CollisionWorks

Okay, I wasn't sure I was going to mention it, because I thought some much more read theatre blogs than mine would right away, and I didn't have anything intelligent to say in response to it, just fury.


Anyone else read about what happened to Mike Daisey at his performance of Invincible Summer at ART a couple of days ago?


He tells the story HERE. Please read.


The only mention I've seen so far in the blogs was in a comment on Isaac's blog, which asks a lot of pertinent questions about the apparent protest and attack. Such as, who were they and why this show? I immediately searched Daisey's reviews for a sign of anything "controversial" that might have provoked this response, and didn't find anything.


So, WHY? And, seeing as it seems to have been organized, WHO?


I used to help run the NADA theatres for several years, and was present around a couple hundred shows for several hundred more performances. It's Off-Off-Broadway, some of those shows are going to be provocative in one way or another. We had walk outs, of course, and sometimes obviously due to offense. Most often people just left in obvious disgust, sometimes they added a disgusted noise. Every now and then a person would say or yell something at the performers on the way out. It happens. But THIS?


(and I'm much more upset about the deliberate destruction of an important part of Daisey's work -- his handwritten outline for the show -- than about the walkouts; that makes me nauseous)


I just don't get it, and keep wondering WHO? and WHY? Thus far a Google search doesn't bring up anything (except the odd linkage to a promo for Daisey's show from "Free Christian Monologues.com").


And I say again, What the HELL--?


UPDATE: Mike Daisey has added a heartbreaking and ultimately beautiful video of the incident at his site HERE.

I think he knocks his own recovery in his written account far too much. I think he handled it as gracefully and eloquently as possible.

queencallipygos has written a piece about it that I agree with that you can read HERE.

I had an eye exam this morning, early, to start the process of getting contact lenses. I didn't imagine I'd be walking away from the doctor, actually wearing lenses.

I'm almost 39, I've been wearing glasses as long as I can almost remember, and I've never seen clearly without them. I've never driven, shopped, or typed without them. Now I have and am. It's an oddity and a wonder. Everything looks so different.

I'm going to be walking around looking like I'm on some serious hallucinogens for a while -- I think the doctor and assistant were quite amused at my wonder; they said I looked like a little boy on Christmas day.

I feel like one.

On the bad, well, not-so-bad-but-not-great, side, the "slight" red/green colorblindness that was detected in me the last time I was checked for it (by my pediatrician, Dr. Hecklau, when I was pretty small) is indeed -- as Berit will be filled with smuggery over, I'm sure -- something more than slight now. Not that much (got that, Berit?), but, as the doctor said, "just a bit more than slight."

So from now on, when Berit and I are arguing if a gelled light is showing red or orange, she gets the final call.

I also have one grey and one blue contact (without prescription) to check and double check on which one I want to go with for the "Hamlet" colored lenses. Currently, I'm leaning to the grey.


So, a quick random ten; I have a dental appointment in 40 minutes:


1. "Ebony Affair" - Betty Wright & Timmy Thomas - Why Can't We Live Together - The Best of Timmy Thomas

Sweet soul music. Thomas writes oddly for the genre in some strange way I can't quite define - just a bit "off" of standard. So, a little more interesting than a lot of other soul.


2. "Sook Boo Ga Loo" - Bobby Rush - Soulin' vol. 4

And more soul. It's a groove morning.

Good song, but it's got that thing going where you name as many places in a song as possible, in an attempt to insure sales of and/or crowd reaction to the song in those places. There's got to be a pithy name for that little lyrical trick. I was trying to come up with one in the car yesterday after hearing one of these, and couldn't do it.

Oh, right, that wasn't the exact same kind, that was the bit where you name as many great bands or musicians in your own song to try and get a reaction by leeching off of them (eg; Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music," which drives me nuts). Yesterday's song was Wayne County & The Backstreet Boys doing "Max's Kansas City," which names about every good punk band from '73-78 in it. I forgive it a bit from Wayne - it's just his (now, her) style . . .


3. "Leader of the Sect" - The Downliners Sect - The Definitive Downliners Sect: Singles As and Bs

Oh, ew. This is a 60s Brit blues/R&B band that never really got too big. Most of their stuff is quite good, but this is a "novelty" kind of number, not really based on "Leader of the Pack," but lyrically close and with a similar spoken intro (done, by these English kids, for some reason in overdone "Snagglepuss" voices, for crissakes!).

