This one, too, got buried. It's from last Friday. Tboya culpa.
Friday, March 16
Just back from a whirlwind visit home, where I bought an obscene amount of groceries to demonstrate my love for Michael, Henry and Vivian, went ice-skating with them, ran errands, returned Mary Resing's cell phone that she left in my car in Looahvul while she was dramaturging dark play, and arranged summer camps for my children which include gymnastics, art, a Shakespeare camp, horseback riding and (the highlight of my son's summer) a week at Target, Skeet and Clay Pigeon Shooting and 3D Archery Camp. Michael is doing a heroic job of single parenting in my absence. More than that, he is enjoying it, and gives me his blessing to fly away and dive into this wonderful experience. I babysat for him Monday and Tuesday, when he had rehearsals for a reading at First Amendment that Paul Tacaks (sp?) is directing. Henry and Vivian are doing very well, in their own explosively bi-polar, boundary stretching ways. It was interesting being home for three days. I figured out what is so exhilarating/exhausting about being with children: they experience in 24 hours the range and depth of emotion that I do in a month. And I'm an out there, passionate person! But my daughter can put any Shakespearean actress to shame before 7am. Never mind "Out, damned spot!" Try "I don't like these socks!"
Back in Looahvul, my dark play cast is as fine a group of individuals as one could hope to be stranded on the banks of the Ohio river with. Given the repertory nature of the schedule, we have between two and four days off between performances, which means we get together and do a line-through or a walk-through before we do the show again, just to make sure all the pieces are still there. It's a very rhythmic production with a small margin for error: if you are off by a split second, you've spoilt the elegance. The audience might not know, but you feel awful. So far I think we've had great shows, full of energy, moving in the right direction, remaining faithful to the (brilliant) direction of Señor Garces. Sh*t happens, though. Liz Morton's parents came to see her last night: she carefully picked seats that would keep them shielded from her (brief) nudity, only to have them spotlit in the audience by an errant, erratically mobile light that somehow selected random targets throughout the show, instead of shining where it ought to.
We stay up way too late and drink way too much and talk about everything. I hear the poker game went till 6am. There's talk of a double-cast bowl-off next week, and Josh Lefkowitz is going to do his one-man show for us. BYOB.
I saw previews of Strike/Slip and The As-If Body Loop, both interesting plays with really good actors. They share the same theatre, but use the space in a completely different way. Strike/Slip is a "Crash"-like, episodic exploration of relationships with the central theme of the unexpected movement of tectonic plates. The space is wide open, with islands of set pieces that slide in and out of view; the actors stay onstage the whole time, in the wings but visible when they're not in a scene. Body Loop has an attic suspended from the grid, twenty feet up, with a spiral staircase (not a good thing for those of us with a sick fascination with heights), and traps that bring set pieces up to the stage as the scene shifts; it posits the theory that we have a collective responsibility to bear the pain of this world, using Lamed Vavniks (look it up), alternative healing and football to make its point. I haven't seen Sherry Kramer's play yet, but hope to next week, as well as Batch, which performs at a gay nightclub. They have some fun costumes which I saw when I had fittings in the costume shop: headpieces and bustiers made with Twizzlers and a penis apron (apron with appendage attached, not a tiny frilly accessory for a dick) chief among them. This weekend is a big college student weekend, also my Mom and the Rorschach crew will be here.
Once again, it's late, and I must say good night. Just another exhausting day off in Looahvul. I think I may be in heaven.
-- Jen
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