Something Sassy

Jerusalem

It's true what everyone's been saying. Each person I've asked what to see on Broadway has told me that I must see Jerusalem, written by Jez Butterworth and titled for the famous British hymn by William Blake, simply because Mark Rylance is so damn good.
The other cast members come together to create this story in a brilliant way, it's true, McKenzie Crook as Ginger, Jay Sullivan as Lee, Charlotte Mills as Tanya and all the rest, but Mark Rylance transforms himself so completely and lays himself vulnerable to the carnage of the stage in such a way that so utterly befits the character, Johnny "Rooster" Byron, that you cannot disbelieve him for a moment. That best actor Tony is so well deserved.
My favorite thing about Jez Butterworth's work, as he weaves us the story of a woodland strung-out slacker facing impending eviction from the illegal silver bullet trailer he's been living in for twenty years, was the sense of magic he brings to the play. Taking place on St. George's day, and fair day for this particular town, Butterworth alludes to elves, fairies, giants, ghosts, Peter Pan, The Pied Piper, Robin Hood, and so on. Johnny Byron, has such an ability to create fantastical tales one after the other, that you are distracted from the character's deep, deep wounds (physical and emotional) and begin to wonder if you are, in fact, watching a mythical figure.

Sleep No More

So, last night, I saw the most fascinating, guttural show I have ever experienced. No piece of theatre has ever done what this show did to me.
Yesterday an old friend, who I really can't thank enough, got an extra free ticket through work to the hottest show in town. Sleep No More is not on Broadway, it happens in three warehouses on W 27th where Punchdrunk (a British site-specific company) has created a fully decorated abandoned 1930s hotel. Complete with bar and live flapper music, the hotel is dark and terrifying and beautiful beyond measure. Upon entering each guest is given a ghostly mask and then sent wandering at their leisure through a pleasure trove of horrifying rooms. Floating from some of the graphic installations (a baby's room with nothing but an empty crib and a hundred headless stuffed babies flying just overhead perhaps) into bedrooms where you're welcome to open drawers, read letters, eat candy, and generally snoop, or step through a curtain and find yourself in an expansive forest, or literally chilling graveyard with dirt and statues and walls.
If the atmosphere and free range of the five floor set isn't enough, you may find yourself, as I did, turning a corner into a stairwell and coming face to face with Macbeth himself. All around you in the hotel the characters of Shakespeare's infamous play are also set to wandering. Reliving the play over and over in a series of movement and dance based scenes. Find Macbeth, follow him a while you'll watch him have a blood bath orgy with the witches and the devil, have a passionate row with Lady Macbeth, murder Duncan in his sleep, be washed by the lady in their private bath tub, kill Banquo, and so on. Follow Lady Macbeth a while and watch her spur on Duncan's murder, wash the blood from her husband, and dissolve into insanity in an institutional-like washing room with twenty stark bathtubs where the nurse puts her mad mistress in a tub to wash imagined or maybe real blood stains. Follow Duncan? See him have a restless nap plagued by nightmares and foreboding, pray helplessly in his private chapel, get a tense shave and shoe shine from his manservant, and watch the time tick down to his own death. Other characters are lurking through the hotel as well. You may stumble on the suite of who I assumed to be the Macduff's. In a small sitting area adjacent to an eerie nursery erratically dances the apparently mad with poison, very pregnant Lady Macduff and her deeply concerned husband.
The characters all join together before Duncan's murder for a silent dinner and lively dance in the main hall. Find yourself in the hall again later and notice the trees lining the walls have all moved signaling Macbeth's death. At some point I found myself one of the few masked ghosts in this hall when I was unexpectedly approached by an actor, a surprise as usually the actors looked right through the spectators as though we were truly mere phantoms. I could not see for the dark which character was speaking to me, but he came in very close to my ear so that I could feel the heat of his whispered breath on my neck and spoke some Biblical sounding verse ending in, "for the kingdom of God is holy as thou art," looked me right into my eyes and wandered out into the play. That was scary.
Actually, the whole three hours I spent wandering the play were full of fear, but also an unending amount of discovery and wonder. It was the most profoundly theatrical experience I have ever had. I will never see Shakespeare quite like this.

