It has certainly been a minute or two since I last posted here at my old blog Just Wrought. (Damn! Four years ago, Father’s Day!?) But I am considering blowing the dust off of it. (Metaphorically of course. I would never do anything as rash in this current crisis as literally blowing dust.)
I need a reliable platform from which to communicate, and, alas, very recently I have been hearing about problems with Face Book deleting posts for apparently no reason, and, let’s face it, all of the major social media platforms are utterly non-transparent and frankly a bit suspect when it comes to user data. When I post something here, I can see how many people have looked at it, and therefore have a much crisper insight into how well I am reaching people.
If you’re interested in my future offerings, some of which will be old-school style, essays, and some of which will be more like opportunities for actors, writers and other arts professionals to make a little extra spending money, then by all means, click “reload” a couple times on the ol’ browser, and heck, if you’re tempted, maybe even send a link of this post to a friend or two.
If I get enough hits here at Just Wrought, I’ll know I can use this as my primary form of communication on the internet. (Though of course, I will always post pointers to it on FB, Twitter, and Instagram.)
So if you’ve made it this far, and you like what you see, and you want to see more, say hello in the comments. And watch this space. I will have news on a special project I’m developing soon. Very soon.
I don't even have a dog in the fight that Brendan Kiley's pulled me into here, but I think I might have to rent one. Me on Face Book yesterday
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Before I retired from theatre nearly two years ago I liked to write essays about the art form’s problems (“On Institutional Arrogance”), and what made it great, (“How Can I Talk About the Borrowers?”), but I never did manage to write all the essays I wanted to. By the end, I had a whole file full of titles I would never flesh out. I even wrote an essay about that (“Surplus Titles”). One of my favorite leftovers was “Better Dead”, under which I intended to provide an explanation to the uninitiated that despite the image they might hold in their minds of playwrights being central to the making of theatre in modern America, the fact is, our absence is the usual and preferred state of engagement, and if we can manage to be dead, preferably for a long enough time that our work is in the public domain, then we are even more popular among our non-playwriting theatre colleagues.
When I decided to travel to Quebec to see this upcoming production of Louis Slotin Sonata translated into French, I thought to myself, “Well, this experience will certainly be new, but what will it be like?” I had so little idea that, even though I wanted to write about it in advance, I couldn’t.
And then came this trailer…
What I love about it is that its director trusts the play so much that he leans exclusively into the power of the words, and the power of the actors to speak them, to sell it to a potential audience. Of course, because there are no “staging landmarks” for me to follow, I am delightfully disoriented. On my first watching of it, I only really gained my bearings when an actor started speaking Hebrew. Ironically, once he heard the Mourner’s Kaddish, this born-and-raised Irish Catholic boy felt on familiar ground.
It’s a fundamental and powerful truth of theatre that the spoken word is orders of magnitude more primal than the written. Plays are not literature. They are an altogether different form of art.
Seeing my words transformed into another language, and then transformed again back into life by these captivating actors, gives me chills. The good kind.
This past Saturday, the CW became the last broadcast television network to cut Saturday morning cartoons. The CW is replacing its Saturday cartoon programming, called “The Vortexx,” with “One Magnificent Morning,” a five-hour bloc of non-animated TV geared towards teens and their families.
Those of us who remember the age of three and only three networks, also recall fondly that, once upon a time the only way you could watch animated cartoons was to wake up on Saturday morning and catch what ABC, NBC or CBS had on offer. Here is what a typical Saturday line up looked like when I was my son Keelans’ age. It includes classics like Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker mixed in with more circa 70’s fair, like The Scooby Doo/Dynamutt Hour, and a personal favorite, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, which came on so late, 12 noon, that my mom was usually hectoring me by that time to get outside because I had already wasted too much of “perfectly nice day” watching that “idiot box.”
“But Mom! It’s Fat Albert!”
Birth of an Institution
Happily, theatre—as specifically embodied by director/producer Jim Jewell— did not let the tradition of Saturday morning cartoons go gently into the good night. Instead, Jewell saw the demise coming, and made a plan to fill the gap with short plays written by teams of local Northwest playwrights and their kids. “Saturday mornings used to belong to kids,” says Jewell. “I remember waiting all week for that one day I could binge on cartoons for hours. So, we wanted to try and create that same feeling with some fun live theater, and what better way to understand what kind of art kids want to see than engaging them in the creation of it?”
The results of Jewell’s brainstorm will be making their world premiere over three Saturdays this November, at the Pocket Theatre [http://thepocket.org/] on Phinney Ridge in Seattle.
My sons, Declan and Keelan, and I teamed up to write “Magical Man and the Space Needle of Hideousness”, just one episode in the continuing adventures of Magical Man and his million-plus year sojourn in our paltry four palpable dimensions.
MAGICAL MAN: I call myself Magical Man. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but I can’t say my actual name in your universe. There aren’t enough dimensions.
I’ve been in your world for one million very, VERY boring years.
Today I will do what I have waited all those years to accomplish. Confront Roger Wickersham, bring him to justice for his transgressions. . . .
It certainly doesn't hurt that Cody Smith and Samuel Hagen will be staring as Magical Man and Roger Wickersham, Evil PhD, respectively.
