Good performance of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet last night, despite starting even later than our opening night -- the 7.00 pm show, supposed to run to 8.00 pm before our 8.30 pm scheduled start time, ran to 8.37 pm by my watch, and they had a killer breakdown that meant we didn't get started for over a half-hour after that. Not good, but amazingly, the audience was with us, even with the wait and the horrible heat. And we gave them a good show - first time I was actually comfortable up there as Hamlet, I have to say, unfortunately. First time I left the director (and actually, more importantly, the producer) of the show completely behind me.


Or maybe the Vicodin I took for some hideous neck pain helped.


Had a nice email exchange this morning with Brick Theater Grand-Poo-Bah Robert Honeywell (whose wonderful show, Every Play Ever Written: A Distillation of the Essence of Theatre, got a great and deserved review in the Times today), regarding the performance. Here it is:


very interesting show last night, sir. you made some fascinating choices, and I don't think I've ever disliked Hamlet so much (that's a compliment). very curious about you cutting the 'To be' speech -- I was hungry for it, and maybe not getting it was exactly what you intended. and beautiful staging esp. for the Laertes departure at the dock and the 'Hamlet, where's the body?' office scene. and I liked the choice of never showing the ghost -- I got the distinct sense that Hamlet really might just be crazy, from start to finish (it's obvious that even Horatio doubts his story), which is I assume what you intended. it might be the first time I've seen a 'Hamlet' that left me doubting whether Claudius actually did kill his brother, though he certainly intended to kill young Hamlet at the end.


Thanks. Yeah, the crazy Hamlet is very definitely meant to be there, as well as the possibility that Claudius didn't kill his brother. Glad you got all that. Not everyone does, but those who do seem to be on board for the whole show - if you don't like or get either of those ideas, as well as my choice of being Bastard Hamlet, which really throws some people, you're not going to be with the show at all.

But the crazy Hamlet, who may be dressing up in his father's clothes and wandering the battlements in a fugue state, as well as the possibly innocent Claudius, were always crucial parts of the production -- though Jerry then decided that Claudius HAD killed Old Hamlet, and we went on to basically decide together that Old Hamlet NEEDED killing for the good of Denmark, that he was in no shape to hold off Norway, and may have been going a little coo-coo himself (his son's lunacy possibly being genetic, and from dad). Stacia brought in playing the bedroom scene as a woman who is not unfamiliar with being battered around by a man, which says something else about Old Hamlet (and I was pleased that at least two audience members, strangers to me, "got" this and personally pointed it out to me without being prompted).

We had also batted about the idea as to whether Claudius actually did ask England to kill Hamlet, or if Hamlet was making that up too (perhaps just out of his own paranoia) - maybe he had just asked England to keep him under guard in a nice tower somewhere and never let him get back to Denmark. But Jerry again decided that for Claudius, it would still be way too dangerous for Denmark itself to let a mad, murderous Prince roam around at all, and, with a heavy heart, indeed signed the death order.

A little surprised about your reaction to the "To be" cut -- most people thus far (also to my surprise) have been really appreciative of it's absence, or more just agreeing with me, saying, "You didn't need it for this version." And, yeah, I think it would have been out of place for Bastard Hamlet.

The cast and I had a great time filling out this very different way of looking at the play - and I'm glad that the people who "got" it did so, and seemed to dig what we did.


IWH


Onward to August, and the NECROPOLIS 0 - 3 series and The Hobo Got Too High by Marc Spitz. Beginning to get the research materials together again for World Gone Wrong. It looks like only half of the original cast will be returning, and the newcomers will need a bit of background immersion in noir, as we did the last time. I really hope that this time I can show the cast, as a group, six films in three double bills to sum up the particular aspects of the genre I'm aiming at in this piece:


Double Indemnity
Force of Evil


D.O.A.
Point Blank


Detour
Lost Highway


Damn, but then I get into all the other ones that are so important to me for the piece -- The Killers (both the '46 and '64 versions), Kiss Me Deadly, Out of the Past, Brute Force, The Seventh Victim, The Big Heat, Criss Cross . . . well, the list goes on, but those are all probably the big important ones.

