There Will Always be a Geekland

Or: Scene from the Life of a Director/Adaptor

IAN and BERIT at home, in the living room. BERIT is at one computer, playing a videogame. IAN is at another, typing in and adapting the transcript of Orson Welles' original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons into playscript form. He reaches a scene description in the book, and is thinking about how to transfer it into a stage direction, when he reads a footnote on the description. He frowns, and looks back and forth from the footnote to the scene description. Thinks a moment, turns around in his chair towards BERIT.

IAN: Hmmn.

BERIT: What?

IAN: Okay, so there’s an anachronism in Ambersons, and I don’t know whether to keep it in the script. I mean, it’s Welles’ anachronism, and somewhat deliberate.

BERIT: Yeah?

IAN: So there’s this scene where George and Lucy are walking down a street, and they pass a movie theatre where you can see several posters for early films playing there. And there’s an in-joke from Welles. One of the posters is for a Jack Holt western. Jack Holt was a silent movie star, and the father of Tim Holt, who’s walking past playing George Amberson Minifer. Thing is, the scene is supposed to take place in 1905, and none of the films you see the posters for would have been made yet. Actually it’s way too early for movies in those style to be advertised that way at all. One of them definitely wasn’t made until 1910 to 1912 – they mention it it the footnotes of the book here, but they don’t point out the anachronism.

(IAN checks later and also discovers that Jack Holt’s first film was made in 1914)

IAN: Oddly enough, I just found out in that Val Lewton documentary last night that Jack Holt was still around in the ‘40s and wound up appearing in a couple of those Lewton films that were made on the Ambersons set pieces the following few years, the ones that put RKO back in the black after Welles nearly bankrupted them, when they put “Showmanship Not Genius” on their corporate stationary as a "Fuck You" to Welles and brought Lewton in to make cheap horror films that would actually make money. Anyway, it’s Welles’ anachronism, and I’ve been sticking to Welles, even when he makes mistakes or does clumsy stuff, and I’ve always liked the touch of those posters in the scene and wanted to put it in the show . . . so . . . you think I should keep it?

BERIT is thinking – she smiles playfully.

BERIT: I don’t suppose anyone in our cast would be related to a silent movie star . . ?

Beat.

IAN: Oh, yeah.

BERIT: ‘Cause then . . .

IAN: Oh god, right.

If you haven’t realized – since IAN and BERIT think the same way and aren’t having to say it out loud – they’ve decided that the perfect thing would be to have someone in the cast with a silent movie connection, and they would find a poster (preferably anachronistic) for a film with that connection.

BERIT: That would be seriously serving up some extra-nerdy with a side helping of geeksauce.

IAN: Yeah, but if there was I’d have to DO it.

BERIT: Well of COURSE! I mean this whole thing is an exercise in geekery.

IAN is amused by the conversation and starts asking BERIT to repeat some of what she said so he can take it down.

BERIT: I just want to point out that the geeky-ass idea of finding out if anyone in the cast was related to a silent movie star was MY geeky idea.

IAN: Yes, well, I had actually THOUGHT of it before you mentioned it, but I had discarded the possibility as too far-fetched, so I wasn’t even going to bring it up. Now of course I HAVE to.

BERIT: Yeah.

IAN turns back to the script, thinks a moment, then types the stage direction: “GEORGE and LUCY, at this point in their walk, pass a movie theatre – NOTE TO CAST: please let us know if you have any familial connection to anyone who acted in or made silent movies, we’ll want to use posters from those, if possible.”

Wish us luck on that idea . . .

Try To Be Joyful

Tech for Merry Mount in a few hours. Still don't know how I'm dealing with most of the costuming issues, and we open in two days. Well, I'll have to figure it out today and tomorrow, however. I'm trying to let it go and not have a over-the-top panic attack about that, which would be my usual reaction, even though I've done all I can about it right now, and there's nothing else I can do until later today. So, I'm trying, with some success, to just sit back and relax until it's time to go to tech. Listened to The Fugs' song "Try to Be Joyful" several times, and that helped, too. If Tuli and Ed can preach it, I can try and follow it.

Rehearsal for the show went extremely well last night. No problem with any of the acting, and now no problem with the dancing. Staged the maypole dance, and it went together quick, easy, and well. Much faster than expected. Good job from the actors - mostly new people I haven't worked with before, but I hope to some more in the next year. I have to understudy a part on opening night, so I worked that scene with Michael Criscuolo, and found what I should be doing (which is very different from the actor playing the part the rest of the time - we're quite different types).

I'm less concerned about some other things as I was - we have the basic maypole materials, and the props can be acquired easily. Just the damned costumes. If worse comes to worse, I can just forgo the actual "period" style in favor of a somewhat stylized black&white for Puritans/bright colors for Pagans that will do, but I'd like to avoid that. We'll see. I will try to be joyful.

Picture of my main workspace these days, that I wanted to include with the last post (taken just after the conversation there and before making the post), but couldn't load it up just then:

And, for no reason than to make me feel better and because we have a surplus of these now, here's a photo of our cats, Still Life with Cats, Basket, Book, and Guitar:

Tech at 2 pm. Wish me luck. I'm going to go spend an hour with the headphones on listening to music that will make me happy. The next song that came up random on iTunes after The Fugs was Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers doing "Dodge Veg-a-matic." Trying to be joyful.