Other playwright/kid combinations include:
“Don’t Touch That Dial!” by Penelope Venturini and Marcy Rodenborn
“Roderick Saves the World (or at least the Day)” by Finn Judd and Maria Glanz
“Feline Fitness” by Olivia and Jim Jewell
“The Family Jynx” by Jack and Joe Zavadil
The plays will be brought to life by a talented ensemble, including Val Brunetto, Sam Hagen, D’Arcy Harrison, Cole Hornaday, Kacey Shiflet, and Cody Smith, with a special guest appearance by Paul Shipp. Co-directed by Shawn Belyea and Jim Jewell.
Here are the details broken out real simple like:
What? Saturday Morning Cartoons – Live!
Who? B-Sides & Rarities, a Partner Project of The 14/48 Projects, in association with Pocket Theater
Where? The Pocket Theater, 8312 Greenwood Ave N
When? November 8, 15, 22 @ 10:30am
How? Tickets for Saturday Morning Cartoons are available at The Pocket Theater website (http://thepocket.org/see/) and are $10 adults/$5 kids online (or $14/$7 at the door). Seating is general admission and all children MUST be accompanied by an adult
Parents, I promise you a good time will be had by all!
Well over a month ago my good friend Bob Williams posted something on Face Book that set me back on my heels and caused me to realize that back when I was doing theatre, and most specifically, when I was sitting at the casting table, I often did not pay close enough attention to the biases of the people making the decisions, myself especially.
Bob has been a dear friend and treasured collaborator since we first started hanging out and doing improv together at the University of Maryland back in the mid-1980’s. He’s been a cast member of some of my favorite productions of my plays, including Annex Theatre’sAn American Book of the Dead – The Game Show and “White Boy can Take a Punch” in Brown Box Theatre’s Hoodie’s Up. Bob’s a terrific actor and a deeply generous person and not exactly known for living on a soap box (unlike some of us - *cough*). So I feel strongly that his words deserve special attention and bear repeating. To that end, I asked Bob if I could republish his Face Book post here atJust Wrought, and he kindly acceded. Part of me is sorry it took me so long to get this up on my blog, the other part isn’t sorry at all, since it’s good sometimes to reemphasize a call to action that may have been otherwise quickly forgotten.
My main Point last night at the forum on artistic freedom and artistic responsibility at the Seattle Rep was that, 50 years after the civil rights act removed the signs that told us that Black people were Colored and White people were not, no color at all,(What if the signs said "Black" and "Bleached"?) we still have a culture that normalizes White as neutral, or of no particular ethnicity. And that informs how we cast roles in the arts community and how we see ourselves as a people.
If a White actor is seen as ethnically neutral, they can play anybody. And non Whites are only seen as their ethnicity. A White guy can play everyman and I can only play Black man, and if a writer does not specify an ethnicity for a character, the default setting is to see that character as White, straight, able bodied, Christian. Should the actor with an eye patch only show up for pirate roles?
Two guys walk into a bar...
What color are they? Did one of them use the ramp to enter?
Our default cultural setting says "White unless specified as other."
After all I didn't say two Asian guys walked into a bar.
So many people in the Bagley Wright Theater last night are tired of being the other. And we are getting tired of explaining how it is still employed, or having to explain that it still exists.
This is how you get Jake Gyllenhal as the Prince of Persia and the Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise.
Or Matthew Broderick as Simba, King of the plains of Africa, and Jeremy Irons as his uncle.
It's this rich history that in no small part brought us to The Mikado controversy, and brought all of us to the forum last night.
White people can be anything (even Japanese), our shared culture tells us that.
Edgar Rice Burroughs gave us a template:
Abandon a White baby in the jungles of Africa. Now come back 20 years later and where's that baby? Anywhere he pleases. He's Tarzan, King of the whole damn place.
And the IMDB page for this second animated feature Disney chose to set in Africa,(Disney's Tarzan) Has a sea of White headshots on the cast listing. (Seriously, go look.)
If you are producing this "2 Guys in a Bar" play are you open to guys of different ethnicities? Do either of them have to be a guy? Can two PEOPLE walk into a bar? Do they both have to walk?
Mostly I wanted to show the room these two photos, taken Saturday at the lower Queen Anne Bartell's drugstore, a couple hundred yards from where we had gathered. Aisle 12: Ethnic care.
And the products on Aisle 12 in the other shot. How many ethnicities are represented in the ethnic care aisle? Where should I look for soap, Ethnic cleansing? (Seriously, go look. Take your time, it will still be there. Aisle 12.)
White/Colored, Ethnic/ non ethnic, how far have we really come?
Thanks Kathy Hsieh for calling on me and facilitating a discussion. Thanks Annie Lareau for showing us how it can be done right. Thanks Andy Jensen for reminding us all that not every family looks the same and thanks Pamala Mijatov for making Annex one of the places where these issues don't flare up, and for reminding us what a local treasure Courtney Meaker is.
I'm getting older, and I'm getting tired of walking some of my White brothers and sisters through the baby steps of "Your people aren't the only people that are people."