Short, though. They still play really well.


4. "Burning Burning" - The Bunnys - Sixties Japanese Garage Psych Sampler

Another great hard crazy Japanese garage-rock single. Hard fast and nasty, with oddly sweet vocals, then some vicious screaming.


5. "La Via Della Droga" - Goblin - Roma Violenta: La Cinevox Si Incazza

More groove, but from a bunch of Italians scoring a horror film or thriller, probably some time in the 70s. Classic track I'm not all that familiar with - similar to their scores for Argento and Romero, but a little funkier and able to work outside of being just for a film score. Great bass and guitar work.


6. "Stingaree" - Charlie Musselwhite - Alligator Records 25th Anniversary Collection

Good little blues. Just voice and guitar.

Which is nice. As good as it is that Alligator Records produced and released so many records for Bluesmen who had been forgotten (and screwed by the record industry in the past) through the 60s on, I find a lot of their recordings a little too produced and slick. This is clean, but not slick. There's a difference.


7. "Flower" - Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville

And speaking of unslick. At least soundwise.

Liz unpacks the dirty mouth in a great track from that first album that we all fell in love with, then forgot about, for the most part, a few years later.

The album is still great, and this track, which could sound incredibly forced in its sexual forthrightness, and doesn't, is still one of the highlights.


8. "Steppin' Out" - Paul Revere & The Raiders - Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era

"Hey Joey, it's a nugget if you dug it!" -- Lenny Kaye to Joey Ramone at one of Joey's birthday parties at Coney Island High right before Kaye and the house band played a medley of "Pushin' Too Hard" and "Jessie's Girl."

And here's a nugget and I do duggit.

Last night, though, I heard one of my favorite once-obscure songs, "Knock, Knock" by The Humane Society, used in a light beer commercial. That's . . . oh, god. I know it's because people like me are working in ad agencies now, but jesus, still . . . a light beer commercial!?


9. "Dance We Me, Henry" - Georgia Gibs - Back to the 50s 03

Silly 50s kitsch novelty music that I like having as a changeup in the iPod, and a reminder of what was going on in the actual hit parade as rock 'n' roll was rising out of the stew.


10. "Take It Off" - The Genteels - Las Vegas Grind!

And here's a chunky part of that stew. A nasty little instrumental from a band that doesn't live up to its name.


Okay, off to the dentist. Back later with cat pictures - I have more new ones.

Last night, we had the first reading of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet at one of the rehearsal rooms at Theatre 5 on 43rd Street.


16 members of the company of 19 were present:





front, kneeling: Maggie Cino (Second Clown, etc.), Christiaan Koop (Voltimand); standing: Aaron Baker (Francisco, Priest, etc.), Danny Bowes (Gravedigger, etc.), Ken Simon (Bernardo, etc.), Edward Einhorn (Guildenstern), Daniel Kleinfeld (Rosencrantz), Ian W. Hill (director, Hamlet), Adam Swiderski (Laertes), Bryan Enk (Polonius), Carrie Johnson (Marcella), Jerry Marsini (Claudius), Peter Bean Brown (First Player, Reynaldo); on chairs, rear: Rasheed Hinds (Horatio), Jessi Gotta (Ophelia); behind camera: Berit Johnson (design/direction/management collaboration); missing: Gyda Arber (Norwegian Captain, English Ambassador, etc.), Stacia French (Gertrude), Roger Nasser (Osric).


Swell cast there, folks (sorry 'bout the so-so picture on some of them - we had three shots and all of them had blurs or blinks - this was the best).


A good first reading in many ways. The voices work as I hoped they would. The cast got to meet, or rather re-meet -- most of us have worked together quite a bit before, but in some cases it's been a few years. Good bonding and rebonding. I don't see many of these people between shows, unfortunately; just the way it is. So I have these short-duration, very intense, work-friendships that become very important to me.


I think it was important to have this reading, and the next, right at the start, to hear this cutting with these voices -- not even so much for me, but for the whole cast. I know what the tone and mood of the show is going to be, and I tried to get that across in the stage directions I put into the production script we're all working from, but I think that hearing it really got across to everyone the particular attitude and point-of-view of this production. My viewpoint on some of the characters and events here is not a standard one, and I think that came across better out loud.