I can loan out my copies, as I did last time. And I need to find which actor still has my DVD of D.O.A. from two years ago.


Busy, busy, busy. Maybe I can bother with a postmortem on Hamlet in a few days, but I have to deal with the future right now. July is gonna be a bit crazy, getting the August shows ready. Keep moving forward.

Berit mentioned this to me the other day, that there was a site that would rate your blog as with the MPAA movie ratings, and she told me what my rating was.


I figured something had to be off, cause I thought I cussed more than they seem to register. Either that, or I have a slick, major-studio backer that was able to argue my rating down, since I only get a





which, according to their records, is due to 3 uses of the word "pain," 2 uses of the word "kill," and 1 use of the word "bitch" (I'm assuming I used the latter in the context of "bitching" about something, but with these three words as the guide, it sounds like my site is the equivalent of one o'them "torture porn" movies er somethin').


Fuck, I need a stronger rating. Maybe if I add some "grizzly violence" (which is currently listed on the posters for Captivity as a reason for the R rating - really - "grizzly violence" - as has been noted, it sounds like the film consists of Elisha Cuthbert going up against some bears).

A few little somethings to not be ignored.


First, HOORAY, Astroland has been spared for another Summer at Coney Island.


Second, imomus, aka Momus, has, to my delight, embedded three sections of John Berger's TV series Ways of Seeing in his journal. You can also just find them on YouTube through a search like THIS ONE (though the last two things that come up there aren't actually the Berger, but just refer to it).

The sharp, excellent book that was produced as an adjunct of the TV series was one of the first texts I had as a film student at NYU/Tisch, and has been quite important to me ever since (as well as a fine lead-in to Berger's denser works). The book is still just an approximation of the series - Berger laid it out specifically as a TV presentation, and it works much better in that format. We saw the first (maybe the second, too?) episode also during that first term at NYU, but that's the only time I got to see the preferred form of Berger's presentation (in 16mm projection). Unfortunately at the time we saw it, my professor, Daniel Kazimierski, had been made a little sensitive by previous students' reactions to the film, and warned us that it was "very 1970s" in style and that Berger's shirt and hairstyle were now out-of-fashion and "amusing." As a result, much of my class erupted in unfounded guffaws whenever Berger appeared onscreen in the fashion of a man of his age in early 70s London.

Which, in fact, only proves several of Berger's points about context and perception.

In any case, like Momus, I also hope that more of the series, if not the whole damned thing, makes it to YouTube.


Oh, and did I ever mention Look Around You here? If not (or even if so), here's the first episode:





And HERE's a search that will let you find the rest.


Oh, and I see you can now find Posh Nosh at YouTube as well:





HERE are the other episodes of that - Berit and I saw it as a filler piece on Buffalo PBS while we were up in Canada at New Year's.


Okay, enough videos. Other business -- I've been trying to get the Gemini CollisionWorks online presence somewhat down. We still don't have our own webpage, with archives, photos, reviews and the like (it's coming . . . sometime), but we have these things:


BLOG: http://collisionwork.livejournal.com/
PHOTOSTREAM: http://flickr.com/photos/geminicollisionworks/
STORE: http://www.cafepress.com/collisionworks
(now with brand-new Ian W. Hill's Hamlet and World Gone Wrong gear!)
MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/geminicollisionworks
LINKEDIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/geminicollisionworks


Use as you like. Thanks.

Yesterday, my body finally gave out for a while. It was about time. Since the show on Friday, I'd still pretty much been going and going in my waking hours, so I guess I needed it. Still do. Still on the downward slide right now.

This happens with some shows I'm in/performances I give. Even 15 years ago, when I played Marlowe's Faustus, I'd spend half of the next day in bed recovering, even more than with Hamlet, though I was much younger, lighter, and in better shape (Faustus was actually a more demanding role than Hamlet). I dunno. I'm better at not knocking myself out quite so much onstage as I used to be, but I still need to keep working at being in the shape to handle this with actual strength rather than adrenalin.


Again, the show went great on Friday, and we had a great, friendly house. A couple of old friends of mine, Sean Rockoff and Julie Bennack, came to see it, and we had a good talk about the show afterward (and since then, by email) where they made it clear that they got everything I was trying to do with the show, which always feels good. Sean may even come back and see it again, which means he really dug it, so good on me.