Freud's Last Session

Hurray for off-Broadway! Seriously.
Last night I rushed a ticket at literally the very last minute to Freud's Last Session at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theatre on W 64th. I had left my number with the box office just in case there was a cancellation, and at 7:45 (fifteen minutes before curtain) they called to say I was in. Luckily I was in the neighborhood-ish. I had gone on a lazy stroll through Central Park, which was breathtaking yesterday evening, and had to hurry over to Central Park West as soon as they called. The scurry was completely worth it, though.
If you haven't heard, the show takes place on September 3, 1939 (the day of the king's speech) in the eighty-three year old Dr. Sigmund Freud's office where he is entertaining a theological debate with a pre-Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis. The events of the play, written by Mark St. Germain, are almost completely fabricated, and are based simply on Freud's journal entry on that date stating that a young Oxford Theologian had come for a visit. Lewis and Freud spend the next hour and a half in lively discussion regarding the existence of God. The opposing views are so fundamentally different and communicated so thoroughly and intelligently that the talk itself is riveting. Add the possibility that the U.K. could be bombed at any moment, and Freud, who died a few weeks after this date, has a painful and debilitating oral cancer, you have one exciting as well as provocative play.
I was able to meet both Martin Rayner (Sigmund Freud) and Mark H. Dold (C.S. Lewis) after the play during a talk back, and I told them personally how much I had loved their work. They've been performing the play for a year now, and they say that each night is still a new discovery, fresh and different. They're both truly impressive.

The Shakespeare Forum

Last night I went to this really cool thing: there's this event every week at the Space on White called The Shakespeare Forum. Anyone who wants to participate is welcome to come, and it's simply a group of actors getting together and working on pieces. You can bring in something you're auditioning with, or something you're just playing with, a monologue, a scene, whatever. As long as it's Shakespeare. After you do your piece for this group of thirty or so really supportive fellow artists your work is open for constructive feedback. Being a new-be I was told that The Shakespeare Forum is like fight club (less in the sense that I can't talk about it and more like fresh blood has to get up there). Luckily I had brought in the Lady Anne (Richard III) I have been working on, among other speeches, all year, and did that. It went over very well, and the notes I got from the group were congruent with the notes I get all the time in grad school, it was nice to have them reiterated.
It was so wonderful to just go and work for a little while, and it made me really feel great to know that even when I'm in my downtime while I'm living in the city there will be safe places like this where I can be an artist.

All's Well That Ends Well in the Park

I'm in New York City, not permanently yet, but I am spending the rest of my summer here in hopeful preparation of living here when I am done with graduate school in a year.
I arrived yesterday, and of course, why would I waste time in seeing fantastic New York Theatre? No sooner had I gotten off the plane and set down my bags, but I was back on the subway from my place in Greenpoint headed for Manhattan where a very kind friend who'd spent the morning in line had picked up a Shakespeare in the Park ticket for me too!
It was my first time seeing All's Well that Ends Well onstage, and I was so excited to cross this one off my list (I've actually decided to keep track of how many plays I've seen from Shakespeare's Canon, I'm up to nineteen now).
This production was so impressive. It was visually stunning, of course! So many beautiful actresses in beautiful costumes. Set in the nineteenth century the play opened with a small ball in which each woman onstage with the exception of the Countess of Rousillion (Tony A Pinkins) and Helena (Annie Parisse) wore a delightfully individualized green gown. Offsetting the peaceful scene's of the courtiers were riveting war scenes created so gorgeously by looming cannon smoke. Not only was the smoke lovely with the natural park backdrop, but immediately transported us to the front lines.
Conversations I've had about this play have always revolved around how a smart, generous woman like Helena could love such a flat out jerk like Bertram (André Holland), the Public's production, however, makes Bertram less overtly cruel and more youthful and foolish. At times he is almost sympathetic, which makes the unlikely love affair much more believable. André Holland makes a handsome and honorable soldier were it not for his boyish tendency to be distracted by the prospect of dishonorable relations with pretty little virgins.
I so enjoyed Kristen Connolly as Diana, and I most definitely enjoyed Reg Rogers as Parolles. He was hilarious!
Fantastic first night in the city! I couldn't have asked for better!

Horror Movie Chase Sequence, starring me

This is fun.

Click HERE

Man=Man Stills

I played The Widow Begbick. So I'm the clown with the big red wig and freaky underwear.

