the ticket line. I don't mind the embarrassment and all that. But our packing is all confused, dirty laundry mixed with clean, shoes separated between carryon and checked luggage, cats and dogs, living together....

Sorry. It was just a bit overwhelming. We had to pay an extra $45 to check a second bag, that we wouldn't have had to check if no for your silly weight restrictions. Remember, this is ALL the same baggage that Continential brought us over with, and no problems. (Ok, we added ONE package of Hobnobs... And a necklace that Erin bought. But that's ALL.)

And then there was all this ROOM on the plane - plenty of SPACE under the seats where we couldn't stow anything. Why? Everyone else lets us. I didn't realize that storing my laptop under the seat in front of me was a FRILL.

Ok, ok. I'm calm. And the trip into Dublin was fun. And seeing my friend Thierry after five years was amazing, and they made a lovely dinner, and there was all this wine and champagne... I suppose that's why I'm rambling on.

But Ryanair, you're dead to me. Who knew Carol Burnett would predict your existance? The prophetess foresaw exactly this sitation here

Killkenny? You Bastards!

2010-03-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, that isn't on a T-shirt out here. But it really aught to be.

Leaving Blarney today, we travelled first to Cashel, which is the home of Cashel Castle, and Bru Boru.

Bru is the Irish word for Brian. Bru Boru, or Brian Boru, was a Irish King-Chieftain who was a major Patron of the Arts back around the year 1000. A rather famous quote of his has him saying "Stand Ye Now for Erin's Cause!" in battle. Erin meaning Ireland. We flew into Shannon Airport. Truly, we are linked here. Though the Irish would probably laugh at the idea. (Did I mention that Jason, our drunk friend from a few days ago, upon learning Erin's name on St. Patrick's Day, responded with "Well, Happy Birthday!" Not that St. Patrick's Day is any sort of Independence Day, but still, we thought it was funny.)

Bru Boru is the National Cultural Center at the foot of the Cashel Castle. And it's really cool to wander through for a while, learning bits and pieces of the history of Irish music and dance (sadly, not much about theatre, though they have a nice one upstairs.) But bits and pieces are all you get - its so massively disorganized that its impossible to get a picture of the whole. Instruments from the 10th century are next to an audio lecture on famous battles of Brian Boru, are next to a video on cultural dance. Then in the next room its back to instruments. No rhyme or reason. But well loved. Worth stopping. And I'll probably do some research.

After that we stopped at Killkenny on the way to Dublin. We've been sampling the local fast food lately - a chicken burger at a food cart, some chips (fries) with salt and vinegar from a chip shop, and a Kebab from Abreakebabra. Mostly because we've been short on time and money, but also because its fun. And the Kebab was really good.

Got to Dublin, took the DART (think MAX) in for an hour or two, but had to rush back because it doesn't run late. Got a pint at the local bar - The Bloody Stream. Nice. Back to the B&B. Early morning tomorrow - day in Dublin, then fly to London.

Stones in His Pockets

2010-03-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

It's always good to check out the local culture. And being a theatre artist....

Stones in His Pockets is an Ireland original. It's done well on the West End, and on Broadway, but it started here. A couple of minor Irish celebrities are currently touring it around the country, and it was in Cork tonight, just a short drive from where Erin and I are staying in Blarney. In fact, it was the first night in Cork, which meant the tickets were half price. And we got two of the last.

It was a great experience. I've been to the theatre in London, in Madrid, and all over the states, but this felt... authentic. Cork is a cultural hub, after Dublin it's the "second city" (does that make it Ireland's Chicago?) and this theatre felt important. The audience was pure local - I was even more conscious of my stick-out American accent. Also, half the audience chattered, whispered or otherwise made noise during the performance. A phone went off. We aren't the only ones.

But the show itself - about a small town in Ireland overrun by an American movie crew - felt utterly relevant. Both to Ireland, and to us. The actors were spot-on - two actors playing 30-some characters. Their American accents (on some of the characters) were better than any I'd ever heard in London.

A short drive back to small-town Blarney, a pint at the local pub, and back to the B&B. A nice night.

And yes, I did kiss the Blarney Stone, earlier in the day. Even though many might say it was redundant.

The Next Best Thing to Traditional (Limerick)

2010-03-18T08:21:00.001-07:00

Jason was "twisted," as he put it - Erin and I needed to actually help him keep his beer upright as he talked to us. It was a full pint, and it threatened to spend more time on our clothes than in his glass. Jason wasn't making a lot of sense - in fact, he said he was so twisted he couldn't remember his name, and then he introduced himself. He was having a good time, though, he wasn't sure where the spray can of Axe Body Spray had come from. Near as he could tell, he just found it in his hand. After about three sprays at ME (one to the head, two to the chest), innumerable jostles from the crowd, and the most threatening pint of beer ever, he moved on down to the end of the bar.

Tom and Jerry's is known in Limerick as being a fairly tame pub. Go in on a normal night, you'll see gentlemen in their 40s and 50s quietly drinking a pint. It's not built for crowds - the bar takes most of the room, with a lane about 5 feet wide running down the side to allow access to a smallish area with tables and a door back to the toilets. Add in bar stools against the bar and another row against the wall - it's about three feet of passing space.

St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is sort of like what would happen if you mixed the 4th of July with a 21st Birthday. Lots of National Pride, and more drinking than you can possibly imagine. There's lots of traditional music being played in some of the pubs, and Erin and I had a nice time listening to some at a pub called Dolans. But we'd had Tom and Jerry's recommended, so we stopped by on the way home.

They were having a Karaoke Night to celebrate St. Paddy's, and they were packed. Pushing our way through to the back to hit the loo (we'd already had a couple of pints and a bit of a walk) was a challenge. On the way back, as a dodgy rendition of a classic Irish country song was being wailed over the PA, one elderly gent said to Erin "This is the next best thing to traditional!" He wasn't wrong. In a lot of ways, this was the Ireland we were looking for.

The Traditional Music scene, in a large town like Limerick, seems to be geared toward the tourists looking for an "authentic" experience. The thing is, like molecules, as soon as the tourists start looking for "Traditional" it stops being traditional and starts being for tourists...

But this wasn't for the tourists. This was insane. After meeting Jason, we decided to push a bit further into the pub, rather than staying at the back near the door. We saw an empty spot and went for it.... and arrived just in time to be pressed to the wall by a bar fight. Now - given the 3-5 foot passing lane, the fight didn't have anywhere to go - and as soon as it started, three other large guys were locked in trying to pull them apart. So as five burly Irishmen in various states of drunkenness locked in and tried to move in one direction or another, Erin and I, pressed to the wall, could do nothing but watch. Eventually the coeur-de-coeur broke, and the aggressor was dumped to the ground. Slowly, they managed to get him up, and with the crowd parting reluctantly, half pushed, half carried, half arm-locked him out of the bar. There was no bouncer, per se, though there had been at the other bars. One of the patrons, who sort of looked like a cross between Vic Mackey and Richard from Lost, seemed to take charge.

Add in some broken bottles, a man refusing to leave even though he had a wedge of glass embedded in his hand (Just wrap over it! I'll go to the hospital tomorra.) a good rendition of some Billy Joel songs and some really bad American Country, a blond 20-something girl who fell into us at least four times, and was later making out with a rather elderly gentleman, and the handful of the regulars at the back wondering what had become of their local, and that was St. Patty's at Tom and Jerry's.

Padraic (Galway)

2010-03-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

Irish Bed and Breakfasts supply you with more than just the Bed and the Breakfast. They supply you with a host. You get varying degrees of this - some are barely present, some are ready with advice, and some are practically a tour guide. Padraic was the latter. We arrived late, around 8 PM, and neither Erin nor I had slept much for two days. The drive to Galway had been stressful - driving on the left has been a challenge for me, and the automatic car that we had been promised by the travel agent was very much a manual. I can drive a manual, but shifting with the left hand, while fun, is just another thing to do when you're a bit panicky about the narrow lanes and how close that car is to you, and how close the brick wall is on the other side and I think we just scratched the rental car up with those branches and every time I look for the rearview mirror its in the wrong place and I just tried to shift with my right hand and nearly broke my window and how can the speed limit be 100 kph? I can barely get to 60 I don't care if you're in a hurry you'll just have to drive around me you crazy Irish driver....

So yeah, a bit of a long day. But we were up for going out - it was our only night in Galway, and being the night before St. Patrick's Day, you can't just stay in.

We were the only one's staying at Padraic's B&B that night, and even though he had the football match on, he volunteered right off to drive us into downtown and drop us off. "Take a taxi back - that way you can have a pint and not worry about it." Which was a brilliant suggestion since the last thing I wanted to do was get back in that car.

We had a lovely time wandering around downtown Galway, the only city in Ireland that I really know, having spent a week there 6 years ago at an arts festival. But time compresses the memory, and Erin and spent a good half hour looking for the Spanish Arch in the place where I remembered it - which we discovered the next morning was absolutely nowhere near where it actually was.

We got some food, and found a pub that I remembered. We got a pint, but unfortunately the "band" that they advertised was neither Traditional, nor Original. It was a crappy cover band that played classic rock and the Killers. We managed four songs before we'd had enough. We took that taxi back the B&B for some much needed sleep.

The next morning, Padraic's Irish Breakfast was enough to feed an army. We literally didn't need to eat again until dinner. He chatted with us for a while - turns out he's an amateur actor (of course) and was appearing in Hedda Gabler that night in the role of Judge Brack. We were tempted, but it was an our of town performance, and in the wrong direction from where we were heading. A shame that, it might have been a great time.

We had been planning to go to Cork for the St. Patrick's Day parade there, but Padraic said that there was one in Galway, and that we would enjoy it, so we went and we did. What a difference from America, though! The police (Garda) were about, but only vaguely keeping people back to the curbs. Mostly the crowds spilled into the street - kids in front, their parents in the back, a few rows behind, not worried at all that they would wander off or someone would interfere. Everyone seemed to know everyone, waving at friends in the parade, shouting out.. People running across the street during the parade, sometimes joining the parade for a bit. A much more small town feel than you would get in Portland - bearing in mind that Galway is about half the size of Eugene, despite being the 5th largest city in Ireland.

After that, we got out of town. Next adventure.

Another good one

2008-06-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Theater Barn
Love with a few winks and tears
By Jeffrey Borak, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Article Last Updated: 06/19/2008 07:43:00 AM EDT

Thursday, June 19
NEW LEBANON, N.Y. — British playwright Alan Ayckbourn knows his way around classic farce. He more than has his way with the form in "How the Other Half Loves," a sly, penetrating comedy that is being given a well-crafted, smoothly played season-opening production at The Theater Barn.
"How the Other Half Loves" begins where most good farce begins — a lie. This one involves two people, Bob Phillips (Brian Allard) and Fiona Foster (Kathleen Carey), whose lies to their respective spouses, the much put-upon Teresa Phillips (a remarkable Amanda McCallum) and the bumbling Frank Foster (the able John Philip Cromie), about their whereabouts on the evening of their illicit get-together involve, unbeknownst to one another, a third couple, the hapless and completely innocent Featherstones — William (Harry Vaughn) and Mary (Jenna Doolittle).

William is an eager-to-please, upwardly mobile, ambitious young man. He has a clearly defined sense of propriety and order and a fashion sense that makes him an ideal, and very colorful, candidate for "What Not to Wear."

William's proudest creation is the dutiful Mary. When William is lead to believe by the cuckolded Frank that Mary has been unfaithful, he erupts like Vesuvius as his perfect life suddenly falls into a disarray that is the emotional equivalent of the physical mess that marks the Phillips household.

In this class-ordered world, Frank calls the tune.

He is Bob's boss and William's soon-to-be-boss. At home, however, it is Fiona who is in control. She finds what Frank cannot, fixes what he breaks, keeps him on a straight path even while she is deceiving him, which is all-too-easy to accomplish. Frank has a way of coming up with five every time he tries putting two and two together. He has an unerring knack for reaching the wrong conclusions from all the right information. At the same time, for all Frank's helplessness and bumbling, there is a subtle suggestion that perhaps this is his way of maintaining control, manipulating. It's a very subtle game these two, Fiona and Frank, play.
There may be class distinctions among the play's three couples — each of whom is played vividly and insightfully under Marotta's direction — but feelings transcend class, even if behavior may not. Commonality is emphasized by Ayckbourn's conceit, which has the two households — the Phillipses and the Fosters — sharing one set with action in each house often going on simultaneously as characters from one household pass characters from the other without so much as a by-your-leave. The highpoint is a scene at the end of the first act that unfolds over dinner at each house on successive nights, with the Featherstones switching back and forth between the Phillips' marital meltdown and the cool, even-handed, barely contained civility of the Fosters.

Marotta orchestrates all of this with shrewd skill. He draws from his likable cast a series of finely tuned, insightful performances, even when Ayckbourn takes odd turns, as he does in an unsettling scene in the second act involving a cruel and particularly self-serving Bob and a compliant Mary.

Laughter comes readily here, if not easily, and always with a telling understanding of the price betrayers and the betrayed are made to pay for perfidy.

Hey - nice review!

2008-06-17T10:48:00.001-07:00

Cast up to comic challenge in ‘How the Other Half Loves’
Monday, June 16, 2008
BY PAUL LAMAR

Casting is all, and director Michael Marotta has come up with a sextet of performers who lift Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy “How the Other Half Loves” a notch with crisply detailed characterizations and fine ensemble work.

In fact, they’re so good that you begin thinking about other parts you’d like to see them play.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This script is from 1969, when Ayckbourn was 30. Marotta wisely leaves the piece in that period, with Michelle Blanchard’s delicious costumes, Abe Phelps’ colorful set, and tunes such as “A Taste of Honey” and “It’s a Happening” aptly punctuating the proceedings.

Bob Phillips (Brian Allard) is having an affair with his boss’s wife, Fiona Foster (Kathleen Carey). To distract their respective spouses, Teresa (Amanda McCallum) and Frank (John Philip Cromie), the lovers concoct rumors about a third couple, Mary (Jenna Doolittle) and William (Harry Vaughn), he an up-and-comer in Frank’s office, and she a nervous young corporate wife. Lies lead to confusion; confusion leads — generally — to audience laughter.

Deft Handling
Ayckbourn’s stagecraft is clever. One set serves for the London living rooms of the Fosters and the Phillipses, and both couples play scenes on the set simultaneously: time and space conflated.

The last half of Act 1 provides an even greater conflation, as William and Mary have dinner with both couples at the same time on Thursday and Friday nights, a theatrical conceit that showcases the performers’ split-second timing.

These farcical elements are embedded in a play that has its darker moments. Husbands hitting wives? A neglected baby, whose presence throughout becomes the object of jokes and an inconvenience to his parents? There are tonal shifts that sometimes throw off your expectations of an unmitigated comedy; wisely, I think, Marotta and his cast don’t try to find lightness where it isn’t.

These richly layered characterizations are impressive. Cromie’s Frank seems a mere bumbler, but whenever he sniffs deception, he causes a sweat. Allard’s Bob is believably brutish, which may be the quality that attracts the upper-class Fiona. Allard doesn’t flinch from risking our dislike of Bob.

McCallum’s Teresa is a whirlwind of frustration, a housewife who would like to have a voice in the world, as well as her own home. Poignant and powerful.

Carey plays another kind of wife, one who has taken matters into her own, capable hands. A bit steely, this Fiona, yet Carey can quickly reveal her depths with a funny, panic-stricken look or a hesitant reply.

Doolittle’s Mary makes sounds and faces that hilariously manifest this young woman’s insecurities, but, like the other women, Mary finds a spine. And Vaughn’s William is a buttoned-up bundle of boyish enthusiasm until an emotional meltdown in Act 2, which Vaughn paces beautifully. It’s superb work all around, replete with British accents.

The Theater Barn is celebrating its 25th season. It’s a class operation.

‘How the Other Half Loves’
WHERE: Theater Barn, 654 Route 20, New Lebanon

WHEN: Through Sunday

HOW MUCH: $20

MORE INFO: 794-8989

Power and Memory Outages

2008-06-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

So...it's been a while. Sorry about that. Things get crazy during tech week. Let me try to catch you up on stuff.