Saturday was my birthday, so I got birthday wishes by phone from the various groups of family, then B&I were off at Daniel McKleinfeld & Maggie Cino's yearly birthday bash/cookout at Daniel's - originally a B-day party for the two of them, now expanded to all of us June babies. We were there from something like 4 pm to 1 am, and the party extended back a couple of hours from that each way. Most members of the cast of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet made appearances, as well as most other members of this little tight-knit corner of Indie Theatre, at some point in the afternoon/evening (as well as rezendi, who's a friend of Maggie's).

Maggie (who's in the show) insisted that I had to talk to another friend of ours who saw the show on Friday, Robert Ooghe, about it, and I spent quite a while happily listening to Robert tell me everything he got from the show, which was EXACTLY everything I WANTED anyone to get from the show, right down the line, without me having to say anything. Now, that's a way to make me happy - give me an audience member who knew nothing about the show going in, who enjoyed it, and "got" it, without me having to hit them over the head with anything. Happy birthday.

So, good party, good food, good drinks, good company.


Sunday, off to Ossining to see my father and stepmother and her mother and stepfather for Father's Day, Dad & Ivy's anniversary, and Berit's and my birthdays again. Another good party, good food, good drinks, good company. Home again, very tired.


Yesterday, over to The Brick to releg two of the platforms from Ian W. Hill's Hamlet for Q1: The Bad Hamlet. They wanted to use two of my three platforms, but at different heights (I have all mine at 2', they wanted one at 8" and one at 18"), so I made up different legs to put on - in return, I get to use their coffin and skull. I tried to make up the legs as interchangeable, ready to be bolted off and on easily, but it wound up being difficult to make the legs all work that way, so I'm just screwing them off and on. Actually wound up being easier than anticipated, even with having to paint the legs for them to match the platform tops (we use a fabric masking around them for our Hamlet).

Came home, meant to sleep (felt like I had to) and instead wound up watching John Boorman's Point Blank and Richard Lester's Petulia (photographed by Nicolas Roeg), which are a perfect and amazing double-bill of Brit New Wave directors working in the USA in the late '60s (even sharing a number of San Francisco locations). I was going to move on to Roeg and Donald Cammell's Performance, for a perfect stylistic trilogy, but Berit wanted to play Guitar Hero on the PS2, and I couldn't stay awake anyway.


So, today, lounging about in a dazed haze. Everything seems to take too much effort. Picking up a cup of coffee. Typing (this has taken me over four hours to get together). I thought I had to work at The Brick tonight, but no, I checked the sked and it's tomorrow I'm on from 6-11 pm, so today, lying back with relaxing film -- I've got Performance going right now, and will follow it with Roeg's Bad Timing, and then Godard's Masculin Feminin and Tout Va Bien.

Danny Bowes once had a laugh at my expense when I mentioned on here that I was having a special "relaxing-at-home" day with a Jean-Luc Godard film festival -- he said that I needed a lesson in how to actually "relax." Well, this is relaxing for me. Actually, now that I've realized I don't have to be at The Brick tonight, maybe I'll throw in The Man Who Fell To Earth, and Contempt for that all day and night, dreamy, non-linear narrative state of mind . . .


Then, things to do the next few days. I've decided that the best plan for the shows to do at The Brick in August would be to bring back the entire NECROPOLIS series to date: NECROPOLIS 1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed plus NECROPOLIS 0: Kiss Me Succubus and NECROPOLIS 3: At the Mountains of Slumberland, both short pieces, as a double bill. These would alternate as the "main" shows, with late shows (and possibly matinees) of the also short The Hobo Got Too High by Marc Spitz, if Marc will let me do it. Plus I want to get a few more performances of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet in, if possible.

So, I have to check again with the cast of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet about their July availability.

Check with Actors Equity about what I'll be allowed to do, and within what time period, as far as an extension.

Check with Marc about Hobo.

Check in with the 10 members of the cast of 21 on World Gone Wrong who have said they can and want to do it again, recheck with the 7 company members who haven't responded, and recast the 4 people who definitely can't do it.

