Theatre

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A quick word: I’ve never liked Neil LaBute. I fell asleep during The Mercy Seat, found Fat Pig funny but lacking in substance, and The Break of Noon was one of the most worthless experiences I’ve ever had at the theatre. I was ready to give up, but I’m glad I didn’t.

Hoo-rah!

• A well-crafted play with a sense of dialogue and pacing that’s been worked over, refined, and reworked to the point where it achieves a remarkable level of honesty.
• Perfect set design: one very detailed sliding set (the break room of a factory), and simple benches and props to evoke the additional scenes.
• The four characters were previously seen in ‘reasons to be pretty’, taking place a few years earlier, but this truly is a standalone companion piece. I would love to see the older show, but I didn’t feel like I was missing anything important. Ultimately I think LaBute benefited from building on characters he already had a strong grasp on.
• It was revealed in the talkback (see below), that the first play focused on Greg’s journey, whereas this play brought a gratifying arc to each of the four characters. Greg was my least favorite character, so I’m glad we were given this 2 hours with each character going on an organic journey with lovely moments of reversal and discovery.
• Back to the crafting of the play: excellent choices of what scenes to show and not show. The play feels sequential, but actually covers a fair span of time with a number of important events happening offstage (Steph confronting Carly about the baby, for example). The fact that you remain in the moment is a testament to the precision of the scenes we are seeing.
• Lovely acting by the entire cast. It was fun to see Jenna Fischer (Pam from The Office) play a borderline insane clingy irrational woman. Leslie Bibb (that reporter from Iron Man 1&2) as Carly reminded me a lot of a friend I lived with in Richmond, VT who works the graveyard TSA shift at Burlington Airport. She brought a much needed sense of common sense and practicality to the show. Josh Hamilton was appropriately charming (though infuriating in his indecisiveness) as Greg, and Fred Weller brought a surprisingly nuanced performance to the role of the most super-ego-lacking character, Kent. Without trying to convince us Kent and Greg are best friends (a common contrivance I find hard to believe in plays of this nature), they share enough circumstances in common that it makes sense for them to have the few conversations they do, and they work as an excellent counterpoint to each other; Greg reluctant and reserved about every choice, while Kent dives in head first, usually bruising himself in the process but feeling much more alive.
• Love Kent’s line, something like “So I walked up to the guy in the bar, and I tapped him on the shoulder, probably less hard even than I just tapped you, and he turned around, and I punched him. And I was willing to leave it at that and let it go, but he had to take it further.” De-lightful.

Blech…

• Music was strangely chosen and far too loud in between scenes. This seems to be a stylistic choice of LaBute across all of his plays, and I’m yet to see it work as effectively as he seems to think it does.
• Nitpicky but something I was still very aware of: the various contrivances brought about to stop a character from leaving the scene. Some conversations that certainly would take place across multiple locations in real life were compressed into one (a Trader Joe’s Parking Lot, a school bench, a restaurant waiting area), and in at least one occasion I knew what was supposed to be a big conversation later at, say, an IHOP almost certainly wouldn’t take place there, and everything important was about to be told to us now.
• Except for Carly who needed to be in uniform, very poor costume choices. Nothing any of the characters wore gave me a better sense of who they were, and in a few cases (particularly with Steph), it just confused me.
• Nothing brought me to tears. This is important to me. Let me be clear again– this was an incredible ‘slice of life’ play, but none of the characters tugged on my heartstrings enough to pull me close on their emotional journey. This isn’t a flaw of the writing or the characters (who were very true to life), but simply who they were and my lack of empathy for them.
• Ultimately I found Greg to be too indecisive, to the point where he just kept hitting the same ‘nothing’ beats and I was frustrated to not see the show move things along. Out of the cast of characters, I would only want to be friends with Carly and maybe Kent.