There is a great deal of work to be done, but about the right amount of work for the time we have, judging from what people were bringing to it here at the start. I'll have to concentrate on getting the colloquial tone that I want down with some of the cast - some people begin to slide towards an Englishness in their tone the more they do Shakespeare, and this is a very American version, and should sound it (except for Danny, who gets to play an immigrant Gravedigger). Some people who had been emailing with me about character things were a step ahead to where they need to go. I knew more of my own lines than I thought I did - I wasn't off book, not nearly (that's to happen this coming week), but I was able to look away from it more than I expected. I've been imagining Bryan, Rasheed, Daniel, and Edward in their parts for about six or seven years now, so hearing their voices saying the lines for the first time was a thrill.


The first act ran 1 hour 25 minutes (ending with Hamlet leaving for England - "My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!"), and the second ran 38 minutes. I suspect the first will continue to run about the same, as it will speed up a lot from the pace we were at for a good deal of it last night, though I'm also planning on putting back the majority of the Polonius/Reynaldo scene that I had reluctantly cut for time. The second act will expand by about 5 minutes or so, as it can slow up just a bit, and will have a lot of violence added, so time will fill out there.


I'm pleased with the cutting, for the most part, but I'm a bit concerned about whether my cuts have screwed with the clarity of the story in one or two places, and I have to review those parts of the uncut script(s) with mine. The problem is that with some of the cuts I made, you either have to go with the entirety of a long speech or conversation, or none of it, as you can't cut into it and have it make any sense, and there's sometimes just one or two little pieces of information in that long (and sometimes, yes, tedious) piece of dialogue that are not exactly crucial, but close to it. So I try to cut and elide and hope that other mentions in the dialogue will cover it. Now I'm not so sure about some of my cuts in the section leading up to the Laertes/Hamlet duel. I'll check it.


Now I'm in Maine. Pleasant drive today. Personal and other work to do here. Still getting over the unsettling feeling of being "away" from NYC, and work I feel I should be doing there (though there's nothing more to do there that can't be done by phone/email till I'm back for the second reading - all 19 of us this time - on Friday the 27th). I miss Berit and the cats a bit already.


Onward.

There are images and text almost every single day at Modern Mechanix that I have to restrain myself from grabbing and reposting.

This one (from a February, 1933 Popular Science) isn't the funniest or most charming, but the fact that the intervening decades have made the headline prove - unintentionally - its own point struck me bemused:





Also interesting, if you read the fine print in this article by Gaylord Johnson (and what happened to that christian name, huh?), which may be more visible at the original page on Modern Mechanix, is that you get to see that Internet-style abbreviations are nothing new -- ham radio operators were using them 75 years ago!


Meanwhile in France (and thanks to Modern Art Notes for the pointer), the Barbara Kruger aesthetic is considered appropriate for a presidential candidate (I like the comment someone made, asking what artists could you consider appropriate for the current crop of USA hopefuls - any ideas?).

Two things to guide people to, of one kind or another:


As I've mentioned, I've done the lights for Rachel Cohen's new piece Suite at The Brick, and I enjoy Rachel's work immensely and think I've done a good job on the light (it's been a while, I'm rusty, and there are limits within the space and equipment available, as always, but people have been effusive about it, so I guess it works for others as well as it does for me).

We don't have nearly as much dance at The Brick as we would like, and I'm not sure the normal "dance audience" (whatever that is) is all too aware of the space, or maybe even Williamsburg - though it seems to me there's been a helluva lotta dance going on in Williamsburg for a couple of years now . . . Rachel said she had considerably more house immediately in her last show at WalkerSpace, so I dunno.

The show had an pretty good house opening night, and a small one last night. We have more advance tickets sold for every show left in the run, but if you're interested, I think it's worth it. The two pieces are each alternately very funny, very beautiful, and very exciting.

It's been great fun lighting both pieces on the bill - Suite, the longer, new one, is loosely based around film noir images, which are of course my favorite. All the Much I Have Not Went, an older piece done as a curtain-raiser, has some lovely reflective costumes that allow me to do a bit of a tribute to the lights of Alwin Nikolais (in particular Noumenon), which I spent a good deal of 1995 recreating on tour.