Check in with the people still around from the other NECROPOLIS shows if they're interested and available, and recast the parts where they aren't.

Fix up the apartment, which is a hellhole, as usual during production of a show. Worse now, as I now have an secondary A/V system lying around in pieces all over the place (given to me by my brother as he's got a new one), including a huge 35" Sony Trinitron in the middle of "the living room," all of which needs to be arranged somehow, especially before my mother comes next week to see the show and will be staying with us (a good excuse to be forced to clean up).


But that's tomorrow. For now, I'll sit back and enjoy The Man Who Fell to Earth and other states of mind.


Oh, and some amusement courtesy of a link from sarahlangan, my answer from The Classic Leading Man Test (and I do have more than enough ego to say . . . yeah, seems about right . . .):

Link: The Classic Leading Man Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I'll tell you this - the only performance that makes it -- that really makes it - that makes it all the way - is the one that achieves madness, right? Am I right? You with me?

From the iPod, currently at 21,132 songs, and with almost no space left in it, so I can't add anything until Hamlet is over -- I have several sound beds for scenes of the show on here, so things like 15 minutes of wind (repeated several times) are taking up space.

I hope none of those sound effects come up now . . .


1. "Truck On (Tyke)" - T.Rex - History of T.Rex—The Singles Collection

Pure pop for then people.


2. "The Wedge" - Dick Dale - Rato's Nostalgia Collection 1

Also Pure, as well as Ur, as well as Surf.


3. "Exakt Neutral" - Stereo Total - Music Automatique

Too new to be New Wave, but the next best thing.


4. "Damnation's Cellar" - Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet - The Juliet Letters

Yup, I can imagine Berit's comment, if she were awake: AH! Yet another cheery song from Elvis! What person does he want dead in this one?" Um, all of them -- well, at least he wants the ones who already are to stay there.


5. "What in the World" - David Bowie - Low

iPod seems to be trying to cheer me up this morning with songs that make me feel happy-peppy. Thanks, iPod! Not really a happy song, this, but it makes me cheery.


6. "Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight" The Kinks - Kinda Kinks

Good, but could have been generated by the Kinks Pop Song Creator 2000.


7. "Hyena Stomp" - Jelly Roll Morton - Birth Of The Hot: The Classic Chicago "Red Hot Peppers" Sessions

Okay, the iPod is seriously trying to cheer me up, not only by playing Jelly Roll Morton, but by playing a happy one where he laughs through half of it.

I know it's random, but sometimes there seems to be a theme to what comes out. toddalcott has noted that sometimes his iPod gets drunk and sad and will play nothing but Leonard Cohen for hours unless he stops it.


8. "Un Grand Bond Pour L'Humanite" - Etienne Charry - 36 Erreurs

The aural equivalent of the happy parts of a Michel Gondry movie - appropriately, as Gondry used to play drums for Charry. More cheer, more cheer.


9. "Unchained" - Johnny Cash - American II: Unchained

Again, not actually happy, but makes my heart light. I acquired a GREAT DEAL of Cash recently, more than I'll ever need, and I'm getting rid of much of the sillier dross, but there's STILL so much good stuff to keep. We keep getting ones we've never heard before on random in the car and enjoying them. Damn, he was something.


10. "I Love You Mary Jane" - Cypress Hill/Sonic Youth - Judgment Night

An interesting rock/hip-hop collaboration. Nice, actually works.


and yes I said yes I will Yes

I needed some production photos quick for publicity purposes, so I asked some of the actors who live near The Brick to come by last night and get into costume and get some photos after the shows were over. Gyda Arber and Bryan Enk were able to make it - and thanks for the loan of the camera and for uploading the shots to Gyda.


So here's some of what the show pretty much looks like. Here I am as Hamlet with Enk as Polonius (". . . conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive . . ."):





With Gyda as the Norwegian Captain, talking of futile war:





And the two of us again, looking out on the Norwegian troops being sent to their deaths in Poland:





And finally, the shot you have to get, Hamlet with Yorick:





Now, a rush. Shower and shave, off to Staples for new programs, off to Big Apple Lights to exchange a loaner piece of equipment with our repaired one (the "brain" for our practical dimmers), off to The Brick to put the piece in and then practice for a few hours. I'm feeling good, though Berit and I were at The Brick fixing tech things until 5.00 am again last night (this morning). Now to keep this up through the show.