Tales from After the Show…

Leslie Bibb led a fantastic talkback along with one of the MCC’s artistic directors (Will Cantler) and the associate general manager (Jessica Chase), providing great insight into the development of the show and LaBute’s writing/directing process. LaBute’s relationship with the MCC was covered in detail, and Leslie spoke at length about what draws her to pursue theatre when she’s clearly doing fine at film and television. I also got to ask her about how the play evolved from when Neil first gave it to them, to the point where it was now in previews and she had a ton of fun with the audience taking us through that experience. She showed us her script and it was full of slashes and chunks of dialogue moved to other pages and subtext and just, wow. Looked like the writings of an insane person, but in the best possible way.

Download the full 30-minute talkback here.

The only full-length play I’ve yet finished, ‘Mr. Nice Guy’,  is a play I sincerely believe deserves a full-fledged production. I wrote the original version of the play in late 2007 when, during a slow rehearsal of Vaclav Havel’s The Memorandum, I was pushing myself back and forth on an office chair and realized my abdominal muscles were actually getting quite sore. Then I imagined how ridiculous it would be to try to market an office chair as a workout device. Then I found myself wondering what kind of person might not only feel justified in selling such a thing, but revel in their own brilliance for it. The idea merged with a different play idea I had brewing, one about my dad being a ‘yes man’ who could never say no to anyone, and I used that play’s title as the stage name of the lead character: Mr. Nice Guy (aka Felix Hasselbury).

That Christmas Vacation I splurged out 90 pages of what struck me as a fascinating premise to explore: a couple consisting of an attractive no-nonsense female (Sybil) and Mr. Nice Guy’s number-one fan (Michael) seek to sue Mr. Nice Guy when his latest product (the Abjacker 2010) gravely injures Michael. Felix, a master deflector, spins this anger into job offers, and the rest of the play follows Felix’s flailing attempts at seducing Sybil while Michael deals with the crushing disappointment of a childhood hero who has no time for him.

The play was given a further boost of energy when, during auditions, I asked an actor I had cast in a previous original play to give the part an ‘absurdist’ reading– something wacky and really out there to stretch the other auditioners’ imaginations. I had already promised the actor, Nilus Klingel, that I wouldn’t cast him, so off the simple direction ‘maybe give him a crazy accent’, he came out guns blazing with something totally and wonderfully unexpected. What I had pitched as basically a fast-talking, greasy, used-car salesman came out of him like the lovechild of a Strongbad/Ron Burgundy/Antonio Banderas/Gob Bluth orgy. It clicked– he had the casting room in stitches, and agreed to do the show.

Ultimately, the 2008 production was a ton of fun, but unfortunately suffered from a lack of rehearsal time, a refined script, or an audience (I think twelve people saw the play in all). You can see bullet points of that production in this video, as well as the commercial we filmed to open the show here.

Over the past 5 years (still can’t believe it’s been that long), I’ve found myself often wondering how the show could be redone. In that time, I’ve taken scribbly stabs at how I might revisit the play,  I’ve written a short prequel called ‘Felix Hasselbury Gets a Job‘, and I’ve edited together a ‘Roofie-Os’ commercial out of 50 minutes of absurd, mostly improvised footage spawned by a song I wrote for my comedy duo ‘A Crooked Boner.’

Finally, starting last month, driven by some unknown force, I took an honest pass at reworking the play. Is it improved? Certainly. Could it use further workshopping and refinement? Indeed! But that’s what’s so wonderful about doing a play reading out loud: it instantly calls attention to poorly-worded lines, jokes too-in-love-with-themselves, and dead-end subplots. I had the pleasure of hearing my words read in the middle of a pot luck picnic in Prospect Park (say that five times fast) by Alex Schmidt as Michael, TJ Clark as a Jamaican/French version of Mr. Nice Guy, Elizabeth Bull as Sybil, Beryl Tayte Johnsen-Seeberger as Assistant, and Morgan Shaw reading the stage directions. We also had an audience nearly as large as the one for the original show!

So it’s on its way. Onward to the next draft, and soon I’ll start sending this monster out into the world of competitive submissions. Wish me luck.