Here's the info:


Racoco Productions presents


Suite


A collaboration among a choreographer, a candymaker, and a jazz composer, Suite's film noir characters negotiate sticky situations in a world made entirely of chewing gum and taffy.

Melding theater, dance, sculpture, and candy-making, an international ensemble of actors, dancers, and clowns explores the connections between people and how their boundaries are stretched, pulled, twisted, and torn.


directed by Rachel Cohen


with a score of original music and arrangements by composer Rafi Malkiel and costumes made from salt-water taffy


performed by
Katie Brack, Rachel Cohen (13th, 19th, 21st), Elodie Escarmelle, Adrian Jevicki, and Michelle Vargo (12th, 14th, 15th, 20th)


preceded by


All the Much I Have Not Went (2002)


Three female superheroes of limited power, and suffering from OCD, meet in a support group for consolation, commiseration, and conflict.


performed by
Katie Brack, Elodie Escarmelle, and Kelly Kocinski


at The Brick
575 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(L to Lorimer/G to Metropolitan)


Thursday-Saturday, April 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21 at 8.00 pm
Sunday, April 15 at 4.00 pm
$15.00 ($12.00 students and seniors) - TDF vouchers accepted


tickets available at www.theatermania.com or by calling 212-352-3101


special $50.00 VIP tickets Thursday, April 19, include post-show reception and concert by The Rafi Malkiel Ensemble


Visit The Brick HERE


For more about Mr. Malkiel and his music, please visit www.rafimalkiel.com


*****


And on a different note, for those enraptured by cute animal stuff, like me (and it seems, about 96.72% of internet users), rosmar linked to one site I have in my occasionally-posted blogroll, and you might already know, and another I didn't know existed.

The latter collects all (it would seem) of what have come to be known as the LOLCAT images flying around the Intarweb, and can be found here at SeeHere.

The other is a blog/site where shots similar to these are added on a daily basis, and is here at I Can Has Cheezburger?


Enjoy!

1. "Eve of Destruction" - Barry McGuire - Those Classic Golden Years 08

An historical document.


2. "It's So Easy" - Buddy Holly - The "Chirping" Crickets

Said it before, I'll say it again, I love his songwriting, I recognize his importance, but apart from "Peggy Sue," I find his own performances lacking. I'm not sure I've ever heard a version of this great song that I actually really thought lived up to it. Or most of his others.

So, even though I'd rather hear other people do his songs, not many have done them better (except "Not Fade Away"), and I'll listen to him.


3. "Don't You Think It's Time You Stopped Your Crying?" - The New Colony Six - Breakthrough

Sweet, silly, muffled late-60s garage-pop.


4. "Sail On Sailor" - The Beach Boys - Holland

A rip someone did off a vinyl copy -- I own it in digitally mastered form in two places, but, even with surface noise, it sounds better in this rip.

Early 70s Boys, Brian helping out but not in control. Van Dyke Parks helping on this song, too. Strange extended version of the band, bringing in outside, much more "ethnic" players, trying to be an R&B band. Winds up actually working - some of the sweetest, mellowest, most-groovin' music of their career.


5. "Work Work Work" - The Stiffs - 7" single

Period punk. Young, loud, snotty, treble pushed way up, tight. Good and gets better as it goes. Then even better. As if the opening was a fakeout ("Oh, just another okay song like this"), and then the song gets louder, with more and deeper instruments filling it out, ending strong. Nice job.


6. "High Fidelity" - Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Get Happy!!

Berit hates EC, except for "Pump It Up." This causes problems sometimes, given my reverence. She finds his voice unbearably depressing, no matter how "uptempo" a song of his may be. If he's singing it, it's a dirge.

One afternoon, while we were doing some work up at my dad's, repairing a front walk, she had made a remark about how depressing Costello is, and I felt compelled to defend him by going through his catalog in order, searching for the "happy" songs of his. Which, uh, did turn out to be a near-impossible task, taking most of the afternoon. I wasn't very successful, but it made trowling concrete go fast.

When I got to this album, and named it, noting, "See, this album is called Get Happy!!, and it's meant as a big cheery R&B album!" she only noted, "That implies that one has to be made to get happy, and so one isn't. It's depressing."

Costello's titles didn't help my case much.

IAN: "So, see, not all of the songs on Punch the Clock are depressing!"

BERIT: "Yeah, sure, okay, so what's the next album called?"

IAN: "Uh . . . Goodbye Cruel World."

BERIT: [uncontrollable laughter]

At the same time, if you are also a Costello fanatic, don't confront her about this, and please feel some sympathy for her, as she has to put up with my music geekery -- in the first year we were together, I forced her to listen to the collected works of David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello, and The Residents, one after the other, in chronological order, COMPLETE. That's asking plenty (she likes most of the Bowie, a little of the Zappa, almost none of the Costello and Residents) for the supposed benefit of "getting to understand me better."

And this is a great, if depressing, pop song by EC.


7. "Strange Angels" - Laurie Anderson - Strange Angels

Laurie Anderson sings! And it's beautiful!

Up there in my favorite albums. Nothing on earth sounds like her Big Science, it was incredibly important, and "O Superman (for Massenet)" is one of my favorite recordings ever, but this album is one I pull out when I want an emotional ride.


8. "God's Got a Crown" - Arizona Dranes - Arizona Dranes (1926-1929)

20s gospel recording. Exciting and vibrant. Sloppy in a good way.


9. "Backstage" - Gene Pitney - 22 Greatest Hits

What a great voice! What an odd song!

Well, it's a simple "I'm a big star, but offstage I'm lonely" story, but with an odd arrangement and chords.

The songs Pitney sings are almost never as good as he is.


10. "Kiss, Kiss, Kiss" - Yoko Ono - Onobox 4: Kiss, Kiss, Kiss

I own a lot of Yoko's music. I like it. I own a lot more of it than I do of John Lennon's solo work. I like it better.

I get tired of defending her. She writes lovely songs (unfortunately, she does have a bad habit of dropping at least one horribly clumsy lyric per song, though not in this one) and sings them well (if, at times, yes, eccentrically). That's all.

Got an email from Jeff Lewonczyk yesterday, fellow Brick-toiler. I had forgotten to write and send in a blurb for Ian W. Hill's Hamlet for publicity purposes.

So I wrote it up quickly. It's okay for publicity, but will need to be cut down for the Pretentious Festival program:


After designing and directing 49 productions in 10 years with his company Gemini CollisionWorks, trying to make exciting, beautiful, moving, intelligent, deep, experimental, entertaining ensemble theatre for the masses, and getting only a valuable, but small, cult reputation in Indie Theater, the respect of his peers, a handful of rave reviews, and a massive amount of debt . . . isn't it time that Ian W. Hill was allowed to get egotistical and pretentious on your ass? Now, downtown's rapidly-aging enfant terrible designs, directs and stars in Ian W. Hill's Hamlet, his 50th production, 10 years to the month after his first! Hill takes a personal point-of-view on Shakespeare's masterpiece, guiding a cast of eighteen through a ruthlessly and idiosyncratically cut version of the play, with an eye on being completely faithful to the dramatic intentions behind the work, while having no respect for the tradition around it, setting it in a class-driven 20th Century American landscape, where the actions of the Prince are just one distraction in a fragile society heading towards collapse. Violent, creepy, funny, and unsettling, Ian W. Hill's Hamlet is a pretentious idea of popularizing Shakespeare. The auteur blogs about his creative process at http://collisionwork.livejournal.com.


I have scheduled rehearsals, and damned if it doesn't all work out - 18 actors and all. I've already had a couple of corrections to make since I sent out the "beta version" last night, but I can fix things easily. It does mean I will have a rehearsal almost every single day from April 26 to May 31. I think I'll have two days off, maybe three. I'm going to be a wreck, but probably a happy wreck.

Last night, we did our first trial at dyeing my hair blond for the show -- we were taking it easy in some ways so that if there was a terrible hair color accident, it would be correctable (I'd heard horror stories about bleaching, that if you screwed up there was nothing to do but cut it all off). I got rid of the beard, Berit plucked my eyebrows to about half their normal width/thickness, and we did the dye. I have come out an interesting (and, luckily, natural-looking) shade of light reddish-brown, kinda coppery. Nice, but not what I want. The hard part, it seems, in trying to avoid bleaching, will be getting the red out of my hair so I don't wind up a strawberry blond rather than a dirty blond.

I'll have photos of this whole process up here in a day or two, including the slow removal of my beard in discrete stages (the "Zappa," the "Selleck," and the "Waters").

Now, off to The Brick for an all-day/night tech on Rachel Cohen's dance pieces, opening on Thursday. Which will be great.

Email questions and thoughts come to me from the cast of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet.

Edward Einhorn (Guildenstern) asked me something yesterday morning:


Quick question: what's the concept behind making R&G Jewish? Not that I mind particularly, but what made you think to portray them as Jewish?


Response from me, also cc'ed to Daniel McKleinfeld (Rosencrantz) to bring him in on this issue of interest to him as well:


Not so quick answer:

The concept was sort of reverse engineered, as with making Horatio black -- I was interested in the actor for the role first, then realized that people would wind up taking it as a "statement," and realized that I had to be in control of the statement, so I should actually make one. I saw you and Daniel in the parts, realized this would be "taken" a certain way, and had to take the idea throughout the script to be in control of how it might be taken.

Since this is a WASPy-world, country club/yacht club HAMLET, I was interested in different classes and how they interrelate -- somewhat as I saw in my own wealthy hometown . . . [personal information about myself, Greenwich, Connecticut, and being both “on the inside” and an “outsider” at the same time, redacted].

In this production we see classes from Royalty down to Commoner, with many stages in between, and see all of them react to the death of a king and the fumbling attempts to keep the country together when he's gone. Hamlet's friends play different roles in this. Horatio is given a certain leave as Hamlet's "black friend from school," as he is well-educated, well-spoken, etc., but because of his color and background, he will only ever be able to rise to a certain level in this world. As a result, he is not perceived as (nor is he, or wants to be, I think) a social climber to be watched out for. He is treated somewhat openly.

R&G come, I believe, from several generations of getting-wealthier-and-wealthier merchants -- shopkeepers who have expanded and expanded into a wholesale-retail-mailorder empire -- possibly wealthier and "more powerful" than the Lords and even Royalty (powerful as in "if we don't get something we want, we may not help you out with the money and supplies for this war here"). I think R&G were the first generation born into their family as already fabulously, disgustingly wealthy, and have grown up around the Court, and their friend Hamlet, and want more than just "being rich," they want respect, and a position within the Court the same as anyone else with not only their money, but their talents and abilities. There has NEVER been any overt anti-semitism at work at them, but there has been a definite "you are not one of us" attitude that they're trying to get through.

I honestly think well of R&G (as I do NOT of Hamlet himself), and think they're simply trying to kill two birds with one stone: They ACTUALLY DO want to help their old friend out here, AND if they can use this to get in better with the Royal Family and The Court, what's the harm in that? Frankly, they probably think that they're "playing" Claudius and Gertrude by giving help to them that they would have done gladly for Hamlet's sake anyway.

They don't get, horribly, fatally, that they are dealing with a fanatic who sees these two goals of theirs as incompatible: If they're helping out Claudius and Gertrude, as far as Hamlet is concerned, they are his enemies. End of story. And as Hamlet pushes them away, they resent him more, and more turn to Claudius, which Hamlet sees and gets meaner and nastier to them, which send them . . . well, you see.

So, that's what came out of simply looking at/listening to you and Daniel years ago and thinking I'd like to see you in these parts someday.

IWH


Thoughts from Daniel in response:


Ian:

Thanks for the note! That's pretty much what I had been thinking---that Ros and Guild have fielded a lot of questions about money management (on the assumption that they'd just *know* what to do with money), but have never encountered straight-up vulgar anti-Semitism in the court (which is why Hamlet's display of it is so unpleasant). They sorta seem like the two faces of assimilation---Guild is obsequious and eager to be in his place (an aspiring dentist, I'd think), while Ros has a somewhat ironic attitude towards the court, his life, and himself. He plans to fuck around for a few years after college, and then go into investments, smirking ironically even as he becomes part of the system.

I'd been thinking of playing the first meeting with Hamlet---"my most dear lord!"---for irony, with a heavy helping of rich-kid sarcasm From the instant he walks in , they're doing routines, like kids reciting Firesign Theater records, and there's not a word that doesn't come out with raised eyebrows and a lilting inflection. By the later scenes, he's become more direct as he starts to realize that something's really wrong---by the post-Mousetrap scene, it seems like he's started to worry that Hamlet's genuinely going mad. Now he thinks it's his turn to step
up---he's always been smarter than these courtly dipshits, and by the time it comes to dealing with the body, he's convinced that he's the only one who can straighten this mess out. If anything, he's a little impatient with having to rely on Claudius---who he's always considered a half-wit----to solve the problem, even though he knows that's Claudius' job.

Does that sound about right to you?
D


A final comment from me:


Yup, sounds about right to me, thanks!

There's also a notable difference between R & G as their arc goes on -- Guil begins to try to play too much on R&G's past friendship in ways that are improper in dealing with Royalty. Maybe once they could, as friends, but I think Ros senses a bit before Guil not to push the friendship thing too much. As important as the anti-semitic flip Hamlet gives to them about "trade" is the fact that he pulls out the royal "we" with them in the previous line - he may have never done that before, and he almost never does it elsewhere in the script. He only does it when he wants to MAKE A POINT about being a fucking Prince.

I have CONSTANTLY used, in auditioning people for this show, and talking to others about it, your line as reported to me by Berit regarding all the auditioners who wanted the title role in your HENRY V, "Kings don't SLOUCH!"

That phrase has become central to dealing with the royalty here. Gertrude NEVER slouches, and is a Queen through and through (even with Claudius, being his Queen comes before being his Wife). Claudius only slouches in private with Gertrude -- he somewhat got out of the whole "Royalty" bag that he disliked by going into the military, but knows when and how to turn it on as a King. Hamlet slouches a bit, and more and more as he is seen as "mad" (part of what is taken for "madness" is simply "not behaving like a Prince ought to"), and he affects a more intellectual, artsy demeanor, but he has been raised since birth to be a King someday, and will turn it on when he "needs" to.

Ros sees Hamlet's back straightening before Guil does, and pulls back.

IWH

Sometimes there's just not much to say about a morning's listening. Out of 20,205 songs in the iPod now:


1. "Get Away" - Georgie Fame - Those Classic Golden Years 07

Pleasant pop. Very good vocal that gets really great at the end


2. "Bob" - The Micronotz - Smash

Obscure, lo-fi, barely competent punk. Attitude and catchiness saves it from mediocrity. If they were actually better, it probably would just sound like a Stooges ripoff.


3. "Peg" - Steely Dan - Showbiz Kids: The Steely Dan Story

Ah, aka "I Know I Love You Better." I wound up diving headfirst into the world of Steely Dan after slighting them in a post many months ago and being called on it by Tom X. Chao. I found this 2-CD comp very cheap on Amazon, and decided to give it a try, and wound up liking a great deal of it . . . not quite all, some of it's still just a bit too clean in a way that doesn't interest me (I don't mind clean production - I'll listen to anything produced by Roy Thomas Baker with pleasure - but some of SD's stuff just grates).

I discovered there was a lot of Steely Dan that I liked and didn't know was Steely Dan, but had heard often on car radios while growing up in the 70s. Like this song.


4. "After Midnight" - Tutu Jones - Staying Power

Yet more solid blues playing that I picked up somewhere and don't know anything about. Maybe it's Berit's, she came into the relationship with more blues on CD than I actually. Nice instrumental, nothing special, in the iPod because there's no good reason for it not to be.


5. "...Und Dann Kam Jimmy Jones" - Hans Blum - Rock 'n' Roll Party 1957-1962 in Deutsch

The Coasters' "Along Came Jones" in German. Yeah. They try kind of hard to swing it like the US version, but it winds up with some kind of vague Oom-pah band feel anyway. The "ah-ah" sound from the original comes off more like a death rattled "ack-ack!" here. Amusing, if nothing else, and it is something else, I just don't know what.


6. "Shimmer" - Throwing Muses - University

From Berit's collection, one of her fave bands. I like them, but it's definitely something from her high school days (90s) rather than mine (80s). Ah, New England alternative college-radio rock! I do like it - some of it, like this - but the sound got old fast.


7. "Baby What You Want Me To Do" - Jimmy Reed - Living The Blues: Blues Masters

Haven't heard this before, I think. I know the song from Elvis and band breaking into it repeatedly in the great sitdown jam in the '68 special. E's version is great and rockin, this is great and loping, sultry.


8. "Who Do You Think We're Coming For?" - Andy Prieboy - Sins of Our Father

From one of my very favorite albums, now unfortunately out of print (I lost my original copy a few years ago and wound up paying $15 for a used replacement from Australia via Amazon). Prieboy was the second lead singer/main songwriter for Wall of Voodoo after Stan Ridgway. His songs are a strange combo of rock-n-roll, pop, and musical theatre influences (with a bit of jazz). He seems to have moved on to writing rock musicals now and hasn't released an album in years that I know of, unfortunately.

This is in more of the musical theatre mode, a dream combining the French Revolution with the Music Industry, imagining hipster execs who fly of to Austin for SXSW and decorate their offices in Elvis kitsch dragged through the streets and hung from lampposts as crowds sing "Ce Ira" (which the liner notes helpfully describe as the "Louie Louie" of the French Revolution). Unfair and very satisfying.


9. "Hands of Love" - Wall of Voodoo - Call of the West

Hey, and now some Ridgway-era WOV. One of my favorite bands that got known for their one-hit-wonder single, but had a much deeper catalog.

In the "Mexican Radio" range, not quite as good or catchy, but I like just about everything of theirs. I miss bands that could sound like this.


10. "Postman's Fancy" - The Ugly Ducklings - Too Much, Too Soon

Ooh. This is kind of lame. Where did I get this? Late 60s flower-child stuff, and not well done. "Won't you stop and listen, people?/This is what they say..." Oh, give me a break.


Okay, I'm off to EST for a reading, and will be there all day, so probably no cat blogging today. Maybe later. I have to figure how to get the pictures off the camera I borrowed (thanks Robert!) onto this computer, which doesn't want to find them on the camera card or via USB. I'll have to find the correct driver online or load them into Berit's computer, burn a CD and move them here that way.

I have got my full cast for Ian W. Hill's Hamlet. I've been very busy with that, planning the lights for Rachel Cohen's upcoming piece at The Brick, and other Brick work, just keeping the theatre in shape.


I am very, very happy. This cast is a great company of actors I've worked with over the last ten years:


Gyda Arber -- Elsinore Attendant/Norwegian Captain/English Ambassador
Aaron Baker -- Francisco/Player/Sailor/Priest
Peter Bean -- Reynaldo/First Player
Danny Bowes -- Elsinore Attendant/Gravedigger/Fortinbras Soldier
Maggie Cino -- Elsinore Attendant/Woman with Gravedigger/Fortinbras Soldier
Edward Einhorn -- Guildenstern/Fortinbras Soldier
Bryan Enk -- Polonius/Fortinbras
Stacia French -- Gertrude
Jessi Gotta -- Ophelia/Fortinbras Soldier
Ian W. Hill -- Hamlet
Rasheed Hinds -- Horatio
Carrie Johnson -- Marcella
Christiaan Koop -- Voltimand
Jerry Marsini -- Claudius
Daniel McKleinfeld -- Rosencrantz/Fortinbras Soldier
Roger Nasser -- Elsinore Attendant/Osric
Ken Simon -- Bernardo/Player/First Sailor
Adam Swiderski -- Laertes/Player


These are people I've worked with anywhere from once before to long-standing collaborators.

I'm really happy to have Peter Brown (now "Peter Bean" thanks to Equity) here -- he was in my first full NYC production ten years ago to the month from when we open -- Richard Foreman's Egyptology (my head was a sledgehammer). This will be the 17th production I've directed him in. Not the record, though -- it's #18 for both Bryan Enk and Christiaan Koop.

And my first-ever NYC production at all (also June, 1997, as part of the first ForemanFest I produced at NADA) was a staged-reading of Foreman's Lava featuring myself with Edward Einhorn and Daniel Kleinfeld (now "Daniel McKleinfeld" thanks to marriage), so I also have the first two people I directed professionally back with me in this.

While having to wait around The Brick to meet people recently, I've had a chance to spend time blocking things out and working on my performance, which I was a hair unsteady on. I don't feel unsteady anymore. Thus far I've rewatched a number of other Hamlets -- Laurence Olivier, Maximillian Schell, Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Derek Jacobi, Kevin Kline -- and thus far I haven't at all been cowed or made to feel not-up-to-it. Quite the opposite, in fact. I've got my own bag, my own take on this, I know what I'm doing, it's consistent and it works.

Now, back to the horror of scheduling these 18 actors . . . thank goodness for Excel spreadsheets! That's really the only way I'm going to keep this organized this time around.