I am still feeling a little odd about our opening on Tuesday.

I think I did divorce myself pretty much entirely from the producer/director bag while I was doing the show, and was there only as the actor playing Hamlet - in fact, I even left the theatre for a few minutes to catch my breath and not think about the show, but just my part in it, at the beginning of (our) Act II, specifically trying to be an actor and not a director -- this is also the point in the show where the actor playing Hamlet gets a (comparatively) sizable rest, which I think of as the "Burbage Break." I can just imagine Richard Burbage complaining to Shakespeare, "Christ, Bill, I've been going full blast for an hour now, can't you send me off to England or something for an act, have Ophelia go mad and kill herself, and give Armin some funny business in the graveyard before her funeral to kill some time? I really need a pint and some food after all that hugger-mugger before I come back on for the killing." Bill's an immensely practical playwright when you're dealing with him from the inside.

I think I did okay as an actor. I wasn't bad at all, but I can be better, easily. It was the first time I ever felt really good about the "rogue and peasant slave" speech, which suddenly took flight for me. I felt I had the manic, crazed side of the whole character down really well, but I lost a bit of the stiff preppy prig I've been working so hard on. But not bad. In my nervousness, I went up on a few words and/or lines that I never have before, but I didn't stumble, plowed on, and got through it.

But as a result of my concentration, I don't have much of a sense as to how the whole show actually went, or how the audience took it. We started late (very late) and ran long, it was damned hot in the theatre, there were some especially shaky moments at the start of the show, and it seemed to take them a while to warm up, but there was a point where I suddenly felt, "Okay, I've got 'em." And, eventually, the laughs started coming in the places where they were supposed to (it's hard to judge if people are being affected by the dark, nasty bits, or if they're just tuned out, so laughter - there are LOTS of funny bits in this tragedy - can at least signify engagement). Thankfully, no laughs at all in places where they're not supposed to be.

But I can't tell really how it went, and I'm not sure how the other actors felt (some were happy and effusive to me, but I'm paranoid, and tend to think they were just trying to cheer me up).


And there are other reasons not for public consumption leading to a more-than-average amount of stress, worry, confusion and depression. Of course, that's part of my normal state post-opening (it gets worse post-run), as all that time and work finally comes out . . . and . . . now what?


In any case, I was brought out of that unpleasantness and into a state of bliss for a time this morning by this video - another one of those "things I saw on TV once years ago and have remembered ever since" items for which I bless YouTube. In this case, a piece of Sesame Street that I remember from the original airing sometime in late '72 or early '73.

I think I still have the 7" single of this I got as a result of this appearance and played over and over on my little plastic turntable. It's still one of my favorite songs (and one of Berit's, too). Here's Mr. Stevie Wonder with "Superstition":

I am tired. I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years.


But tonight I'm playing Hamlet.


Tech last night - I got home at 5.30 am, and don't really feel like dealing with computer, internet, etc. right now, but I should say something as I get ready today.


I've been thinking about this show for 18 years, working on it for 15, one way or another. Now it all comes down to bare practicalities. Will this work? Will this work? Will we have the paper for the set that UPS hasn't delivered yet or have to run frantically and find a substitute of some kind? Will we have time to make the stage blood? Will the transitions actually work as smoothly as they did last night (which wasn't always the smoothest but was amazing considering how little work we've been able to do with them)? I have to finish the program. I have to go over my part again. And again. I have to remember to thank people who should be thanked. I have to keep trying to remember things I've forgot and do it without torturing myself into anxiety. I have to edit down some sound cues and lengthen others. I have to make up press packs, just in case. I have to do the laundry for the cast to get the stage blood out (tasty stuff Berit's made - it's the peanut-butter/vodka based mix - I think there's chocolate in there, too). Berit has to pluck my eyebrows and maybe - will we have time? - do my roots.