More links:

Photos from the original production
Photos from the reading
Audio from the reading
Script from the reading

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Okay okay, so I shouldn’t really be reviewing this because it was put on by the theatre group I cofounded while at Syracuse, WhAT (Warehouse Architecture Theatre), but this is a good moment for reflection.

First of all, I had nothing directly to do with this production. WhAT was founded in Fall of 2006, and I was deeply involved in everything it did until my graduation in May of 2010. Three years later, I was invited by the current trio to come see WhAT’s final production involving people whom I personally knew, before the group goes on to be run and operated entirely by people I don’t know. Passing of the torch kinda stuff. Anyway, it was a thrilling weekend of old friends and new, and I now feel super confident in the future of my baby.

And here’s some thoughts on the show:
– LOVED LOVED LOVED the cardboard set designed by Beryl Tayte Johnsen-Seeberger. It made the scenes where character comment on the beauty and tax-deductible quality of this amazing desk all the more hilarious. And when things fell apart, it allowed the actors to riff on what an old house they’re in! Lines like ‘She’s dead!’ and ‘So is my desk…” were gut-busting. Oh, and all the cardboard weapons, complete with Easter Eggs like a lightsaber, were delightful. And the cardboard crossbow actually worked!
– a lot of the dialogue was presented with a certain wooden style that I wasn’t a fan of at first, but grew to love as the play progressed.
– really fun show as its written. I saw the movie with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve, but didn’t remember it that well, so all the twists and turns were delightful. I love the meta commentary throughout as the main characters discuss writing the show that they are now in, and even bring up things like scenes that seem to be missing that include important information about key characters (just like in the real show!)
– Ethan Blank almost died! I flashed back to our second season in Spring of 2007 where the giant green wall we made for our Picasso at the Lapin Agile set almost fell on AJ, and Jon Yoder almost became Batman to save her. Anyway, Ethan was getting choked in what was even supposed to be fake within the play, but he passed out and woke up backstage having no idea where he was. Yikes!

After the show, I gave a little presentation to keep up the whole ‘passing of the torch’ motif. Just for fun, here’s the pdfs of the presentation I gave, and the presentation I gave on behalf of Danton. At the cast party I got to spend more time with the awesome new folks who will be running WhAT from here on out, and the only thing that makes me sad is NONE of them are architecture majors, even though WhAT currently still does most of its performing and rehearsing out of the architecture school in Slocum Hall.

This makes me wonder if my archie friends and I who did WhAT throughout school are strange. Myself, and most of them, I’m confident would have joined a theatre group like WhAT if it already existed. The architecture school is so laser-focused on just architecture, I think we all would have gone crazy without any other creative outlets. Maybe there’s too much hostility toward WhAT because sometimes they’re too loud and bother the students focused on their studio projects? Maybe not as many of them enjoyed theatre in high school as I thought? Or maybe none of them have any idea what a huge bonus it is to your job prospects if you leave school as a well-rounded individual with many talents.

Alas, this lack of architecture majors is truly my only regret, but I am proud and humbled by WhAT’s legacy as it lives on, soon entering its fourteenth season!

I need to write more and submit more plays to more competitions. I’ve been telling this to myself since I came to live and work in NYC nearly 3 years ago. Thus far, the best I’ve been able to do is consistently submit to the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival every year. So yeah, shifting gears from all the board game design and architectural competitions I’ve been involved with over the past few months, I managed to craft  a new short play.

This started when Liz and I were talking about how we should formally introduce ourselves to the new neighbors in our apartment building. Liz suggested that she might bake a pie for them. For some reason, my immediate reaction was — “Don’t do that! They’ll think it’s poisoned.” Why did I think they would think that? I have no idea. But it was a fun impetus to start writing about the kind of person that would immediately assume that a welcome pie from some neighborly neighbors was poisoned.

