Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

For those of you joining us on the teleconference: You uplift us with your presence, and we thank you for participating!

Listen to the April 13th OMCCB Meditation: Gratitude Prayer

The meditation is hosted on a rotating basis. We don’t know in advance what the other will present. Each meditation is new and a surprise to us all.

If you’d like to join the live broadcast, we invite you to signup for the remaining meditations. It’s free and it’s fun!

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This is a hosted event and your participation is merely to be, well, present.

Come on, no one will even know you’re there. Surprise yourself!

Our meditation is intended in the classical sense as

a spoken or written discourse treated in a contemplative manner and intended to express its author’s reflections.

from the Merriam-Webster

The idea of the OMCCB Meditation is to focus, if only for a minute once a month, our collective minds upon a higher thought about Art and Entertainment.

I’ve been traveling, and managed to see a great play in Maine, written by a friend of mine.

For the 2nd year in a row, Penobscot Theatre ended its season with its Northern Writes: A New Play Festival. For two weeks, this year’s festival included 23 plays, some short, some long. (In 2007 Penobscot staged 22 plays.) The plays are presented as concert stand readings, each with at least one rehearsal. A small number of plays are given a week’s rehearsal, and some simple staging. All plays feature an audience talk back with the cast, and the playwright. This year, all but two playwrights made their way to Maine for the talk back sessions. That’s a long way for a lot of us! The professionalism and quality of the theatre makes the trip worth taking.

Penobscot’s home is the former Bangor Opera House. It’s new, enthusiastic, risk-taking Artistic Director, Scott Levy, has broken the theatre’s box office records twice in the short time he’s been at the helm. Penobscot Theatre may be on its way to becoming an important force in the theatrical community. Keep watching. And get to Maine if you can. Maine is a great place to vacation. Bangor is some 40+ miles from Acadia National Park, one of the most heavenly places I’ve ever been to.

Playwrights note: No submission fee. Deadline to get your plays in is Feb 14, 2009.

Tonight we’re seeing Last Summer at Bluefish Cove at Pandora Productions. I’ve avoided reading the reviews, something I do more and more as the years go by. I prefer to see what I wanna see, and make up my own mind about a show without anyone else’s perspective at the back of my mind.

I think it was about fifteen years ago I came across the play in a San Francisco used bookstore. I’d never heard of Jane Chambers. I liked the play very much. Probably even more, I was relieved, even encouraged, to find a lesbian who was a playwright, and who wrote about what she wanted to write about. You can imagine my, uh, role models have been few and far between.

I devoured what I could find of Chambers’ work, A Late Snow, and My Blue Heaven. The plays vary in style. Not much survives in print. Chambers died of cancer in 1983.

She even was one of the honored few developed at the O’Neill. For those of you who care about such things, and I know some of you do. There’s an award for women playwrights named after her. It used to be an award for lesbian playwrights. I guess there weren’t enough good lesbian playwrights to go around, eh?

There’s a documentary in the works about Chamber’s life and work. It’s called the Eight Faces of Jane. Chambers said the characters in Last Summer are the "eight schizophrenic sides" of her playwright’s personality. I can relate, as I’m sure a lot of writers can, with that sentiment. I hope it gets finished, released, financed, whatever it needs to get out into the world. Projects like this make me wish I had a ton of money to give away.

A couple of years ago, the ATHE’s Women and Theatre Program held a beautiful reading of Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. It was co-produced by About Face with a distinguished cast. Made me weep, that reading did.

There are times when I doubt what I am doing, as a playwright. It’s Chambers example I return to for strength and inspiration.

I try not to dismiss a play, even if it’s not my cup of tea. I don’t always succeed.

No one person can be the intended audience for every play. That wouldn’t make sense, would it? My own expectation is there is an audience for the plays I write, and it doesn’t include everyone. I feel it’s important to remember there are many kinds of audiences, and plays serve different purposes. Personally, I don’t like The Lion King. I understand, however much I bemoan the Disney-way of theatre, there are kids who are brought to theatre because of it, and if they keep coming to the theatre, as they grow up they may expand their theatrical horizons.

I feel the "new play" label often stigmatizes a play. It creates an open season on the playwright who wrote it and was fortunate enough to have it produced. The label also incites an incessant chewing up of the play itself, looking for each and every flaw, every dead moment that should be ripped out. As a playwright, I have tended to look at a play as how I would have written it. I try not to do that anymore. What’s the point? To make myself feel better? I often feel artists in particular emphasize a work’s flaws in order to make themselves feel better about their own lack of recognition, ability, or insecurity. Such head tripping is not thinking critically.