Production Stills from The Misanthrope

Their 35th Humana Festival, My Very First

Louisville, Kentucky is only a five hour drive from Athens. I would not have known this exactly if I had not hopped in a car at noon on Thursday with good friend Sarah Nelson (an Oregon native who I happened to meet out in Ohio) and driven Southwest until precisely five o'clock when we arrived in Louisville.
I had a mountain of work to do: Prepping for Man Equals Man which I began rehearsals for on Monday (I'm playing Begbick); also I was prepping for my first acting class in grad school dedicated completely to Shakespeare (I've had voice classes in Shakespeare already, but an acting class will cause its own immense challenges); and of course there are all the stresses of beginning a new term. Despite all that I chose to spend my last days of Spring Break in Louisville. What's the draw? Well, besides the museums, the neighborhoods, the great food and even the Bourbon, the Humana Festival is happening right now at the Actors Theater of Louisville!
The first night Sarah and I were in town we popped into the theater to see A Devil at Noon by Anne Washburn, which was this really disturbing little story about a science fiction writer (Joseph Adams) whose characters begin coming to life on him in the most unnervingly realistic fashion. The mime work in this show was so impressive. There was, in effect, no set to speak of, but everything in the "kitchen" was created through the specific movement of the actors and the spot-on sound design of Matt Hubbs. Every invisible pill bottle that was shook rattled, the invisible coffee machine made whirring bubbling noises when it was turned on, the imaginary cupboards shut, and the unseen apple crunched when it was sliced into by the non-existent knife. Apparently the actors began with a fully dressed set, and slowly the kitchen was taken away until they were miming everything with only sound. Sarah swore that even though she knew there was no actual coffee on set, or a coffee pot, or a counter, she could still smell the aroma of a freshly brewed cup. It was a really well executed choice.
On Saturday, after a day of simply seeing Louisville, it was time for me to head back to the theater. Sarah struck out on her own to tour some of Kentucky's Bourbon distilleries and had an incredible time, but I was too excited about the new plays being produced. So I stayed in town to see the afternoon showing of Bob by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and an evening showing of Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them by A Rey Pamatmat.
Bob was one of the sillier plays I've seen in a while. It was the story of one man's life, Bob's life. The play begins with Bob being born and almost immediately getting abandoned in the bathroom of a White Castle in Louisville, Kentucky on Valentines Day. The rest of the play is a ridiculous and wild ride involving a tan Chevy Malibu, Mount Rushmore, a fated rest stop, a woman named after Amelia Earhart, fudge shops, a butler named Tony, so much laughter, and fleas. It was truly a perfectly ridiculous afternoon, and I'm pretty sure it made White Castle very, very happy.
Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them was one of the best pieces of theater I have ever seen. In my years being a theater enthusiast (I'd say that's about ten), I have seen many shows that I loved, but only a few that really touched me. Only a small few that I have felt completely illuminated by. These shows are, in order, Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of Richard III in 2005, Portland Center Stage's production of Sometimes a Great Notion, August: Osage County on Broadway with Estelle Parsons, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's production of Three Sisters just last year, and now this year's Humana Festival's Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them. It was that good.
It was the story of a twelve year old girl named Edith (Teresa Avia Lim), her older brother Kenney (John Norman Schneider), and their equally youthful friend Benji (Corey Michael Smith). All but abandoned in their farmhouse in rural middle America the three children band together to create their own family and find strength within themselves to stand against their absent and unsympathetic parents. I laughed and cried and was so, so moved. The actor's work was superb. Such simplicity. Something I really hope for in my own work.
On my last morning in Louisville (I had to get the heck out of there because Spring term was starting up again the next day) I saw The End. A play put on by the Acting Apprentice Company, made up of numerous interconnected short pieces about the Apocalypse by playwrights Rey Pamatmat, Marco Remirez, Jennifer Haley, Allison Moore, and Dan Dietz. It was intriguing, funny, and terrifying all in the space of an hour and a half. Personally I thought it was nice to bookend my trip with A Devil at Noon and The End as they both explored an end of the world sort of theme. Here's the end of the world, and a weekend of theater! Woohoo!
Now I am back for spring term of my second year in my MFA program, and we are already a week into rehearsal for Man Equals Man, so I'd better get back to work. But thank you, Louisville! And best of luck through the duration of the festival!

Erin's Lovely Photos of the Misanthrope

Throughout our work on The Misanthrope (fabulous production photos to come) in which I played Celimené, we were followed by talented young student of photojournalism here at Ohio University, Erin Corneliussen. Here are some of her lovely pictures in the Athens Post. Her words that follow the photo gallery are a sweet remembrance of how hard we all worked to bring this production to the community and campus! I love plays!

Some Stills From Holiday