Tuesday night New Lebanon lost power.

All of New Lebanon. The whole city. There was a crazy thunderstorm and it must have taken out an electrical substation. It was quite the adventure, coming back to the cast house after rehearsal with no lights. We're also not allowed to burn candles in the house, so...it was something else. Trying to get by on flashlight power alone. My cellphone was dying, so I ended up talking to Erin on the cast house phone downstairs- that brought back some memories from years past, before cell phones worked in this town.

The heat finally broke after that. Thank the heavens.

Thursday night's preview went pretty well, though the audience was small and rather unresponsive, which is not always that helpful when you're doing a broad farce. But the opening on Friday - oh my.

This is the 25th anniversary year for the Theater Barn, and the opening of the show was the opening of the season, so they went all out. Performers and directors from years past were invited to the show, as well as many loyal patrons. It was a full, full house of very friendly types, and the show was smash. They gave Joan, the producer, a standing ovation before the show when she got up to make a pre-pre-show speech. Michael's pre-show speech was hilarious,and the show went brilliantly.

Afterwords there was a party at the barn, lots of food from the local eateries, more wine than was healthy for anyone...then to the cast house for jello shots and pretty much anything else you want. By the time Erin called that night I was pretty well gone. I don't recall much of the conversation - just the bits she related to me later. I apparantly decided to go for a walk as I do many nights, though I was not in any state to do so. I got to the end of our block, turned left on the main road as usual, and then fell in a heap in the grass on the side of the road. It apparantly took me a number of tries to regain my feet, and then guided by Erin I made my way back to the house. Erin talked to me for three hours that night, very little of which I remember. She has the patience of a monk. She got me up to drink water and take Advil before I went off to sleep. The next day she told me I was cute, and was in no way annoyed. Jealous yet?

The next day I was up at 11 because we started rehearsal for the next show "Same Time, Next Year" at noon with a readthrough. Two actor play. Holy shit that's a lot of lines. Especially when you have to be offbook in a week.

Bet you can guess what I spent most of my day off today doing? Yeah. And I think I have most of the first scene down. Of six. Holy monkey. But I also got my laundry done, and was able to talk to Erin for a while. And Barb. And I tried to call some others, but they weren't answering. Sad.

Oh, and my brother had his first Father's Day yesterday. Congrats!

Line!

2008-06-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes this is harder than it looks.

I got through that first off-book rehearsal pretty well, but maybe too well. I took a rest (as much as I can in this 95 degree heat and with this nasty ass cold) and seem to have backslid a bit. Today was a rough rehearsal, I was stumbling over lines I know I know, stuff I've had for ages.

The thing is, I think I was second guessing and double thinking because of a conversation I had last night. One of our actresses and I had a chat last night when she was quite drunk where she sort of laid into me. It's not really worth going into many of the specifics of the conversation, and she did apologize to me first thing this morning, which I really appreciated, but ultimately the debate was over acting styles. She's just come out of a "theatre training school" one which, while I haven't heard of it, she compares to NYU and Julliard. She's very concerned with technique and motivations and homework and theatrical buzzwords. She doesn't like to be talked to out of character backstage. I'm much more about working in the moment, reacting to the person I'm dealing with as things progress, being open to change and intuition, and when I walk offstage, my character ceases to exist. Our styles clash, to say the least. The problem seems to be that while I respect the way she chooses to work, she sees the way I work as lazy and was quite hostile and disrespectful last night.

I can shrug most of that off without too much problem, and in fact, some of the other actors suggested she may be intentionally causing hostility between us, because our characters frequently fight, and she may be using that as a technique for more "realism" on stage. OK. The thing is, she hit me one place that hurt. She attacked my accent (we are using british accents in this piece) and it's something I'm struggling with on this show.

My character is lower middle class, which means that he's going to have a lower class accent. But he's a social climber, in a job that is somewhat above his status, so his accent isn't going to be Cockney, per se, but it's also not going to be posh. It's somewhere in the middle. And I think trying to find this middle ground is muddling me up quite a bit. The one time I feel solid in my dialect is in a scene where I come in drunk, and we've made the choice that since he's drunk, he slips back into more of a Cockney sound.

Anyway, I think part of the problem I was having today was that I kept half-listening to myself to see how my accent sounded, and when I'm as tentative on the lines as I am, plus half-muddled because of this damn cold that refuses to go away, I ended up being kind of a mess. I've now spent the majority of my evening going over my lines again and again, writing them out, speaking them out loud, working with Jenna, one of the other actresses in the show... Hopefully things will be better tomorrow. But it does worry me for when we get to the next show, the one where I have a much bigger line load. But no accent, so maybe that will help.

It never feels good when the one line you get from the director at the end of the night, two days after off-book date, is "get your lines down." But he was right. I was a mess today.

In other news, I continue to melt from the 95 degree heat, my throat has not improved, my cough is worse, and I still miss Erin nearly every single moment of the day.

But I think this will be a good show in the end. And that's what matters. Right?

Oh, also, back home the Drammy Awards were held tonight. Erin's last show, Wild Party, took home three awards - Actor, Actress and Choreography. All were deserved, and it's very exciting for her, especially since she was the Dance Captain, and as such, shares a bit in the Choreography award. On the other hand, Tales of Ordinary Madness and Robin Hood were both completely snubbed, which makes me sad. I was hopeful for Kendall getting another Fight Choreography award for Robin Hood, and the fact that Dalene didn't win an award for Tales means someone just wasn't paying attention. And personally, I thought Tales deserved an Ensemble award as well. Of course, we're all biased toward shows we worked on, so what do I know?

I'm also sad that Emily and Katy weren't recognized in the tech awards. Though I'm not sure who did win, and I'm sure they were deserving. We should give more tech awards. We'd be lost without them, and we barely acknowledge them.

Too. Hot.

2008-06-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

Ok. First, it's fucking hot. HOT. Mid-90's, humid as hell, had a thunderstorm earlier where the rain was actually warm to the touch. (Also had to stop rehearsal for 10 minutes because it was so loud on the tin roof.) I live on the 2nd floor, and there's no air conditioning. It's slimy up here. Yuk.

Second, this is officially the worst cold I have ever had. Ever. I not only have a nasty, awful, breathtakingly painful sore throat, but I have it at the same time as the stuffiness and the coughing. (I usually get those one at a time.) Add in the heat...

Thank heavens for Erin. Today she suggested Ibuprofen, which I had been avoiding because I was worried about it interacting with the Acetaminophen (Tylenol) in the Day/Ny Quil I've been mainlining. She did some research online and assured me that they would be ok to take together. Turns out that Ibuprofen is the magic elixir for this soe throat. It takes it from unbearably, gaspingly painful to swallow to merely annoyingly painful to swallow. Mix with hot tea with honey and lemon (also Erin's suggestion) and it almost makes it a mere ache. Repeat as needed. Which is frequently.

Today was our first full run of the show, off book. We started rehearsing Monday. Today we were offbook. Friday next we open. And you know, we were all there, or mostly there. I'm more comfortable with the lines than even I realized. Not perfect - still need to brush them up, get them as close to exact as possible, but it's to the point now where we know we're gonna make it. I never had any doubts, this being my third time through here. It always amazes me we can do it this fast, but we always do it. The next one still scares me, though. A two person show in just two weeks? It's a killer script, and I can't wait to do it, but sheesh.

By the way - here's the link to the theater: TheaterBarn. You should check out my facebook page for some pictures of the theater, me, the cast, the cast house, etc.

Had a good evening off after the show, with a late call in the morning (noon). Ended up spending a good chunk of time on facebook-chat with Erin. It was just lovely, spending time together that way. For some reason it's different than a phone conversation, more leisurely - more like spending time together in a relaxed manner - like sitting round the living room reading books and working on paperwork together. I don't know if that makes sense. But it was nice.

We had a nice long conversation about being distant (it's been almost a week now) and the challenges and opportunities it gives to us. As hard as it can be, there is an upside, if you look for it. You learn about yourself - learn about your relationship. It gives you a new way to look at things - at your own reactions, at your own strengths and fears. It also forces a different kind of communication, since you lose most if not all of the non-verbals. I can't kiss her or hug her or hold her, so I have to be more articulate, more careful in my speech. I also need to be more...thoughtful in my daily life. We have to work at the closeness that normally seems to come so easily - whether that's frequent text messages throughout the day or taking photos as I go through my day so she can see where I am (yes, the very photos you all can benefit from on my facebook page). It's interesting. To me anyway. Might be really boring to you. Though other members of my cast seem enthralled (some curious, some appalled) by the openness of our relationship. It's a frequent dinner-time conversation. (Lovely cookout on Friday night...)

Also over the last couple nights I've watched the movie "Atonement." A brilliant film, it makes me really want to read the book. But I was really struck at the end by the whole "being kept apart from the one you love and hoping to get together in the end" theme. Guess it came at the right time. And of course the twist ending is breathtakingly sad. I cried, of course. But nobody who knows me would be surprised by that.

OK, I'm off to the shower, in the hopes that it will cool me to the extent that I can sleep.

Acting Sick

2008-06-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, this was a rough day.

Trying to get through eight-or-so hours of rehearsal when your throat is on fire and all you want to do is sleep is not a picnic. But I suppose it could be worse. We finished blocking the play today and then ran act II. We got out an hour and a half early. I was very thankful for that, and promptly fell into bed for three hours.

Up again, I made some soup and came over to our producers house to use the wireless internet (we don't have any at the cast house). It's nice of them to let us sit out on their porch (or in the car, as I am now. Buggy.) and connect up. I did download a dial-up program so that I can access from the cast house, too, though slowly, I'm sure.

I think this show is going to be rather good. It's funny, the actors are strong and easy to work with. Michael is always stunningly efficient at getting these farces up and running in the tiniest time frame.

Speaking of tiny time frames, we have to be offbook by Saturday. And really, ought to be off tomorrow. So that's my plan for most of the rest of the night before sleeping. Lines, talk to Erin, go to bed.

Poor Erin. After the whole oil-pan incident, the mechanic said that she really needed a new engine because driving with so little oil had caused some sort of metal shards in there or something... so $900 later, she got the car back yesterday. Today the battery quit on her. She had to have the car towed back to the shop, thinking it was something wrong with the new engine. Nope - needed a new battery. She practically has a new car now.

I hate being so far away from her when I know being there would be helpful - either just as support, or as a working car to drive her around (she has my car, but can't drive stick, so that does no good.)

Anyway. Back to work.

Sore Throat Blues

2008-06-04T11:51:00.001-07:00

So....I seem to have ended up with Erin's cold after all. At least that's the indication I'm getting from my respiratory system. Fun.

Rehearsals are going well. We finished blocking/working Act I yesterday and started on Act II this morning. It always kind of astounds me how quickly you can work through things when you aren't being distracted by 200 other committments (though my Portland life is doing it's best to call out to me - various emails from both Northwest Academy and Blue Monkey. But it;s easier to keep them in the background when they are so far away...)

Speaking of being far away, the one thing that I am finding hard about being here is being so far from Erin. After reaching the point where we spent most nights together and saw each other nearly every day, suddenly being deprived of that generous source of love and affection is a shock to the system at the minimum. We are talking each night, and texting, but that's not nearly enough. I've been down the "long-distance" road before, but this is something new. All the others, they all STARTED as long distance. Throwing this in after three months...well. I'll live with it, but I won't like it.

The Obama stuff last night was very exciting. Our cast all gathered in the living room to watch whatever coverage we could find (we missed the speech, and then spent hours trying to track it down in its entirety on line. We couldn't. Information age my ass.) It felt like being a part of history. And I don't mean all the historical blah blah blah about having an african american major party candidate, though that is certainly historical. I mean the historical fact of having a major party candidate that people actually believe in, rather than just accept as a necessary evil. First time in my lifetime, anyway.

Well, I gotta pack up and haul my sore throat back to rehearsal. Thanks for checking in with me today, and I'll try to get these up as often as I can.

Arriving at the Barn

2008-06-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

So its been suggested to me that I keep a record of my summer adventures this year, and I think that’s a marvelous idea. We’ll see if I can actually keep up with it. For now, I’m writing this on Word at home, and will have to copy/paste it into the blog when I can find an internet connection. I’m working on it.

It seems as if perhaps my trips to New Lebanon will always be predicated by car trouble. Girlfriend car trouble, in fact. Last year, Lisa’s car was stolen the night before I was due to leave. This year, Erin’s car broke the day before I was due to leave. Apparantly the bottom of the oil pan fell out or some such. On the entrance ramp from I5-N to 14-W in Vancouver. For those of you not in the PDX area, this is an on ramp that is truly difficult to get to if you aren’t going the right way. Since she was following me at the time it happened, I had to double back, go all the way back across the state line into Portland, get off the freeway, and turn back again to get to where she was. It was quite an adventure that included me going to get her mom from her apartment, calling AAA, and then having Andrew come to help out since I had to get to an early call at Northwest Academy. I was late. Erin was late to her call for Wild Party. But we got the problem solved, and in good humor, and that’s what matters.

Sunday was a very long day, and included much of Monday. Final show at NWA, then strike, finished that around 5:45. Then up to Vancouver, finish unloading my things into Erin’s apartment, say hello/goodbye to her visiting mother, a quick dinner at Burgerville, to the airport. Erin was rushing off to first rehearsal for Pippin, so a quick goodbye, and into the airport personmill. Check in was easy, security was easy, but my dreams of an empty center seat in my row were dashed by a rather large lady, who while being very nice, took up a percentage of my already meager seating space. Sleep was not to be had, though I did enjoy the showing of “The Spiderwick Chronicles.” But I hate not being able to sleep on red-eyes.

Layover in Newark was uneventful other than them choosing not to indicate which gate I was leaving from on the departure screens. That took some tracking down. Oh, and the fact that when I put my jacket back on as I exited the plane in Newark, I realized that I had inadvertently taken Erin’s keys with me. I had put my car key on her chain so she would have it, but when I had gotten some things out of the car, automatically put the keys in my pocket. She had her mother’s keys since she was driving her SUV with the car oilpan-less, so hadn’t noticed. Dread filled me when I realized that she didn’t have a way into the Yoga studio for her 8 AM class.

After landing in Albany, I called Erin, who had cancelled her classes anyway because she’s quite ill. I overnight mailed the keys later in the afternoon, so hopefully she won’t be too inconvenienced. Sorry sweetheart!

I landed at 10, so rehearsal was delayed until 11. We started with a company meeting and a read-through. The play, How the Other Half Loves, is a Ayckborne farce, very British, but a halfhearted attempt had been made by the publishers to Americanize it. But really, it’s impossible to do, so we just changed all the references back. Much better.

After a lunch break in which I went grocery shopping, mailed Erin’s keys, went to the liquor store and got a sandwich, we met back to start blocking the first of the four scenes. Bearing in mind that I had had no sleep for the last 24 or so hours, I think I held up quite admirably. I had only worked with one of the actors before (and the director and SM) but we all seemed to fall into an easygoingness with each other (you have to when you only have 10 days to rehearse) and everyone seems lovely. Everyone was very understanding of my sluggishness, and I am well appreciative. We blocked the entire scene (1/4 of the play) and managed a stumble-through before the end of the day.

Finishing around 7, I decided on a short nap, then up for a few hours before bed, trying to get back to a normal schedule. Got a chance to socialize a bit with the rest of the group, watch some TV, look over lines, have a long walk, and have an excellent hour-long chat with Erin, which was lovely, but never enough. The shooting star was nice, though. Which brings me to now. Just got out of the shower, where I realized I forgot to pack a towel. Oops.

Its really good to be back in this house. Its almost a second home to me now, coming back for the third time. Lots of the same people around – Joan and Abe, the producers. Michael the Artistic Director and director of the show. Michelle, our SM. Phil, who is in this play and is directing the next one. And a handful of new folk as well. Amanda, who is playing my wife in this one. Harry, who keeps accidentally stealing my food because he and I bought basically the same stuff and he gets confused. A few others (still working on names. I’m bad with names.)