While in NY, we saw Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl. We had low expectations as neither of us really appreciated Ruhl’s The Clean House. Mostly we, uh, were there to watch Mary Louise Parker and Kathleen Chalfant. The evening was a pleasant surprise with a very funny, socially relevant play.The ending (I wish I’d written it) contained one of the best written passages about love ever. Uh huh, that’s what I said.

Back at home, MBH and his wife came to visit, and we attended some of the Humana Festival of New American Plays. This was our first Humana, and it was a ton of fun. The excitement and energy in the lobby, in the hallways, and in the theatres was palpable. In particular, I enjoyed The Civilian’s This Beautiful City,  Becky Shaw, by Gina Gionfroddo, and Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, by Jennifer Haley.

Haley’s play caused the most heated dinner conversation. At least one of us hated it. The Beloved loved it. I found Neighborhood 3 an extremely funny play, spot-on in its social commentary. It was also a horror/slasher type play. I confess I covered my eyes near the end, knowing what would inevitably come, and not able to stomach it. While I may not be Haley’s audience, I love what she is writing for it.

Specific Gravtity Ensemble does theatre, "wherever we damn well feel like it." I’ve always loved theatre in unusual places, like cars, fields, or stairwells.

Can’t wait to see what these folks do. We have tickets for next weekend.

Video from last year:

Since first hearing about Avenue Q, I derided it as "cute and cynical" theatre. Couldn’t be talked into seeing it, no-way, no-how, and cursed the puppets who made endless appearances outside the musical show. When the show flew off to Las Vegas for a sit-down, leaving regional theatres in the lurch, I hoped for its failure and quick demise.

Vegas, being Vegas, required adjustments to the show, and a half hour was cut from its original runtime. For those of you who hope to combine your theatre with a little gambling,* you should know that you’ll see Phantom of the Opera Lite, and Spamalot minus a couple of original songs. Shows are cut down to 90 minutes in length, the attention span of gamblers.

On the other hand, even Shakespeare knew to accommodate a variety of attention spans.

Avenue Q, after not doing so well in Vegas, has finally begun it’s national tour. The Devil, I’ve discovered, sometimes comes with free tickets in his hands. Well, not the Devil. A good friend in the loop. As I was in San Francisco last week, tickets were offered for opening night at the Orpheum. I took a breath, and thought, "My Dear Friend, letting me sleep in her dining room, might really like to see the show." Tickets taken, show seen, and I have to now apologize to all my friends I chided as superficial, and bent on being angry just because they wanna hang on to angry.

I’m sorry, my dears. Forgive me.

What a great show.

__________________________

*A little theatre with your gambling, is more accurate. I can say it. I am the daughter of poor, white-trash, gamblers.

Over the weekend, we saw Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy at The Bunbury Theatre. While the actors were delightfully skilled, and the set design was lovely, the pacing of the play did not live up to the farce it is required to be.

The Bunbury crew have setup a permanent new home in an old YMCA building. The stage, I’m told, used to be a basketball court. I’d never been in a brand, spanking new theatre. There was a lot of excitement in the audience over the theatre. It was beautiful, comfortable, and, well, smelled really nice. 150 seats. Bunbury folks did an outstanding job on the gym’s transformation.

The next play up is Juergen K. Tossman’s AUTOCARE. Mr. Tossmann is also Bunbury’s Artistic Director. (Maybe I should start a theatre?) I always look forward to seeing new work, so of course, I’m signing up for this one.

Bunbury has a cool alternative to subscriptions. You can purchase a "Season Passport" which allows you to see all six shows as a single person, or multiple tickets for some combination of shows. Uh…like if you and yer girlfriend wanna take two people to one show, that configuration uses up four tickets. And then you have two tickets left over for one more show if yer girlfriend goes with you. Or you can take yourself by yourself to two shows. Something like that. I like it.

Last month, we saw Take Me Out put up by Pandora Productions, at the Thrust Theatre/University of Louisville, Pandora’s last stop before they open in their new home at the Bunbury Theatre.

My expectations were low, being new to town, and having seen the original Broadway production a couple of times.  J. Daniel Herring was the best Mason I’ve seen yet. How could that be? Imagine my ignorant surprise. I’ll watching for him again. Tim Kitchen was a wonderful Kippy, and Joseph Hatfield quite a believable Shane. Brett Gettefield’s performance as Darren was softer, not as arrogant as I expect Darren to be, and I was ambivalent about his performance. The house on a thursday night was full. Maybe the naked men had something to do with that. I like to think it was also Richard Greenberg’s fine writing. Pandora certainly did justice to it.