Below is the script as it stood when I submitted it last night, after a few drafts and a couple readings with some very generous friends (Elizabeth Coulombe, Daniel King, Nilus Klingel, Morgan Shaw, Danton Spina, Ian Nicholson). I’d love to keep up readings for future plays– it makes such a huge difference to hear my words said out loud, and it’s also just a boatload of fun.

Anyway, while I’m quite happy with it as it stands, I do think there’s some more opportunity to play with the following:

• Make it more clear that the mirror Pete holds is actually a super-high-tech computer that provides real-time simulation data informing him how to proceed with a conversation. 
• Maybe give Dahlia a sleeker personality. After all, the idea is that Dahlia is a whirlwind of a salewoman, while Pete is not as comfortable in social situations but is the tech wizard.

B+

Hoo-rah!

• Thoroughly enjoyed the set design. A large golden wall menacingly loomed over the stage through the entire production. It reflected just enough for effect, and produced misshapen  and powerfully defined shadows. This combined with a lack of any stage furniture lent the actors a restless energy as they paced the stage, pressed up against the cold concrete wall of the theatre. fell to the ground, or rocked back and forth on that wonderfully wood pellet-y ground. Very appropriate.
• This was an excellent cast– strong voices, strong acting, and a thorough command of the language. Similarly to using the ‘empty’ stage well, they were great listeners (what I call ‘silent acting’)– staying right in the moment as other characters monologued on and on.
• Oh, and this is a small thing, but I’ve seen a lot of show lately with some very unconvincing crying– all five or so actors who had to cry in this were positively dripping with genuine tears. I find that impressive.
• I’ve always believed in Aristotle’s Poetics, and while I know ‘Music’ can be interpreted as far more than literally music, I think literal music nearly always adds to a production. This show made excellent use of literal music– it opens and closes with some (almost) overwhelmingly powerful sounds, and also contains a couple songs that allow that singing characters the opportunity to exude buckets of information on their emotional states.
• Electra was insane! Kelli Holsopple plays the hell out of this part. In the moment you’re right with her thinking ‘oh yeah, well of course your mom was wrong to try to rescue your sister from your father sacrificing her to the gods’, but take a step back and of course you realize– “what a normal reaction for any mother to have!”
• Because there were so few props, an extra level of intensity seemed to land on the small urn that’s meant to hold Orestes’ ashes. All characters who touched, spoke of, or stared at this urn were magnetic to watch. Side note: I imagine the speech Electra gives while holding the urn went on to inspire Shakespeare when writing Hamlet’s ‘Alas, poor Yorick’ speech.
• The Greek Chorus as a single character was well-used and provided a nice way in to the story.
• Good story Sophocles! Which I guess also means good translation Anne Carson! I can see why this play has lasted so long. I wasn’t familiar with the plot at all, and found most of the reversals to feel well-earned and surprising– no easy feat when you consider the vast number of plotlines I’ve consumed compared to an ancient Grecian. One reason I think this still holds up even today is that we are still horribly deprived of strong stories with a lead female character that aren’t centered on her finding ‘true love’. This is a revenge story, and one very specific to Electra as a believable female living within her station and all that that entails. Oh, and I imagine the original play is longer than this– the hour and a half here flew by and felt like about the right length for the story.

Blech…

• While the lack of conventional seating or stage furniture was mostly well-used, Electra spent far too much time down on all fours weeping or writhing. Actually, this speaks to a larger point:
• Electra goes too crazy too quickly. Pretty early on in the show you see her reach a level of irrationality that is hard to top, and she doesn’t. Then most of the play continues with her in a state of emotional extremes– super sad, super angry, super crazy… I would have appreciated more of a build.
• Some of those monologues just go on and on, and while I understand this was typical of the time, I just can’t suspend my disbelief to think Electra’s mother would let her rail on her for so very long completely uninterrupted. Page Clements did her best with this– listening and reacting– but seriously, no one (even in ancient Greece) would let that kind of verbal assault continue uninhibited.