Anyway, I’m still a bit sleep deprived. I’ll try to keep up with this, but no promises. I gots me lots of lines to learn.

Like David Hasselhoff in Germany

2008-01-25T17:25:00.000-08:00

I'm HUGE in Czechoslovakia!

Heh.

I have no idea what it says either. But that's my name on the 12th line. Kinda.

The Press

2008-01-23T23:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I try really hard not to be a diva (despite what Katy might say....)

But damn. These reviews are fucking awesome.

So....actors don't read their own press?

I'll call bullshit on that.

I know I read them. And everyone I know does too.

So....in case you're interested:

This one is damn good:

Oregonian

I particularly like this part:

The starting point of both the humor and the pathos is in the eyes of Brian Allard, whose expressions of befuddlement, sheepishness, concern and exasperation make Peter -- a "tired man-sponge" who accommodates the lost souls around him at the cost of his own way -- into a highly sympathetic slacker Everyman.

Also good:

Willy Week

Followspot

I love this show. And the press seems to love it too.

If you live nearby, please, see it. If you don't, try to get here. It's....something else

Hold on Loosely

2008-01-16T20:41:00.000-08:00

There is a legend about Sir Laurence Olivier. Not the one with Dustin Hoffman. A different one.

He was playing Richard III, and gave a masterful performance. Everyone was amazed. He had to do 10 curtain calls. Everyone thronged around his dressing room after the show, only to hear him inside, throwing chairs around, screaming, crying and generally trashing the place.

When he finally opened the door, red-faced, a shocked crowd stood there. One brave soul spoke up. "But Larry, you were brilliant! It was the best performance you've ever given. Why on earth are you so upset?"

Olivier turned on him and said, simply "Because I have no idea why!"

--------------------

I finally did it last night. I finally made this role come alive exactly the I wanted it to, exactly the way it should be. I felt it in my bones. My director was extatic and talked of drammies. My stage manager hugged me and told me it was amazing. It was everything it could be. Everything it needs to be.

I have no idea how I did it. And that terrifies me.

OK, of course I know where it came from. Stepan (Schtep-ohn), my director, had a breakthrough the night before when a friend of his visited our rehearsal and they had a long chat. He sent me pages of notes the next day. I liked some of them, didn't like others, but the main point came down to this - we were playing Peter too jaded. He needed to be more freaked out by the shit going on around him. Like, way more freaked out. So that's what I played. And it worked.

At intermission Stepan told me that Peter was now the center the play as it should be. After the show he hugged me and told me I was there. Today in the parking lot, he told me he'd been thinking about it, and he realized he had never before worked with an actor who could take direction, think on it, and execute it as quickly as I had. That meant an awful lot.

And I know HOW I did it, really, but it's a delicate balance. I'm scared of going over the top - if Peter is THAT freaked out, then I could play it TOO big, and "over-acting" has always been my number one fear as an actor, ever since 10th grade when I upstaged an entire show in my naivete and my director, who I idolized, was so, so disappointed in me.

Acting is such a delicate balance, and because of that, we tend to try to go the safe road. And that's really where the danger lies - because if you codify your performance, if you plan each step, each emotion, each thought, then you aren't living it, and true performances ONLY happen when you live it. But- to step on that stage with no guarantee, no plan other than to just live it.... that's scary. Because what happened on Tuesday (in front of the director, SM, sound designer, costume designer and board op ONLY) could happen. OR it might just be nothing. Normal. Boring. And if I'm in my head.... So I need to not be in my head. I need to recreate Tuesday as much as possible. But I can't plan that. It just has to happen.

And I have to trust it will. Thank god this cast is so awesome and loving to me. Great performances....you can only create the most favorable conditions and hope the magic happens. You can't force it. It's like sleep. Or hitting a baseball. Or love.

Hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling to tightly, you're gonna lose control.

But if I did it once, I can it again.

But beyond that....this show requires me to leave pretty much everything on the stage. That's not easy when you have 100 people out there judging you. But it is what it is. And if I go too far, I go too far. Better that than not trying.

Home for the Holidays

2008-01-03T03:17:00.000-08:00

So this is the New Year.

And I don't feel any different.

But that's ok.

This trip home at the holidays had a different feel. Single once again, I was master of my own schedule. And it ended up feeling like I'd found a time travel machine.

Family obligations out of the way for the time being, I spent the mid-week exploring my past. Or so it seemed. Wednesday night I had dinner and a chat with my ex-girlfriend from way back, just post college. We're both so much more grown up now. She has a real job and a long-term boyfriend. She still writes on the side, but to some extent has become "normal." And it suits her. She seemed healthier and happier than she ever has in the times we've dropped into each others lives in the past 10 years. And perhaps even moreso than when we were together. And I felt so happy for her.

Thursday day was spent with Matt, my best friend since 10th grade, a man who knows me better and differently than anyone ever will. Pulling into the driveway at his parent's house, I was a lonely teenager again, hanging out with my friend, looking for the acceptance and connection that seemed so elusive. Until I got to the door and the present snapped back in focus. His brother was no longer a pipsqueak middle schooler, but an articulate, polite doctoral student. He stood and chatted with me, though I knew he'd rather get back to watching the film on TV. 17 years ago he would have. Matt came upstairs and the year since I had seen him no longer existed, except in stories that desperately needed to be shared. The afternoon was a joy.

Thursday night I spent with another old friend, one who I hadn't seen in years, one who has changed and changed again, and who it was lovely to see has grown into a clever, fun and sexy young woman. We chatted for hours and took care of some seriously unfinished business. I was left that night with the feeling that something long neglected had been completed. And then I drove by the I-35W bridge collapse. Juxtaposition is occasionally insane.

Friday night was a party where I reconnected with masses of old college friends. It was unexpected, but wow. The more people change, the more they stay the same. Some have less hair, or babies, or producing careers, but basically, they're the same shmos I went to college with. And the fact will never change that I need to find a woman like Mel, that isn't Mel. And that I should write her more.

I got to close another open door that night - I had a chance to apologize to someone I should have apologized to years ago. And as she's now dating one of my best friends, it was long overdue.

Saturday was family Christmas, delayed because it was my inlaws year to have my brother and sister-in-law on the real holday. It was the same as it ever is, which is in no way a bad thing. There is a reason I look forward to "Christmas Morning." And next year we get the baby on his first Christmas. So there's that, right? Uncle Brian. Oh my.

And then the weekend. My heart lives in that weekend. Because I spent it, mostly, with Barb and Matt, the two people who I hold closest to me. One of the saddest parts of my life is that I so rarely see these two singular people.

There is something very powerful about knowing that if the universe altered one or two factors, your life would be oh so different. Because if I could somehow travel at incredible speeds, and spend time on a daily basis with these two, my life would be so enriched and so more grounded. Spending my New Year's Eve / Day with them was.... everything.

Barb's night-before-New-Year's party was a blast as ever, as it has been the past three years, and is the reason my trips home for Christmas will ALWAYS extend to the New Year if at all possible. And spending the next day with her, just sharing that time - was one of the best days of my year. It doesn't matter so much WHAT we did, just that we did it together.

And then New Year's night. Drinking a beer in Minneapolis, sitting on a barstool next to my best friend of 17 years - a man I have known longer than I lived before I knew him. A man with whom I have shared the indecencies of high school, the maturation of college, the wonders of being an artist in New York. The man who flew across the country to stand next to me at my wedding, and later flew across the country to get me drunk for the first time after my divorce. The best friend we all wish we had growing up. We sat there, chatting quietly, and toasted as the ball dropped (on time delay) as 2008 began.

It was nothing special. Which made it the most special thing of all. If 2008 can live up to the promise of the last day of 2007, it will be a very special day indeed.

And then I flew home. Departing my parent's house, after hugging my mom goodbye and being dropped at the airport (at 5 AM!) by my dad, I had spent the last 24 hours with the four most important people I know outside of Portland.

And after a long day of travel (no sleep, four hours on a plane to Seattle, four hours on a train back to Portland) I fell into the loving embrace of those who are my life here. Lindsay met me at the station, conveyed me home, and then to dinner with Emily and David. They are my life here, and no less important than my past, or my home. They are my present.

I felt loved as I left, and loved again as I arrived.

Truly, I am blessed with an embarrassment of riches.

Why my day sucked, when it really shouldn't have

2007-10-20T01:01:00.000-07:00

It started out SUCH a good day.

Still glowing from a lovely date last night, I woke up smiling and happy. And then it all went to hell. Angry emails from exes and close friends do not a happy morning make.

But then it got better. Good rehearsal, some good emails. Talked to a couple good friends.

And then there was the fact Night of the Living Dead, which I opened tonight, was not ready AT ALL from the tech side. I got there early, and watched my interns being run ragged trying to get the set, sound and everything ready to go. They didn't, really. Couldn't. Lots of dropped cues, a few missing props, lots of confused looking interns. And it wasn't their fault - it was the failure of certain adults around them, who shall remain nameless. For now. I just want to protect the interns. How did I get to be a mothering hen to 14 teenagers? And what does that say about my masculinity?

But the end, the kicker, was the car. My lovely free car, donated by a lovely couple who I know through the theatre, which has served me well for these last three months, decided it had had enough. It's either the transmission or the cluch (please, please, please be the clutch!) according to people who seem to know such things. But I don't have a mechanic. Or a clue about cars. Or any friends to help, really, at least that I know of.

It happened, of course, in Beaverton. I think it sensed it was back home (whence it came from). It is now sitting in the parking lot of the Valley Theater, hoping it doesn't get towed before Monday, the earliest I'll have time to deal with it. Anyone know a good, trustworthy mechanic in Beaverton?

Why can't I deal with it til Monday? Well, that would be due to my i nsane schedule. Saturday, I teach from 10-1, have rehearsal for "Fourth Grade Nothing" from 2-5, final dress from 7-9, perform "Night of the Living Dead" at 10 and midnight, come home, sleep. Sunday I have first read of "Tales of Ordinary Madness" at 10, opening of "Fourth Grade Nothing" at 2, and move house in the evening.

And now I'm doing it all on the bus. Oh, joy.

Who said that being self-employed is easy?

But I'm mostly just annoyed because it all harshed my buzz from last night.

Grace

2007-10-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

I find myself in a very pensive mood this evening.

I saw a play tonight. It was called "Grace" and by Craig Wright.

The play was essentially about a fundamentalist Christian couple (from Minnesota!)and the dissolution of their marriage and faith over the course of three months. She ends up falling in love with a neighbor, and while there is no evidence of a sexual relationship, we do see them kissing, and then she leaves her husband for him.

For those of you that know me fairly well, this is a shockingly similar story to my early 20s. I was a fundamentalist Christian from the time I was 16 until I was 23. My ex-wife fell in love with a friend of ours, and while there was no evidence of a sexual relationship, I know they did at the very least kiss, and exchange massive amounts of love e-letters (which is how I found out about the affair.) She didn't leave me, I kicked her out, but that's a small detail, really.

In the end, the real difference in the stories is the final reaction. Krista and I divorced, she married Dennis and is presumably living a happy life in LaCrosse, WI (where I left her). We have not spoken in nearly 10 years. I moved on to live in London, New York and now Portland. I've travelled the world, flown in an airplaine on 9/11/01, appeared off-Broadway, been promoted to head of Drama after one month at a comprehensive school in one of the worst schools in England, been the only goy in a Jewish improv company, become accepted by New York City public school kids, brought European Sumo Wrestlers to parties, performed at the Comedy Store in LA, nearly been raped by a naked woman in an apartment in Norway, toured Texas with a psychotic alcoholic hippie, kissed an Irishwoman, dated a Republican Politician, won a golden glove award playing first base on a semi-pro baseball team in London, fallen in love, had my heart broken, been roommates with John Monteverde, managed to land my dream job, experimented and adventured in 1,000 different ways and most importantly, I am generally happy.

The guy in the play? He shot his wife, her lover, himself, AND the exterminator for good measure. Dude. Life goes on.

I guess it's all in how you take it. Was I hurt? Yeah. Did I lose faith, not only in God, but in just about everything? Shit yeah. I felt like my life was "The Matrix" - everything I believed in was ripped away and there was a whole new world underneath.

Look back at that list. I would have done none of those things if I had stayed in that marriage. None of them. I doubt I would have done many of those things if I had remained a Christian. But I pressed on. I lived. And I've lived a better life than I would have lived if our marriage hadn't fallen apart. If I hadn't lost faith. If I hadn't lived through (very nearly) the plot of this play.

But it makes you think. Think about the old scars in your life. Some wounds never heal completely, but maybe that's ok.

And another thing that struck me. Watching the wife fall for the neighbor in a way that must have been so similar to what Krista went through. Watching her struggle. Maybe I understand a bit better what happened back then. Shit - we were just kids. 23. She was 22. (Dennis was 32. He should have known better. On some levels. What the hell.) I guess maybe I get it a bit better.

I'm tempted to write to Krista and thank her. And maybe apologize, too.

Rejected - Don Hertzfeldt

2007-09-05T22:48:00.001-07:00

Because everyone in the whole world needs to see this.

Perception

2007-08-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

So. I made a mistake this weekend. One that almost cost.... well, quite a lot. I wasn't the only one who made a mistake, but I could have stopped the problem before it began if I had thought it through a bit further. And everything I did was with the best intentions, but... well. It still would have ultimately been better off if I had dealt with the situation better. And I'm sorry about that.

But it did put me in a situation to make some realizations about some friends of mine.

In one case, a friend stood up for me in a fashion that took my breath away. Now, whether it was motivated out of friendship for me, or simply out of a sense of fair-play and standing up for what is right, I'm not sure. But it doesn't really matter. She stood up for me in that moment, and with a ferocity I never would have expected.

In another case, a friend did what she always does. She was there when I needed her, on an very frequent basis. She listens to my bitching, tells me when I'm being dumb, and just generally takes care of me. This was nothing new, but in such a difficult time, it really helped.

In a third case, a friend had the fortitude to sit down with me, tell me to shut up, and just lay some shit out for me. Every time I tried to interrupt, he stopped me. Every excuse I came up with, he set aside for the moment. And this was hard - for him and for me.

He helped me to learn something about perception and reputation. Every time he would tell me "well, to some people it sorta looked like this" and I would try to respond with "but if you look at it a different way" he essentially explained to me that yes, he knew that, of course he knew that, but he was my friend and he knew me. He knew what was going on in my head, why I reacted the way I did, what my intentions were. Other people didn't.

It seems to me that it's kind of a vicious cycle. Your friends know what's going on with you, so they have a more personal perception on things. So they remain your friends, even if it seems to others that you're being a jerk.

When he laid it all out for me, I realized something. I realized "Damn. If you look at it that way, I really come off as an asshole."

In the end, I think I've learned that I really need to guard my reputation. You need to be aware of the perception as well as the reality. I don't think I'm a difficult person to deal with, and by and large, if what the people I've worked with have told me, I'm right. I had a rough summer, what with the break-up and everything, and I think that's hurt me. It seems that some people had finally tired of that emotionally on-edge Brian (as had I) and when this situation cropped up that seemed to be another example of that, it had just been enough. Whether the situation was different or not is immaterial. It seemed that way, and that's what matters when you are dealing with people that don't have access to your interior person.

I like to think I'm the first to admit when I make a mistake. I made one this weekend. Thankfully a much bigger mistake was avoided by cooler heads prevailing. And now I've learned I have some work to do. It might be too late to salvage certain relationships (which would be sad) but hopefully I've learned in time to save others.

And back to my friends - I've always felt that true friendship was best described as knowing that your friend is flat-out wrong, and defending them anyway. And then dressing them down afterwords, in private.

Well, I wasn't flat-out wrong this time, just somewhat misguided, but I had one friend that defended me, and one that sorta dressed me down. I'll take it.

The three people I mentioned here should know who they are. And you have my eternal gratitute, and much, much love.

Minnesotan

2007-08-02T04:30:00.000-07:00

My hometown broke yesterday.

Somehow it feels wrong not to be there. I want to hug my parents and my friends, I want to know that they are ok, and to go through this with them. I want to try to give blood for them (and be turned away because I lived in London for a year...) I want to do SOMETHING.