I have been largely disappointed by gay theatre companies in the West. The performances are often substandard, and the plays catering to men. (An exception to this is Diversionary Theatre in San Diego where the production values are outstanding, and they are trying to broaden their audience.) Pandora clearly sets a high standard for its company, and it is a welcome relief to be so pleased with a gay theatre.

Pandora’s upcoming season includes Jane Chambers’ Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. I’ve read every Chambers play I could get my hands on, and never seen a production of her plays. I’m looking forward to this particular production. (I did see an outstanding reading of this same play, last year in Chicago, by the wonderful About Face theatre company.)

Pandora is my new favorite theatre company. I can’t wait to see what they do in their new home.

So it always feels whenever I see theatre outside of my beloved home town. Although in this case, the grass literally was green everywhere. With the impending rains, our grass soon will be.

Entering London, the inspector (you know that person at the airport you must speak to and explain why you want to be in their fair country), when discovering we had theatre plans, opined the current production of Tom and Viv was not as good as the original. I pondered the likelihood of someone entering the US and having a similar encounter.

London is my new favorite City, after New York. And, okay, San Francisco, as we still know how to stage things up here, if only on the streets at Halloween. For a history buff, wondering the streets are a joy. Visiting off-season, there were no lines anywhere we went. At Westminister Abby, I was able to take time to enjoy moments, such as seeing Elizabeth I’s tomb, and her likeness carved from her death mask. I did not expect to be awestruck by Stonehenge, yet I was by this place-looking-so-much-like-an-outdoor-stage.

Standing outside Bow Street Magistrates Court, I could see Oscar Wilde entering this building, on his way to be tried for "gross indecencies." This court shut down earlier this year, and rumor has it will become a hotel. It was at Bow Street, on this date in 1928, that the great Radclyffe Hall found her novel, The Well of Loneliness, banned as obscene. Despite selling over nine million copies during her day, the book would not be published in Britain until 1949, several years after her death.

An absolutely thrilling play was Drunk Enough to Say I Love You, by Caryl Churchill, one of my all time favorite playwrights. I also very much enjoyed Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n Roll. A few years back, I dragged the Beloved to a revival of Jumpers, which she, sadly, hated. There was much at stake in proving to her Stoppard was enjoyable and understandable. I am glad to say Rock ‘n Roll managed to purge her previous misgivings. And gave me opportunity, later over dinner, to wax on about Václav Havel.

My Beloved loves musicals, and so we saw Mary Poppins, which was not as bad as (why do people think Elton can write musicals?) Lestat, but close enough. Maybe that’s too harsh. Poppins was awful. I figure the rave reviews for Poppins is a cultural thing I do not understand. *ahem* And yes, there is a double standard. I pay dearly for dragging the Beloved to bad plays, yet she does not pay so in return for dragging me to a bad musical. That is the nature of our relationship.

Okay, and confessing we did see Wicked, which makes five times we’ve seen this show. (You have to, uh, understand, we saw this before it ever reached Broadway.) The London production was the best of the lot, complete with a great, one of a kind, theatrical moment, when the curtain came down abruptly near the end of Act 1. Right after, "One Short Day," for those of you in the know. An announcement was made that Idina Menzel was ill and unable to finish the show. The teenager in front of us, burst into tears at this news, and I don’t think recovered enough to watch Idina’s standby, Kerry Ellis, finish Act 1 with the best performance of "Defying Gravity" ever witnessed. (Well,outside of Idina.) By the end of Act 2, said teenager meekly conceded a standing ovation for Ms. Ellis.

Two things I enjoyed in London theatre. The applause, when deserved (well, except for Poppins, I still do not understand, go see the movie instead) was always enthusiastic delivered. What a joy to sit in a theatre with audiences who do not stand up and cheer actors for showing up and breathing. Also, the pacing of shows, while they did not seem slow at all, did seem to be slower than what happens on American stages. And I could hear every word being said. The productions I saw did not seem to be afraid of silence, or of taking a breath now and then.

My body and brain are still trying to determine what time zone I’m in.

An outstanding post today by Jane Espenson on "too much."

I hoped that it would encourage [gay people] in general to declare themselves, to face up to a hostile world in their true colours, and this with dignity and courage.

Radclyffe Hall, on one of the reasons why she wrote The Well of Loneliness.