I got a root canal this week. I had my gums cut open, my bone ground down, and I'm still taking vicodin several times a day to keep my head from exploding.
I saw a bunch of theatre. I saw Lone Twin at the Wexner Center doing their wonderful show Nine Years. It's the very definition of sublime. The artifice is so slight it's nearly subliminal. Any message or agenda is completely subsumed into the story-telling. The stories themselves are direct and straight-forward, and kind of goofy. "Look at us! Have a great big look at us!" they cry. "This is shit-ness!" I saw it in New York about a year ago, and it completely snuck-up on me then. I saw it twice this week and still really loved it each time.
I saw No Dice and Poetics: A Ballet Brut, both by Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, about a week ago. I wasn't crazy about Ballet Brut, in all honesty. It had it's moments, and almost managed to redeem a bunch of annoying disco music, but it didn't quite get it done for me. I guess I don't have that much tolerance for pure joy. Alas.
I really, really loved No Dice though. As you've probably heard, it was almost 4 hours long, and they served ham sandwiches. (I opted for plain peanut-butter.) You have to love artistic directors who are willing to make food for their audience.
Anyway, the show is really difficult to describe. Apparently, all the text comes from transcribed phone conversations. The Nature Theatre's actors apply funny accents to this commonplace dialogue, and perform it in ridiculous costumes. It seems ridiculous at first, but it eventually becomes clear that everything is quite thoroughly conceived. In the second half, there's some dance too, which I liked even better than what was in Ballet Brut. The music was live for it, which was a lot of fun. You have to admire the performers' commitment. The dancing is kind of ridiculous, but they really do seem to believe that they can "save the world by dancing" as the show indicates at one point.
Towards the end there's some talk about how important it is to get back in the trenches, and some discussion of struggling artists. All of which got me really choked-up. I realized then that I'd spent almost 6 hours with the Nature Theatre over the course of two days, which was just long enough to feel like I was starting to get to know them. And, well, to love them. Right? Yeah. I bought a t-shirt.
I'm thinking of starting a new show about economics. Whattaya think? Does that sound like the start of a killer postmodern extravaganza? I also wanna do a one-person piece called The Believer. That one'll be great.
We're about to go into rehearsal for Sheila Callaghan's Dead City. It turns out that everyone in New York is a good friend of Sheila. Seriously, it's beginning to seem that way. And, given how kind and generous she's been to me so far, I'm beginning to believe it might be possible.
I had a surprise dinner with another friend of Sheila last weekend - Arthur Kopit. There's nothing on his wikipedia entry since Y2K in 2000. Well, he's working on a play at Dennison right now, and I think he did another one at the Berkshires in the last few years or so. But there are several large gaps in his "works" listings. Are they incomplete?
Anyway ... he was really fun. He managed to work the words "I'm a Tony-voter" into the conversation completely without sounding like he was bragging. He expressed some contrary opinions about some recent hits, and told a few good stories about his experiences in the theatre. He also told a good joke about why all playwrights are Jewish. (I though it was funny, anyway.)
