CollisionWorks

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An historical document.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.

Probably no Friday Cat Blogging during Friday proper today -- we're borrowing a camera tonight, so I'll probably take some new photos later of the monsters (especially to show off Hooker's floppy new ear) and put them up tomorrow.

Still feel the need to continue with the Random Ten though:


1. "Misirlou" - Rabbi Nuftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia - downloaded

Best known now for the Dick Dale surf guitar version heard to great effect at the start of Pulp Fiction, this lovely melody has a storied history going back to 1927 which can be read HERE. The Wikipedia article barely touches on the Yiddish/Klezmer versions that popped up in the 1930s, though this version (apparently recorded by the great Harry Smith) is discussed in the notes. I also have Yiddish versions recorded by the late singer Seymour Rexite (who I was lucky enough to speak with on the phone briefly - we had a mutual friend - about his old friend, clarinetist Dave Tarras) and by a 1940s black vocal group.

I'd love to see/hear this version replace the Dick Dale in Pulp Fiction sometime . . . it would still work somehow -- Amanda Plummer: "Any a you motherfuckers move, I'll execute every last fucking one a ya!" [freeze frame] Ancient-sounding voice of Rabbi Abulafia: "Vayt in dem midbar, Fun heyser zin farbrent!"



2. "I Got To Find My Baby" - The Beatles - Live at the BBC

Spiffy little Chuck Berry number pulled out in 1963 for one of their BBC radio programs. Much harder than most of their work from that time; much closer to what you'd find on The Rolling Stones' first few singles/EPs. Probably a lot closer to their Hamburg time. Good stuff. Lucky for them they didn't keep playing quite like this.


3. "Allah Wakbarr" - Ofo The Black Company - World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's a Real Thing

Psychedelic fusion-funk-african. Makes you wanna move. Makes you wanna shout. Love it.


4. "Lovely Lady" - Phluph - Phluph

Quirky late-60s pop-psychedelia. I probably like this stuff more than I should, but nothing sounds like this any more. It has a joy and fun to it. Even at its most serious, there is a sense of "play," of exciting experimentation (often beyond the skills of the players, which is enjoyable in its own way). Swirls of organ and overdubbed harmonies, faux-"classical" bits with sub-Mothers of Invention breakdowns and dissonance. Just fun to hear.


5. "Harlem Nocturne" - New York Ska Jazz Ensemble - Harlem Nocturne x 23 1/2

Ah, one of the other songs I have an insane number of versions of (besides "Misirlou), this one courtesy of a mix disk from my dad, thanks dad! Now all I need is versions of "Hey Joe" and "Louie Louie" to come up.

This is "Harlem Nocturne" done, as the group's name would suggest, in ska fashion, well, and a bit loping. That pretty much sums it up.


6. "Tuff" - Ace Cannon - Orgy of the Dead

From the soundtrack made up by Frank Cwiklik for his and Trav S.D.'s original stage version of the Ed Wood-penned nudie film (we did this at the late, lamented Surf Reality; I played The Werewolf). Frank made up a CD soundtrack (with massive crackles and surface noise) of the songs the girls danced to in the show -- great obscure 60s rock instrumentals.

Good, slow, quiet sax-led piece. Too quiet. I have to turn up the volume on this track sometime.


7. "Sister Sleep" - Rasputina - Thanks for the Ether

Berit got me into this group - three women singing and playing cellos, with drums. Alternately beautiful and lyrical or sharp and nasty. Really good versions of "Brand New Key" and "Why Don't You Do Right?" My favorite of theirs is their original song "Transylvanian Concubine," which was used (effectively) on an episode of Buffy.

This is one of the sweeter, prettier ones on the album. Berit and I need to get some other stuff from this group. But I always think that when I hear this album and then I forget.


8. "Bojkotta Coca-Cola" - Absurd - Absurd 7" EP

Scandinavian hardcore punk. Brings back high school years (except for the Scandinavian part). I do love some of the hardcore (this is great) but where the hell was I hearing it in my high school years? Punk friends? Probably. I didn't own almost any, so that must be it.