Before retiring almost exactly a year ago, I worked on and off professionally in the theatre for well over a quarter of a century. Most of that time was spent as a writer, but I also worked as an actor and producer. (I did not do much directing—maybe two or three shows, tops—as I find that particular job wracks my nerves in ways I don’t like having them wracked, and besides, there are so many folks better at it than I am.) With my experience under many hats, I can assure you, without fear of convincing contradiction, that no one gets more excited about a new poster than the playwright.
Sure, it’s exciting as an actor to see the image that will sell your show, but other distractions and responsibilities tend to absorb you just at the time a poster usually rolls out. As a producer, you were likely so involved with a poster’s design and production that it’s impossible to think clearly about it anymore. You’re a bit like the chef who can’t enjoy the meal once it’s been brought to the table.
But for a playwright, let me assure you that there is no joy as pure and powerful as seeing the new poster for the first time, especially when it’s as good as this one, designed by Sonia Caron for the upcoming World Premiere of Claude Germain’s French translation of my play Louis Slotin Sonata, produced by L’Escadron Creation at the Auditorium du Séminaire inSaint-Hyacinthe in Quebec.
And added bonus: it’s in French. Nothing says “I’m Classy” like hanging a big framed poster in French. I can’t wait for my copy! (God, I hope I get a copy!)
Reaction to my decision to retire from theatre has been varied, but the dominant themes have been disbelief, derision and dismissal. For every one friend or colleague who has said, “Seriously? Oh, well then I wish you the best on whatever it is you do next,” there have been four who have said something along the lines of:
“Oh, sure Paul. Retiring. Right. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Or…
“That’s hilarious. How can you retire from something that makes you no money? You know what? I’m retiring from poverty. LOL!”
Or…
“I give it six months.”
Perhaps the most perplexing response is…
“But I just saw your post about [your play being translated into French / your play being read at ____ / a possible production of your play at ______]. How is that you being retired?”
As if I would stop allowing the plays I’ve already written to be performed or read or translated. Is there a playwright in the history of theatre who has done this?
Every work of art is a message in a bottle, a hope that whatever it is you were trying to share when you created it makes its way to someone who can use it, ideally to make their lives, if only for a moment, a little bit better, clearer, nobler, happier, or more hopeful or truthful, or at the very least, more fun.
No one at Seattle’s Big Houses really cares about developing new work. (Thankfully this one seems to be changing (a tiny bit, but for real, (but only time will truly tell.)))
But nothing I said was more certain to piss off particular people like my contention that one-person shows are not, strictly speaking, theatre. My award for favorite counterstrike, if only for prolixity and opacity, goes to Omar Willey:
Mike Daisey’s [work] is not theater[?] Behind this sort of nonsense is a childish territorialism. The artist here believes he is a High Priest in charge of the cosmic order, and that the entire world would suddenly whirl off its axis if He did not continue to fight for his own narrow definitions, categories and hierarchies–and, by implication, his own place in those hierarchies which, doubtless, is above everyone else he despises. Those who do not accord with his gospel become enemy troops to be extirpated in his Holy Crusade for the One True and Good Art. Such belligerence may be a defense, but it is primarily a defense of human ego. Yet artists cling to such silly notions as though they were essential for craft.
Despite Willey’s daunting hyperbole (heck, I haven’t donned High Priest robes since my college days), I haven’t changed my mind about one-person shows (nor do I delude myself to believe I’ve changed anyone else’s). I still really do think theatre is defined by genuine dialogue between two or more human beings, in the presence of at least one third observer; and I stand by the second and more crucial associated argument made in my original essay, “The Solo Show: A Risk Averse Artistic Administrator’s Best Friend”:
[Artistic Administrators] defend their solo performance offerings like a richly-endowed sculpture gallery might defend an exhibition of paintings. “We love sculpture. And of course we are a sculpture gallery, but sculpture itself is expensive and difficult to maintain. Instead, why not enjoy some lovely paintings of sculptures?” Paintings of sculptures can indeed be lovely, but not even an idiot would call them sculptures, any more than Mark Twain would have referred to himself as a theatre artist 130 years ago. Solo performance billed as theatre is a pig in a poke.
Still, no matter how carefully one build one’s boldest arguments, there will always be an example that seems to fly in the face of everything asserted. So when I say solo shows aren’t really theatre, my long time colleague and often collaborator, Dawson Nichols simply puts on a show or two to prove me wrong. Unlike most solo performers, Nichols doesn’t just tell you a story, with a few different voices thrown in for “dramatic effect”. Instead Dawson, himself a consummate playwright as well as actor, director and professor, plays you a play. He’s as adept at transforming himself into other human beings as, say, the vaunted Anna Deavere Smith, but unlike her, he’s no monologist. Dawson creates dialogue up there, real theatre between two or more people, because freakily enough, he actually appears to be able to become two or more people at one time, right in front of our eyes. All the risk that is removed by having only one person on stage is strangely, magically, mixed back into the cauldron.
But don’t my word for it. (I mean, there’s no point in starting NOW, right?) For the next two Fridays, you can go see for yourself, and decide if he succeeds in smashing my “childish territorialism.”
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