Instead I go through it alone. Far away. Where lots of people don't even know what happened.

I know that bridge. I've driven on that bridge many, many times. I used to work at the hospital that a lot of the people were taken to.

My heart is in Minneapolis right now. All of my people are safe, but I grieve with them anyhow. Because the dead and injured are Minnesotans.

And so am I.

Nana Dee

2007-07-29T23:01:00.000-07:00

Fair warning: This blog entry is almost entirely for me. Please, feel free to read, but realize upfront that it's somewhat self-indulgent.

-------------------

My god. Two years.

Two years since my grandmother died.

And, yeah, I know - we all write about our dead grandmothers. But... I dunno. I don't think anyone shaped my life the way she did. She taught me what it was all about. Nothing moves me the way her memory does. It gives me strength, and it cuts me to the quick. Like life, I guess.

It's taken me this long to look back at the eulogy I gave for her. But now its time.

So here it is.

-----

I kinda feel that I didn't have the opportunity to meet Delores Dayton until she was about 2/3 of the way through her life. And that's the closest you'll get to me telling you how old she actually was. Strict orders, you know. The woman in that photo, I never got to know. Which is a shame. But I heard stories - oh yes. And I'd love to hear many more.

I heard stories about her devotion to her husband and children. And I saw that borne out in her love for her grandchildren. I heard stories of how she worked part time as a school secretary while finishing school early in order to help support her fatherless family. I heard stories of how she shepherded a family of her pregnant self and two children though WWII while her husband was away fighting, living in two rooms, sharing a house with other families, giving birth while he was away, defending our country. I've heard stories of how she was romanced by the famous, and had the will to walk away because it wasn't right.

And I have stories to tell. I have stories to tell of when I was a baby, and she slept beside my crib because I was ill, and she would not be persuaded to a bed. Of how, when I was a child, sleeping over at Nana Dee's was one of the most exciting things in the world, because we would watch baseball, eat ice cream, and she would drag the mattress into the living room so we could sleep in the same room. And I never minded (too much) that the clock ticked so loud that I couldn't sleep. I have stories to tell of when I was a young adult and my life and marriage fell apart - my Nana Dee was there for me - and when I made questionable decisions, she tried to understand and would never judge - even when all around me were. I have stories to tell of how every ex-girlfriend I have (and no smart comments about the increasing number of those, please) is quick to ask after Nana Dee whenever I speak to them - even if it is years later. This is a woman who made an impression.

What you need to understand is that you are these stories. I see Nana in each of you. I see her in my Aunt Joyce's compassion, my Uncle Dan's patience, my mother's love and understanding. I see her in my cousin Brad's professionalism, Jon's cleverness, Lori's enjoyment of life, Lisa's love of her family, and my brother Dan's intense drive to succeed. And finally and sadly, somewhat backwards, I realize that what my uncle Larry most had from her was bravery, especially bravery in the face of death.

So please, share your stories. Share yourselves. Nana Dee - a woman I will always be quick to name as one of the most influential in my life - has influenced each and every one of you - otherwise you wouldn't be here. Tell those stories - to each other, to strangers, and most of all, to your children.

Because the woman I knew as Nana Dee may be dead - but as long as those stories are told - she never will be, never can be, gone.

----

And now I'm crying. Nothing in this world can make me cry like thinking of her. Nothing.

And while I have no understanding of "The Life After" - I do know that if there is any part of her that can know what I am thinking, I want that part to know that I will never regret anything more in my life than not coming home a day or two sooner. Never.

I just wish I had known she was asking for me.

An Illegal Erection

2007-07-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

This Shakespeare in the park thing in Portland is interesting.

I mean, first there was the fountain and all the drama associated with that. Now Romeo and Juliet is closed, and As You Like It opens this coming Saturday.

It's a production that has been fraught with....stuff. The two lead women are in other shows at the same time as this one, one of which opens the same day as ours, just at night, when we are in the afternoon. Due to this, we will not have had a single rehearsal with the entire cast before we open the show. Wow.

And then last night's rehearsal, well, that was something else.

It actually started before I got there, so this part I just heard via our SM. Some people arrived early to set up the changing tent, and once done, were approached by a policeman who said "this here is an illegal erection. The federal police are on their way." Um. We put up a tent in the park, so you called the feds? Anyway - the federal police arrive, our director (Bibi - she's like everyone's mom. It's impossible to say no to her. It would be like letting down your mom or grandma...) shows them our permit, they say that we can keep the tent for today and they will let us know about the future. Thanks.

So as we are starting rehearsal, the PDX Pop NOW festival kickoff was starting. Actually, PDX Pop NOW is usually something I get into, but they made some unfortunate choices for bands (and why are you doing this outside at the courthouse, again? Old Time Relijun, The Watery Graves, and Little Sue. Local bands I've not heard of, and won't be following up.

Then, at the end of Act I, they finished. Which is great - Act II needs more work, we can now hear each other, yay!

Halfway through Act II, the sprinklers on the other side of the park suddenly went off. It freaked us out, but they weren't really hitting the stage, or where we were sitting, so we pressed on. Fifteen minutes later, they popped up on our side. One came up right under the tent! We all got doused as we grabbed our things and ran. It was hilarous in it's absurdity - and sadly, sprinkler systems are rather disinterested in performance permits. We were done for the night.

And so I went to a concert. Alan Singley and the Pants Machine. Needed to wipe away the memory of those bad bands. Alan was great, and I actually got to chat with him before the show. He played my favorite song of his "the pie song" and even asked me to come on stage and sing it with him. I demurred, as I get funny about singing, and actually prefer not to be on a stage when I'm not working. The opening band, The Sort Ofs, were excellent, and I really like their CD, which I bought. So that worked out.

Oh, and out in the park, doing this show - this is me:

Two Weeks

2007-07-18T01:18:00.000-07:00

Two weeks on from the break up. Has it really been two weeks? Wow.

I'm still plugging on, dear friends. There are lonely times, and times when I'm just sad, but for the most part I'm plogging along taking things a day at a time. I'm more convinced each day (with the exception of those dark, lonely times) that I've made the right decision here, even if it is one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Of course, money is another thing. I have lots of work lined up starting in September, but the rest of July is just a desert. I've even started looking into temp agencies - but the thing is, I'm crazy busy right now! It's just that I'm not getting paid for it. But there seems to be a possibility of getting some money from Blue Monkey starting in August, and John has offered me the props position for his production of "Zombie Prom." I'm not sure I'll have time for that, or that it's cost effective, but it is a bit of cash, anyway. It seems like I'll survive the summer if this stuff comes through, but just by the skin of our teeth. And I could use a few days of mindless office money-making if you know anyone....

The Blue Monkey Education Department stuff, along with some acting career maintenence, some writing, and getting started on the teaching stuff for the Northwest Academy are keeping me right busy, nevermind rehearsing for As You Like It. I've got a guy who is going to teach me some magic stuff for that show, and I couldn't be more grateful. I sent out a blast on PDXbackstage, and this guy just volunteered his time, expertise, and some supplies. I'm very fortunate.

Romeo and Juliet has been going well. Saturday night was interesting last weekend - when we got there, we had two homeless guys cuddled up asleep on the "stage" where we perform in front of the fountain. Our SM was a bit intimidated, so I went down and woke them up, and asked them if they could move somewhere else. There was an empty bottle of Vodka there, and we quickly learned precisely where it had gone. One of the guys got up and was reasonable (if a bit paranoid and accusatory), but his companion was simply not capable of standing. This went on for 20 minutes, the first guy trying to get the other guy out of there while our audience slowly gathered for the "preshow" as it had become. Eventually the police showed up, after being called twice, and escorted the very drunk guy out of there (the other one had taken off to avoid the cops). It was an interesting adventure to start the show.

Trying to keep busy at night, because of course those are the hardest times. Went to see the new Harry Potter movie tonight with some friends. It was good - the book isn't as fresh in my mind, so the descrepancies didn't bother me TOO much, though I did wonder why they made Cho the traitor, that was a new twist. Lisa and I are going to a concert on Thursday, trying to move forward the whole "being friends" thing. I hope that works out, really. Even if we didn't work out as partners - she's a great person and I would very much value keeping her as a friend.

So, off to bed. Tomorrow I go buy clothes for As You Like It. Could take all day.

Floundering in the Fountain

2007-07-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

Well, last night was a challenge.

You see, we're remounting the production of Romeo & Juliet that I was in last winter. We're doing it in a park, using a fountain as a base for the setting. The fountain, however, needs to be off, both so that we have a chance in hell of being heard, and because a number of our entrances are supposed to be through the area where the water flows. Last night was our final rehearsal before we open the show tonight.

And the fountain was still fucking on.

I did not deal with this well - and on the one hand, I do have a right as a professional to demand that we have at least one rehearsal with the conditions we will actually be performing under. On the other hand, I should just suck it up and be a good example for all the kids in the show. I didn't do that. I was mad, and I let that be known. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sure I'll get a pass from people because of my current emotional state, and I appreciate that. But it's harder to give myself that same pass, you know?

We still have no guarantee that the fountain will be off tonight, though it sounds like our producer has been kicking some ass to make sure it happens. Apparantly the Portland Water Dept. is not particularly organized. If the fountain isn't off tonight, I don't know if I can bring myself to go on. It puts us in an unsafe environment and would basically force us to stand on stage and scream to be heard. I find the whole idea very embarrassing as an actor. It's bad enough we won't really have a chance to work the show the way we'll be doing it (we really have no idea what cue to listen for for entrances, since we've never been able to hear. And fights could be an adventure with the conditions unfamiliar...)

Otherwise, I've just been trying to settle in here at John's. I'm only about half unpacked, and since the packing was a rush job, I really have no idea where a lot of my things are. I've realized I left a few things at Lisa's, some of which are very important, but we spoke last night and semi-arranged for me to pick them up. Lisa seems to be in a pretty good state now, and we even were able to talk about remaining friends, or at least friendly. I think I would like that a lot.

Tomorrow I start work on the workshop of Sometimes a Great Notion at Portland Center Stage, of which there will be a free reading on Thursday at 3 PM, if anyone is interested. Because of this show, I have the option of joining equity, and after the fountain fiasco, I'm seriously considering it. I just need to take a look at all the masses of paperwork to find out what ways it restricts me. I think it will be fun, though some of these people involved are pretty high-powered Portland theatre folk, so I really need to work to impress. Plus, we work 10-6, then I go to R&J performances or As You Like It rehearsals. It's going to be a busy busy week.

Good news on various fronts, though. A friend has potentially offered me a car for a while, another friend has approached me about catsitting from January to July next year... I never knew such great people were around me. Thanks, friends!

I also had a great 2-hour phone conversation last night. So there are some good things going on in my life, too.

Here's some photos from last night's rehearsal. You can find the rest at: http://www.annaliesemoyer.com/rjpreviewsite/index.htm.

A new chapter

2007-07-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends-

Many of you have emailed, called and texted to make sure I am alright. Let me assure you that even though I'm shaken and a bit at loose ends, I am okay. I really have appreciated everyone checking in on me, though. I think feeling loved right now is a good thing. A very good thing.

I've had so many people come forward with offers of places to stay, possible rentals, ideas on how best (and cheapest) to get a car.... I guess I hadn't realized before how many friends I have in Portland. It's a great feeling.

As to the break up - well, it's my fault, ultimately. I'm the one who realized that this relationship just doesn't have a future, and felt I needed to take the steps to end it. That said, it doesn't mean that I wanted to let go. It was a hard place to come to, and I still care so much for her - but she needs a partner that can be there, present, with her far more than I can. And I need to be free to follow my career without feeling guilty that it takes up so much time. I can't turn down roles because my girlfriend wants me to be around more.

The thing is, this isn't a fault on either of our parts. I don't blame her for wanting a boyfriend who can be there more often - I really understand that. But it isn't me. So we're better off apart, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Because it does. And I think what hurts me most is knowing how much I was hurting her, and seeing how much she didn't understand my decision. And knowing I can't help ease that pain, when that's been my job for over a year... yeah. Yesterday was hard.

But I am so grateful to Kenichi, who helped me move my (meager) possessions out of the apartment and into John's place. And to Sara, Kenichi's partner, who tolerated my presence in their apartment all day, while she was dealing with a one month old baby, and on their anniversary, no less (they didn't tell me!). And John is being wonderful as well, allowing me to stay in his guest room while I get myself sorted out.

I'm going to try to keep this blog updated regularly, if for no other reason than to give all of those interested updates on how I'm getting by in this difficult time. What you all can do is please comment, even if it's not particularly clever or pithy - it's easier to find the time and motivation to write if I know there are people out there reading it.

Thank you all. Very much. You are the best friends a guy could have.

Once in a while something happens....

2007-06-04T12:43:00.001-07:00

....that you wouldn't believe if you saw it in a play.

This is one of those things.

I'm gonna post this in my blog, but wanted to get it out right away.

When Lisa and I (and Joanna, who we were driving home) went out to get the car after Paul's party, we discovered it wasn't there. Which we found surprising, as you can imagine.

Lisa had left her cell phone in the car, so I wandered up the block calling it, in case we had both had a massive brain hemmorage and not parked the car where we thought we had. It was a long shot, but what the hey. No luck, though.

So we went back inside and asked if there was a parking restriction we didn't know about. Paul didn't know of any, but as they had just moved in, we decided to check with the authorities and see if the car had been towed. Marjorie and Paul ran off to find the phone books....

....and that's when my phone rang. It was the Sesame Street Theme. Only one number rings my phone with that song.

It was Lisa's phone calling me.

"Hello?" I said, tentatively.

"Hello. Who is this?" came back a heavily accented voice. Latino.

"Who is this?" I reply. "Where is my car?" (OK, it's not my car, it's Lisa's car, but this was no time for explanations."

"I will bring it back to you."

Um?

"What?" I ask, barely daring to believe this.

"I will bring it back to you. A few blocks away. No police. Nothing taken."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. I'll call you back."

And he's gone.

What the holy hell? We all stand around on Paul's front porch, flabbergasted. Laughing. Stunned. We speculate. Why would they call? Who is this? A father who discovered his son had boosted the car? A guy suddenly struck with massive regret? A few minutes pass.

The phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Hey Brian (freaking caller ID) I'm on my way. No police. About 25 minutes, I'll leave it 4 blocks away."

"Ok. Four blocks. Twenty five minutes. Everything in it?"

"Everything. Except about 15 dollars."

"But what happened?"

"I needed a car. Sorry. I'll bring it back."

Brilliant.

"25 minutes. I'll call back."

So we stand around. What should we do? Eventually we decide, promises aside, we better report this to the police. What if the car was used in a crime? What if this is a dodge and he just wanted 25 minutes to get out of town?

So Lisa uses my phone to call 911. And is, of course, placed on hold. When she finally gets a live person, they tell her it's not an emergency and to call the non-emergency line. I decide to do this, and start a report. They tell me that it will be set as a low priority call, and when we hear from the guy, to call 911 (we tried that, lady) and then it will be bumped up and a cop will meet us at the car.

We stand around and wait. And laugh a bit. And worry. And most of the guests at the party (who we don't know) leave. Paul and Marjorie are still there, of course, and Joanna (she still needs a ride) and Dan Ruiz, who is mostly hanging out in case WE need a ride. And Dan hasn't slept in about 36 hours, since he works overnights and we had two shows and then the party on Sunday. He's tired, and a total trooper, and we owe him a lot.

Lisa and I start thinking about what's in the car. Her purse, that's a big one. Cash card, license, all that good stuff. My XM radio. My house keys (but not my car key - I lost it last week) My scripts for the next two shows I'm in. All my costumes from Macbeth, including my only suit. My shoes that I'm contractually required to bring to the Theatre Barn. Oh, and there is the little factor of me needing to get to Seattle for a flight Monday night. Paul graciously offers to drive me there if we need him to. These are good friends.

Someone wonders if the reason they are bringing the car back is that my combat clothes are in the back seat covered in what would appear to be blood (even though it smells like soap.) This amuses us, and would be a great plot twist if we ever write this into a play.

A cop drives by, and doesn't stop. The turns around and comes back. I'm nervous, because I don't want the thief to see him and freak out, but he's well over his 25 minute deadline by now anyway - hope is fading. I try to call Lisa's phone again - it's off. We're screwed.

We give Officer Burley all the details. He has lots of questions, most of which he admits up front will sound stupid. He tells us what to expect. There is a brief flash of hope when there is a report that the car has been spotted on the freeway (moving away from us - fuckers) but they lose him - he was moving fast, and they don't do high speed chases of stolen cars - it ends up being counter-intuitive. All hope is lost.

A few of Paul and Marjories new neighbors drive by (this was a housewarming party) no doubt wondering why the new folks have so many cop cars in front of their house.

The officer heads back to his car to leave, and suddenly, from my pocket come the sounds of the Sesame Street theme. I head up by the garage to answer (don't want the cop radio to squack.)

"It's at Kmart"

"What?"

"Kmart, man. Up on Sandy and 110."

I'm having a hard time understanding this dude. Seriously. And I don't know this area of Portland all that well.

"Where? Sandy?"

"Yeah. Everything's in it."

"Uh....thanks?"

I go tell the others, who are gathered at the police car. Sandy and 110? That's a lot more than 4 damn blocks, I'll tell you that.

The officer is on the horn, I need to pee, so I go into the house. Paul, who has been insisting that we are going NOWHERE alone (thanks again, seriously, man) asks if we want him to drive with us over there. I said it was up to him, but that Dan was willing to drive us over - the officer was concerned the car might not be drivable. As were walking back, we hear the officer say he's going to.

"Dude - go with the guy with the gun," Paul says. Possibly the best line of the night.

We head to the cop car. Officer Burley (this is his real name, actually) tells us that we probably don't want to ride in his car, since he had some "dirty guys" in there last. We opt to go with Dan and Joanna. When we get in the car, Dan cautions me against saying cop, as it's a derogatory term. "Still?" I wonder? I decide to ask Officer Burley. "Oh, you mean hot police man?" Dan says. Heh.

It really IS a long way - but we get there, and there's the car, and about four cop cars. Apparantly they got there about 30 seconds after I got the call. But they didn't catch the guy.

We scour the car. And if you can believe this, the only things missing are Lisa's cash (about $18.07 - they took the change...), and the six pack of beer in the back seat. The whole car was tossed - they looked through her purse, leaving her unemployment check, which was already signed. We found a McDonalds receipt for $30 or so - at least four sodas, so that's four people. You're welcome for dinner guys. They charged it on Lisa's credit card anyway (the one she thought was maxed) so she gets that back. My suit was on the floor, but it was there. I don't even think they went in the trunk, so the theory about the bloody combat gear was for naught. We couldn't find Lisa's cell phone for a while, but eventually found it to the side of the drivers seat.

This means they called from the car. This means the police missed them by less than 30 seconds. I should have kept him talking.

For the longest time, we couldn't find my teacher ID from Hillsboro, but later discovered they had hung it from the driver's side shade. Why???

The drive shaft has been broken out so they could hotwire the car. I can't get it started. The cops kind of imply they know how to do it, but arent' allowed to tell us, so.... shit. We have to get it towed. It's like 3 AM now, and Lisa's insurance company is being a bitch about telling us what they'll cover or which tow company to go with, so the officer just calls a tow himself, and then he has to go - leaving Lisa, Joanna, Dan and I standing there in the Kmart parking lot in the dark. But he had other calls and I get that. Officer Burley was actually a great guy (and a former HS Physics teacher). And he said "cop" is not derogatory in Portland, but that its a regional thing, so be careful elsewhere. We are big fans of Officer Burley.

So Lisa is still on the phone fighting with credit card agencies and the bank and stuff (cash card) and the tow guy shows up, drives through the parking lot, doesn't see us, and leaves. We're freaking out. But he comes back, sees Dan's headlights, comes over. He's about 14. Or maybe 20. He asks what's up, looks at the car, shows me how to start it (seriously, there was a little dial they had pulled out that I had to turn. Crazy.) I ask how much that's gonna be. He says $119. I'm shocked and tell him so. He says to give him a second, calls in to his office, and then says "You're all good. No charge." I shake his hand and thank him. I should have given him a tip. Speedy Towing in Portland, you're ok with me.

We move all my stuff back into our car from Dan's (we thought he was going to take us home) and he whacks his head on the hatchback. This poor guy. No sleep for 2 days, dragging around town with us, damn near getting a concussion. Give this man a medal. Or a beer. Or a hot cop.

We take off, Lisa's STILL fighting with the credit card and insurance companies (actually, still is as of this writing). We end up taking Joanna home because she lives near us. We get lost in an unfamiliar area of town, but finally find the freeway out at 180th. (I actually know this part of town from subbing) and head home. I'm starving, and mention this - both Joanna and Lisa concurr (she's finally off the phone) so we whip up to Taco Bell, and Joanna offers to pay. Another hero in a night of heroes.

Paul, Dan, Joanna, the much-maligned Portland Police and a Tow Truck Company. Shit, even the guy who stole the car brought the damn thing back. It sucked, but it could have been a lot worse.

Are we done with the Macbeth curse now? Three broken swords, three car incidents (two accidents, one theft.) Sounds like enough to me.

Trailer

2007-05-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

This trailer seriously rocks.

Followspot

2007-05-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

The followspot website is an interesting phenomenon.

I've never belonged to a theatre community with a website where so many people got toegether to discuss the local shows.

It's received a lot of criticism in the past for people being a bit hostile and defensive, which I have seen, but we haven't gotten much of that on Macbeth. At least not yet. I think a lot of that comes about because of the ability to post anonymously, but the flip side of that is that many actors are able to say what they think of a show behind a shield of anonymity, and without fear of professional repurcussions.

I've been a bit surprised by the response to Macbeth. There's been a lot of positive and some negative. But without that source of feedback, I never would have known that there seem to be a number of people who are worried/concerned/upset about the fact that Brandee's lizard appears in the show. I can understand why people might be concerned about animals being mistreated on stage, but all that happens in this show is that she has her bearded dragon on her shoulder in one scene. It never leaves her body, and as it belongs to her, it's very comfortable. It's never been bothered by the sounds or the strobe, and of course we rehearsed with him before an audience joined us.

The other negative comment we seem to be getting a lot of is the direction of Lady Macbeth (thankfully not negative comments about Allison's acting, which has been stellar and precisely what I've asked her to do.) I'm a bit concerned that what I'm trying to do isn't getting across to the audience. A lot of them seem to see Lady M as being driven and consumed entirely by libido and lust. And I think they are missing the point (which could well be my fault.)

I see Lady M as controlling Mac through sex. I think we played that rather clearly in the first two scenes where they interact. In their third scene (the post-murder scene) she is drunk and lustful, as indicated in the line "That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold / What hath quenched them hath given me fire." With him playing horror and regret in that scene, and her playing lustful passion, their cross-purposes make the scene really spark. We often see this scene played that way - we just amped it up a bit. It's very clear in the text that this is a couple who are very hot for each other, very much in love and in lust - she is very ambitious as well - for the achievement of that ambition to result in salaciousness is not the stretch some seem to be trying to make it.

Later, as Mac decends into madness and isolation, the passion between them cools, and the division is what drives her mad. The idea that her madness is brought about by guilt is what is usually played in her "doctor" scene in 5.1, but I believe very strongly that this is in error. If you approach the text from a first folio technique point-of-view, specifically the rule that you cross to the character who gave you your cue if the text doesn't specify who you are talking to, then all but one of Lady M's lines in that scene are given directly to the doctor, making it patently obvious that she, in her madness, is mistaking the doctor for Macbeth. She isn't responding to guilt here - she's responding to the loss of her close relationship to her husband. She's been cut out of his trust and influence, her marriage is essentially dead. THIS is what drives her mad.

Those who say 5.1 is about guilt are basing that on one or two lines - one earlier about "if he had not resembled my father as he slept" (a dubious justification for the idea that she sees him as a father figure - the one scene they are both in earlier in the play implies NO warmth between them.) and her line in 5.1 "who would have known the old man to have so much blood in him" - but this doesn't imply regret, specifically. Who's death IS she upset about? "The thane of fife had a wife: where is she now? What will these hands ne're been cleane." The murder of LADY MACDUFFE has her seemingly MORE upset than that of Duncan. Why? Is it because she's a woman? Maybe. Is it because it's the first murder that she wasn't consulted on? Maybe. Then she brings up Banquo's death as well. If she's guilty, it's about all of them, and I certainly think guilt ties in - but more than anything, it's the unforseen loss of Macbeth. Not only has she lost him, but she's also created a monster who is willing to kill innocent women and children.

There is also discussion about Lady Macbeth having an Electra complex for Duncan, because she mentions that he resembled her father. I don't really understand this argument. She doesn't say anything about wanting to have sex with him (which is what an Electra complex would imply) and he isn't actually her father, even if he resembles him. And I'm not sure she isn't just making excuses - in any case, it does show some weakness on her part, but how that becomes sexual, I'm not clear.

So anyway. I guess I just wanted to get that out in the world somewhere.

Another review!

2007-05-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

And thus, we go 3/4 in the press. Not bad at all.

Macbeth

Northwest Classical Theater Company
Posted by Frenchglen May 12, 2007; closes June 3, 2007

Solid rendering of the Scottish play. Lady Macbeth a chilling blood red, all desire and ambition run wild. Mac himself a little too handsome for true evil, but still holds darkening second half together, especially after the gloves “come on”. Beautiful, unearthly poetry of weird sisters partly lost beneath shrieking.

Bardolatry

2007-05-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

Wow.

I had been getting a tad worried that I was failing in my approach; that the production was not coming across the way I thought it was.

I feel vindicated. This guy just gets it! All his points below are dead on.

And he seems a damn sight more knowledgable about Shakespeare (and writing) than our Mr. Mannex.

Macbeth at the NWCTC
May 9th, 2007 by John Murphy

Full of Sound and Fury

Portland, Oregon’s Northwest Classical Theater Company (NWCTC) is currently offering a dramatic, dynamic staging of Shakespeare’s classic horror show, Macbeth, at the Shoe Box Theater. This modern-dress production emphasizes the “sound and fury” of the Scottish Play, serving up an audience-pleasing assortment of sex, swordfights, strobe lights, murder, witchcraft, and lopped-off heads. Audiences today aren’t that much different from our groundling brethren 400 years back: we like our sex and violence, and we like lots of it.

Brian Allard, the director, notes in the program: “Shakespeare sure knew how to put on a show.” So does Allard. As soon as Lady Macbeth enters stage right wearing peak-a-boo negligee, you know this is not your sainted aunt’s Shakespeare. But it’s not a cleverer-than-thou postmodern treatment, either—all the violence and viscera, drama and angst, witches and black magic can be found smack dab in the first folio. This is just the PG-13 version.

Though this was my first NWCTC experience, Macbeth showcases what seems to be the ethos of the company: to make classical theater come alive. The Shoe Box Theater is appropriately named—the space is almost claustrophobically intimate—and the actors work what could be a handicap to their advantage by incorporating the audience rather than ignoring them. (Theater-goers are even offered complementary cheese & crackers during the play’s banquet scene). During moments of introspection, certain characters engage the audience directly, as if we’d become conspirators as well as confidantes, briefly granted access to minds very seriously diseased. In a play as macabre and psychologically intense as Macbeth, a smaller, stripped-down space can feel appropriate to the No Exit-like atmosphere of the play, creating a palpable sense of existential dread.

Despite the limited space, many of the scenes are inventively staged, with priority given to physicality and drama over intellectual or abstract concepts. (The company’s motto is, accordingly, “Content over Concept!”) The reading of Lady Macbeth’s incantation, “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here…” takes the Bard at his word: Lady M is conjuring unfriendly spirits to aid in her diabolical quest for the crown. She chalks a circle-inscribed pentagram by flickering candlelight as she intones the chilling words: “Come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers…” The effect is visceral, unnerving. An inspired moment arrives later, when Macbeth echoes his wife’s incantation with his own revised version : “Come, seeling night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day…” and Allard suggests that Macbeth and his Lady have effectively switched roles: he’s the possessed one now, even as Lady M’s sanity grows increasingly brittle.

I remember Allison Anderson as a member of our beloved Tygres Heart Shakespeare company—she was an excellent Ophelia in that company’s masterful staging of Hamlet many years ago (ah, in that gorgeous blood-red Winningstad theater). Here she hardly plays an “unsexed” Lady Macbeth; she’s a far sight oversexed in fact, as much turned-on by the sight of her hubby lathered in Duncan’s blood as turned-off. Anderson’s Lady M is a film noir femme fatale, using her sexuality like a weapon to threaten, disarm, and manipulate her smitten husband. Watching this production, I was reminded of Harold Bloom’s observation that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the happiest married couple in all of Shakespeare. Or they at least have the most active sex life.

The Weird Sisters are also sexualized, played more as sirens than witches—seductive, soul-sucking succubi instead of the bearded hags usually depicted. They ensnare Macbeth by appealing in part to his masculine vanity. Paul Angelo “struts and frets his hour upon the stage” as Macbeth. He’s a Macbeth hell-bent on proving his masculinity, especially to his ball-breaking wife. “I dare do all that may become a man,” he insists to her, “who dare do more is none.” Angelo plays Macbeth as a conflicted, brooding sort of soldier “bound in to saucy doubts and fears,” and a little too eager to believe his own press: (“Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be til Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane”—yeah, right). He’s blustery and ripe for a take-down by the end, but we can’t help but feel pity for the poor, trapped guy when he admits to us and himself:

That which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

It’s a sad, intimate moment made even more moving and immediate by the close proximity to actors the audience is privileged to in the Shoebox Theater. I’m very much looking forward to more Shakespeare from this spirited troupe of PDX players.

The Shoe Box Theater is located at 2110 SE 10th Ave.
Performances of Macbeth run through June 3rd.

Such Welcome and Unwelcome Things at Once

2007-05-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

These last couple days have been just ridiculous.

First there was the good review (See below.) Yay.

Then I had an interview with the Northwest Academy to teach their theatre class next year. It's a part time gig, 4-6 three days a week. The whole job is directing four plays. The interview went really well.

Then we went to the Opera, which was fun, and while we were there, the Twins won in extra innings.

Then we came home, and it all went south.

An argument over dinner was one thing, and not really a big deal.

The second review (see below) was less than pleasing.

This morning I auditioned for Portland Center Stage. I got an early audition, which was good, but the auditors didn't really seem present. I've never had an audience that didn't laugh at the "Coupling" monologue ever. Until now.

Did some mother's day shopping, came home.

And then it got better again.

Lisa and I had a lovely day. Went to see Spider Man 3, which was excellent, no matter what the reviewers say. We had a great time. On the walk home, I had a call from David Wagstaff at the Northwest Adademy...

I got the job! So awesome. It means I'll only have to sub maybe 1 or 2 days a week next year, and I'll be done early enough to do shows in the evening.

Then the Twins lost, but it wasn't the end of the world, since we had a lovely dinner.

Just a lot of up and down the last couple days.

I'm subbing an English class tomorrow, and then we have five straight days of performances.

Here's hoping things stay on an upswing.

The dark side of reviews

2007-05-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

I don't mind a bad review.

Really. I don't. Even if it's harsh. But I do ask that it be well-written and logical, and that the author be knowledgable about his subject.

And that is where this review falls apart.

For simplicity, let's go through line by line.

Theater review: Lead on, Macduff; someone should at Shoe Box

Ok. I should start here at the title, but it's too easy. I'll save it for later. But can you identify the egregeous error here?

'Macbeth' - The director at Northwest Classical Theatre Company takes liberties
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
COLIN MANNEX

The only problem I have here is that Mr. Mannex never gets around to explaining what liberties I'm taking, but more of that anon.

The folks at Northwest Classical Theatre Company have staked a strong claim at making big, canonical plays popularly accessible while keeping great textual integrity. As cultural purists, they've shied from the spectacular, relying on directorial ingenuity to cram parlor scenes and battlegrounds into the intimate Shoe Box Theater.

I know I've only been here a year, but I've never heard the NWCTC say anything about making plays popularly accessible. They do say "[We are] placing the emphasis on text and authorial intention rather than directorial conception." and "By cutting back on stage pyrotechnics and limiting our use of set and costume, we focus the attention on the word and story that we try to tell. Our company motto is “Content over Concept!” " So yes - they shy away from the spectacular. But then again, this is Macbeth - and some spectacle is necessary. So we have some fog, some lights, a strobe, some swordfights and some blood. But it's hardly excessive. It's in the text.

Their use of space is always impressive: You're not likely to find a more cozy and confrontational theater experience in Portland. But they've long fallen prey to a loophole in the accuracy of their "classical" productions: Too often their stage directions are confabulatory nonsense.

From what the artistic director has told me, Mr. Mannex only took over reviewing NWCTC shows this year - in fact, I believe his first review was Henry V. So unless he'd been spending time at NWCTC shows before that, how can he speak to how "often" they do anything?

Hm. I have a pretty big vocabulary, but let's look up confabulatory.

"1. the act of confabulating; conversation; discussion. "

That's no help.

"2. Psychiatry. the replacement of a gap in a person's memory by a falsification that he or she believes to be true. "

So....I think he's trying to say that our "stage directions" are nonsensical because we replace Shakespeare's lack of stage directions with falsifications.

I think.

So he's saying that NWCTC does this as a rule? I can't speak to that so well - I have only been involved with or seen four productions there - and I can't think of an occasion where I saw something that seemed like "confabulatory nonsense." Grant is kind of the opposite of that, really, and I'm pretty much a purist, too.

And, you know, examples would be nice. When teaching students to review plays, I generally don't let them get away with making a statement without backing it up with examples. Let's read on and see what more he's got to say.

Granted, Shakespeare never indicated much more than the traffic of entrances, exits, hiding places and essential points between sparring partners. Any production requires an interpretive leap to animate the language. But in his current production of "Macbeth," director Brian Allard has egregiously misused this license.

Ok, we clearly have some disagreement here. It's true that Shakespeare never indicated WITH STAGE DIRECTIONS much more than those things, but to say that he didn't indicate them at all shows a complete lack of Shakespearian knowledge.

If you've studied Shakespeare beyond high school, you know that he gives us all sorts of clues. If you gone in depth at all, you would know that Shakespeare indicates actions through dialogue. He gives us the blocking through the simple precept of "cross to the person to whom you are speaking: if you don't know to whom you are speaking, cross to the person who gave you your cue." This is a basic tenet of first folio technique, which we followed, and which I expressly mentioned in my directors notes, which were in both the program and the press packet. I'm guessing Mr. Mannex failed to look into this, and clearly had no foreknowledge of such things.

Shakespeare requires an interpretive leap to animate the language? I don't think I buy that statement, but I'm assuming Mr. Mannex means that when the text says "they fight" it's my job (well, Kendall's, really) to decide how that's going to take place. And he's right. I had to decide what type of candle Lady Macbeth would carry, too.

And then he finishes by saying I've egregeously misused this license. That's a pretty serious accusation. But he doesn't say how I've done this, or give any examples. Maybe he will later. Lets move on.

True to the text, it's a throbbing, bloody and lascivious engagement.

Damn straight! And thanks. I agree wholeheartedly. Shame you didn't stop there.

And it's a shame you spend the rest of the article refuting your own statement.

I wouldn't accept that from a student. And I'm not happy to see it published in our local paper.

However, the grisly bits are almost never employed to the service of the central story.

Really? How so? Hm...grisly bits.... you mean when Banquo is murdered in cold blood? Yeah, that doesn't serve the story. Or when Macbeth dies on a battleground at the hand of a desperate man who's had his entire family ripped away by the tyrant? How does that not serve the story (other than as it's climax?)

You need to explain yourself, Mr. Mannex. Maybe you will.

Lady Macbeth (Allison Anderson) shows great "ambition" in wrapping her legs around her husband and her doctor, but there's no impetus for further action.

There isn't? You didn't latch on to the fact that she manipulates her husband through sex? That she belittles his manhood when he shies away from murdering Duncan? That she refuses him physical contact until he does it? Were you THAT distracted by the negligee?

And in the doctor scene, was it unclear to you that in her madness she thought the doctor was Macbeth? I really thought that was clear...

Macbeth (Paul Angelo) wields his "barren scepter" with rightful outrage, but he affects hollow deference to the spectral forces that guide him.

"Rightful outrage?" Where on earth do you get the idea, Mr. Mannex, that Macbeth has any RIGHTFUL outrage? This is a man who killed his king, took his throne, had his best friend murdered, massacred the family of an innocent man....what is rightful about Macbeth? Have you read the play? Do you know anything about the play?

And the hollow deference line has me rather confused. Does he think that Macbeth should show sincere deference to the witches and spirits? I'm not sure where that would be found in the text. He mocks them at first, then uses the prophecy as an excuse, then it becomes a source of worry for him, then he goes to them again, and within one scene both praises and curses them (and this is when he is well on his way to madness, anyway) - I'm not clear on what you want here, Mr. Mannex.

Some fine dramatic moments come with Dan Ruiz Salvatura as Ross and director Allard as Macduff.

Uh, thanks. Maybe you could spell the character names right. We're using a first folio text (I might have mentioned that.) It's Rosse and Macduffe. You'll find that in the program.

But for the most part, if the action doesn't involve thrusting, it suffers a complete lack of directorial attention.

That's going a bit far. A complete lack of directorial attention? So, what - I just told the actors to go onstage and fuck around in the scenes that weren't sex or combat based? Was I asleep? Um - the secene that you just praised, the one with Rosse and I? That didn't have any thrusting. (And frankly, got less directorial attention than most scenes - I was in it, so I couldn't watch it. If you had criticized me for that, I would have taken my lumps with humbleness.)

Ask Lisa about how much attention I paid to each scene. She knows. I talked about the play incessantly, and not just the "thrusting" scenes. We spent ages on the banquet scene - and it was a rather fresh staging, I thought. But no, I forgot, it was directorially ignored.

Allard describes his approach to Shakespeare as a return to "popular -- not elitist -- entertainment." He would have done well to make more of the verbal play ("Remember the Porter") and less of the stage combat.

Well, that's kind of a misquote, which is funny, since you had it written down. I didn't say that was my approach. I said "In Shakespeare's day, his plays were popular (not elitist) entertainment."

"Remember the Porter" what? That's a line in the play. When the Porter asks for money. What's your point? Are you saying you didn't like the Porter scene? Strange, on opening night the audience nearly fell out of their seats in hysterics. What "verbal play?" This isn't Romeo and Juliet, there aren't a lot of jesting/punning/joking around scenes. Are you criticizing our use of text? Cause I thought the actors did a fine job with the text - and Lisa (among others) has pointed out the Porter scene in specific as one that "felt like he was speaking modern English, it was so clear."

What's your problem with stage combat? It's says "they fight" in the text. Would you rather we had just done some namby-pamby-three-moves-and-you're-dead fight scene? Would that have served the text? Do you think they did it that way at the Globe? (Fact is, we have lots of evidence that implies they had much more complex fights than we do - but of course they had more space.)

Shakespeare never shirked from lewdness or violence,

Nope. You're right there.

And that kind of kills your whole argument. Your grade goes down again.

but "Macbeth" needn't suffer these emendations to capture a modern audience.

Emendations? WHAT emendations? You have given no examples of emendations. Reading into your article, you seem to dislike the sex and the fights, though you've said twice now that Shakespeare intended those things. So what are the emendations you're upset about?

And who is trying to capture a "modern" audience? I never said in any of my notes, comments, or in causal conversation that I was trying to capture a "modern" audience. I said I was trying to go back and do this thing the way Shakespeare himself would have.

What makes you think a modern audience is any different from an Elizabethan one? I don't. Shakespeare put blood and sex in the play because people have always liked that on stage. I'm just trying my best to fulfill the author's intent.

So don't you go calling me a sensationalist.

And don't you go telling me about emendations either, not if you can't even give me an example. (I know there are some - we extended the Lady MacDuffe fight a bit, but it showed a side of Seyton that I felt was important to see. We cut some scenes and combined some characters to cut time and cast size. But he doesn't seem to have an issue with that.)

I don't mind a bad review.

I do mind a badly written review. If a student turned this in, I'd probably give it a D+. None of his arguments are supported, and it appears he did no research into the play, or the methods being used by the director.

Oh, and about the headline? To be fair, I know a lot of times the headlines are added by editors, so this may not be the fault of Mr. Mannex.

But the line is "Lay on, Macduffe." Macbeth is inviting him to a fight, not to go for a stroll in the park. I know you were going for a (labored) pun or something, but get the damn line right, or put it in quotes or something.

Well.

That was therapeutic.

At least he left the cast alone. I'd rather he go after me than them. They're brilliant, and if you think this article made me mad, just try attacking them.

You'd regret it.

And Lisa assures me that this is the sort of review that will actually make people curious to see the show. And she's right. I just don't like being called a sensationalist. And I shudder at the idea I would get the reputation of one. I am not Darren Nicols from "Slings and Arrows," dammit. I'm Geoffrey Tennant, I hope. At least no one is accusing me of being Oliver Welles.

Sadly, Mr. Mannex has a larger readership than I. But I'm a better writer.

I hope.

First Review!

2007-05-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased:

[NEW REVIEW] Director Brian Allard soaks the audience in the bloody witches' brew of Macbeth's claustrophobic remorse-world at the Shoebox Theatre and holds it under to dodge sword swipes, fake blood and delicious cookies served gratis from wenches at banquet scenes. Even a back-row seat in the small theater puts you nearly onstage in the gore of swashbuckling action. You feel the iambic anguish of the characters up-front-and-personal in this well-choreographed rendition of the classic tragedy. Shakespeare's murdering Scotsman portrayed by cherubic Paul Angelo melts and hardens before Lady Macbeth's (Lara Flynn Boyle look-alike Allison Anderson) naked (well, negligee-clad) ambition. WILLIAM CRAWFORD. Northwest Classical Theatre Company at the Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 262-5503. 7 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes June 3. $12-$18.

It's Open!

2007-05-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

And thank fortune for that. I don't know if I could have taken much more at that pace. Getting the tech together was a challenge - I ended up doing some 10 hour days toward the end, there. But we got it done, we got it up, and frankly, I'm damn proud of it.

The response has been fantastic so far. Lots of great feedback, lots of people asking all the questions I wanted them to ask, making the sort of comments I was hoping for. Not just "it was great" but really picking out the parts that I was most proud of. Comments about how we made it fresh, lots of great stuff about the fights, lots of chatter about the way we made the relationship between MacBeth and his wife the lynchpin of the show. Also lots of talk about the way we played 5.1 (the "crazy" Lady M scene) which, by going back to the first folio, we constructed in a way very different than most productions do. Lots of love for the direct audience address, which is the crux of my style. I'm pleased.

Did I mention we sold out opening night, and on Sunday we had to turn people away? We were almost full for the preview on Thursday!

Of course, I fully expect that the newspaper reviews will have nothing to say about any of that. They certainly will focus on the smallness of the stage, or the fact that someone's tie didn't match, or some other nitpicky thing that trivializes the whole production and ignores all the deeper issues we explored. Whatever. I mean, when the Willamette Week is ripping on the show before it even opens.....

"Bubbling cauldrons, roving forests and severed heads in the uncomfortably intimate Shoebox Theater. Can such things be?"

Well....no.

You see, we don't have a bubbling cauldron. We don't really show a severed head. And if you read the script, you'd know that the forest doesn't roam around - in fact, that's the same misunderstanding of the prophecy that MacBeth makes. And look how things turn out for him. Fact is, if you'd read our press release, or know ANYTHING about our company, you would know that our freaking MISSION STATEMENT says "The NWCTC is dedicated to performing great plays by great writers, placing the emphasis on text and authorial intention rather than directorial conception. By cutting back on stage pyrotechnics and limiting our use of set and costume, we focus the attention on the word and story that we try to tell."

And wow. Every time I sit in our theatre, I just feel, like, soooo uncomfortably intimate. What does that even mean? It's intimate. We LIKE that. There's only 30 seats. What makes that uncomfortable? (Uncomfortable for reviewers, I would imagine. We can see them.)

Shame they had to review on Saturday and Sunday, the two shows that Kendall missed. Alex did a great job filling in, but man, Kendall is amazing with a sword. He takes the fights from great to astounding. But that's okay. We still kicked ass.

I'm so proud of this cast. There's isn't a weak link among them - everyone plays their part excellently. Everyone worked so hard. And we never could have done it without David and Lauren - we threw a lot of tech at them in the last few days - and though it was hard, they got it done. And without Paul and Allison, the show would be nothing. They created a MacBeth and Lady MacBeth that noone should miss. And the witches! And....

I could go on forever.

Just come see the damn thing, ok?

Rehearsing

2007-03-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten how much work directing can be, and we've barely even started into the text.

Of course, I also have a huge fight scene to learn, in an entirely new weapon. But I can't complain - I did that to myself. But it's a unique kind of pressure as a director to not only lead and be knowledgeable as the director, but also to have to lead by example as an actor. I can't exactly slack off on learning my lines here if I want anyone else to feel obligated to know theirs, etc.

That said, the first week of rehearsals has been fantastic. Paul Angelo is going to be brilliant as MacBeth, and he is so lovely to work with - full of ideas, but takes direction so easily it's like it was his idea. Not a diva-bone in him, it seems. And Allison Anderson is going to be a revelation as Lady MacBeth. Both of them are such HUNGRY actors - it's thrilling to direct them. It's great - but it also kinda makes you realize how......well.....lazy a lot of other actors are. And I don't excuse myself, either.

The fight rehearsals are going brilliantly as well. Kendall really knows his stuff, and even though the only choreography we've gotten through so far is the first half of Banquo's murder (I'm not giving away any plot points, am I?) - it's going to be chilling. And seeing Alex, the little boy playing Fleance, get all excited because he gets to kick one of the muderers in the balls, is a serious joy.

In other news, I just landed a role back at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, NY, where I worked last summer. I'll be playing the lead in their first play, "Breaking Legs" which sounds like a hoot. And hopefully I'll still be able to get back in time to do the summer remount of "Romeo and Juliet" which would be great.

Higher, Mr. Chips! Higher!

2007-03-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

More than a month since I've posted? Shame on me. Just a sign of how busy I've been.

I almost posted a few weeks ago when I (literally) ran into William Hurt at a restaurant. Didn't even realize it was him til my friend Matt Haynes told me after we left. All I recalled was that the guy didn't seem to accept my apology for ramming into him on my way to the bathroom.

So....Romeo and Juliet closed after a wonderful run. I'll work with Blue Monkey anytime. We moved (and I almost wrote a post about how awesome my friend Kenichi is. And I should have. Without him, we never could have done that move. Never. When others bowed out, Ken was there, man. We owe him.) I held auditions for MacBeth. I started Umpiring for High School games. (And got rather harrassed by a coach who didn't like my ball and strike calls. Tough.) I have the reading of my first play in about 8 years next week. And I landed my first Portland commercial.

It took place in a windtunnel at the local Freightliner industrial complex. The concept was that a tour of truckers were asked what they would do if they had a wind tunnel, and one trucker had a dream sequence in which he was dressed in a squirrel suit and flying in the breeze. like a kite. I played the ringmaster who held his leash and shouted at him to fly higher while I whipped him. It was great fun - especially when they turned the wind machine on. They told us that they only had it up to 25 MPH - the sucker goes to 65 - now THAT would have kicked ass.

Gotta say - it beats substitute teaching any day.

Moving. Finally.

2007-02-12T21:37:00.000-08:00

No more kareoke from downstairs.

No more concrete-footed children upstairs. (Family of four in a double studio - how is that legal?)

That's right, kids!

1435 SW Harrison.

Apt 2.

Portland, OR

97201 (thanks Noot)

So....who's free March 3-4? There's pizza and beer for ya.

No way we can move that couch on our own.

Seattle

2007-02-12T12:25:00.000-08:00

So, I'm in Seattle.

I arrived here last night, driving too fast and too late. I had just completed a performance of Romeo & Juliet and the first reading of MacBeth. I can honestly say MacBeth is going to be wonderful - we have a great cast. Mostly. There are still a few holes. I need to find a couple boys for the younger roles. Oh, and yeah - I need a MacBeth. That's kinda important. There are a couple of possibilities, but I want to be really careful with casting this part - obviously, the entire production kind of depends on him.

So...Seattle. I'm up here for the Puget Sound (Seattle) Unified General Audition. I've done these before in St. Louis (Midwest), Philadelphia (Northeast), Atlanta (Southeast) and Memphis (I think that was Southeast again - they move around down there.) Oh, and a small one in Wisconsin that was kind of a "warm-up" when I was in college. After moving to the Northwest, I was searching out the regional auditions - it's a good way to get seen by a lot of companies really quickly. This far I've found this one (interestingly called TPS...) and the PATAs in Portland, which are in two weeks - and those are really just a local audition, like the WI one or the ones they have going on in MN now. I wish I could find one that covers the whole Northwest region.

I have to say, this one is a bit disappointing. Less than 50 companies (usually they've been 200+) and almost all based in Seattle. It's not really "regional" so much as "local." They don't even have callbacks on site, like the others have had. I'll probably have to come back up to Seattle for each theatre individually as they have their own auditions. Love that three hour drive.

I wonder why this area is so far behind the rest of the country in this kind of audition? Is it because there is more space between cities out here? I mean, where are the little summer stock theatres? They have to be out here. Where do THEY audition? I still like going away for a couple weeks to small towns and doing summerstock - but I'm getting older - my time doing that is limited. I may go back to New Hampshire this summer, if I can make it make it make ANY financial sense, just to get back to that kind of environment. If I could couple it with a return trip to the Theatre Barn.... hmmm......

The audition went well. Really well, actually. I was thrown in on the Equity day because I'm an EMC (basically means I've worked at some equity theatres in the past even though I'm not a member) and they needed to use the EMCs to fill in the day. The bad thing about this is that a lot of non-union theatres don't attend this day because they can't cast equity actors. Of course, they CAN cast ME.... *sigh*. The good news is that I got three minutes instead of two. No worries, I figured I'd do my two regular pieces, which are perhaps a tad over a minute each - no need to drag things out. The auditors would appreciate the extra time.

I hit the "time" mark right before my last sentence. What the heck? The only thing I can think of is that they were laughing a lot during the first piece - so maybe I added time holding for laughs? No bad thing, that. And I did go up on my lines once. In the monologue I've been doing for almost 10 years. I guess you're never safe from the memory gnomes.

Now I'm sitting in a food court waiting for a meeting with a director that wasn't auditing today but agreed to meet for lunch. For some reason, this food court is riddled with high school students.

Excellent. I thought I had taken the day off.

These kids are really noisy. I just had a moment of agreement with the homeless man sleeping at the next table. They woke him up - he looked at me and said "I wish they'd shut up." I said "me too."

Seattle high school students are bringing together the homeless and the artists, even if just for a moment. Somehow, that's kinda cool.

Tonight is my first meeting/training with the Portland Baseball Umpire's Association.

Sweet.

Too. Busy.

2007-02-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

Too busy to say much. But lots of good news.

1) Had my first commercial audition today. It's hard to tell with these things, but the casting director didn't run horrified from the room or slap me or anything. She's one of the biggest casting directors in town, too, so that's a good connect.

2) We finally found an apartment that we both liked. We got the jump, and were able to put in an application first. So now it's down to just the credit check.

3) Lisa got re-admitted to her doctoral program and is back on track to finish up her PhD within a few months.

4) Romeo and Juliet opens tomorrow, and the press is good : http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=119618&catId=131

5) Elf closes tomorrow after a very fun run. Too bad so few people have seen it.

Soon I'll be back to paragraphs of pithy and witty comments.

Until then - farewell, and keep this holy kiss.

Just some stuff

2007-02-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've been away, guys. Its hard to find time to post between performing "Elf," rehearsing "Romeo & Juliet," planning for "MacBeth," working, and trying to be a good boyfriend. Plus we are starting to look for a new apartment. And I'm starting two classes: one in playwriting, and one in baseball umpiring.

In good news, I just signed with an agent, so hopefully there will be some commerical and film work coming my way soon. Hopefully.

Elf only has three performances left. We had to cancel the Thursday shows because of the 11:00 start time. It just wasn't working out, which is sad. Three shows left has a very different feel from five when you really don't want the show to end.

That's all I got right now.

I'm famous!

2007-01-25T00:16:00.001-08:00

Wow. They did publish it.

Well....most of it.

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Letters?category=22120&issue=110760

Our First Review

2007-01-22T13:40:00.000-08:00

Theater review: An elf, a puzzle and a wild ride
By RICHARD WATTENBERG

In "If You Take One Elf Off the Shelf," Portland playwright Francesca Sanders takes late-night audiences at Theater! Theatre! on a wild ride. This play may be about a woman attempting to write a novel about her difficult relations with her father's young girlfriend, or it may be about the woman's effort to escape a very different and abusive set of family dynamics, or it may be a play about making a play.

It's pretty clear, however, that the audience is watching the woman, Danika, struggling to come to terms with some troubling issues. What exactly are these issues? What's at stake? What's true? What's fiction?

These Pirandello-like questions are the knots that the play beckons the spectator to undo. But ultimately Sanders seems to take more pleasure in tangling the viewer up in the play's multiple realities than in offering answers.

While the twisting, turning plot seems to go on longer than necessary, especially for late-night audiences, Sanders does engage us with her quartet of imaginatively conceived characters. In addition to poor, confused Danika, there's a fatherly, magical, human-sized elf; an earthy young woman who seems to enjoy walking in her frilly underwear and lap-dancing; and an earnest young actor who struggles to understand a drama in which he plays the role of a prim, if functionless, fellow.

As Danika, Erin McNamara is at first a bit tentative, but she settles nicely into the role -- finding lots of humor in the character's ambiguous predicament. The other three actors play their parts with the appropriate panache, comfortably slipping in and out of the play's different levels of reality.

For viewers who take on puzzles without solutions for the sheer pleasure of play, there is fun to be had when taking this elf off the shelf.

Continues 11 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Feb. 9;
Theater!Theatre! 3430 S.E. Belmont St.; $5, 503-970-7277.

You Shouldn't Miss It

2007-01-19T18:09:00.000-08:00

Winter got you down? Then come in and laugh your head off at Theatre!Theatre! tonight.

If You Take One Elf Off The Shelf is in desperate need of you. Why, we may just lay down and die if you don’t show us your cute little face at the theatre tonight.

Might you be there anyway seeing Escape From Happiness? Or perhaps The Heidi Chronicles?

Then stick around for our show!

Why go home to cold, dank apartment, when you could be mingling with fun folks like… like… well, everyone who comes to our show is fun!

What’s in for you, you ask?

Well, for one- free motivational stickers!!!! Maybe even put on you by an Elf!!!!!!!

You want more? Why, we’ll give you more.

We’ll also be raffling off a cow made of chocolate and a magical mirror… but we might be raffling them off in the novel and not real life.

In any case, you shouldn’t miss it!

If you’re thinking of coming later in the run, stop by tonight instead and see what New York Theatre.com called “a captivating new play.”

Tonight through Feb 9th
10:40 p.m.
Theatre!Theatre!
3430 SE Belmont

$5 for adults
$1,000,000 for kids

Bring five friends and you get in free!
For reservations or information- call 503-970-7277!
Don’t let us down! Remember, we can out an elf spell on you!

Put Your Coverage Where Your Mouth Is

2007-01-19T17:03:00.000-08:00

My recent letter to the Portland Mercury:

Dear Merc-

I'll start by saying you're my favorite weekly in town. My only complaint so far (I moved here from New York six months ago) has been that you have way too little local theatre coverage. So I was... amused... when I saw the "My, What a Busy Week!" bit entitled "Uncle" where you lambast Portland for not "support[ing] working actors in your own community." What's up with that?

I checked this week, and you guys had a total of FOUR theatre/comedy/dance previews and one review (of a play that's CLOSING this week). A total of five productions. By way of comparison, Willamette Week had TWO PAGES of previews, including a review of a play that's merely halfway through it's run. Total? 26 productions. Even the Portland Tribune (blech!) beat you, with three reviews and a half page of previews (totalling eight productions). The only reason I even looked at the Trib was because I was checking for the play I'm currently appearing in, If You Take One Elf Off The Shelf. (Yup, full disclosure, I have a vested interest.)

Willy Week had us. Portland Tribune had us. Even the Oregonian had us. You guys? Of course you didn't.

If you want Portlanders to support local working actors and theatres, why don't you start by doing it yourself? Put your coverage where your mouth is.

PS If by some stroke of luck I win Letter of the Week, why not skip the prize and send someone to review our show? You can learn all about the dates and times by checking for them in any other local newspaper.

Further tales of Portland snow....

2007-01-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

You HAVE to check this out. It's about two blocks from my apartment.

Remember when I said all the roads with a 2% incline were closed? I meant this one SPECIFICALLY - and now we see why....

http://www.king5.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=114054&catId=80

Snow Comedy

2007-01-17T12:37:00.000-08:00

Portlanders do certainly ENJOY the snow when they get it....

What is WRONG with this town?

2007-01-17T00:21:00.000-08:00

3 to 5 inches of snow.

That's all. 3 to 5.

The whole city is paralyzed. All schools are closed. Portland Center Stage cancelled their show. (Apparantly due to fear of being sued if someone smashed their car on on the way to the theatre - shwa?) BOTH my rehearsals were cancelled. Mass hysteria. Cats and Dogs, living together.

I've been needing to get my watch battery replaced for about a week, but too busy to do so. I finally have some free time, so why not? I call Macy's (where it was bought - actually, it was Marshall Field's then, but whatever - who can keep up with these corporate mergers, anyway?) and they tell me "sure, come on down."

Lisa and I take the MAX down to the mall, because god knows Portland folk can't drive in the damn snow. "It's not you I'm worried about, honey - it's the OTHER drivers..." We get there at 4:05 to find that they CLOSED at 4:00 so their "employees can get home safe." Cause clearly, when darkness falls, the snow gathers into a giant snow monster that smashes all cars of Macy's employees still on the road.

The apparant wimpiness of this town aside, why didn't the lady on the phone tell me they were closing early when I called?

Even the damn LIQUOR STORE was closed. Sonofabitch - I needed a drink!

Blockbuster stayed open though, and with a movie due, I had to venture out in the car. It was interesting getting there, because every road that was more than a 2% incline was closed. No plow had been by, so there was glare snow on every road - and they only sanded the intersections. Cause clearly, sand is a scarce resource this close to the pacific ocean coastline.

It hasn't snowed for nearly 15 hours now, but every school I sub at (and that's a lot, folks) has ALREADY cancelled school for tomorrow.

Do I have to stay home til it all melts? Do I get a rent break because of the snow?

I dunno, kids. In Minnesota (or New York) it can snow 3 to 5 inches overnight and you won't even notice the difference in the morning.

What would this town do with 3 feet?

Snow?

2007-01-12T16:25:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was a Snow Day here in Portland. At least for some of the schools. (Luckily, I still got to work - when you sub, you don't get paid snow days.)

How much you wanna bet we got? 5 inches? 7?

Get this: .01 inches.

Man, these people just don't know what snow IS out here. Half the districts closed for that? Lisa's nursery had a snow day - she had no idea til she got there. We had NO snow where our apartment is, so it never occurred to her to check.

Of course, that's one of the things I like about living out here. The weather.

Oh, and things like this. This was my view on the drive in to work this morning:

(I got the picture from the internet, rather than stopping the car on the freeway. I ain't no dummy.)

The blind leading....

2007-01-08T16:25:00.000-08:00

I accepted a job subbing for a math teacher.

And two of the three classes were math.

The other one?

Yoga.

Cause, clearly, I'm qualified for that.

Minnesota. Finally.

2006-12-23T01:19:00.000-08:00

We made it. We landed today at 2 AM, after sitting in delay in Chicago for almost three hours. We were told the reason for the delay was "clouds in Newark."

And for some reason many of the people on that flight were checked in manually, by comparing their names to a list that looked like it was printed out from an Apple IIc. No lie.

There is no snow in MN! This I am happy about, but it can in no way be attributed to United Airlines.

Brian and Lisa lost in the land of airlines.(Or why United can go suck it.)

2006-12-21T23:38:00.000-08:00

12/20/06

6:00 AM I received a phone call on my cell phone informing me that “something had changed on my reserved flight.” No other information was provided.

6:15 AM I logged onto United.com to check on our flight. I checked my reservation and found nothing out of the ordinary. Since I was online, I decided to check in. It would not allow me to do so. Puzzled, I went to the main page, and entered my flight information. It was at this point that I was told that the first leg of our flight was cancelled.

6:30 AM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was received a busy signal.

6:35 AM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was cut off.

6:40 AM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was received a busy signal.

6:45 AM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. I was put on hold to speak to an agent.

6:55 AM I finally got through to an agent. (Let’s call him Agent 1, he refused to give me his name when I asked) He informed me that we could be put on a flight departing from Portland to Denver at 7:50 which would allow us to get our connecting flight from Denver to Minneapolis that evening. I told him that we were unable to make it to the airport with a mere hour in advance warning. (It’s a good thing, too. If we had been on that flight, we surely would have been trapped in Denver when our connecting flight was cancelled that evening.) The agent then began to look for flights for me. He was unable to find anything for me on Dec 21st that would get us to Minneapolis. He found a flight for the 22nd. I asked why the original flight was cancelled. He told me there was going to be a snowstorm in Denver. He put it on hold. I inquired as to the possibility of being put on a flight with another airline, as I had checked on Orbitz.com and found many flights that would get us to Minneapolis in time. He told me that that was impossible – that he could either give us a refund or book us on another flight. As the refund would barely cover half the cost of a new itinerary, that option was not acceptable. I asked to speak to a manager. I was placed on hold. I was on hold for over an hour, with the agent occasionally checking in. He kept asking me if he could protect us on the new flight. I assumed that he meant book us – he seemed to have some difficulty with English. He eventually told me that I was unable to speak to a manager, that he was booking us on the flight on the 22nd and that I should attempt to speak to a manager when things were less busy. The flight on the 22nd was booked for us (through Chicago). He told me I would receive email confirmation. The call ended around 8:10 AM. It had been made clear to me that my concerns were unimportant, and that United was not interested in making this right. Rather than any sort of understanding or sympathy, all I was presented with was an attitude of “this is a weather concern, therefore it’s not our fault, and we are uninterested in helping you.”

11:00 PM Concerned that I still had not received email confirmation of my flight, and that the online itinerary that I could find on United.com would not allow me to choose seats, and in fact said that all the seats were full, and showed a little graphic of an airplane with all the seats full. I called, and went through the phone tree. I was placed on hold. I was on hold for over an hour and then I hung up, with never having spoken to an agent.

12/21/06

11:00 AM Still concerned about not having an email confirmation and the fact that I cannot select my seats, I call again. I go through the phone tree, and when I am told I will be transferred to an agent, I get a busy signal.

11:05 AM I call, I go through the phone tree, and when I am told I will be transferred to an agent, I get a busy signal.

11:10 AM I call, I go through the phone tree, and when I am told I will be transferred to an agent, I get placed on hold.

11:20 AM I get through to an agent. (Agent 2). She is kind and lovely, and very concerned with helping me. I tell her about my concerns. She assures me that we are confirmed on the flight, and explains the reason why I cannot select our seats on the flights. She is able to go in and choose seats for us on the second leg of our journey (Chicago-Minneapolis). She apologizes for being unable to do so for the first leg (Portland-Chicago) but assures be I will be assigned seats at the airport. She says there is no way I will be bumped from the flight and assures me that it is not oversold. I am much relieved, and thank her.