9. "Downtown (in French)" - Petula Clark - Foreign Language Fun, Vol. 1

I now have a lot of English-language hits sung in foreign languages by the original artists, but Petula may be the queen with this number, which I think I have her doing not only in French (which kinda works - her accent sounds pretty good to me), but in German, Italian, and Spanish ("Downtown" always remains "Downtown" however, no matter what language, just accented differently). I've grown to like this silly song through the multiple multilingual versions that keep coming up. Something's wrong with me.


10. "The Soul of My Suit" - T.Rex - Dandy in the Underworld

At a certain point, I just run out of things to say about T.Rex. It's Bolan, it sounds like Bolan, it's great. Any T.Rex song makes me smile when I hear it come up on random. It always feels like an old friend I haven't seen in a long time that's blown back into town.


Some promos up soon . . .

So, I've seen eight actors on Saturday, one on Sunday, nine last night, and I have one more to see this afternoon for Ian W. Hill's Hamlet.

I will have nine men to cast for seven roles (having already cast 5 of the 12 total already), and ten women for six roles.

On paper (or rather spreadsheet), I've set down the five men of those nine I'm sure I want in the show, so I'll have to cut two of the four remaining. Two very good actors.

I've boldfaced three of the ten women, because I know for sure I want them in the show, but I'm not yet sure for what parts. Of the remaining women, I'll be cutting four. Four very good actors.

Everyone I've seen -- since I only asked good actors I know and wanted to work with -- has been excellent and a distinct possibility for several parts. There have only been three people who came in and so nailed something that they just HAD to get a specific part.

Which means that for all the other parts, I've seen multiple takes, all good possibilities. Now, it's up to me (with a great deal of discussion with and input from Berit) to figure out the sound of the ensemble.

Two actors would be equally good in one role, in different ways, but one is a trumpet and the other is a cello, and I had the cello in mind . . . but what if the actor who is to play many scenes with him brings her own string section with her, and the trumpet would sound better against it?

This is my 50th show. For almost all of the others I went in with an idea in my head as to what my "ideal" cast would be from the actors I know and like, asked them to do my show, and if they didn't, I had another in mind to take the part. Occasionally I had to read people for a part or two if my ideal actors weren't available and I had no one of the right type around. As with Temptation, I didn't have very many preconceived ideas going in to this Hamlet - there were five actors I was sure of, including myself, and they all are in - and I have wound up with even more of an embarrassment of riches for the rest than I did on the Havel.

Even worse, after the auditions on the Havel, I had my mind changed in a lot of cases about what I was looking for, but to a pretty obvious solution. Here, I have read people for roles that I was pretty sure they were wrong for, and that someone else had in the bag, and they aced them. So now I just have more and more choices.

One of my Excel casting spreadsheets now has the 39 roles of the play down the left side column, with the nine actors I'm sure of in their assigned roles. Across the rest of the screen, all the other rows have several possibilities stretching to the right. Now it's mix and match time. Or rather, it will be later tonight, after the last audition. I'm keeping as open a mind as I can until then. Then Berit and I can go at it, and tomorrow I can send the first request emails out.

At a stressful time like this, I am somehow comforted by the nostalgic beauty of something like this Flickr photoset: pictures from the construction and first few years of operation of Disneyland. This is all before my time, of course, but my mother and I went there in the mid-70s, and all that wonderful 1950s design was mostly still there -- I'm told it's pretty much gone now.

I've also decided to go back to many of the books and films I've looked at for research in the years I've been thinking about this production -- which started with seeing Chris Sanderson's production at NYU in 1989 (actually, just seeing a full rehearsal of it in Tompkins Square Park) with Michael Laurence (now on Bway in Talk Radio) as Hamlet. Then, around '92 or so, I started my work on the script. Steven Berkoff's book I Am Hamlet has been very valuable at times, so I'll reread it. David Finkelstein loaned me a book about Papp's version with Martin Sheen that I'll reread, and Michael Gardner is going to loan me a book about John Geilgud/Richard Burton's 1964 production, which I once skimmed at a friend's parent's apartment.

Then, thanks to Netflix and The Brooklyn Public Library, I have ten filmed/taped versions of the play coming to me: Laurence Olivier, Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Richard Burton, Derek Jacobi, Mel Gibson, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Ethan Hawke, Adrian Lester, and William Houston.

I will probably also rewatch, for fun, the MST3K version of the TV version with Maximilian Schell (with Claudius dubbed into English by Ricardo Montalban). Unfortunately, there seems to be no way through my sources of getting the Nicol Williamson or Campbell Scott videos. Oh, well.

I had considered, hell, just figured I would be, avoiding all these other Hamlets while I was at this point, but I think I need some other ones to argue with while building mine. I've been thinking so long about this production that it runs the risk of simply being a smart, well-crafted production with no real blood in it. I have to look at all the others, all of which, good as some of them are, have been unsatisfying to me for all these years and made this production a necessity for me. I need to get angry, combative, and determined about this production again.

The Olivier and Kline versions will be showing up here first. That should do it.

So another show I'm working on opens at The Brick tonight. I did the light design again, which is simple and deep in a way I don't get to do much - the show is basically a play composed of three sequential monologues done at center stage without much movement (believe me, it works and is quite theatrical). The new house plot I've put up at The Brick works very well, though I have to do some slight hang/focus tweaks once the current shows are down. I think anyone coming in to do a show at The Brick will be pleased with what they can do with what's up there on the grid.

It's the third in Bryan Enk's series of adaptations of James O'Barr's Crow stories for the stage. The other two were at Nada in 2000 and The Brick in 2005. He should be getting to the next one later this year (this piece is a kind of interlude featuring the main characters from the previous two and the next one).


THE MURDER OF CROWS
Inspired by the work of James O'Barr
Written and Directed by Bryan Enk


performed by
ADAM SWIDERSKI
BRITTON LAFIELD
and
JESSICA SAVAGE


10.30 pm
Friday, March 23/Saturday, March 24
Friday, March 30/Saturday, March 31


$5.00
70 minutes with no intermission


The Brick Theater
575 Metropolitan Ave
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L to Lorimer/G to Metropolitan/Grand


MORE INFO


Also, there are only two performances left of Bouffon Glass Menajoree, which got a nice review from Garrett Eisler, The Playgoer, in this week's Time Out New York. I was a little taken aback to see myself mentioned on The Playgoer's blog in the context of possibly being some kind of "conflict of interest" for Garrett in reviewing the show, as I'm a fellow theatre blogger. Well, there are theatre bloggers and then there are THEATRE BLOGGERS, and Garrett is in the latter category, for sure. I wasn't even aware I was enough on his radar to count in any kind of "conflict of interest" (I'm not on his blogroll), but it's nice to be mentioned.

Bouffon Glass Menajoree plays at The Brick tonight and tomorrow at 8.00 pm. Check the link for more info.

Busy day ahead, to my surprise. Lots of tiny things just piled up until I had to deal with them today, and no later.

But first, a cup of coffee, check the email, and shuffle the iPod (now at 20,140 songs - just added the 10 songs of the most recent Sparks album, Hello Young Lovers - which is GREAT, this morning). Hope it's some exciting music this morning, I need to get pumped . . .


1. "Don't Start Me Talkin'" - New York Dolls - In Too Much Too Soon

For just a moment, I thought it was "Pills" from their first album. Okay, they pretty much have one sound. But it's a great sound and no one else has got it quite right since.


2. "Il Est 5h. Paris S'eveille" - Jacques Dutronc - L'Essentiel Dutronc

Love that Jacques. What odd stylistic range he goes through . . . hard rock to the lightest of pop fluff to folky ballads (like this) to strange electronica. I like that his lyrics are usually in simple enough French that I can follow over 50% of them, and struggle at the rest -- makes me work at trying to get my French better.


3. "My Body" - General Strike - Obey The New Wave (1980 and all that - UK DIY etc.)

Great little percussive/electronic/odd vocal track from a great little comp of similar Brit post-punk singles from mostly unknown groups (The Flying Lizards are about the most famous on there). Too short, maybe - just feels like it's going somewhere and just stops -- giving a great transition, though, into--


4. "Chris Cross" - Jimmy McGriff - Electric Funk

Slick with rough patches. Funk with dirty electric piano. Kind of obscurity that will show up in a Tarantino movie someday before I get to do anything with it. Gotta remember this for party dance mixes.


5. "Computer Alarm" - Neil - Neil's Heavy Concept Album

"And now, another in our series on people who've totally sold out to the media and gone all commercial and heavy -- this week, Neil!"

A little link track from the comedy album starring that dirty, filthy, stinking hippie from The Young Ones. Here, he smashes the evil computer alarm clock his brother gave him that he hates, but not before he hears the newscast that mocks him.


6. "The World's The Arrow" - BPeople - Petrified Conditions

No idea who these people are, when this is from, or where I got this (downloading drunk again?). It's good, cool, dark, slow, crawling rock. Vocalist a little . . . off and icky when he gets loud on the chorus though. Not so bad, just breaks the mood a bit.


7. "White Lightnin' (It's Frightnin')" - The RPM's - Pebbles Volume 10

Oh, this is some great snotty teenage garage punk. Got some kind of horn in there, too. Trombone? Odd.


8. "With Our Love" - Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings And Food

Oh, nostalgia. High school. Alt radio. Used to not like this track and this album that much. Very different now.


9. "I Witnessed a Crime" - Johnny Cash - American Outtakes

Low-fi, but stereo, bootleg of unused tracks from early Cash/Rick Rubin sessions. This, a great reading of a song I don't otherwise know, featuring one of the Z.Z. Top guys (Billy Gibbons, is that his name?) on good, solid rockabilly guitar, very Sun Records. Nice reading, but feels like a tentative run-through in a bunch of ways. I can see why it wasn't used.


10. "Inner City Blues" - Sarah Vaughan - The Trouble With Modern Girls

Sarah goes funky 70s in a great soul track. From a WFMU DJ premium.


Okay, still have emails and postings to deal with before getting out to errands . . . gotta hit it.

I saw 300 last Friday up at the IMAX theater near Lincoln Center.

I didn't expect to really like it much, if at all. It was more an excuse to see a friend and see my first film in IMAX, and on those points, it was more than worth it (any film I even vaguely want to see that's playing in IMAX, from now on, I'm there). I wound up mildly disturbed and extremely angered by the film.

The anger was because, despite my expectations, I thought the first half of the film was terrific, smart, and amazing -- and then the second half was like a different movie, stupid, predictable, full of Hollywood cliches, and a complete betrayal of the characters and world of the first half. I went in with low expectations, was stunned and pleased by its initial brilliance, then watched as the film fell apart and became worse than I had thought possible going in. But discussing why it destroyed itself as a cohesive work is another post . . . maybe tomorrow.

So I was angry about it falling apart as a film, but I was disturbed by the potential political readings that could be put into the film, even when I was enjoying the first part.

The other night I discussed this a little at a tech for a show at The Brick, and the next day one of the actors, who I've worked with often, sent me an email asking me to discuss some of what he had heard about the film that bothered him, its possible pro-war and homophobic aspects. He writes, and I respond (with some editing for clarity here):


I was curious as to your thoughts on that, particularly the latter of the two points [that the film is "pro-war" and homophobic]. I mean, considering the movie is supposedly very faithful to the source material, and the graphic novel was written before the Bush administration, I have to wonder how much of that is just contextual interpretation. On the other hand, although I haven't seen 300, I have to admit that all the "Death in battle is AWESOME!" stuff I see in ads and promos for the movie kind of rub me the wrong way, especially considering there's a war on, now.


Yeah, I read all that [the specific online criticisms he had mentioned] -- and a lot otherwise going on around the web now saying this.

The thing is . . . it really doesn't hold water. The metaphor doesn't hold true for very long any time you try to see "our heroes" as standins for the Current Administration. If anything, it falls more true the other way, with a small group of determined fighters fighting off a large, more technologically advanced invading superpower that makes empty promises about how independent they will be as a state, as long as they allow themselves to be ruled by the Empire.

But again, none of it holds in any way true metaphorically to our current situation for very long. For a large part because it is made clear that this is also a battle between rationality and mysticism (those are the terms used, but it does come off quite a bit as Atheism vs. Theocracy) - which, in our current battle between two theocratic points of view, doesn't work (and our heroes in the film are on the "Fuck Mysticism" side). You can find bits and pieces here and there that may suddenly seem to have "topical meaning," but they can be read so many different ways from so many points of view that it might as well be a Rorschach test. If you are a right-winger and you want to see it as confirming your point of view, you could; if you want to see it as an example of Hollywood liberalism, you could. From the left, you could see it as confirming your point of view as well, or you could see it as an example of the right-wing propaganda machine (an attitude I've seen far too often from fellow lefties - that any Hollywood movie must automatically be a right-wing statement if it's big, and expensive, and popular, when more often then not it's merely stupid and ignorant).

That said, even if the film doesn't work as any kind of metaphor (through non-intention or confusion or whatever), is it OKAY for it to come out in the current climate? That's a harder question. No matter what the intentions of the filmmakers (or Miller in the original comic book), context DOES matter. Even if not meant in any way as any kind of comment on current events, and even with the metaphor not really working properly for any kind of commentary, it comes off as one. As I said last night, I LOVED the first half of the film, before it suddenly, amazing, went entirely into Stupidland (I haven't seen a film go so much off the rails so suddenly since John Carpenter's They Live), but even as I was loving it, I couldn't help but be disturbed by it. My feeling has been for years that The Artist has no responsibilities to anything but his or her vision - if it's an irresponsible Vision, well, hell, that's just part of what Art IS.

But I kept looking at it and really feeling, "Is this responsible in this country right now?" And not feeling good about what I was feeling. "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" is not a universal truth for all times and places (nor is it a universal falsehood), but that seemed to be as close to an idea as the film had in it's pretty little head, and it bugged me. I don't necessarily demand ideas in art (which teeter dangerously close to BIG MEANINGS), but I demand a point-of-view -- a consistent eye or attitude that wants to show me something it is interested in, and, hopefully, with more of a reason to show me something than "Isn't this COOL!"

I know Berit and I (and other people who wrote about it elsewhere) were somewhat similarly disturbed during the battle sequences in the last two Lord of the Rings films for many of the same reasons, and you certainly can't say that when Tolkien wrote any of this, or, as Jackson was really being as faithful to the books as he could, that it was intended as any kind of commentary on the world today -- but the spectacle of our mostly Nordic/Anglo Saxon-looking heroes fighting the evil darkie monsters was at times unpleasant. Wrong time, wrong place.

Of course, given the lead time on how long movies take to make, who the hell KNOWS what the world will be like when it's time for your project to come out.

But, even if you are not intending a STATEMENT, certain choices MAKE one, whether you like it or not. And if you are making one, it's best to be in control of what that statement is, rather than ignoring it. This actually carries over into, as I think I mentioned last night, my current production of Hamlet, where I cast Rasheed as Horatio (in my head) based solely on his qualities as an actor many years ago. Then, I did have to consider what having a black Horatio "meant" in the context of the play. What it really "meant" for me at the start was "uh, black people exist?" But whether I liked it or not, the choice was going to have MEANING, so I had to use that meaning and carry it through as a meaningful decision throughout the text. It became crucial to the play for me, and even if Rasheed had not been able to play the part (and I'm SO glad he's going to), I would have still felt the need to cast the part with a black actor.

As for the homophobia . . . well, to me it comes off about on the level of schoolkids using "gay" as a pejorative. I don't think it's MEANT, again, but it's there, and its bad, though Snyder et al would probably be stunned if you called him on it, as many kids would be about saying something is gay being homophobic. They'd just think you were a spoilsport and WAY-too PC. The fact that the pretty, effeminate Persian god-king also has a harem of half-naked women, talks like Geoffrey Holder in an echo chamber, and looks like he could crush a normal-sized man with his bare hands just confuses everything, too. It just feels more like Snyder and company fell into the "powerful yet effeminate villain is creepy" cliche that's been going around forever. It's not great, but it comes right at the time when the movie goes from being really good to being nothing but a pack of Hollywood cliches, so the casual homophobia just feels like one more stupid Hollywood bit that's just been thrown in. The potentially pro-war attitude, intended or not, is deeper, nastier, more insidious, and more dangerous.

So I was disturbed, and I was disturbed about feeling disturbed. I wouldn't want any kind of suppression of points of view, no matter what, but . . .

Maybe if the film actually HAD a clear point of view (not a MESSAGE, a hit-you-over-the head thing, just a point-of-view), even an awful one, it would not be such a problem.


IWH