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!