1:41 PM It is 24 hours before our flight is due to leave, so I attempt to check in online. It says “We are unable to locate an electronic ticket for this itinerary. Please return to your original place of purchase for assistance and return to united.com for check-in.” I am no longer relieved or confident.

1:45 PM I call in to 1-800-UNITED-1. A new message! This is the first time the phone tree talks about Denver and extended hold times. I get through the phone tree and am placed on hold to speak to an agent.

2:00 PM An agent answers. (Agent 3). She tells me that I am unable to check in online because I have been protected on this flight from another flight. This is the same phrase Agent 1 was using before. This usage of the word protected is new to me, a certified English teacher. I don’t know what she means, and I tell her so. She says it means transferred. I wonder why she didn’t use that word in the first place. She says that it it 24 hours for the flight to be officially transferred, and that I should be able to check in online after that time. I point out to her that it has been over 28 hours since the flight was changed. She ignores this. I tell her I need to be able to check in. She says that it will take 24 to 48 hours from the time I made the transfer. I tell her this is unacceptable. She says that she will “queue” my transfer. I don’t know what this means. She tells me it has been “queued” and will be brought to “their” attention. I ask who “they” are. I ask if it would help if I went to the airport NOW and checked in. She said no, because the e-ticket hadn’t been issued yet. I begin to anticipate problems tomorrow. She says she will transfer me to “customer service,” which is odd, because I thought that’s who SHE was. She transfers me. I find myself back at the message about Denver and extended hold times. I go through the same phone tree I have been through a multitude of times. When I am told that I will be transferred to an agent, I get a busy signal.

2:15 PM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was received a busy signal.

2:20 PM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was received a busy signal.

2:25 PM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was received a busy signal.

2:30 PM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was received a busy signal.

2:35 PM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was received a busy signal.

2:40 PM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was received a busy signal.

2:45 PM I called 1-800-United-1 and went through the phone tree. When I was due to be transferred to an agent, I was placed on hold.

3:00 PM I speak with "Rachel." I tell her about the problem with not being able to check in. She tells me that the reason I cant check in online is because the Portland to Chicago leg of my flight is likely to be cancelled. I told her I didn’t understand this, as weather.com and other sources predict no snow for Chicago on 12/22. At our landing time it predicts “few showers” and at our takeoff time “partly cloudy.” She did, however, assign seats for us for the Portland to Chicago leg. She told me that she thought the problem was with the internet and asked me if I would like to be transferred to web support. I told her I didn’t think that was it, and asked her to check with co-workers or her supervisor and see if there was something else going on. I pointed out that I also had still not received my confirmation email. She then placed me on hold while she went to consult with her co-workers. When she came back, she told me that our tickets were “queued” to transfer, and they would not actually transfer until I check in at the airport, which I would not be able to do until 5 hours before the flight. She told me I would not be able to check in online at all. When I told her I would like to lodge a complaint, she told me I could speak to “customer relations.” I told her what happened the last time I tried that, and she gave me their direct number. I asked about what she said about the likelihood of the PDX-ORD flight being cancelled, in light of what I had found on weather.com. She told me it was likely to be delayed, not cancelled.

3:20 PM I call customer relations. I relate this entire story to the agent. Her accent is so heavy I can barely understand her. She tells me that she is very sorry for the problems, and asks what she can do to help. I told her what I really want is a guarantee that they will make sure we get home tomorrow. She said that United will do whatever it can within the airline, but that they will not transfer us to another airline, because this is a weather problem and not their fault. This is not what I want to hear, and not good customer service. She does offer us each a $100 voucher for use in the future. I say that that would be appreciated, and will mollify me, to an extent, so long as there are no more problems. The call ends.

Will our heroes make it to the golden land of Minneapolis? Stay tuned, gentle readers.

Eragon

2006-12-16T11:42:00.000-08:00

I should know better. I really should.

The film ALWAYS ruins the book. Or at least disappoints.

I was really looking forward to this film, as evidenced by the fact that I went to see it opening day. I rarely do that anymore. Eragon is one of my favorite books in recent memory, and it's follow-up, Eldest, is even better.

I even bought Eragon for my mother as a birthday gift.

So imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the movie is a cheap bastardization of the book. I was concerned when I learned the running time was only 90 minutes for a book about the size of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and I was right to be. Characters are missing. Plot points are skipped over. Major character arcs are eliminated in an effort to speed things along. And what are all these scenes with the King? He's not actually IN the book at all!

The most upsetting part for me is what they did to Brom (Jeremy Irons). He should be a complex character who is torn over his duty to Eragon, and teaches him to make decisions and the consequences of those decisions. Instead, we get a rah-rah cheerleader for the "rebel cause" who basically teaches Eragon that he is destined to be a hero and must embrace that destiny. It's just a shame they couldn't raise Alec Guinness from the dead to play the part, really. Talk about reducing a harrowing coming-of-age tale, fraught with with danger and difficult choices into a melodramatic good-vs-evil, black-vs-white tale of, well, bullshit.

Who adapted this film? Did they READ the second book? Cause if they want to make that one into a film, they are gonna have to do some serious re-writing. You can't KILL the Ra'zac. You're going to need them. And what's all this crap about dragons dying when their rider dies? And why did they never mention that Arya is an ELF, for fuck's sake? I mean, you've gone this far out of your way to get an actress that looked just like Liv Tyler already. You might as well go the whole nine.

And when did John Malkovich start to suck?

One redeeming quality - I thought Robert Carlyle was really good. I've always loved him, ever since the British TV show "Cracker." The way they changed the final fight between him and Eragon was a tragedy, and really kinda cheapened the character, but his portrayal was subtle and fun, given what he had to work with, and the absolute absence of any actual storytelling (in the book, you learn his entire backstory - and it's a whopper).

I wonder how the author feels about the film. I think Peter Buckman, the adaptor, owes him a beer. Or a nice dinner and a movie, given the way he raped his brilliant story. Of course, what should you expect from the guy who wrote "Jurassic Park III?"

If you've read the book and love it, really try to resist the temptation to see the film. If you haven't read the book - skip the film and check out some pages. Amazing book. Crappy film.

Pens

2006-12-09T12:56:00.000-08:00

A whole week without rain.

In Portland.

I don't really know what to say about that, I'm so shocked.

I even managed to get out on the bike twice this week, working at a Middle School that was close enough to the MAX to bike from it. What was even better was that there was a bike lane that ran along the main road, so I didn't have to ride in the traffic (except at the stoplights, where my lane magically disappeared in favor of a turn lane - where exactly am I supposed to go?) This was very nice since the last time I had to ride in the traffic, I was freaked out of my wits by jerkoff drivers who would honk at me or pass to close. Um, why are you honking at me? Do you think I can suddenly put on a burst of speed? "Oh, you want me to go faster? Well hold on, let me just eat some spinach, here..." Do I freaking LOOK like Popeye? Go around me, asshole! That's why there are two lanes!

Substitute teaching in middle schools is something else entirely. I used to really hate it, and maybe I just got a cool class those two days, but I actually had a pretty good time. Sure, there were a couple of kids who got on my nerves (I'm lookin' at you, D*), but other kids were really sweet - and if they like you, they are much more likely to tell/show you that than High Schoolers. Kinda took me by surprise.

It's wierd how a 14 year old kid can kinda make your day by going out of their way to pick up a bunch of pens you accidentally knocked over.

*Man, if any of the students I teach ever find this blog, I'm so screwed.

Happy (belated) Birthday to Me

2006-12-02T15:27:00.000-08:00

So.

I turned 31 on Thursday. 31 isn't any sort of exciting number, I suppose. It just means I'm not 30 anymore, and since I was so terrified of being 30, I guess it should be a good thing.

It was a good day - had an acting gig in the morning so I didn't even have to feel guilty about not subbing. (Granted, it paid $35 instead of $145, but there's a difference in the quality of the experience.) Spent the afternoon wandering the local mall, which I hadn't yet been to, and then coming home and doing the laundry while watching a movie (Serpico, with Al Pacino, if you must know.) Lisa came home and we went out for a nice Italian dinner and then to BW3 to play some NTN trivia. Low key, good time. Aside from the fact that BW3 can't handle a good White Russian (milk? seriously?) or a Marguerita with any kick, I managed to meet all my goals for the night, and then some. And the next morning, I didn't mind missing out on that goal, since I got hit with a cold instead of a hangover. Having both would have really sucked.

I also heard from my mother following a successful knee surgery. I didn't expect to hear so quickly, and was very relieved.

It did get me thinking, though, about birthdays past. Many days slip by us into eternity without so much as a tendril of memory sticking in our brain, but birthdays always lock in there somehow, for me. Lets see how I can do.

30 - New York. Barb was in town for the week. Did a special "Brian's Birthday" Improv show, followed by a party with a handful of friends in my Brooklyn apartment the weekend before the big day. On my actual birthday, went to a Mexican restaurant with Barb, Grace and Matt. Matt paid the mariachi band to play happy birthday for me. Afterwords Barb and I went to see the lights on the Rockefeller tree. Good times.

29 - London. Just visiting this time. Bad trip, Abi and I pretty much ended the relationship, though it took another 7 months before we made that official.

28 - London. Living there. Had a combined birthday/Thanksgiving party where I made traditional Thanksgiving food and foisted it upon my English/Scottish/French friends. Hilarious.

27 - London. First visit. Things with Abi were brand new, London was brand new.

26 - On Tour. The night of my birthday we were in a hotel in a frickin dry county in Kentucky. Laaaame. Got drunk in the hotel on stuff we brought in. Good party the night before, though. Different hotel, different town. Bar at the hotel was the local hangout for the college hotties. Not that that did us any good. Rachel came to visit, but spent the whole time with her fling, Glenn. I hung out with Nick and Arnie, for the most part. Way cool.

25 - Minneapolis. This was my "make up for not drinking on your 21st birthday" party. I don't remember much of the night. We went out to Chino Latino. Matt and Paul got me stinking drunk. I have no clue what all I consumed that night. I ended up making out with an ex-girlfriend on the back stairs of my apartment building. And I drunk-emailed Mel. That's about all I can remember. Oh, and I was really fucking hungover the next morning and missed a concert Brent was playing at Calhoun Square.

24 - Richfield. Dating Kristie. Don't remember much else.

23 - La Crosse. Still married. Still in college. Would have been working on The Actor's Nightmare at Holmen.

22 - La Crosse. Just married. Still in college. Working on MASH at Holmen.

21 - Bloomington. Home visiting for Thanksgiving. Did not drink. What a shame.

I got nothing before that. I was in college, or I was in Bloomington. Probably a lot of hanging out with Matt.

Oh yeah:

0 - This from what I've been told. I was born, 10 days late, on a Sunday afternoon following a good 30 hours of labor. Dad missed a football game. It snowed a lot.

I like that a day like "my birthday" can cause me to look back and see where I was a year, two years, etc, ago, and pinpoint it to a certain extent. Makes me thankful for the friends that have been there along the way, and who continue to be so.

Wonder where I'll be at 32?

A Weekend in the Gorge

2006-11-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

If I ever doubt my decision to move to Portland, all I have to do is wait for a clear day. (And sometimes, that's a long wait...) The scenery around here is virtually unparalleled, and I can't imagine its equal in an urban setting. Just driving to work (when I steal Lisa's car) and watching the sunrise over the mountains to the East.... it's breathtaking. And blinding. Then there's getting out of the city....

Lisa and I drove along the Columbia River Gorge this weekend to celebrate our half-anniversary, and just to get out of town for a while. I'll never get used to seeing things like what I have here on the right. I mean, I grew up in Minnesota. Things there are FLAT. Where I went to college in La Crosse, we got all excited about bluffs.

Our two day journey took us out of Portland to the East. We stopped at various points along the Columbia river, looking at waterfalls and other amazing scenery. The weather, which has been very rainy lately, was very cooperative. We stopped in the city of Hood River for the night, with a wonderful view across the river into Washington from our back window.

The next morning we awoke to an unexpected surprise. Snow! About three inches, which to hearty Minnesotans-by-birth like us was nothing. We had planned a long hike to see the Mosier Twin Tunnels, which looked totally cool in the photos, and over breakfast decided "Well, why not? What's a little snow?"

Indeed.

It was a lovely, gorgeous view as we made our way along the snow covered road. (The hiking trail was a disused road from before they built the modern highway. Now it only exists for hikers, bikers, and as we discovered, skiiers.) Alternately walking in the footprints of the handfil of people who were out earlier in the morning, and stepping out to blaze our own trails, we really had fun as we went. The tunnels at the end were awesome, and we even found a spot in them where some motorists in the 20s were snowed in for four days. (You can see all the trip photos by clicking on the title of this entry.)

I learned something on that walk, as we made our way the four miles to the tunnels and back. I learned that eight miles in the uneven snow is a hell of a lot further than I ever could have imagined. I learned that the same scenery that takes your breath away on the way out can be invisble on the way back when there are far more basic things on your mind. I learned that my waterproof hiking boots are not waterproof, and that they can get wet enough that walking in them feels exactly the same as walking on a beach with the surf sliding over my feet. I learned that nature is a powerful force. I learned when I think I've reached the limits of my endurance, I can keep going if there simply is no other choice.

But most of all, I learned that if I'm out in nature, my shins are killing me, my feet are soaked, it's four miles back to the car, it's getting dark, it's snowing, it's raining, it's snowing again, every third step slips, I'm cold and hot at the same time, and I'm wondering what the hell I was thinking in the first place - the only person I can imagine having at my side is Lisa, who was patient, encouraging, and managed to somehow make even the trip back seem fun. And I know she was as tired, sore and wet as I was. But she stayed positive, and in a feat of incredible fortitude, managed to somehow keep ME positive.

Now that's a girl to hold on to.

The Scottish Play

2006-11-24T14:22:00.000-08:00

This just in:

I'm officially selected to direct "MacBeth" with the Northwest Classical Theatre Company

Exciting.

Just Say No (to Abstinence)

2006-11-24T14:11:00.001-08:00

So today I was subbing in a health class. Which is, by itself, scary enough. I knew going in that most of my classes were going to have a guest speaker, so I would just have to be there, with my shiny teacher-certification, and let him do his thing. Sweet.

I did comment to Lisa that I hoped it wouldn't be a sex talk.

It was a sex talk.

But the fun didn't stop there. No, indeed.

It was a SEXUAL ABSTINENCE talk. And I had to sit through it THREE times.

And....this was in a public school.

I was more horrified than I can tell you. Frankly, I disagreed with nearly everything the guy had to say. It was all I could do to keep from shouting out in argument. (Which would have been a bad career move, I imagine.)

When did our public schools become a bastion of conservatism? This wasn't being presented as an option - it was being presented as "what is right."

Now, don't get me wrong. I believe, generally, it would be a good idea to wait to have sex until you are 18. But that's not what this guy was advocating. He was saying that you need/should/must be abstinent until you are MARRIED. Dude - I don't know anyone who thinks that unless it's a christian relgious thing. Furthermore, I knew these arguments. I could have predicted what he was going to say (before I heard it for the second and third time). Because I used to talk that way. When you've been inside the christian cult, you know what's coming next. And religion has no place in our schools. Ever.

This guy had the world divided into two types of people. One one side, there were sluts (or manwhores, as he ACTUALLY phrased it once). On the other side are those who wait til marriage. No middle ground. None.

:Sigh: One of the main duties of teachers is to try to get young people to see that the world ISN'T that black-and-white. That there are grey areas. This guy set us back at least a month. My only consolation is that the kids didn't seem to be buying it. (Duh!) In fact, they probably all went and fucked their brains out that night in protest. I know it sure made me want to.

I could give you more examples about how this guy manipulated language and statistics, or how he jumped to amazing conclusions from small grains of truth, but why bother. You've all heard it. Just probably not in a public school. And probably not three times running.

Sad thing is, I actually really liked the guy that was doing the speaking. When he wasn't talking about sex, he was a really fun, hilarious, nice guy. Oh well.

Then on the way home there was a guy on the MAX reading a bible.

And then there was a christian tract thingy at the little cafe we went to tonight to see Nick Jaina play.

I swear, Jesus really is stalking me.