It's a tech-light show for me - only 69 light cues in 91 pages; usually I average 2.5 light cues per page - my sound cues (lettered, as Berit does) only go from A to SS (I have, in a 50-minute play, gone from A to QQQQ), but some of the tech that there is is a bitch. I was surprised at how easy tech went, actually, though surprised at how long - though, no, I didn't keep the actors there until 5.00 am, Berit and I (and Aaron Baker, who stayed to help, thanks Aaron) had to spend a few hours painting the set and cleaning the theatre after we finished. The blood did not completely come off the wall - I hope it isn't a problem for the one day at The Brick it's there; we need an abrasive brush and more powerful cleanser. Comes out of clothes just fine, but sticking to brick? Not so good.

Aaron reminded me late last night, "Eighteen years, right?" So, I should feel like I finally achieved some long-standing dream. But all I can deal with is what has to be done for tonight.

Though I looked at the stage over and over last night and kept thinking, "This looks GOOD." So maybe it is. Different for me, I guess - Berit says it's "cleaner" than usual. Peter (Bean) Brown said the same at the act break, that he's used to my "junky" sets (noting that he likes them, as do I) and that this looks like "money." Whatever. It is what it is.

I think it's good. I think it works. There are bits, tiny, brief bits, that don't, where it's my fault and something isn't working (one bit - mesmerizing in rehearsal, was lying there like a lox with the tech elements added; maybe it'll be different tonight). But altogether, it works. It does what I want it to do - sometimes not at all in the way I've been figuring on for years, but it a better way.

It works. That's what should concern me.


I hope some of you see it, I hope you enjoy it. If you read this, you know where to find it.


I have a massive headache. I'm going to go soak for a while and get ready. I need to leave the production world for a while and get my actor bag on. I'm playing Hamlet in eight-and-a-half hours, dammit.

Quick notes before bed.


Nothing for a few days now. Nothing but Ian W. Hill's Hamlet to do. No cat blogging. No random 10.


The cards, incredibly, showed up today. We weren't guaranteed delivery before next Tuesday, which would have been disappointing, but they left Louisville, KY at 3.34 am yesterday (Friday) and arrived at our door at 7.09 pm. Nice. Folks, I highly recommend overnightprints.com for postcards. Really. The work is good, the interface is easy, and they are indeed FAST.


Tonight, Qui Nguyen staged all the fights, including the final foil duel between Adam and I. It will be great, once Adam and I practice it as much as we can in the next few days. The other fights are all now cleaner and better, too.


Tomorrow, Karen Flood shows up to work costumes, and we run the show as much as we can. And then Adam and I run the foil duel. Again and again.


Sunday, Berit and I run around and find or buy everything we don't have for the show yet. After 10 pm at The Brick, we build and paint the platforms.


Monday, we tech all day and night.


Tuesday we open.


Wednesday, I stay collapsed as long as I can until I have to work at The Brick that night.


I DO love this life. Sometimes it's hard to remember why.


Berit is winding down now with her birthday present from her parents, Guitar Hero II for the PS2, so she is rocking out with her own bad self. Apparently, according to the game, her "needle is all the way in ROCK!" Oh, wait, this is adorable, Hooker is rubbing up against her legs and ankles, being all luvvy as she's trying to rock with "You Really Got Me" and she's yelling at him and he's just loving her more. Awwwwwwww.


I will shortly wind down by climbing into bed with my script and a can of Moxie and going over my lines again and again. They're all in there - I've run all the scenes on my own multiple times without mistakes, but I keep screwing up on my feet, doing it. This has to stop. Now.


But we are happy - everything is getting done and will be ready on time, if only just, but it's going to be there.


More when I can handle it.

Now in Maine.


I'm getting caught up on tons of emails I missed getting the last two days, and Berit is sending me revisions of the card front and back to check out.


She's fixed the card front a bit from its appearance in my last post, making the text less "computery," and it can be seen HERE.

She's been working on the card back now, and it's a pain with all the text and stuff that needs to go on there, but she's working it out. I'll post that once we have a finished version, as I should have done with the front (I was just excited to see it and share it).


Here's another version of the "card front" image, framed differently to be used for promotional purposes, etc.: