So we're now past the halfway point, performance-wise, of our month of shows. 19 out of 36 performances done, 17 left. And all goes well, mostly.
This is theatre, so there are up nights and down nights, but there haven't been very many down ones thus far, at least as much as usual by my own - overly high - standards (I often find entire runs of one of my shows "unacceptable" to me, while at the same time knowing I'm being ridiculous and that they're perfectly good theatre by any reasonable standard).
Blood on the Cat's Neck had an "off" show on Wednesday -- I think much of the cast knew it, I heard a couple of them say they'd had an off night backstage (and another, who may not have, say "Really?"). Blood may be the one that suffers most when it's just a bit "off," as it has the most problematic script of this group in many ways, where the problems have to be elided through actorial/directorial work, and if some of that work isn't there, the problems leap to the fore (we had what I think are our first two walkouts of the month, too, right around the time I was thinking, "the show's kinda boring tonight" from the back of the house). So it goes. It's theatre, it always changes. We'll probably have another stunning, magnetic performance of this same play next time.
Last night's George Bataille's Bathrobe was really quite superb, and had me smiling and pacing happily in the lobby while it was going (I can't watch the shows seated in the house; I have to stay in the lobby and listen and peek in here and there -- the more I hear things going great, the more I peek). Here, lots of things were off, and odd, and I have lots of notes of things that didn't work, but the overall piece just had some kind of special energy that made it somehow more meaningful than usual. It was saying what I wanted it to say, which is all I could possibly ask.
A Little Piece of the Sun just got a pretty great review from Stan Richardson at nytheatre.com - wish I'd had it yesterday before I sent out the latest email to the Gemini CollisionWorks list, but whatever. Nice thoughts, and I get his critiques, even if I don't necessarily agree with them (as the actor probably being referred to as delivering exposition in "the self-conscious guise of cocktail conversation," you might understand that I wouldn't). Tom Reid becomes "Tim" Reid, but that happens all the time (I've become "Ian W. Hall" and "Ian H. Will" in a couple of online pieces in just the past month). I'm especially glad that Stan pointed out that he didn't retain all of the information that is thrown at the audience during the show, and that he didn't seem to be concerned about it -- if it's important, we make sure you get it, otherwise, it's just part of a flow of datapanik (as David Thomas of Pere Ubu would say) that is there to overwhelm and become a landscape of facts that the necessary incidents pop out from.
However, an actor in one of the other August shows who's seen Little Piece twice now wrote to tell me that he missed some rather important pieces of information at the last performance he saw -- and he's right, some of the crucial facts that we need to get across got a bit fuzzy at the last show. Oddly, as this show gets better and better and sharper all around with each performance, a handful of small yet important moments get a bit more fuzzier and unclear -- I need to talk to the actors involved about these bits tonight (and brush up myself -- I'm responsible for one of the blurry bits that should be crystal-clear).
I wish Little Piece and Sacrificial Offerings were getting some of the attention, press-wise, at least, that Blood and Bathrobe are getting. I didn't expect it for Offerings, the small, strange beautiful child of the bunch, but Little Piece is the big epic of the whole group, and I pushed it as much as the others, maybe even a bit more, thinking of it as the big central show that the others circled, and we had the wonderful press photos taken by Mark Veltman, but to my surprise, no one in the media seems all that interested in that one. I guess that it comes off a bit as what it is - a difficult show, one from and for the mind maybe more than anything else. Blood is from the gut, and Bathrobe is from the heart, so they're a bit easier to understand and access, maybe. Offerings is from the . . . I dunno, "spirit" maybe - something more mysterious - so it's just as hard to push from a press/critical perspective. I don't think of Little Piece as hard work to watch, but I have the feeling it comes off that way in any reasonable description of it - theatrical spinach - good for you, and full of rich stuff, but not so tasty. A pity.
So tonight, back to that scary, awful, exciting world of Little Piece. It'll be damned hot, too. So it goes.
And meanwhile, back in the iPod, a Random Ten for this week (with links to explanatory YouTube videos) from among the 25,465 in there . . .
1. "It Ain't No Use" - The Meters - Rejuvenation
2. "Love of My Own" - The El Dorados - A Taste of Doo Wop Vol. 1
3. "Blue Mood" - Gert Wilden & Orchestra - Schulmädchen Report
4. "Berkeley Mews (BBC version)" - The Kinks - The Great Lost Album
5. "Paint It Black" - The Animals - Winds Of Change
6. "Someone To Love (take 2)" - John Lee Hooker - Alternative Boogie 1948-1952
7. "My Man's Gone Now" - Lorraine Ellison - Heart & Soul
8. "Moisture" - The Mommyheads - Eyesore: A Stab At The Residents
9. "Mary Ann" - Duane Eddy - Girls! Girls! Girls!
10. "Road Runner" - Bo Diddley - The Chess Box
On our way to the theatre each night, we often detour around a crowded part of the BQE by going up Hamilton Avenue, and I've been fascinated by some signs on a little restaurant we've noticed when stopped at a light. Finally, I got some pictures of the place, "Solo Pollo":
Now, there's two things that have bugged me about this place. The first one that hit me, I'll get to in a second, but while we're looking at a picture that's the general view from the car, I'll start by mentioning that Berit and I have been puzzling over the sign at the bottom of the place for some time now: "HOME OF THE 80% BURGER."
80% BURGER? What the heck is that? I have an idea of what a burger is:
So to me, an 80% Burger would look something like this:
To Berit, who thinks more, say, in terms of Photoshop, and thus, opacity, thought of an 80% Burger like this:
So, moving closer, we can first see my main problem with a place called "Solo Pollo," which also helpfully translates its name to "Only Chicken": They sell LOTS more stuff than chicken, and they list a great deal of it on the awning, right below the "Only Chicken" name:
And while that still bothers me - Berit's never found that annoying - we were both chagrined to zoom in on the photo and discover what you may have already noticed, that our many-months consideration of what an 80% Burger could possibly be was rather silly of us:
Oh. Oops. Well, that makes sense.
This morning, at different times, Moni sat on the windowsill and wouldn't let me get a better shot:
And Hooker sat on my lap and wondered why I found the computer more interesting than him:
And to end (for those of you not reading this on Facebook, where the video won't show), a video that reminds me a lot of my boy Hooker:
Hope to see you at The Brick if I haven't yet . . .
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