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There are currently 18 people cast (out of 21 I think I'll need) on Ambersons, a full cast of 13 on Everything (though I'm seeing if someone else can join us), a full cast of 12 on Spell, and a full cast of 6 (the easy one) on Harry in Love. 43 total actors currently (there are a few cast overlaps).
Trying to arrange a rehearsal schedule where I can get enough actors from any one show together to make having a rehearsal at all useful is mindbending -- Berit was a bit worried for me last night I think, as I would just sit for long periods of time looking at the Excel spreadsheets where I have potential rehearsal dates matched with conflicts and softly giggling to myself. When I'm faced with day after day of anywhere from one to sixteen actors unavailable, never leaving me with a good rehearsal group, I get a bit crazy.
That said, I worked a schedule out. I'm still "in the midst" of it all as I now have to type it out and send it to the casts and double-check to see that it works. And if I get enough new conflicts back the whole thing collapses like a furshlugginer house of cards and I have to start from scratch.
I need a break before embarking on the next stage of collating and typing and emailing the schedule info.
So to relax, I watch a Three Stooges short. And not just any Stooges short, but the one that's generally regarded in Stoogedom as the worst one they ever made. But I enjoy it, for a few reasons of my own:
1. It features Shemp Howard, not Curly Howard. I don't like Curly all that much (or any of the other third Stooges that joined Moe and Larry apart from Shemp, especially Joe DeRita, who lacked subtlety). I'll watch Shemp in anything.
2. It features a drunk Shemp hallucinating and seeing an immense cheesy pantomime bird.
3. It features the great Larry Fine in a rare central role, and not only that, he appears to be trying to parody (for no good reason) Marlon Brando. His lack of success in this impersonation instead creates a strange Brando/Fine collision unlike anything I've ever seen. Interestingly, this short was released only a few months after the film of Streetcar, so one wonders if Larry and/or the others saw Brando on stage, or were they just really churning these shorts out that fast (I suspect the latter).
4. My Junior-year film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts - created in Reynold Weidenaar's excellent Experimental Workshop class - was titled "How Did You Manage To Steal a Car from a Rolling Train?" after a line of Moe's from this film (my film was written, co-produced, sound designed, and titled by my friend Sean Rockoff, a Stoogeaholic).
The director Christopher Carter Sanderson, when I told him where the title came from, and the response to the question from Larry, thereafter always seemed to regard the question and answer as some bizarre zen-ish "key" to my own psyche and personality. Make of that what you will.
I dedicated my film to Moe Howard and Andrei Tarkovsky. That's probably much more of a key to my inner life.
So here's the whole short behind the cut . . .
And in other "humor," I greatly enjoyed this account of the 12-hour deposition of Mr. Aron Wider, CEO of HTFC, an independent mortgage investor whose company is being sued by GMAC Bank for allegedly selling loans that weren't properly underwritten. The fine behavior of Mr. Wider, as seen in excerpts from the transcript, is a fine reflection of the upright and honorable behavior that has made the financial structure of this country so strong and unassailable. There is a drier account (that does feature a few more fine fine superfine quotes) in a law journal HERE.
In non-humor, Paul Scofield died. I loved his work, but I never feel I saw him in anything as good as he was (even Brook's film of Lear, which seems hobbled by its stage origins) - from all accounts his real greatness was on the stage, and I regret never seeing him there.
Back to work. Excelsior!
